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Nearly 1 In 4 Men Think Expecting Sex From An Employee Is Totally OK

And we thought the gender pay gap was bad...

A new poll, commissioned by the humanitarian organisation CARE and conducted by Harris Poll, has found that almost a quarter of men (thatโ€™s 23%) believe itโ€™s perfectly fine to ask or expect their employee to have sex with them. Sorry, what?!

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The concerning stats come from a survey of 9,408 adults from across eight different countries worldwide, including the UK and the US.

Egypt topped the list where 62% of men surveyed thought it was totally OK for employers to expect โ€˜intimate interactionsโ€™ from their employees.

โ€˜Being expected to have sex with your employer โ€” thatโ€™s not a job description, itโ€™s sexual abuse,โ€™ said Michelle Nunn, CAREโ€™s president and CEO.

โ€˜And it speaks to the global epidemic of harassment and abuse in our workplaces.โ€™ 

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Other responses from participants showed that there is still a stark gulf between what men and women consider as acceptable behaviour in the office.

According to the poll, 44% of US men aged 18-34 think itโ€™s sometimes or always OK to tell a sexy joke at work, compared to only 22% of women in the same age group.

Another WTF statistic included 21% of 18 to 24-year-old Ecuadorians surveyed think it reasonable to smooch a colleague at the office party without their permission.

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And the Brits arenโ€™t exempt from creeping behaviour by the water cooler either because apparently 35% of 25- 34-year-olds consider it acceptable to pinch a colleagueโ€™s bum as a joke. Hmmmm.

This survey stands as another depressing reminder that a world free from sexual harassment has still yet to be achieved and the battle for womenโ€™s equality continues.

โ€˜We still have such a long way to go in stamping out sexual harassment and abuse globally,โ€™ Nunn said, โ€˜whether itโ€™s inside office buildings in the U.S., factories in India or the often-overlooked workplaces of housekeepers and caretakers in Latin America.โ€™

This article originally appeared on marie claire UK

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