(The Michael Brady Lynch Firm, 2018)
Integrity is defined as a “concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.” (Kang, 2017)
Personally I perceive that the term ‘wrongdoing’ differs from person to person, either as a result of different personal experiences or beliefs. For example, I grew up in a Xhosa-tribe village where woman are still regarded as inferior to men, polygamy is practiced, and drinking in front of elders is right only if you have been initiated as a man. For my friends, who grew up in an English-society, they believe that polygamy is cheated, therefore is wrong, and that women are equal to men. Several studies have shown that children that witnessed abuse/ experienced bullying while growing up, are prone to becoming perpetrators of the act in later stages of life (UNICEF, 2006). Therefore it can be asserted that some people do wrong believing it is right, and that wrongdoing is influenced by various factors such as; beliefs, personal experiences, and society.
However our focus is sexual harassment, which is defined as “unwanted conduct of a sexual nature which has the purpose or effect of violating someone’s dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them( Equality Act, 2010).
Initially I perceived unfairness when it comes to sexual harassment, especially within our field of study (physiotherapy), if you are proven guilty to charges of sexual harassment as a therapy punishment can escalate to even imprisonment, while for a patient the maximum resort punishment is only removal from therapeutic services (Sexual Harassment, 2018). However I now understand that the might be other factors that influence the patient’s behaviours which need to be considered, these include: administered medication, altered physical or psychological state, and isolation or damaged self-esteem (Sexual Harassment, 2018) .
While I was in my ICU block, at Grooter Hospital, I was assigned a 25 years old female who has been admitted for more than 3 months due to sepsis on her laparotomy incision. Due to the sepsis, she was put in an isolation room. On our very first encounter she made wired remark such as; how soft my hands were, I should have many girlfriends because I was too beautiful, how she enjoyed my gentleness when I touched her, and that I was the only therapist she did not feel bad when revealing her breasts to. This happen more than once and it made me uncomfortable, I ended up reporting her to my superiors, but all that was done, was her assigned to a female student physiotherapist. For a moment I felt violated and that influenced my attitude when it came to treating young females, to a point there are some areas, such as breasts and thighs, that I tried to avoid touching. It took me time to gain my comfortability when treating female patients.
However after the study, I now understand that the patients behaviour might have been affected by isolation, or damaged self-esteem due to her body being exposed to so many people such doctors, nurses, therapists (“Sexual Harassment”, 2018).
Questions that arose after the study are:
- How long does one have to keep up with such patient behaviors, seeing that they may be influenced by the above mentioned factors?
- Is the behaviour disregarded as sexual harassment just because it might be influenced by the above mentioned factors?
- If it happens that the above mentioned factors are influencing the patients behaviour, must the therapist rights against sexual harassment then be ignored?
References:
Equality Act.(2010).Prohibited conduct. Retrieved September 21, 2018 from https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/26
Kang, S.(2017).The True Meaning of Integrity. Retrieved September 21, 2018 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/soyoung-kang/the-true-meaning-of-integ_b_11273420.html
Sexual Harassment. (2018). [Blog]. Retrieved October 11, 2018 from https://iepcourse.wordpress.com/topics/integrity-and-wrongdoing/sexual-harassment/
The Michael Brady Lynch Firm. (2018). Male Sexual Harassment Victims [Image]. Retrieved October 11, 2018 from https://www.mblynchfirm.com/2018/08/31/male-sexual-harassment-victims/
UNICEF. (2006). Behind Closed Doors: The Impact of Domestic Violence on Children(pp. 1-2). New York: The Body Shop International pic. Retrieved October 15, 2018 from https://www.unicef.org/media/files/BehindClosedDoors.pdf
7 thoughts on “Sexual Harassment: Opposite Stance”
Hi Chulumaco,
I like how you chose to write about sexual harassment as it generally is not a topic spoken about often. I’d also like to thank you for sharing your experiences with us as we do not usually hear the males side of these stories very often either.
I appreciated how you started the first two paragraphs introducing and giving definitions of the title of your piece. Although, once I got to the third paragraph, and you mentioned that “sexual harassment” would be your focus, the title you chose confused me. With this being your focus, I would’ve associated it with the topic of “abuse” or “ethics and professionalism” rather than “integrity and wrongdoing”.
According to Berlin (2006), sexual harassment is defined as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct that unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work or study performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment”. This definitely describes the situation you were put in.
With “abuse” being broadly simplified as any behavior or action designed to control, intimidate, threaten, or injure another person, physically or verbally. I would, therefore, find this to be a more suited topic.
