Welcome to the Broad Experience, the show about women, the workplace and success. I'm Ashley Milthight.

This is the second of two shows about unwanted attention at work. This time we look at what sexual

harassment really stems from, what we can do to stop it, and why it's so prevalent in one particular

arena. Power in academia is pretty absolute in some ways. to stop it, and why it's so prevalent in one particular arena?

Power in academia is pretty absolute in some ways.

So if you have a male superstar science professor,

he can completely makerespected at work.

Terms of endearment, nicknames, touching, comments about our looks.

In this show, I wanted to get into sexual harassment at its worst, predatory behaviour that can totally poison your experience at work, not to mention your whole life.

Jennifer Burdahl is a professor of organizational behavior at the University of British Columbia.

She specializes in sexual harassment and power and status in the workplace.

We spoke on Skype. She says the problem is most people don't get what sexual harassment really is.

They don't take it seriously enough. They think it's about flirtation, sexual desire gone astray.

But what research really shows is that sexual harassment, like racial harassment, is a method of demeaning people based on their sex and gender, making them feel unwelcome and uncomfortable at work.

She says it's about asserting dominance over one person or a whole group of people

specifically because of their social identity.

It's less about sex, more about control.

And I think to the extent that we still have kind of this misinformation going

around about what sexual harassment is and how

serious it is and what its true underlying motives and or effects are, we will continue to sort

of turn a blind eye to it or not truly understand it in the way that it needs to be understood.

So having said that then, say it's understood in those

...