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Sexual harassment is understood as negative behavior and interpersonal violence, in some cases occurring across gender, where males are privileged over females. When sexual harassment occurs between people who are the same sex, this understanding is less clear. Same-sex sexual harassment has been identified as an instrument similar to homophobia or het-erosexism used to maintain male dominance and reinforce power structures in a heterosexual society. Men who do not exhibit traditional male traits may be targeted and harassed by males or by both males and females, creating a heterosexist atmosphere. For women and girls, the effects of same-sex sexual harassment may be similar, but both sexist and heterosexist environments are reinforced. These scenarios, including same-sex sexual harassment cases that have been litigated, lend credence to the idea that privileging or emphasizing heterosexual models contributes to a sexist and homophobic atmosphere in society. Although many of the behaviors involved in same-sex sexual harassment are defined as interpersonal violence and/or sexual assault, the contexts in which these behaviors have been defined have been under the purview of the courts.

Same-Sex Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and Education

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines issued in 1980 did not require that a harasser be of the opposite sex of the victim, but cases of same-sex sexual harassment were frequently dismissed without merit because of the belief that sexual harassment could occur only across gender or that one of the persons involved needed to be gay or lesbian. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered an opinion regarding same-sex sexual harassment in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. This landmark decision defined same-sex sexual harassment of a male by another male as legally actionable discrimination.

Presently, same-sex sexual harassment differs from cross-gender harassment, and men are the predominant targets of same-sex sexual harassment. Men who experience same-sex sexual harassment tend to encounter sexual hostility in the form of jokes, teasing, and sexual hazing. Currently, 10%-15% of men report experiencing sexual harassment, and 35% of the harassment is same-sex. For women, 33%-66% experience sexual harassment is in the workplace, and 99% of women's sexual harassment is cross-gender. There have been no studies of the types of same-sex sexual harassment that women experience in the workplace.

Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendment Act prohibits sexual harassment in schools and universities. The study Hostile Hallways, conducted in 2001 by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, documented sexual harassment in U.S. schools and found that 81% of students reported being harassed by a peer, and 63% experienced sexual harassment by a peer of the same gender.

Historical Overview of Same-Sex Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

The EEOC has always acknowledged same-sex sexual harassment as being covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a 1994 split decision in the lawsuit Goluszek v. Smith (1988), the federal district court declined to recognize sexual harassment because the victim and the alleged perpetrator were members of the same sex. The court acknowledged that this harassment did not create an antimale environment in the workplace and, therefore, was not discrimination.

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