‘Playing the Game?’: The sexual harassment of female social workers across professional workspaces

Introduction

Our interest in this topic was sparked by the experience of one of the authors, Aisling, when on a student placement with an organisation providing support services to vulnerable older people in the United States. The organisation received a referral for a man, aged 72, from a neighbour who was concerned about the housing conditions and, ultimately, his health and safety. A male social worker and Aisling went on a home visit to the client’s house. He lived in an old townhouse which appeared in good condition from the outside. However, upon entering, Aisling was taken aback by the stale heat inside which was in stark contrast to the below-freezing temperatures of the urban winter. The client was bare-chested and wore trousers that appeared dirty. The house, stale-smelling, was quite cluttered, but overall the conditions seemed satisfactory.

The client sat on the only chair at the dining table and Aisling and the male social worker stood next to the sink on the other side of the room. Throughout the conversation, it was somewhat difficult to maintain focus on his well-being and aspirations as he repeatedly diverged onto stories that he found amusing. As he spoke, he would frequently scratch his bare chest. It became apparent that this individual had an eccentric personality. Preparing to leave, Aisling asked ‘Is there anything else you need?’ He then looked to the other social worker and said in a suggestive tone, ‘Can she stick around for a while after?’ Aisling replied with a light-hearted ‘We’ve gotta go’. Shortly after, they left the house.

Noting the man’s expression and interpreting his somewhat ambiguous remarks as containing a sexual connotation, Aisling felt awkward and uncomfortable. Despite knowing that her safety was never at risk, she still felt his comments were left ‘hanging in the air’ and hard to dispel. Part of her felt very frustrated. Sexualised comments such as this undermined her professional practice and the value of her gender. In that moment, she felt she had two choices: either ‘laugh it off’ for the sake of developing a good rapport with the client or to tell him that it was inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour. Aisling knew that developing a relationship with the client was crucial for her intervention, so she chose the former approach.

Still needing to investigate her feelings further in supervision, Aisling discussed these frustrations with her US-based practice teacher, a female social worker with experience, over many years, as a gerontology social worker. She offered reassurance with the comment, ‘Don’t take it personally. This is the world we live in; women have to play the game’. The ‘game’, it seemed, involved being complicit in dominant social constructions of gender and the sexualisation of women.

The social work profession is based on respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all people. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW, 2012) recognises that women of all ages and at all stages of the life cycle ‘deserve protection from discrimination in all forms, including the elimination of all forms of gender-specific discrimination and violence’. Aisling was, therefore, immensely disappointed and perturbed by the lack of support from her practice teacher and what appeared to be a bleak, and arguably trivialising, perspective on attitudes towards women. When home in Ireland, she discussed what had occurred with, the second author, her then college tutor. Having listened to his reflection of her practice teacher’s perspective, she began to consider whether other women in social work had experiences of sexual harassment and how they have responded. Does everyone ‘play the game’? This article is a product of an ensuing project investigating female practitioners’ experience of sexual harassment experienced in the office or in other environments that constitute practitioner workspaces, such as clients’ homes.

We begin with by articulating the context for the study by briefly dwelling on the definition of ‘sexual harassment’. We also examine the legal context and map the responses of the social work profession in Ireland. The next component of the article focuses on the theoretical framing of the study and methodological questions relating to our empirical work. This is followed by a report on the findings which, although derived from a manifestly small study, are still significant. This is partly because in certain fields where a disproportionately high number of staff are female (such as nursing), there is a literature exploring sexual harassment in the professional workspace (Valente and Buttough, 2004), but within contemporary social work this remains a neglected and muted facet of academic inquiry with only a few contributions emerging, largely from the US (Didham et al., 2011; Fogel, 2001; Maypole, 1986; Moylan and Wood, 2016; Risley-Curtiss and Hudson, 1998; Singer, 1989). The fourth part of the article discusses issues arising from the research respondents’ comments and perceptions.

