Sexual Harassment is any unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature that makes you feel distressed, intimidated or humiliated. It can take lots of different forms. It can include or be called sexualised bullying. Often the impact is not felt or witnessed immediately. The impact may go beyond the recipient to people who see or hear what happens or who try to offer support.
You don't have to have objected to a certain kind of behaviour in the past for it to be consider harassment.
Sexual Harassment can include, but is not limited to catcalling, following, making unnecessary and unwanted physical contact, sexual jokes and comments, giving unwelcome personal gifts, wolf-whistling, leering, derogatory comments, unwelcome comments about a person’s body or clothing, asking unwelcome questions about a person’s sex life and/or sexuality, engaging in unwelcome sexual propositions, invitations and flirtation, making somebody feel uncomfortable through displaying or sharing sexual material. Sexual harassment does not necessarily occur face to face and can be in the form of emails, visual images (such as sexually explicit pictures on walls in a shared environment), social media, telephone, text messages, image based sexual abuse such and upskirting.
Although sexual harassment happens everywhere, it is common at work. It can cause stress and hostility in the workplace, and over time, it can lead to physical and emotional problems, like headaches, nausea, cystitis, depression, anxiety, problems sleeping and eating, and loss of self-confidence. Many people end up leaving their job rather than have to carry on enduring sexual harassment.