“Since the 1980s, scholars and managers have devoted considerable attention to explicit forms of mistreatment, such as sexual harassment and interpersonal violence (e.g., Gutek 1985; for a review, see Berdahl and Raver 2011). Work in U.S. settings shows that over half of women are subjected to behavioral forms of mistreatment (Ilies, Hauserman, Schwochau, and Stibal 2003), and most have observed some form of harassment in the workplace (Hitlan, Schneider, and Walsh 2006). More recently, theoretical and empirical attention has focused on subtle forms of interpersonal mistreatment, including incivility, deviant behaviors, and microaggressions, to name a few (for reviews, see Robinson, Wang, and Kiewitz 2014; Sue 2010).” (Cunningham 1) The research in this level was conducted in different organizations under different levels of attention, the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis. Any workplace or organization has these levels of hierarchy, the research, however, highlights
The reasons why sexual harassment cases are shrugged off by the victims or unreported may have something to do with the level of degradation the victims feel. This might sound silly, but if the woman or victim feels that they can handle the discomfort on their own, and that their health won't be affected, they don't see a reason to report. Considering the majority (85%) of women who have experienced sexual harassment claim their experiences were mostly of a verbal nature, they feel less obliged to report it, because it is not directly damaging their health, or so they believe. However, numerous studies show the effects of a women's mental health after being harassed and the effects these incidents have on her job performance thereafter, as she feels she is no longer in a safe environment. Another factor that may contribute to the women not reporting is due to the fact that in the majority of these cases the usual perpetrators are direct superiors, if not their im