What do we mean by ‘sexual harassment’?

In Irish law, sexual harassment is defined as

any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature which has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the person … such unwanted conduct may consist of acts, requests, spoken words, gestures or the production, display or circulation of written words, pictures or other material. (Irish Statute Book, 2004: 51)

In a summary of two studies of sexual harassment in 1998, covering 16 Western European countries, the European Union (EU) concluded that an estimated 40–50 percent of female employees have experienced some forms of sexual harassment, with verbal forms of sexual harassment being most common (The Advocates for Human Rights, 2010). Kaplan (in Gould, 2000) states the damaging effect that sexual harassment can have on women:

Women in sexual harassment situations dealt with the problem by behaving passively, avoiding the harasser, and ignoring the behaviour (resulting in continued harassment), or if they filed formal complaints, they experienced retaliation. Personally, they experienced changes in affect, physical and emotional problems, deterioration in work performance, which many dealt with by absenteeism or quitting jobs because of fear and frustration.

Most sexual harassment research identifies male superiors harassing female subordinates. This may be accurate, but it is important to remember that sexual harassment can serve as an ‘equaliser’ against women in power, motivated more by control and domination than by sexual desire (McLoughlin et al., 2012). Furthermore, research suggests that sexual harassment is primarily targeted at women who violate gender roles by having what are perceived as masculine characteristics (assertive, dominant, independent) or being ‘uppity’ (Berdahl, 2007).

Low reporting rates are a result of fear of retaliation from employers, concern for the harasser, shame, belief in the futility of the complaint mechanism and/or fear of being blamed for the harassment (The Advocates for Human Rights, 2010). Hester (in Brockman, 2002) argues that failure to report incidents may be due to women undervaluing or denying such experiences. A qualitative study of students’ experiences found that they ‘rarely labelled their experience as sexual harassment, although certain behaviour was described as unpleasant, unwanted, or degrading to them’ (Vohlidalova, 2011: 1131). Low reporting rates of sexual harassment and the ambiguity of sexual harassment behaviours can be theoretically linked, as we will argue later, to what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (2000: Chapter 5) terms ‘symbolic violence’ and misrecognised forms of domination.

Sexual harassment in the Republic of Ireland

The Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW), a member of the IFSW, is a national organisation representing the social work profession in the Republic of Ireland. Within the IASW (2009) Code of Practice, it is made clear that social workers should, under no circumstances, form inappropriate personal and intimate relationships with people who use social work services. However, there is little guidance on appropriate actions when the practitioner is a victim of sexual harassment while at work. It is outlined that members of the IASW should report colleagues whose behaviour is abusive, discriminatory or unsafe (IASW, 2007). This would include colleagues who sexually harass other practitioners, but does not extend to other individuals that practitioners come in contact with, for example, clients and their families.

Social workers in Ireland are also guided by CORU, the social workers’ registration board, set up under the Health and Social Care Professional Act 2005 to promote high standards of professional conduct. In maintaining high standards of personal conduct, and as outlined in CORU’s Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Social Workers, practitioners must not ‘exploit or discriminate unlawfully or unjustifiably against clients, carers or colleagues’ or ‘form inappropriate personal relationships with service users’ (CORU, 2010: 9). However, there is a lacuna in terms of what should be the response if the practitioner is the victim of sexual harassment.

Harassment and sexual harassment are prohibited in the workplace with the Employment Equality Acts 1998–2011 placing an obligation on employers to prevent such harassment in the workplace. This Act places further responsibility on the employer to prevent and respond to instances of sexual harassment (Irish Statute Book, 2004: Section 14A). The actual intention of the perpetrator of the sexual harassment is irrelevant. The fact that the perpetrator has no intention of sexually harassing or harassing the employee is no defence. The effect of the behaviour on the employee is what is relevant (Irish Statute Book, 2012).

