Gender Harassment: Broadening Our Understanding of Sex-Based Harassment at Work

This study challenges the common legal and organizational practice of privileging sexual advance forms of sex-based harassment, while neglecting gender harassment. Survey data came from women working in two male-dominated contexts: the military and the legal profession. Their responses to the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) revealed five typical profiles of harassment: low victimization, gender harassment, gender harassment with unwanted sexual attention, moderate victimization, and high victimization. The vast majority of harassment victims fell into one of the first two groups, which described virtually no unwanted sexual advances. When compared to non-victims, gender-harassed women showed significant decrements in professional and psychological well-being. These findings underscore the seriousness of gender harassment, which merits greater attention by both law and social science.     

Changing Perceptions of Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workforce, 1987–94

Recent criticisms of sexual harassment law and workplace training policies contend that they have "sanitized" the workplace through their stigmatization of sexual expression that does not amount to actual discrimination. This study assesses some of the empirical foundations for those normative arguments. Using data from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board's 1987 and 1994 surveys, we examine differences over time in federal workers' perceptions of what types of behavior constitute sexual harassment. The article draws on a sociolegal theory of the endogenous nature of law as well as research on perceptions of sexual harassment. We hypothesize that, because of increased attention to sexual harassment, and to the hostile environment theory specifically, by scholars, judges, and the news media, and related policy changes in workplace training programs, federal workers likely came to view a wider range of sexual conduct as constituting harassment during this time period. The results support our expectations. We also find that sexual harassment training in their agency increased workers' likelihood of viewing both hostile environment behavior and quid pro quo behavior as harassment.     

职场性骚扰与女性劳动者权益的法律保障

近年来,职场性骚扰日益成为一个严重的社会问题,不仅直接损害了女性的身心健康,而且从根本上威胁到了女性劳动者的人权.职场性骚扰是两性不平等的产物,它的存在反过来又强化了这种不平等.我国目前在处理职场性骚扰案件方面还存在诸多不足,应该以明确性骚扰概念为起点,建立完善的性骚扰处理机制,以有效应对职场性骚扰的不良影响,确实保护女性劳动者权益.     

The Paradox of Complaining: Law, Humor, and Harassment in the Everyday Work World

This article addresses the question of women's seeming rejection of sexual harassment law by refusing to apply the label "sexual harassment" in the face of incidents that would easily qualify as such. Building on the work of Bumiller (1988) and the tradition of sociolegal studies focusing on understanding the power of the law in its everyday context (e.g., Merry 1979; Engel 1987; Sarat and Kearns 1993), this analysis explores the "tactical milieu" in which both hostile work environment sexual harassment and tactics for its resistance are produced. Using in-depth interviews with both women and men, the author explores the ways a particular form of hostile work environment harassment–dubbed "chain yanking"–poaches on the realm of ambiguous humor to effect male group solidarity and women's disempowerment. A common countertactic–"not taking it personal"– is analyzed for its simultaneous power as resistance and unwitting collaboration. The contradictory effects of this tactic-countertactic pairing on the naming and claiming of the harm of sexual harassment are examined, as well as the implications this has for combating sexual harassment in the workplace.     

“He said,she said”: Sexual harassment in the fractured criminal justice work place

This article addresses the critical problem of sexual harassment in criminal justice agencies. The authors assess empirically the incidents of sexual harassment in criminal justice organizations, and discuss why sexual harassment is more prevalent in criminal justice agencies than in other public agencies.     

性骚扰防治对策探析

性骚扰危害受害人的身心健康，影响婚姻关系的建立与稳定，影响职业发展、造成经济损失，扰乱社会秩序。我国现行法律在不同的立法层面上明确了反对性骚扰的法律原则，妇女权益保障法又将性骚扰纳入了法律范畴，但没有关于性骚扰的专门立法；现行法律规定过于原则、笼统、空泛，缺乏可操作性；法律规定不周全、不延续。应加强立法，填补法律空白，并在刑法典中增设“性骚扰罪”的有关规定；建立起性骚扰的社会预防和防治机制。     

Consequences of sexual harassment in sport for female athletes

Abstract

Sexual harassment research was first undertaken in the workplace and educational settings. Research on sexual harassment in sport is scarce but has grown steadily since the mid-1980s. Even so, very little is known about the causes and/or characteristics and/or consequences of sexual harassment in sport settings. This article reports on the findings from interviews with 25 elite female athletes in Norway who indicated in a prior survey (n = 572) that they had experienced sexual harassment from someone in sport. The consequences of the incidents of sexual harassment that were reported were mostly negative, but some also reported that their experiences of sexual harassment had had no consequences for them. ‘Thinking about the incidents’, a ‘destroyed relationship with the coach’, and ‘a more negative view of men in general’ were the most often negative consequences mentioned. In addition, a surprising number had chosen to move to a different sport or to drop out of elite sport altogether because of the harassment.     

