6.1 Background on the Social Issue

Cis women, transgender women and non-binary people often experience violence and sexual harassment on the job (Silliker, 2019; Western University, 2022). The perpetrators of sexual harassment are often customers (or patients or co-workers) who instigate sexual conversations, sexual jokes, and verbal intimidation (Western, 2022). Transgender women and non-binary people also experience mis-gendering and mocking behaviours at work (Hadjisolomou, 2021).

In service industries such as retail and hospitality, employees are supposed to remain polite, suppress their feelings and stay in a subservient role in relation to the customers (Hadjisolomou, 2021). This aspect of retail culture, wherein the “customer is king”, makes it especially difficult for cis women, transgender women and non-binary employees to speak up about harassment.

Employers in Canada have a legal duty to keep their employees safe and to take steps to avoid employees experiencing any negative effects based on a personal characteristic such as gender (British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, n.d.; Government of Canada, 2022; WorkBC, 2022). However, cis women, transgender women and non-binary people are often reluctant to speak up about sexual and other types of harassment at work, as they fear the negative consequences of directly confronting harassers or reporting harassment. Victims of sexual harassment often experience “victim blaming”, which minimizes the impact of the harassment and leaves victims humiliated, afraid, and unsupported. In summary, employees lack effective strategies for dealing with harassment (Ayres et al., 2009; Del Carmen Herrera, 2018), and employers are not advocating for or protecting their employees.