A new survey of over 1,500 women in the U.K. found that 52 percent of women of all ages reported experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace over the past 12 months. The survey, conducted by the Trades Union Congress in conjunction with the Everyday Sexism Project, asked women across industries if they’d experienced harassment at the workplace and if so, what it entailed. Of the women surveyed, 35 percent said the most common harassment they encountered was “hearing comments of a sexual nature about other women,” and while over half of women on average have experienced sexual harassment at the workplace, that percentage rose to 63 percent for women between the ages of 18 to 24.
There are any number of reasons why women don’t report sexual harassment to their superiors, mainly fear of losing their jobs or retaliation after coming forward. One woman, who responded anonymously to the survey, wrote, “I don’t report these behaviours because they are (apart from rape and serious assault) normal. This kind of stuff happens all the time, in every part of life.”