As a female, I’ve learnt over the years how to manage and control my feelings when inappropriate comments are passed my way. With that being said, it does not make being a female physiotherapy student any easier when having to treat males (especially young males) and get ‘comments’ thrown your way. This is why I can understand how you may have felt when there was no sort of ‘punishment’ (so to say). I firmly believe that there is no excuse that allows an individual to use words or actions that makes the next person uncomfortable in any way. I believe it is an issue that will never be resolved.
While reading your piece, I found some grammatical errors, such as in the fourth paragraph you go on to saying “…if you proven guilty to charges of sexual harassment as a therapy punishment can escalate to even imprisonment…”. The sentence should ideally be “…if you are/you’re found guilty of sexual harassment as a therapist, punishment could escalate to even imprisonment…”. I also found citation errors which were overlooked, such as in the first sentence of the sixth paragraph.
Lastly, I like how you ended off your piece posing questions. You are talking about a topic that people avoid thinking about because the thoughts do not generally have easy or valid conclusions. By ending off with the questions like you did, you make the reader think about the issue at hand and force them to come up with some sort of opinion, whether they plan on voicing it or not.
Reference:
Berlin, L. (2006). Sexual Harassment. American Journal Of Roentgenology, 187(2), 288-293. doi: 10.2214/ajr.06.0272
Good day Sarrah
Thank you for the comments, I will edit the piece.
Hi Chulumanco
Firstly I would like to say thank you for sharing this piece with us. I like how you start with your story by sharing the background of where you come from and actually giving an example of how people’s beliefs differs and how it may influence our thinking.
I also appreciate how you use the information from the other writers to prove your points however when i was reading your piece i noticed you did not reference some of the findings by other authors such as “Statistics have shown that children that witnessed abuse/ experienced bullying while growing up, are prone to becoming perpetrators of the act in later stages of life. Therefore it can be asserted that some people do wrong believing it is right, and that wrongdoing is influenced by various factors such as; beliefs, personal experiences, and society”. This information needs to be referenced in order to honor the author as well as to prove the validity of your information. It also helps the reader to go and read more about the findings.
Secondly, I would like to know if you did discuss with the patient about their behaviour as you said when you started with your piece that “Personally I perceive that the term ‘wrongdoing’ differs from person to person, either as a result of different personal experiences or beliefs.”, maybe they also did no see anything wrong by doing that and to them it was just a normal thing to do.
Lastly, i like how you conclude your piece by actually giving us the heads up on what we should expect from our patients when working with them.
Good day Sibo
Thank you for your comments, I will edit the piece. Unfortunately in regards to speaking with the patient, I was embarrassed and did not let her know that what she was doing was uncomfortable. In reference to the point that we view wrongdoing differently, I always had the perception that if I told her how i felt, it will damage the physiotherapy-patient relationship. Therefore I set my emotions and feelings aside, in order to ensure that I provided therapy to her, in the midst of my uncomfortability, I tried by all means that she is comfortable in order for us to have an effective therapeutic session. This is one the things that has always been installed in our minds ever since first year, “always make your patient comfortable, for example by covering any exposed areas during passive movements.”
CC:
I liked the management of your situation despite what you experienced and had to deal with emotionally. The difficulty of your situation on me is not lost, especially as I myself have (unfortunately) experienced situations where patients would violate one by their words or at times actions.
I liked that your piece highlighted the different perceptions on wrong doing and what could influence these believes (such as upbringing for example). Despite your situation, you still managed to try and look at it from the patients perspective or situation rather (as in paragraph 4), however I would’ve liked for you to have supported this with literature to strengthen your argument.
I commend you for the way you handled the situation. I sense that you didn’t like the way it was handled as no one bothered to ask whether or not you were okay or had a debriefing session.
Although I sensed your disappointment in which it was handled, I think if you had elaborated more or gave alternative ways which it could’ve been handled, it could’ve been an opportunity for education for all those who follow such as staff and students to learn from.
With the questions that arose it would’ve been well finished off if you had suggested some articles and/or books for reading to possibly answer these questions. With certain sentences there were some grammatical errors but you managed to bring your stance and emotion across despite this.
Other than that, I really found this writing piece thought provoking and saddened that this type of behaviour is unfortunately a reality.
Good day Claudine
Thank you for the comment, I will edit the piece.
Honestly speaking, it was a difficult situation whereby my personality was really challenged. I am the type of person that wants everyone around me to be happy, I do not like it when people are sad/hurt in my midst, I always strive to cheer them up. Therefore I kept quiet about the incident, to protect the feelings of the patient even though I compromised mine during the process.
Another issue about my personality, I do not like it when people do not believe me when I tell the truth, therefore I was caught between ‘will the people believe me, or will they think I am accusing the patient’