Staring, Sniffing, Leering, & Other Actions

Even behaviors that may not appear sexual can constitute hostile environment sexual harassment.

Three such behaviors are staring, sniffing, and leering. Court cases have found harassers guilty of hostile environment sexual harassment based on these actions. These actions were in conjunction with other elements of sexual harassment (for example, these staring periods happened repeatedly over a period of time or were in retaliation to an employee filing a harassment complaint). Combined with these other factors, these actions were clear examples of hostile environment harassment.

For this reason, Netflix has a "five second" staring policy as a part of its sexual harassment training. While this may sound silly, Netflix released a statement in defense of its policy. "We're proud of the anti-harassment training we offer to our productions. We want every Netflix production to be a safe and respectful working environment. We believe the resources we offer empower people on our sets to speak up and shouldn't be trivialized."

To learn more about Sexual Harassment Prevention For Employees visit our Cal/OSHA Sexual Harassment Prevention For Employees Online Training web page.