Despite this legislation, sexual harassment remains a problem in Ireland. The number of people contacting the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC, 2015) helpline increased from 76 in 1979 to 11,618 in 2010. This has continued to rise, where ‘52% of clients received therapy in 2013 for issues of rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment, compared to 46% in 2012’ (DRCC, 2013: 8). In 2013, 78 percent of callers to the helpline were female, 21.6 percent were male and 0.4 percent identified as transgender (DRCC, 2013: 7). This gender difference in experiences of sexual violence, including sexual harassment, is consistent with the Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI) Report which surveyed the prevalence of sexual abuse and violence in Ireland. In the findings, 16.2 percent of women and 12.6 percent of men experienced some form of sexual harassment in the past 12 months (McGee et al., 2002: 162).

Sexual harassment, specifically in the workplace, was examined in an Irish study in 2007. It found that 2.6 percent of males, 6.1 percent of females and 4.7 percent of all persons experienced sexual harassment in the workplace (O’Connell et al., 2007). ‘Women report substantially higher rates of bullying victimisation than men: less than 6% of men report bullying in 2007, compared to almost 11% among women. We found a similar gender pattern in 2001’ (O’Connell et al., 2007: 35).

If sexual harassment is a prevalent issue in Irish society, and in the workplace, the social work profession is unlikely to be an exception.

The theoretical and methodological approach

A ‘theory of sexuality becomes feminist to the extent it treats sexuality as a social construct of male power: defined by men, forced on women, and constitutive in the meaning of gender’ (Kolmar and Bartkowski, 2005: 476). Feminists argue the personal is political; thus, power relations operate in personal as well as in public life (Byrne and Leonard, 1997). Considering this, sexual politics cannot be ignored within the social work profession, and in this sense, aspects of Bourdieu’s contribution to sociological theory are helpful.

Bourdieu considers the issue of female oppression as a mode of domination that ‘presupposes a doxic order shared by the dominated and the dominants’ (Krais, 1993: 169). For him, gender domination is incorporated as part of an agent’s ‘habitus’. Loic Wacquant (2013), Bourdieu’s close colleague, describes ‘habitus’ as the articulation of the way we internally experience and actively construct the lived world. In this sense, culture cements individuals and groups into patterns of domination. However, Bourdieu outlines that we ‘are not automatons or mindless vehicles of our governing habitus. Rather, our habitus acts as a very loose set of guidelines permitting us to strategize, adapt, improvise or innovate in response to situations as they arise’ (Houston, 2002: 157). Building on this body of theorisation, it is crucial for social workers to deconstruct and analyse the personal and collective habitus in order to challenge discrimination, sexism and sexualised harassment.

For Bourdieu, male domination offered ‘the example par excellence of this paradoxical submission’ to an unjust social order, a submission achieved through ‘symbolic violence, a gentle violence, imperceptible, invisible to its very victims’ (Bourdieu in Lane, 2000: 130). Indeed, this concept may be particularly useful when looking at the issue of sexual harassment. Social workers operate in a world where male bias and power are reflected in institutions, structures and theoretical models (National Association of Social Workers (NASW), 2005). Traditional values derive from a patriarchal society that many argue implicitly underpin conceptualisations of gender roles today. Borrowing from Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ concept, gender can be understood as the social construction of domination relationships that determines body image, body experience, even the form of the body, feelings and expressing joy or pain (Krais and William, 2000). By employing the habitus concept, it clarifies the distinction between sex (biological) and gender (a sociological construct). Understandings of gender and gender norms vary depending on personal and cultural values. Gender dynamics are intrinsically complex and important in all interactions. In social work, gender dynamics impact three key relationships: ‘between workers and “clients”; working colleagues; and employees and their employers’ (Dominelli, 2006: 98). These can also be sites of sexual harassment.

