Expert says sexual harassment rarely ends without community intervention

People who engage in sexual harassment are likely to continue unless they face clear negative consequences, social psychologist Satu Venäläinen told Yle. Her comments come as three women accuse Markku Lumio, the mayor of the Ostrobothnian city of Kaskinen, of inappropriate conduct.

Venäläinen, a docent and university lecturer at the University of Helsinki, said it is unrealistic to expect perpetrators to suddenly understand how their behaviour affects others.

“The prevailing culture and community play a major role,” she said, adding that they can either enable harassment or prevent it.

Harassment can be minimised, blamed on the person who experienced it or normalised by presenting it as a joke or as reciprocal behaviour, Venäläinen said. Silence allows the behaviour to continue when a community does not intervene.

Three women have accused Lumio of inappropriate conduct including repeated hugging, comments about their appearance and showing a sexual video. Kaskinen City Board issued him a reprimand for inappropriate conduct on Tuesday. A proposal to establish a temporary committee was rejected in a close vote.

Lumio has largely denied the allegations. A criminal report has also been filed. Similar allegations led to his resignation as municipal manager of Kauhava four years ago.

Venäläinen said she was not commenting on Lumio’s case, but was discussing sexual harassment from the perspective of her research.

Silence allows harassment to continue

People do not always dare to intervene in harassment, Venäläinen said. Communities may avoid discussing issues that expose problems with equality because they have invested heavily in the idea that they are a model country for equality.

Fear of shame also contributes to the silence. The person targeted by harassment often experiences shame, but the feeling can also spread to the wider community, Venäläinen said.

Individuals are ultimately responsible for their own actions and cannot hide behind the culture around them. However, focusing only on the individual can obscure the broader context and power relations involved in the problem, she said.

Sexual harassment is specifically about power, particularly when the harasser holds a privileged position. It involves exercising freedom of action at another person’s expense and seeking or reinforcing a sense of power, Venäläinen said.

“The starting point for change is that the matter comes to light and becomes known to people other than those directly involved,” she said.

Harassment can support the perpetrator’s self-image

Venäläinen said men have long been seen as having the right to subordinate others. She said one factor behind harassment can be a way of thinking in which a man reinforces his sexual status to construct an image of himself as virile and dominant, both for others and for himself.

The perpetrator may build their self-image by reflecting on how they appear in other people’s eyes. Behaviour that seems inappropriate to others can be normalised in the perpetrator’s own mind if it helps them maintain a positive view of themselves, Venäläinen said.

Sexual harassment can be verbal, non-verbal or physical unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature that intentionally or effectively violates a person’s mental or physical integrity, particularly by creating a threatening, hostile, degrading, humiliating or distressing atmosphere.

Examples include sexually suggestive gestures or expressions, obscene comments, double-meaning jokes, remarks or questions about a person’s body, clothing or private life, pornographic material, sexually suggestive letters, emails, text messages or phone calls, physical touching, demands or proposals for sexual intercourse or other sexual contact, and rape or attempted rape, according to the Equality Ombudsman.