Abstract

Sexual harassment is a new social issue in Korea, although it is not a new problem for women who are its victims, Only within the past couple of years has the term sexual harassment been introduced to Korean people. It barely begins to gain legal recognition as a problem attributable to the imbalance in power relationship between women and men in the workplace and to the culture which objectifies and degrades women. Empirical documentation of the nature of the problem of harassment, however, is scare in Korea so as to clarify the concept of harassment and to provide information on antecedents and consequences, situational correlates, characteristics of victims as well as perpetrators, and typical responses to the incident of harassment. The present article summerizes the results of a survey on 311 female clerical workers on the extent of their experience of harassment and their perception of harassment as well as of related policy measures. According to the survey, almost 80% of respondents experienced sexual harassment. The longer they have been employed, the more incidents of harassment they experienced and the higher was their recognition regarding the need for policies to deal with the problem. Although the actual level of experience of harassment was not related to respondents' sex role consciousness, it was significant that women with a progressive attitude toward sex roles tended to experience less negative influences after the incident, and to have a higher perception of the need for related policies at company level. The results imply the need for further research on women's attitudes and coping mechanisms regarding sexual harassment. Remedial actions to curtail and prevent sexual harassment at work are discussed.