Turning to our study, a qualitative approach was selected as it provides an opportunity to capture the meanings and relationships involved and the complexities of this issue (Becker et al., 2012). A non-probability sampling method was employed in this project. With this approach, ‘each population does not have an equal chance of selection, it does not claim to be representative, and it does not necessarily allow the researcher to generalise results’ (D’Cruz and Jones, 2004: 99). Despite this, our findings are still illuminating and highlight areas for further research within the domain of social work education and practice. The sample consisted of four female practitioners from different disciplines of social work and two MA in Social Work students (see Table 1).

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Table 1.

Profile of respondents.

Name	Brief biographical information
Ann	MA Social Work student currently working in a residential care setting. Student field placements in primary care and child protection.
Lisa	Worked in disability setting for over 3 years. Previously employed in a child protection team for 4 years.
Joan	MA Social Work student with experience in residential care. Field placement experience in child protection and primary care.
Marie	A child protection social worker for over 7 years and currently a Team Leader who works 1 day each week on a specialist team responding to child sexual abuse.
Kelly	Retired social worker with almost 30 years’ experience in child and adolescent mental health. Worked, for over 4 years, in another jurisdiction.
Ruth	Works in old-age psychiatry. Beforehand, spent 2 years in a child protection setting.

The students were selected as they both had experience in residential care settings as social care workers where they undertook overnight duties. This potentially added a new aspect in terms of risk and safety. Also, both students had completed two field placements as part of their social work programme. Considering that Aisling had experienced sexual harassment on placement, we thought it would be interesting to examine whether other students considered sexual harassment to be an issue needing to be addressed.

The sample was assembled using a ‘snowball’ sampling method whereby contact is made with a small group of people and these connections are used to establish contact with others (Bryman, 2008). The individuals who participated in the research were all based in the same Irish city. Although they shared the same current geographical location, none of them were originally from the area. Two of the six participants were from other countries in Europe and completed their social work education in their home countries.

Clearly, the sample will not reflect a representational account of female social workers in Ireland. Despite not being able to make generalisations, the in-depth interviews can potentially generate interesting data to provoke further research in this subject area. Semi-structured interviews took place and an interview schedule was designed beforehand consisting of a set of pre-determined questions. This approach also furnished an opportunity for the respondents to relate their experiences, attitudes, feelings and perceptions throughout the interview process (Moore, 2000: 121). The Interviews were conducted in an appropriately quiet setting, on a one-to-one basis, by Aisling. Each lasted between 30 and 45 minutes and was recorded on a dictation device. The data was transcribed following the interview and pseudonyms were used so that no individual participant was identifiable. The respondents were invited to share their experiences of sexual harassment behaviours relating to any person they have, or have had, contact with in a professional context (i.e. client/client’s family/colleague/supervisor). This was succeeded by questions exploring whether they considered sexual harassment to be an issue for women in social work. If the respondents had experienced sexual harassment, they were asked about their responses and feelings in relation to these incidents. In line with the objectives of the research, the interviews also incorporated wider themes related to sexual harassment, safety, risk and employer’s response.

Speaking about ‘it’: Findings

Respondents were provided with a list of behaviourally specific indicators of sexual harassment, and their responses illustrated a range in the severity in terms of their own experiences. We are aware in what follows that some of the language used by our respondents in the lengthy extracts is quite explicit, but it is vital to incorporate this dimension so as to retain the vibrant authenticity and tonality of the interview exchanges.

Discussion

Sexual harassment can take many forms ranging from gender-related insults, sexualised gestures and comments to touching and physical assault (Ramsaroop and Parumasur, 2007). In this sense, it seems to constitute part of the professional ‘habitus’ for female staff (Bourdieu, 2002). A majority of respondents (five out of six) stated that they experienced some form of sexual harassment in social work practice. This figure is especially high when compared to figures in quantitative research exploring the theme in, and beyond, social work (McGee et al., 2002; Maypole, 1986; O’Connell et al., 2007; The Advocates for Human Rights, 2010).

