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Sexual Harassment at Work

You are dealing with unwanted sexual comments, touching, or pressure at work, or you were punished after saying no. It can feel confusing, isolating, and unfair, especially when you need your job. There is a real, ordered set of options you can follow to understand your rights and decide what to do next.

The honest reality

Not every awkward comment or bad interaction is a legal claim. The law generally requires that the conduct be unwelcome, based on your sex, and either severe enough to create a hostile work environment or tied to a tangible job action like firing or demotion. If the behavior was a one-time minor remark or a personal dispute not related to sex, it may not meet the legal standard even though it felt wrong.

Your real options, cheapest first

  1. 1. Free: complain to the EEOC. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination and is enforced here, including when it comes from a supervisor, coworker, or even a customer your employer failed to address. Start here.
  2. 2. Free: complain to your state's fair employment practices agency (find yours on the EEOC's state and local programs page). Many states offer a parallel or faster process; a charge is often automatically shared between the two. Start here.
  3. 3. A written request or demand first. Report it to HR or a manager in writing if you haven't already, employers generally have to act once they know, and a written report creates a record that a verbal one doesn't.
  4. 4. Small claims court, where the amount is calculable. Harassment claims require proving a pattern or a specific incident's severity, which is outside what small claims court is built to handle.
  5. 5. A lawsuit or full agency case. A federal law passed in 2022 lets you void a mandatory arbitration clause specifically for sexual harassment or sexual assault claims, meaning you can generally choose court instead; an employment lawyer can walk you through exercising that.

A warning on deadlines: every agency in the options above runs on its own filing deadline, and those deadlines are short and vary by agency, by claim, and by state. Do not estimate one from anything you read here, go to the agency's own page linked above and check its current deadline immediately, before you do anything else.

You don't need a lawyer to start

You are allowed to do this yourself

A regulator complaint, and for pay disputes small claims court, are both built for people without lawyers. Read our pro se guide for how self-representation actually works, our what happened at work triage tool if you are not even sure what category this falls into, and if a lawyer's cost is the blocker at any stage, our can't-afford-a-lawyer triage covers every free and low-cost path, including legal aid.

Questions

What exactly counts as sexual harassment under the law?

Sexual harassment includes unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. It is illegal when submitting to or rejecting that conduct affects your employment, unreasonably interferes with your work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.

Do I have to report the harassment to my employer before I can take legal action?

In many situations, yes. The law often requires you to give your employer a chance to fix the problem by using their internal complaint process. If you do not report it and the employer takes prompt corrective action, you may lose the ability to hold them responsible later.

Can my employer retaliate against me for complaining about sexual harassment?

Retaliation is illegal. Your employer cannot fire, demote, threaten, or treat you worse because you reported harassment, participated in an investigation, or opposed conduct you reasonably believed was unlawful. If retaliation happens, you may have a separate legal claim in addition to the original harassment.

Not legal advice and not a law firm. We don't predict outcomes, and deadlines and dollar thresholds vary by state and by claim, check your state's page before you rely on any number. If you can get a lawyer or free legal aid, do: start at lsc.gov.