Targets Of Harassment Research Articles

Blaming the Target of Sexual Harassment: Impact of Gender Role, Sexist Attitudes, and Work Role

This study was conducted to examine factors associated with blaming the target of sexual harassment. Participants' experiences of sexual harassment, sexist attitudes, gender, gender role identity, age, worker or student status, and belief in a just world were included as independent variables. Level of blame was evaluated using a series of 12 vignettes that manipulated the gender of the target and harasser as well as the seriousness of the harassing behavior. The sample comprised 30 female and 32 male workers from two workplaces, whose ages ranged from 18 to 65 (M = 35) years, and 102 female and 18 male university students whose ages ranged from 17 to 40 (M = 21) years. Approximately 70% of the sample were from Anglo Australian background, and 30% from European, Middle Eastern or Asian background. Females experienced more sexual harassment than males did, although the male rate was higher than expected. Although the majority of subjects attributed little blame to the target, males blamed the target of sexual harassment more than females did, and workers blamed the target of harassment more than university students did. Worker status, sexist attitudes, and gender significantly predicted blame for the total sample. Gender-typing increased the blame of the target by males but not by females. Attribution of blame was significantly influenced by worker versus student status, which supports the social psychological perspective that gender-related behavior is context dependent. The findings from this study suggest that organisational culture and environment influence respondents' attitudes to sexually harassing behavior.

Gender Atypical Youth: Clinical and Social Issues

School psychologists must often address the challenges presented by gender atypical youth; for example, girls who are referred to by their peers as “tomboys” and boys who are referred to by their peers as “sissified.” Such children often are the targets of harassment and abuse from peers, as well as being the focus of concern for parents and school personnel. This article summarizes the theoretical and treatment literature in this area, which has historically pathologized the gender-nonconforming child and based treatment upon adaptation to social norms. A social constructionist perspective is provided as a lens through which the school psychologist may view the gender-nonconforming child in an effort to de-pathologize some aspects of gender atypicality and avoid the automatic confabulation of gender behavior and sexual orientation. Suggestions for interventions with a spectrum of gender-nonconforming children as well as with family and/or school systems are offered.

DOING POWER

Contrapower sexual harassment occurs when the target of harassment possesses greater formal organizational power than the perpetrator. Traditional conceptualizations of power underlying sexual harassment have either focused on location within organizational hierarchies or sociocultural status differences between men and women. We suggest the utility of simultaneously considering the influence of gender, race, and class on power dynamics at organizational, sociocultural, and interpersonal or individual levels. Using qualitative data obtained from 8 focus groups, 20 interviews, and 1 in-depth case study, we examine how gender, race, and class influence varied sources of power available to perpetrators and targets in workplace contrapower situations. We argue that the exploration of the dynamics involved in contrapower sexual harassment can illuminate broader processes of doing gender and power in the workplace.

Ambient Sexual Harassment: An Integrated Model of Antecedents and Consequences

Research on sexual harassment as a prevalent job stressor has focused primarily on outcomes for the direct targets of harassment; the antecedents and consequences ofindirectexposure to sexual harassment have not been explored. Ambient Sexual Harassment is proposed as an assessment of indirect exposure to sexual harassment. Ambient Sexual Harassment is defined as the general or ambient level of sexual harassment in a work group as measured by the frequency of sexually harassing behaviors experienced by others in a woman's work group. The integration of Ambient Sexual Harassment into the model of sexual harassment developed by Fitzgerald, Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, and Magley (1997) proposes that indirect exposure to sexual harassment will have similar antecedents and job-related, psychological, and health outcomes as direct exposure. An empirical test of the model, using samples of female employees from a public utility company (N= 455) and a food processing plant (N= 194), generally supports predictions.

Right on your side.

If you are the target of harassment or bullying, what can you do about it? Charis cox explains what remedies you might consider and employers' responsibilities

Women's Responses to Sexual Harassment: A Multivariate Analysis

The response patterns of women who had experienced sexual harassment were analyzed. The harassment targets were part of a large, representative sample of Canadian women (n = 1,990) who were interviewed about their experiences with public or workplace harassment. Descriptive analyses revealed that women generally gave fairly nonassertive responses to harassment particularly when (a) the harassment was not severe, (b) the source was not a supervisor or employer, (c) there were few workplace policies or procedures on sexual harassment, (d) their occupational group consisted mostly of other women, or (e) they did not believe that sexual harassment was a power issue, Multivariate analyses revealed that harassment severity, source of harassment, and being in an occupation in which women were a threatening minority were the strongest predictors of response assertiveness. Also, harassment severity and source of harassment were the strongest predictors of women who quit their jobs due to harassment. The nonasserti...