Injustice Frames, Legality, and the Everyday Construction of Sexual Harassment

This paper examines the frames that women use to understand their experience with sexual harassment. While legal frames do provide crucial guidance to women evaluating the behavior of their colleagues and supervisors, working women deployed a number of other interpretive frames when deciding whether they had been harmed by such behavior. Some of those frames emerge from feminist messages about discrimination and male abuse of power in the workplace; some emerge from management ideology that emphasizes efficiency and productivity; and some emerge from the criticism of sexual harassment policies as an unnecessary limitation on women's sexual freedom. But feeling a sense of harm does not automatically translate into the use of the label sexual harassment . Rather, women also employed an objective standard that compared their experience to some threshold of harassing behaviors. Only when the behaviors met this standard of offensiveness and were perceived as harmful did women consider their experiences sexual harassment.     

Graduate students' perceptions of contrapower sexual harassment

This study compared the perceptions of 172 graduate students to traditional versus contrapower sexual harassment. Graduate students are a unique sample due to their dual role as a student and a teacher. After controlling for attitudes toward feminism and sexual harassment, participants viewed contrapower sexual harassment as less indicative of sexual harassment than traditional sexual harassment. Those with teaching experience perceived the scenarios provided as more indicative of sexual harassment than participants without teaching experience, and this effect was magnified for males. These findings suggest that people take sexual harassment less seriously in contrapower sexual harassment than in traditional sexual harassment. Furthermore, it is possible that teaching experience makes graduate students more aware of the complicated power differentials involved in classroom settings.     

Europeanization or National Specificity? Legal Approaches to Sexual Harassment in France, 2002–2012

This paper examines whether—and if so how—a 2002 European Directive on sexual harassment has changed the practice and content of sexual harassment law in France. It finds that the European Directive shaped how French courts address sexual harassment and informed the content of a new sexual harassment law France passed in 2012. Yet, its influence has been mediated by dominant national attitudes about: (1) the nature of sexual harassment, (2) which legal institutions are best suited to address it, and (3) the character of women who claim to have been harassed. This paper further suggests that news reporting on a 2011 arrest of a French politician for sexual assault led to more positive attitudes about sexual harassment victims.     

Sexual Harassment Litigation: a Road to Re-victimization or Recovery?

Various aspects of the judicial process have been hypothesized as damaging to sexual harassment plaintiffs, though limited research has been conducted that actually examines this hypothesis. We examined data from a large sample of women who participated in a class action lawsuit alleging workplace sexual harassment and discrimination (n?=?1218) and another sample of similarly situated women who opted out of litigation (n?=?465, non-litigants). We then followed the litigants for 5 years. This study takes an initial look at some of the variables theorized to play a role in the psychological outcomes of both harassment and subsequent litigation. Both the severity of harassment and participation/persistence in the litigation process were related to psychological outcomes at each of three assessments across a 5-year period; the frequency and severity of harassment, as well as plaintiffs’ cognitive appraisals of their situation, appeared to have the strongest relationship to psychological harm. Results of multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed that participation and persistence in litigation played a consistent role in psychological outcomes across time, over and above the impact of harassment itself. However, litigation did not appear to be the cause of psychological outcomes as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology, in particular, was the result of the original harassment experience.     

"People Are Too Quick to Take Offense": The Effects of Legal Information and Beliefs on Definitions of Sexual Harassment

Using data from a nationwide study of sexual harassment in the United States' federal workplace, this article investigates how legal understanding, opinions about the regulation of sexual harassment, and social status affect whether people define uninvited sexual jokes or remarks as harassment. The results indicate that how people define sexual harassment is directly related to the extent to which they view sexual harassment rules as ambiguous and threatening to workplace norms. Moreover, results show that while women generally define sexual harassment more broadly than men, they actually resist defining sexual jokes or remarks as harassment. Finally, knowledge of the workplace sexual harassment policy moderates the effect of beliefs on definitions of sexual harassment. These findings suggest a complexity in the way people reconcile their knowledge of the law with their personal views about power and social interaction in the workplace.     

美国性骚扰法律制度及其借鉴意义

性骚扰是不受欢迎的带有性色彩的言行,是一种非法的性歧视。依美国判例,性骚扰不必源于性的目的,其内容不必是直接的表示;同时,性骚扰行为者在主观上应当是有过错的,受害者在主观上须为不欢迎骚扰行为。构成可诉的性骚扰行为其损害后果须达到严重的程度。依美国最新判例,同性之间也可以构成性骚扰;雇主对员工中的上级职员的性骚扰行为承担民事责任。美国的性骚扰法律制度对我国的立法具有一定的借鉴意义,如公法上的规定并不排除私法的适用,性骚扰的含义应当包含性别歧视,雇主责任应当在立法上得以确立,立法者应当在道德规范和法律规范中寻找平衡点。     