The respondents discussed their experiences by referring to a range of behavioural indicators of sexual harassment with a majority identifying verbal forms of harassment as more frequent. Indeed, this is consistent with the findings of an EU study whereby participants stated verbal forms of sexual harassment as being most common (The Advocates for Human Rights, 2010). Our female respondents also identified a range of perpetrators. Although none specifically mentioned placement practice teachers, this was revealed as a prevalent facet of sexual harassment in US research: Moylan and Wood’s (2016: 414) survey of over 500 students revealed, in fact, that ‘field supervisors’ were the reported perpetrators in 12 percent of incidences.

Humour was noted as a mechanism which often served to mask offensive and degrading behaviour, and this is consistent with studies of sexualised interactions examining perpetrators’ efforts to embarrass or humiliate. Here, humour is deployed to maintain or enhance male status (Skeggs, 2002). Perhaps the most distressing of the respondents’ experiences of sexual harassment are derived from the accounts of Ann and Joan, the two MA in Social Work students with experience of working in residential settings. Clearly, further research in this area is vital in order to ascertain whether this type of harassment is a widespread issue for social care workers/social workers in residential settings. Procedures need, it would seem, to be implemented in Ireland to make this working environment safer for female staff.

Research indicates that underreporting of violence towards social workers is due to a variety of factors, including practitioners’ perception that violent incidents are an inevitable part of their work and social workers should be able to take care of themselves (Spencer and Munch, 2003: 535). Perhaps in line with this perception, our respondents pointed towards an unsupportive attitude towards sexual harassment within the workplace. For example, Ann described – as we have seen – the dominant perspective as one stressing the need to ‘grow a thick skin and get over it’. This gels with Dominelli and McLeod’s (1989: 135) theory that women experience subtle forms of sexual harassment daily, but have to handle it on their own.

Social workers operate in professional workspaces reflecting the power of male domination within the wide world (NASW, 2005). The perception that sexual harassment behaviours are ‘part of the role’ for female social workers is a worrying thought. Pressing this further, perhaps this stems from notions that sexual harassment may be considered as integral to what Aisling’s US-based practice teacher viewed as the gendered ‘game’.

It is understandable that women in sexual harassment situations respond by behaving passively, avoiding the harasser and ignoring the behaviour (Kaplan in Gould, 2000). The findings in this small-scale project support other research reflecting this, given that the majority of our respondents stated that, in most instances, they did not challenge sexual harassment. By not challenging inappropriate behaviour, practitioners may, however, risk being perceived as condoning such behaviour (Cooper, 2012). Key factors in not objecting to such conduct include fear of retaliation from employers, ineffective complaints procedures, and a fear of being blamed for the harassment (The Advocates for Human Rights, 2010); indeed, all these factors are present in the comments of our respondents. All stated that they would like to be believed, supported and informed throughout a complaints’ process. However, they lacked faith in the guidance and protocols set by management.Half stated that they relied on peer support to help them deal with their experiences. It is still, however, vitally important that management are informed of these issues, otherwise they operate in a world of ignorance while their employees are at risk (Spencer and Munch, 2003). Here, of course, trade unions have a significant role to play as advocates and protectors of workers, but in our study, reference to unions was strikingly absent. This may, in part, be attributable to the relative quietude of unions during a period of ‘austerity’; alternatively, it may suggest that these workplace organisations are being insufficiently attentive to the sexual harassment of female workers.

Power issues were identified by half of the respondents with sexual harassment behaviours deployed by male colleagues and clients or to create gendered leverage within micro interactions across professional workspaces. This dimension was reflected in Marie’s comments on the male colleague remarking on her appearance in an attempt to unnerve her and undermine her professional status. Kelly also focused on her experiences of how certain clients would utilise sexual harassment as a tactic to try and shift the power relations within encounters. In all of these instances, the social power of the female respondents was tactically diluted with, oftentimes, female workers being merely viewed, by men, as sexual objects. This may also reflect what Lee (2000) describes as men’s understanding of sexual harassment as an ‘acceptable masculinity’. For many, it is entrenched in their gendered habitus amplifying and serving to reproduce wider ideologies of domination (Bourdieu, 2000, 2002).

