The article analyses the most current myths regarding the sexual harassment in the Czech Republic. Specifically the author examines firstly the myth of non-existence and insignificancy which does not respect its latent nature; secondly she speaks about the myth of subjectivity and selfhood which denies the role of symbolic power and existence of unequal relations between men and women. Thirdly she identifies the myth of irrelevancy and impossibility to define the limits that denies equal moral value of all people; and finally she discusses the myth of malfeasance that denies possible serious harm caused to victims, the most frequently women. These myths are identified on the basis of qualitative analysis of focus groups with representatives of labour union. The author aims to confute these mentioned myths that contaminate the representation of the phenomenon of sexual harassment in the public discourse in the Czech Republic. For defence of significance of sexual harassment she elaborates the parallel with domestic violence and highlights common tendency to deny these gender based inequalities and oppression on the basis of the idea of ''natural sex relations''.
In the article, the authors respond to the main arguments that were voiced during discussions of the results of the project ‘Sexual Harassment in Universities: Incidence and Perception’, which the authors’ team carried out in 2008-2009. They do not aim to defend the research itself, but rather to analyse the dominant discourse on sexual harassment in the Czech environment from a gender perspective. This is because they see a refusal to accept gender as a relevant analytical category. They argue for the fundamental role of gender in the conceptualization of sexual harassment and for further refinement of its significance in gender‑informed definitions of sexual harassment. In the authors’ opinion, these definitions do not sufficiently reflect the current state of gender theories. The main argument of the text concerns the relationship between sexual and gender‑motivated harassment. The gender perspective offers an intrinsically coherent conceptualization of sexual harassment, including its causes and options for handling individual cases. In the article, the authors discuss the extent to which the gender order is a precondition for sexual harassment. This view allows them to think also about the less discussed types of sexual harassment (e.g. homophobic harassment) or to consider the ambivalence of some situations in which sexual harassment occurs (i.e. the dynamics of pleasant and unpleasant feelings, women’s initiative, etc.). At the same time, it reveals that power inequalities do not result only from institutional hierarchies between teachers and students, but also from the logic of the existing gender order., Kateřina Kolářová, Irena Smetáčková, Petr Pavlík., Poznámky na str. 83-85 (23), Biografické poznámky o autorech článku na str. 85, Obsahuje bibliografii, and Resumé o klíčová slova anglicky na str. 75
The article deals with the phenomenon of the sexual harassment in the working place in the Czech Republic. The authors analyze sexual harassment as one of effects of men's symbolic power over women causing cultural misrecognition of women and at the same time as one of factors supporting economic inequality between men and women in western societies. They apply the two-dimensional theory of justice by Nancy Fraser and argue that the existence of sexual harassment confirms Fraser's notion of gender as bivalent category as well as the necessity for combining the cultural politics of recognition with politics of redistribution. Furthermore, the article presents the research's results on incidence and forms of the sexual harassment in the population of the Czech Republic which was realized by the Public Opinion Research Center and by the department Gender & sociology of the Institute of Sociology, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic. The research confirms the existence and high significance of the phenomenon of sexual harassment within the working relations in the Czech Republic.
Článek představuje hlavní výsledky dotazníkového šetření, které mapovalo zkušenosti 1237 studentek a studentů středních škol s obtěžujícím chováním ze strany vyučujících. Obtěžování může nabývat různých podob, jejichž společným jmenovatelem je tendence učitelů a učitelek využít a/nebo posílit mocenskou převahu nad studujícími, a tím získat profesní či osobní výhody. V prezentovaném výzkumu byla pozornost soustředěna především na genderově motivované a sexuální obtěžování, ovšem v širším kontextu překračování hranic profesionálního pedagogického vztahu. Výsledky ukázaly, že studující mají relativně četné zkušenosti s různými neadekvátními projevy vyučujících, které splňují parametry obtěžujícího chování, včetně sexuálního obtěžování. Až 2/3 studujících se setkalo s některým z obtěžujících projevů, přičemž nejčastější jsou zkušenosti s nespravedlivým zacházením a uplatňováním genderových stereotypů, menší je výskyt sexuální pozornosti a nejřidší (avšak přesto překvapivě vysoký) je výskyt sexuálního nátlaku. and This research shows the main results of questionnaire research of student harassment experiences of 1,237 female and male high school students in the Czech Republic by their teachers. Harassment can demonstrate itself in a wide variety of behaviors, which teachers perform to strengthen their dominance over students in order to achieve a professional and/or personal advantage. In the presented research the main focus was on gender motivated and sexual behaviors, in wider context, the crossing of borders of a professional pedagological relation between teacher and student. The results indicate that nearly 2/3 of research participants have had some experience with various types of inappropriate teacher´s behaviour including unjust treatment and the application of gender stereotypes. Experiences with unwanted sexual attention were not as common and the least mentioned (but still suprisingly high) was the occurance of sexual coercion.
Despite the fact that the problem of sexual harassment at universities has been broadly explored in western and mainly American sociology since the mid-1970s, the first sociological survey to focus on this topic in the Czech Republic was conducted in late 2008 and early 2009. This quantitative survey covered 700 students and was carried out at a faculty of a university in Prague. The paper presents the main findings from this survey, such as the student’s experiences with sexual harassment from their teachers and their attitudes towards sexual harassment. The author found that the prevalence of sexual harassment in the particular faculty was relatively high and that students are extremely tolerant of ‘soft’ forms of harassment, especially gender harassment., Marta Vohlídalová., 3 grafy, 1 tab., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The problem of sexual harassment at universities has been explored in western and mainly American sociology since the mid-1970s. Since then, anti-harassment policies and procedures (including follow-up victim care) have been introduced at most Anglo-Saxon universities designing how to deal with ‘harassers’ and ‘victims’. In the Czech Republic, empirical research on this issue and on university anti-harassment policies is still lacking. The aim of this article is to introduce the methods and procedures employed at Anglo-American universities in an effort to tackle sexual harassment. The experiences of these academic institutions represent an indispensable source of information and inspiration for the Czech higher education environment., Kateřina Šaldová, Barbora Tupá, Marta Vohlídalová., Obsahuje bibliografii, and Anglické resumé