Gender Harassment

Gender harassment is a form of sexual harassment that consists primarily of repeated comments, jokes, and innuendoes directed at persons because of their gender or sexual orientation. This behavior may or may not be aimed at eliciting sexual cooperation from those addressed, but it contaminates learning and work environments. Gender harassment closely resembles racial and ethnic slurs. Gender harassment may include

• Disparaging a person's intellectual abilities and potential.
• Disparaging a person's seriousness about academics.
• Using sexist humor as a classroom teaching technique.
• Turning a discussion of a student's work into a discussion of his or her physical attributes or appearance.
• Disparaging scholarly works by or about a specific gender.
• Ridiculing specific works because they deal with a specific gender's perceptions or feelings.
• Any of the above actions directed toward lesbians or gays.