37% of Women in City Jobs Cite Sex Harassment

Nearly two of every five women responding to a survey of Los Angeles city government’s female work force say they were subjected to sexual harassment in their jobs last year, the Commission on the Status of Women reported Tuesday.

The 37% of women who said they were harassed contrasts with the 25% to 30% typically found in nationwide surveys of women in the general workplace, experts say. Of the city’s 11,722 women employees, 4,887, or about 42%, responded to the survey.

The percentage of complaints was highest among the city’s security forces, particularly the Los Angeles Police Department, where 48% of the women responding to the survey reported experiencing sexual harassment, according to Paula Petrotta, executive director of the Commission on the Status of Women, which conducted the survey with the city’s Personnel Department.

The survey showed that hundreds of public employees have felt harassed--10% of them at least once a month--by colleagues, supervisors and occasionally members of the public. But few feel confident enough in the system to file complaints.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who had asked for the survey after last October’s Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, said he was disturbed by the findings, and announced eight recommendations for reducing sexual harassment. Among them are special training for police employees, appointment of a sexual harassment ombudsman and mandatory training for all city employees on sexual harassment issues.

“We will not tolerate sexual harassment in the city,” Bradley said at a press conference.

Almost 400 women in police, fire, airport safety and other security departments--about 48% of female security employees returning surveys--complained of sexual misconduct. Petrotta said that it appeared that Police Department employees were responsible for “the most egregious acts” of sexual harassment.

She cited one case in which an LAPD employee complained that she had found a used condom in her locker. However, she declined to give details about other incidents, citing the need to protect the women surveyed.

Comdr. Robert Gil, an LAPD spokesman, declined to comment specifically on the survey, saying, “I haven’t seen (it) so I can’t respond to the complaints. All I can say is that Chief Willie Williams and the LAPD do not condone such conduct.”

In contrast to the LAPD, the Los Angeles City Fire Department, another of the city’s male-dominated public security agencies, was given a better than average evaluation in the survey, Petrotta said. Employees who chose to write in comments on the surveys praised the department’s active training sessions on sexual harassment.

The LAPD has come under fire from several quarters in recent months for alleged sexual harassment. Last year, the Christopher Commission reported that officers sometimes sent demeaning sexual messages over department computers. Later, some female officers publicly reported sexist treatment and physical advances by colleagues. One officer filed a lawsuit in February claiming another officer had raped her.

Results of the survey could be skewed, Petrotta said, because many who take the time to respond to such questionnaires are those who feel most strongly about the subject and thus a larger proportion may have experienced harassment.

“The results of this survey are painful,” said Abby Leibman, managing director of the California Women’s Law Center.

The survey defined sexual harassment as sexual teasing, language or remarks, suggestive gesturing, whistling or ogling, pressure for sex or dates, unwanted physical contact, attempted or actual rape or threats of bodily harm.

About 28% of the women said they had been teased or were the subjects of sexual remarks, according to the survey. More than 90 of the 4,800 respondents said they had been touched on “sexual areas” of their bodies; 16 said they were raped, were the victims of attempted rape or were threatened with bodily harm.

While 65% of those who protested the misconduct felt their complaints were handled fairly, others found their efforts self-punishing. Sixteen percent reported that their co-workers or supervisors became “unfriendly.” Others were labeled as “troublemakers.” Eleven percent reported “health problems.” Five percent transferred out of their departments and 4% felt that their job evaluations suffered.

Nine percent of those responding, or 380 women, said they had made informal complaints, most often to supervisors. However, only half of those reported that their supervisors had taken action. Some supervisors told the women to put up with the harasser because “that’s just the way he is.” Nine percent of the women said their supervisors were their harassers.

Just 96 women reported filing formal complaints to department heads or agencies set up to handle such problems. In most cases, women reported that nothing had happened because there were no witnesses. Many said no one told them what had come of their complaint.