From sexual harassment against women in business life to cybersexual harassment in professional platforms: A study on digitalization of workplace harassment against white-collar women

Abstract

Sexual harassment against women is one of the important social problems addressed all over the world. It is a fact that has existed for hundreds of years, although the place and types of it change. Harassment has been transferred to the digital environment, as everything has become digital with the Internet. It is claimed that women are subjected to harassment while working or looking for a job. To investigate the prevalence of workplace harassment and harassment on online platforms used for professional purposes and its psychological effects on victims, an online nonprobability sampling survey on 249 white-collar women aged 20-40 working in the private sector was conducted. According to results of the study, harassment that women are most exposed to is cyber harassment. It has been observed that 73 women out of every hundred have been subjected to harassment on professional digital platforms. In the types of harassment experienced; persistent online dating requests, receiving unwanted romantic messages, sexual jokes and insults are the most common types of harassment. Considering the effects experienced, it is seen that the violence and harassment online, compared to offline harassment, does not mean that it has milder effects on the victims. It has been revealed that the psychological and physiological effects of physical abuse are also seen in victims of cyber harassment.