Evidence of meeting #79 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was organization.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Sorry, Madam Benson-Podolchuk, but I have to interrupt you. Unfortunately the question was too long, and the time is up.
I now pass the floor to Madam Ambler, for five minutes.
I'm sorry, Madam Benson-Podolchuk.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Thank you so much.
I'm happy to let you answer that. It sounds as if you really wanted to. Please, take a minute to do so.
11:50 a.m.
As an Individual
I just wanted to say that the statement made me want to cry because after my second grievance, which took six years, there was a job opening up within the RCMP for the member assistance program, where an officer would go and help people who are having problems with grievances and anything within the RCMP. I thought, “Bingo! That's something I can do, even with my injured shoulder”.
They refused to send me there because they said I would be too toxic and might create a negative opinion of the RCMP, when in fact the member assistance program officer is to help people get healthy. What they were really worried about was that I would get people to stand up, have a voice, and possibly make complaints about harassment or bullying that they might have been experiencing.
Yes, it was their loss.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Thank you.
I was looking back into my notes from when Commissioner Paulson spoke to us. Specifically, I wanted to ask you about Bill C-42, the Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, which passed third reading in March.
Commissioner Paulson did say he thought this legislation would help the RCMP have the tools it needed. Would you agree with that?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
I went through it. I took my experiences with how these new things would help. I have it here. I could always e-mail it to you, if you want it. I have a few concerns about how it would benefit because policies are only as effective as the people who enforce them. I think there are some really good ideas, and I think it's important to be creative. One thing I did see is the commissioner has a little too much power.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Did you write about that in your book, Women Not Wanted? Is there anything about the commissioner and the concentration of power in that office?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
Yes, I did mention some of that, but it was put out in the second edition in 2010. That's before Commissioner Paulson came on the scene.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
One of the other things he said, and that the RCMP told us when they were here, is that currently about 20% of police officers and RCMP are women, but that their recruiting benchmark is 35%. They're increasing the feeder pool and their targets are ambitious, but they think they're going to meet them.
Do you think this will help encourage women to speak out, if they reach the target?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
I'm not sure, because they had similar goals 25 years ago. In 1989 they wanted to get it up to 25% and even though they increased the number of women, we were dropping like flies. Our life expectancy within the RCMP was one to five years, or three to five years. I'm not sure if anything is going to change without that cultural shift within the organization. However, I do believe that yes, having more women makes it safer for other women, at least if they can have someone to share with, but if people are seduced into protecting the RCMP, having a woman beside you who thinks the RCMP is perfect and will not defend you is useless.
It has to be a cultural mind-shift with everybody, including a group of females who are joining. If you're not standing together, then you're divided, and from my experience that's what the RCMP counts on.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
It concerned me a lot when you talked about the tensions causing the harassment to go underground, and those little things like not being given your phone messages, essentially making it so difficult to do your job that you look incompetent. Would you suggest to every woman in the RCMP today to document every little incident like that, even if it seems very small at the time?
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
That's a good question. I would say that they should trust their gut. Are they the only one this is happening to? Does it feel right? Sometimes people make mistakes and accept that, but then have enough courage to say, “Excuse me, you know the phone was for me”. Why didn't you challenge them? What makes them think they have the right to ignore me? What makes them think they have the right to not call me by my name when I come into the detachment? What makes them think they have the right to not give me my messages? Things like that, and then follow the chain of command, but definitely document, yes.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you, Madam Benson-Podolchuk.
Now we'll break for a few minutes to give us a chance to connect with our next witness.
Ms. Benson-Podolchuk, thank you kindly for meeting with the committee a second time so that the members could ask you their questions. Your participation is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
We are now resuming the 79th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.
Here with us, as we begin the second half of our meeting, is Linda Collinsworth.
Madam Collinsworth is an associate professor of psychology at Millikin University.
Madam, thank you very much for being with us today. You will have 10 minutes or less for your opening remarks. I will have to cut you off at 10 minutes, and then we'll go to the question and answer period. Members will have an opportunity to ask you questions. Once again, thank you for being with us.
