Internet Abuse: A Newer form of Sexual Harassment

Abstract

Face to face sexual harassment is a well-known, commonly occurring, extensively investigated, and treated to some extent social problem. Sexual harassment behaviours are classified into the categories of gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Evidences show that sexual harassment behaviour occurs as a product of person and situation characteristics and has substantial personal and organizational costs. This article reviews the available information on sexual harassment in cyberspace, equates this phenomenon with what has been learned about sexual harassment offline, describes specific characteristics of online culture and technology that reinforce the behaviour, and proposes ways of promoting prevention.