Can harassment take different forms?
Yes, harassment can take many forms. Harassment can include: • comments or innuendos; • touching and physical contact; • unwelcome and hurtful jokes or taunting; • sexually or racially offensive gestures; • verbal abuse; • publicly displayed material that is racist, sexist, sexually explicit, anti-lesbian or anti-gay, or insulting in other ways described above; • ignoring, isolating or segregating a person because of sex, race, sexual orientation, etc.; • staring or leering in a sexual manner; • undermining of one’s work; and • rumours or crude jokes, which in and of themselves have no sexual or racial content, but are occurring because of the person’s race, sex, sexual orientation or other discriminatory grounds. Some alleged harassers may use the excuse that they did not intend the comment or action to be offensive. However, various human rights tribunals have ruled the intent of the alleged harasser is beside the point. What has to be taken into account is the impact of the comment