May 23rd, 2013 / 11:55 a.m.
Prof. Linda Collinsworth Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
Thank you very much. It is indeed an honour to have been asked to present to your committee on the issue of sexual harassment.
I certainly commend the committee on its efforts in addressing the needs of women in Canada. As issues get addressed in one country, the attention generated spreads to other places around the world, so I thank you for your efforts. I would also like to thank your staff, who have been very helpful in arranging the details to be able to present to you from my home city in the United States.
As you know, my research and area of expertise concern the problem of sexual harassment. Although I have done research on sexual harassment in schools, the military, and public housing, I am going to confine my remarks today to sexual harassment in the workplace because that is the focus of your current investigation.
First, I want to say that I am a social scientist, not a lawyer, not an attorney. Because sexual harassment is a cause for litigation, people frequently assume that the sexual harassment I talk about is equated with the sexual harassment that is a tort claim in the United States. It is not. I'll be talking about the social scientific findings on the topic of sexual harassment. The legal world and the social science world may overlap at times, but they are not identical.
As a social scientist, I find it important to ensure that when we are talking about a topic, we are on the same page about what that topic is, so I will be using the term “sexual harassment” to mean uninvited sex-related behaviour that is unwanted by and offensive to its target. Although different researchers may operationalize sexual harassment in different ways, the research in which I have been most involved and on which a number of additional social scientists rely conceptualizes sexual harassment as consisting of three types: gender animosity, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion.
I should also note that I will only be reporting on the research as it relates to women.
My research is based on an instrument that was developed by Dr. Louise Fitzgerald and her colleagues at the University of Illinois. The instrument is called the “Sexual Experiences Questionnaire”. This instrument measures the behaviours that are described in slide 1. I believe you all have copies of some slides that I prepared. There's gender animosity, and there are some examples of what that consists of, unwanted sexual attention, and then what sexual coercion is.
Using this measurement instrument, Dr. Fitzgerald and her colleagues have developed and validated a model of sexual harassment that specifies antecedents and outcomes of sexual harassment in the workplace. The model has been shown to apply to other cultures and multiple organizations, including the studies conducted by the U.S. military in their studies of gender equity in the armed forces. Slide 2 shows you Dr. Fitzgerald's and her colleagues' comprehensive model.
I was asked to talk about the psychological and other consequences of sexual harassment, so my remarks are going to be confined to the right side of the model, though I could talk about the left side if you were curious about it.
Numerous studies have documented that harassment has serious consequences for the targets, including job and work related detriments, as well as negative health and psychological related outcomes. We'll look first at work consequences.
Slide 3 shows that experiencing sexual harassment has numerous negative consequences for women's work situations. Slides 4, 5, 6, and 7 are the result of research done in the United States involving women involved in a class action lawsuit. These are provided as illustrations only. These same results have been found to be replicated regardless of the organization in which the studies have been done. As you can see, as the frequency of sexual harassment increases, job stress increases, co-worker and supervisor satisfaction decreases, and the intention to leave the job increases.
We also can see from the model that there are negative health-related symptoms. There's really an exhaustive list of consequences that are related to health, but it includes fatigue, headaches, gastrointestinal disorders, teeth grinding, eating disorders, nausea, and many more.
Finally, the psychological consequences of sexual harassment are well documented in the research literature. As the frequency of sexual harassment increases, self-esteem declines, life satisfaction declines, anxiety and depression increase, and the risk of developing post traumatic stress disorder increases. There are some slides that show that as well.
The material I've presented to you today covers research that spans decades of research in multiple organizations. There has been no research that I know of that has findings counter to what I have presented. It is well documented in the social science literature that experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace leads to numerous negative consequences for the targets of the harassment.
Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions that I can.
12:10 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
Thank you very much, Madam Collinsworth.
We are now going to Madam Young. You have the floor for seven minutes, Madam.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Thank you very much for that, Ms. Collinsworth. I'm sorry we received your slides a little late so I wasn't able to review them as much as I would like. Having said that, I do have some questions. In 2009 you stated in an article:
Social science research has repeatedly documented a connection between sexually harassing experiences and negative psychological outcomes.