CORU (2010) advises social workers to take the necessary steps to minimise risk in line with the organisation’s policies. However, the majority of our respondents conceded that at times, as women, they felt vulnerable in their role. In social work, the workspaces encompass offices, cars, clients’ homes and other related locations (Lyter and Abbott, 2007). In this context, half of the respondents emphasised the ‘home visit’ as a highly vulnerable situation for practitioners. Lisa stated that she felt vulnerable during home visits in certain urban areas, while Ann stressed that conducting home visits in rural parts of Ireland often left her feeling ‘helpless’.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) (2011) produced safety procedures for child protection social workers conducting home visits to ‘hostile’ clients with ‘joint visits’ being recommended in such situations. However, none of our respondents mentioned doing ‘joint’ home visits. Despite ‘safety tips’ for practitioners conducting home visits and CORU’s recommendation to minimise, reduce or eliminate risk where possible, they can still, as we have seen, be problematic for social workers. This is an area that should be researched further with existing policies revised to assess whether they are realistic and effective. Even during times of so-called ‘austerity’, budget cuts and unfilled vacancies, ‘joint’ visits are clearly essential on an initial home visit and when visiting clients with a history of violent or ‘inappropriate’ behaviour.

The social work literature outlines that professional boundaries should be implemented to work safely and ethically with clients. O’Leary et al. (2013) describe this as the maintenance of ‘professional distance’. The responsibility of setting boundaries lies with the social worker while little guidance is offered in the event of uncertain situations. Half of our respondents mentioned dressing ‘appropriately’ and how incidents of sexual harassment have altered their work with clients.

In maintaining professional boundaries, it is advised that appropriate clothing should be worn by practitioners and clients (Cooper, 2012). However, the notion of practitioners giving further consideration to the appropriateness of their clothing, in maintaining a boundary, is absent from current literature. As previously discussed, sexual harassment can be used as a mechanism of power and domination. Perhaps this responsibility of female social workers to prevent reactions from men is also a cultural by-product, even another mode of domination.

Conclusion

This article does not seek to provide a representative account of all female social workers in Ireland. Clearly, it is a small, qualitative study undertaken with four social workers and two final year MA in Social Work students. However, their perceptions and opinions are thought-provoking, insightful and challenge assumptions about sexual harassment, women and social work practice.

We have endeavoured, therefore, to make visible an array of issues previously insufficiently explored within the professional literature. More emphatically, it is vital that we should expose discrimination and challenge prejudices or we run the risk of living behind a screen of ‘symbolic violence’. Our most practical and immediate recommendation is to further the scope of research in this area. It may also be interesting to examine other factors such as age, ‘race’/ethnicity, class and disability alongside the theme of sexual harassment.

We have often referred to the need for incidents of sexual harassment to be ‘reported’ and adequately investigated. However, we realise that, in terms of clients, the situation is highly complex. Some of those reportedly responsible for abuse – such as young clients with learning difficulties – clearly did not have the capacity, because of cognitive impairments, to act in a deliberative, fully informed and reflexive manner. What is more, we are not implying that a punitive response to such behaviour is warranted. Here, the emphasis should be more tilted towards education, awareness-raising and adequate staffing levels, especially in day-care and residential facilities. However, it is clear that sexual harassment is also attributable to male co-workers. In this context, the organisational responses need to be much clearer, better attuned to and much more protective of women workers.

Training should also address power relations in the workplace and ethical uses of power. This may assist women workers in talking more openly about their experiences and gaining a sense of validation. More generally, it is vital that female social workers are supported in their role and understand that sexual harassment should not be considered part of the ‘game’ across our workspaces.