Workplace harassment and the victimization of women

Abstract

This paper studies the interconnections of victimizations of women by comparing sexual harassment in the workplace with harassments in other settings, that is, in school, in civic work, and in public places. The frequency and serverity of the harassment, the relationship of the woman to her harasser, and characteristics of the women who were harassed, are compared for the different settings for a random regional sample of U.S. women. It is found that harassment is more frequent in the workplace setting, but in general, the harassments are similar enough across settings to conclude that harassment stems more from the confluence of sex and power which characterizes “normal” male-female relationships in U.S. society, than from specific workplace power differentials. The implications for remedying workplace harassment and other victimizations of women are discussed.