Status of Women committee  Perhaps in an ideal world that might be a good solution. The problem is that you cannot discipline an employee for an infraction if he does not know of what he is accused, so the identity of the individual who has reported can rarely be kept confidential. I just don't know how it would work.

Status of Women committee  I'm going to go back very briefly to your previous question and make a suggestion, if this is not already in place. Women who have been sexually harassed and are afraid to report need to have multiple means to do so. If they're in a hierarchical organization where you're supposed to report to your superior officer anything that has happened, that is going to discourage women from complaining, so there needs to be multiple avenues.

Status of Women committee  It pretty much depends.... I don't know of any research that has been done on it, but it's very interesting.

Status of Women committee  I think it sounds like an excellent process. I do see problems in assuming that will address everything. As I said, this is just my experience, because of some litigation in which I served as an expert witness, that when you look at a corporation's policy and you look at their procedures, they frequently at this stage, finally, over multiple decades, seem to have gotten it at the corporate level to put into place procedures so that there is some sort of mechanism in place for women to complain.

Status of Women committee  Certainly training is needed at all levels. Certainly supervisors need to be trained. In the United States and our tort claims, if a supervisor is doing the harassing, there's greater liability than if it's a co-worker who is doing it, because supervisors represent the company. They represent the corporation with power and authority and that sort of thing.

Status of Women committee  Yes, I know there is. I will make a note to find something that shows effective training and send it to you. At the same time I will reiterate that sanctions against offenders are most effective in decreasing harassment.

Status of Women committee  That was a multi-point question, so I'll try to answer all of them. If I leave one out, let me know. I think the first question was on how to address it. I had started to explain it. If you look again at the model in terms of job gender context, job gender context predicts harassment.

Status of Women committee  —when you have sanctions against them, even men who are high in likelihood to sexually harass will not do it. So it is the organization's responsibility, and they have the power to do this, to change things in the environment, to model for their male employees how one should treat their co-workers or their subordinates.

Status of Women committee  I think that service in the form of employee assistance programs would be very helpful to victims of sexual harassment. I would want to make sure individuals within that system have been trained on the issue of sexual harassment, because while it seems on the one hand everybody understands what sexual harassment is, there is actually a lot of misunderstanding about it in terms of the impact it has and the ways in which a woman has chosen to cope.

Status of Women committee  There are individual benefits, obviously. If a person has someone to talk to, someone to process her feelings with.... I'm a psychologist, so of course I believe that talking about one's experiences, especially those that are stressful, can have important beneficial consequences.

Status of Women committee  Again, depending on the offence.... Obviously, it goes up to court martial, which would involve prison incarceration, certainly dismissal from the military, but also there is demotion in rank, being suspended from duties, not being allowed to.... For example, you would be prohibited from working with female recruits.

Status of Women committee  I don't know whether this will translate into French because it's an alliteration in English. This is so common, moving someone who has been found to have been a sexual harasser to another job. We call it pass the perpetrator. It happens all the time and it's completely inappropriate.

Status of Women committee  Most people in an organization are invested in some way in the organization. They're invested in their position; they're invested in the power they have. They may also be very dedicated. I'm not suggesting they're not dedicated to the cause, their profession, but obviously they have other kinds of personal investments.

Status of Women committee  They run the gamut. Frequently some of the most effective are graduated sanctions, depending on how severe the first incident is, of course. There are suspensions, suspensions without pay, up to and including dismissal from their job. Certainly that should be on the table as a potential consequence if they choose to engage in a pattern of harassment, again, depending on how severe it is.

Status of Women committee  A study was done in our U.S. military which showed that sanctions were the most effective tool an organization can use. I can direct you to that study if you would like to have a copy of it.