Attitudes Toward Sexual Harassment Victims in the Workplace by Gender
Sexual harassment in the workplace is a consistent problem in the United States across a variety of employment sectors. Sexual harassment in the workplace is generally considered unacceptable by most people, but how victims and their experiences are perceived varies. This study assessed the effects of victim gender, offender gender, and type of sexual harassment on victims' attitudes, perceptions of victim behavior, and beliefs about the impact on victims. The results revealed that male victims of sexual harassment in the workplace were perceived less favorably than female victims and were perceived to be less victimized than female victims. Implications and recommendations for workplace policies and practices are discussed.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crbeha.2020.100006
Commentary
Participants for this study were recruited via Amazon®MechanicalTurk, with 837 validated surveys from a total of 967 surveys over the age of 18.
Results suggest that men who experience sexual harassment in the workplace may be at a disadvantage compared to women who are harassed in the workplace, and that male victims are viewed less favorably than female victims, suffer less, and are believed to recover from harassment faster than women. The time required to recover from a victimization was also higher for women. Therefore, it is predicted that men will be viewed negatively and less favorably when they report sexual harassment at work.
However, there are some limitations to this study that should be noted.
・Respondents had to be at least 18 years old and had work experience.
・Vignettes were used as the survey instrument.
・Most of the study sample consisted of college-educated Caucasian women who were employed full-time.
・The small effect size associated with the analysis must be considered.
