Abstract
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) maintains a very masculine culture and has frequented the news headlines as accounts of sexual harassment and misconduct come to light. Sexist attitudes are apparent at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC). Although research has examined the correlates of sexual harassment myths regarding women to identify the most efficacious variables to target for training purposes, it has not yet been examined whether those correlates differ for men and women in a stereotypical masculine environment such as the military. Women form an integral part of addressing harassment and changing the military culture. Given the unique masculine culture of the CAF, this study aimed to examine which factors best explain variance in sexual harassment myths regarding women. A survey was administered to a sample of officer cadets at RMC (n = 80 men and n = 61 women) to examine whether ambivalent sexism and engagement in feminist activism contributed unique variance in sexual harassment myths in self-identified men and women cadets. Results revealed that, as hypothesized, hostile sexism explained unique variance in harassment myths regarding women in the sample of men, while for women, benevolent sexism explained unique variance in the same variable. For women, engaging in feminist activities was also found to explain unique variance in sexual harassment myths. Our findings suggest that differential links between attitudinal and behavioral indices and sexual harassment myths in officer cadets of both genders may suggest different approaches to dealing with sexual harassment myths.
Published Version
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