Hegemonic Masculinity and Male Feminisation: The sexual harassment of men at work

Abstract

Feminists have researched women's experiences of sexual harassment for over 20 years, yet men's experiences of sexual harassment still remain rarely acknowledged and even less frequently studied. This article seeks, therefore, to stimulate feminist interest in men's experiences of sexual harassment. I offer an exploratory analysis of the dynamics of heterosexual men's experiences of workplace sexual harassment perpetrated by heterosexual men or women. Close textual discussion of two qualitative, in-depth interviews reveals that sexual allegations (e.g. rape, incest and poor sexual performance) have a distinctive place in heterosexual men's experiences of workplace sexual harassment. As such, my argument is that men's experiences of workplace sexual harassment are underpinned by a restrictive discourse of 'acceptable' masculinity which constructs certain individuals as less than the ideal of masculinity when they do not behave in particular ways. When men are defined in this fashion, they are in fact being perceived as 'women'. The workplace sexual harassment of men in the form of verbal sexual allegations feminises those men who find such allegations distressing.