美国工作场所性骚扰雇主民事责任之研究

工作场所性骚扰在美国被认为是性别歧视行为和对妇女平等工作、就业权的侵害行为,包括交换利益性骚扰和敌意工作环境性骚扰两种形式。对于交换利益性骚扰,雇主应承担严格责任;对于敌意工作环境性骚扰,应根据性骚扰者属管理者或职员的不同身份,适用不同的归责原则,但雇主得以自己无过错而提出抗辩。美国联邦法院通过合理的证据规则、专家证人制度以及惩罚性赔偿制度的运用,更有利于对受害人的保护。     

The development and psychometric assessment of the adolescent sexual coercion risk scale

The objective of this study was to develop a psychometric measure of risk for sexual victimization from adolescent peers. Items were generated on the basis of the literature and on consultations with a multidisciplinary group of key informants. The items were administered to a sample of 327 female Grade-9 students and examined using exploratory factor analysis. The Adolescent Sexual Coercion Risk Scale items formed two lower-order factors composed of items regarding signaling sexual boundaries and displaying risk behaviors, respectively. Subsequent confirmatory factor analysis supported the two factors, and preliminary psychometric analyses demonstrated that the factors have satisfactory internal consistency. In addition, low scores on the ability to signal sexual boundaries and high scores on risk behaviors were associated with self-reported peer sexual victimization, supporting the validity of the factors as measures of risk. Future validation and potential usage of the measure are discussed.     

Exploring sexual harassment and related attitudes in Beninese high schools: a field study

Sexual harassment severely impacts the educational system in the West African country Benin and the progress of women in this society that is characterized by great gender inequality. Knowledge of the belief systems rooting in the sociocultural context is crucial to the understanding of sexual harassment. However, no study has yet investigated how sexual harassment is related to fundamental beliefs in Benin or West African countries. We conducted a field study on 265 female and male students from several high schools in Benin to investigate the link between sexual harassment and measures of ambivalent sexism, gender identity, and rape myth acceptance. Almost half of the sample reported having experienced sexual harassment personally or among peers. Levels of sexism and rape myth acceptance were very high compared to other studies. These attitudes appeared to converge in a sexist belief system that was linked to personal experiences, the perceived probability of experiencing and fear of sexual harassment. Results suggest that sexual harassment is a societal problem and that interventions need to address fundamental attitudes held in societies low in gender equality.     

The impact of increasing vs. decreasing harassing behaviours on perceptions of hypothetical instances of repeated sexual harassment

ABSTRACT

Sexual harassment is a traditionally underreported crime. One factor that might affect perceptions and willingness to report harassment is its occurrence over time: harassing behaviours that gradually increase or decrease in severity over time might impact its perception. In the present research, 177 female participants read a series of daily scenarios about increasing, decreasing, or steady harassment, and completed measures regarding their perceptions of and willingness to report it. Participants displayed increases and decreases in negative reactions as harassment increased and decreased, respectively, suggesting that each instance of sexual harassment is interpreted independently of earlier harassing behaviours, and that early, strongly harassing behaviours have little impact on how subsequent instances of harassment are perceived. This explanation is supported by the similar ratings in the midpoint (day 4) of the scenario series, regardless of whether harassment was increasing or decreasing.     

性骚扰的民事责任初探

性骚扰的民事责任在中国属于新兴的研究课题。本文试图根据比较方法对性骚扰概念与性骚扰立法所保护的对象作出必要的法律界定 ;同时侧重讨论了证明性骚扰案件的证据问题和构成性骚扰的民事赔偿问题。     

Sexual harassment in higher education: a victim's remedies and a private university's liability

Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem in education. With victims of harassment pursuing administrative and judicial redress, an awareness of and a program for response to the sexual harassment issue are good risk management strategies for a private university and its staff, employees, and students. This article examines, first, the two types of sexual harassment recognized by law; second, the situations in which harassment in the educational context may occur; and, third, avenues of recourse for the victim of sexual harassment and the responsibility and liability of the private university when the harassment is reported or discovered. It is designed to inform and educate the faculty and administrators of private universities about the legal implications of their response to notice of sexual harassment.     

Resisting the Enforcement of Sexual Harassment Law

Most people in the United States believe that sexual harassment should be illegal and that enforcement is necessary. In spite of such widespread support for antiharassment regulations, sexual harassment policy training provokes backlash and has been shown to activate traditional gender stereotypes. Using in‐depth interviews and participant observations of sexual harassment policy training sessions, this study uncovers the micro‐level mechanisms that underlie ambivalence about the enforcement of sexual harassment law. I find that while the different locations of men and women in the status hierarchy lead to different manifestations of resistance, gender stereotypes are used to buttress perceptions that sexual harassment laws threaten norms of interaction and status positions that men and women have an interest in maintaining. The research has implications for understanding the role of law in social change, legal compliance, and the potential/limits of law for reducing inequality.