セクハラ
Sekuhara
せくはら
Sekuhara is the Japanese abbreviation of 'sexual harassment.' It won Japan's buzzword-of-the-year award in 1989 and single-handedly introduced the concept of harassment into mainstream Japanese vocabulary. It covers inappropriate sexual remarks, unwanted physical contact, and comments about appearance in the workplace. The word spawned an entire family of harassment terms in Japanese: pawahara (power harassment), morahara (moral harassment), matahara (maternity harassment), and many more.
Examples
部長、それセクハラですよ。
Boss, that's sexual harassment.
Calling out a superior's inappropriate behavior
昔の職場はセクハラが当たり前だったって聞く
I heard sexual harassment was just normal at old-school workplaces.
Talking about generational differences
セクハラ研修って毎年あるけど意味あるのかな
We have sekuhara training every year, but does it actually help?
何がセクハラになるか分からない時代
We live in an era where you don't even know what counts as sekuhara anymore.