I think that is very logical. Could you elaborate on this connection between sexual harassment and psychological health?
12:10 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
The theoretical framework from which we operate has to do with stress. We conceptualize stress as coming from multiple sources. It's an individual variable about how well any individual will cope with the stress they experience in their lives. When an individual is under stress, they attempt to cope with that by any means they have. When the stressor exceeds their resources, then we begin to see psychological detriments to their psychological health.
When we think about sexual harassment, there are so many factors. If we're talking about it in the workplace there are so many factors that make sexual harassment a significant stressor for any target. There's research, which I didn't report here, which shows that the negative psychological effects begin to take place almost immediately, in fact, after a single incident. Therefore, by the time someone has experienced a second episode or a second event involving sexual harassment, we begin to see a decline in psychological well-being. The effects kick in very quickly in terms of one's experience.
As we explain those consequences, we think about it as being a significant stressor for any person who is a target.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Could you talk to us about resilience? What can we do to help build or support resilience in victims who are experiencing this in the workplace? For example, what kinds of things, victim programs, services, counselling, might be helpful?
12:10 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
All of the psychological outcomes I've alluded to and mentioned in my remarks can be addressed through interventions with the individual, such as therapy or group counselling. At the same time, some of these symptoms don't necessarily need that kind of an individual intervention. You can do things in the workplace to help people recover from these experiences.
Mainly, the thing that is most supportive for individuals who have been targeted with sexual harassment is that the organization be supportive of their experiences. Part of that model you have—did you get to look at the model I sent? The part of the model I'm interested in you seeing is the side that has the organizational climate, which has an effect on the outcomes over and above what the sexual harassment has. So yes, sexual harassment is a significant stressor, but there is an added stressor that comes from an organization that does not believe the target when she complains. There is an added stressor if the woman feels that if she complains, her job, her position, or her work duties will be at risk.
The work that's been done in the military actually shows that having meaningful sanctions against the offender is one of the most powerful actions that can be taken to prevent sexual harassment.
These three components of an organizational climate have an impact over and above harassment.
When I talk to my students about what we can do about this issue—because people say, “Well, sexual harassment is going to occur”—the good news is that if the organization, which has power over the climate in which workers work, can change the climate, then sexual harassment will decrease and the impact on women will be minimized as well. So there is good news about this model.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Thank you for that.
Madam Chair, how much more time do I have?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
I do have one more question.
Ms. Collinsworth, I'd like to share with you that obviously we in Canada and at this committee are exploring sexual harassment in the federal workplace. We would like to get to a place where there is zero tolerance for it.
What other suggestions or ideas could you give us—and I think you've already given us a number—about how we can get to that? We do not believe that sexual harassment in the federal workplace should be tolerated.
12:15 p.m.
Associate Professor of Psychology, Millikin University, As an Individual
That organizational tolerance is, as I said, a very important part of this whole dynamic, because it leads to sexual harassment and it has this overriding impact on the outcomes of sexual harassment.
The other part of the model that I would point you to is the gender context which influences how much harassment occurs. Gender context has to—
12:15 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe
I'm sorry, Madam Collinsworth, I have to interrupt you, because the time has expired.
We will now go to Madam Hughes. You have the floor for seven minutes.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
Thank you very much.
I appreciate having received this. Just so you know, we actually received it yesterday so we had plenty of time to bring it with us.
You indicated serious consequences, and you talked about the psychological aspect of this. The fact is that in workplaces, whether federal or non-federal, people react differently to the harassment that takes place, whether it's sexual harassment or the type of bullying that goes on as well.
I'm trying to get some sense of whether you've come to some type of a conclusion as to why it affects certain people certain ways, and not others. Some people seem to be able to get over that hump a lot more easily than others can. It's not that we discount the fact that this happens; it's just that I don't know if it's the severity of it. I'm trying to get some sense of whether you did some research on that.