Sexual harassment: Rights and responsibilities

This article briefly reviews the development of a philosophy about sexual harassment at work and legal protection for victims of harassment. It then focuses on the rights and responsibilities of three groups affected by sexual harassment: the target of harassment, the alleged harasser, and the employing organization. A discussion follows regarding the current status of the rights and responsibilities of the relevant parties as well as opportunities for abuse of rights and abnegation of responsibilities.

Paradigmatic Assumptions in Sexual Harassment Research: Being Guided without Being Misled

Sexual harassment research has been conducted within paradigmatic assumptions regarding gender-related violence and harmdoing. These assumptions are outlined briefly and ways that they have misled as well as guided sexual harassment research are discussed. Several explanations are presented for findings from a university sexual harassment survey that question the widely held view that women are the primary targets of harassment. These accounts do little to resolve the apparent contradiction, but they do raise a number of conceptual and methodological issues for harassment research. These issues are discussed, leading to an examination of some unresolved issues in harassment research and presentation of some alternative views of sexual harassment.

A descriptive study of behavioral responses of sexual harassment targets: Implications for control theory

The problem of sexual harassment in the workplace can be viewed within the framework of personal control. In particular, sexual harassment can be viewed as an infringement upon employees' rights to control the conditions under which they work. Targets of harassment must tolerate sexual harassment to avoid negative consequences such as termination, demotion, distasteful remarks or jokes, and so forth. Previous research (Wortman & Brehm, 1975; Greenberger & Strasser, 1986) into personal control has drawn upon two theories—reactance theory and learned helplessness theory—to explain behavioral responses to infringement upon personal control. The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of personal control theories in explaining responses of targets who file discrimination suits.

College Students' Judgments of Verbal Sexual Harassment1

Most studies of sexual harassment focus on physical coercion or pressure for sexual favors. This research attempts to outline the factors involved in verbal sexual harassment, which is conceived of as a speech act similar to taboo language, with conversational “rules” and semantic categories that differentiate it from merely inappropriate language. One hundred thirty‐seven college students rated 37 sexual remarks for degrees of sexual harassment and inappropriateness. Total harassment scores correlated with total appropriateness scores at r = .68; although harassment ratings were high, remarks were judged more inappropriate than harassing. Five harassment factors and six appropriateness factors emerged. Women rated harassment factors of euphemisms and obscenity as significantly more harassing, and appropriateness factors of objectification, belittling competency, and name calling as more inappropriate. We conclude that men, who are less likely to be targets of harassment, are more used to taboo language and “naming” games, and are reluctant to admit to harassment, even when remarks are deemed inappropriate. Practical implications for defining verbal sexual harassment are discussed.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Control Theory Implications.

This paper investigates a model of personal control proposed by both Wortman and Brehm (1975) and Greenberger and Strasser (1986) as an explanatory model of sexual harassment targets' behavior. Title VII sexual harassment cases are reviewed to test the efficacy of this model in explaining sexual harassment targets' behavior.

Blue-Collar Blues

Harassment frequency, severity, response, and effect were analyzed for a sample of 138 women who work mostly in unskilled jobs in the auto industry. It was hypothesized that these would be related to several social and work-related characteristics: specifically low social of work status, or low numerical representation in a work area. Our analysis found that blacks, unmarried, or young (under 25) women, or those with low job status, or who worked in an area where women were a sizable minority were more likely to be the targets of frequent harassment. Black women, or those who were a sizable minority in a work area, were also likely to be severely harassed. Harassment response, however, was not related to either social or work-related characteristics. In other words, women who are the targets of harassment do not respond differently than women who are less frequently or severely harassed. Several consequences of sexual harassment were found. Feelings toward coworkers and supervisors were adversely affected by harassment; overall job satisfaction, feelings of job competence, and work mobility aspirations were not influenced. Finally, there was some evidence that harassment generalized beyond the workplace: Harassed women reported lower self-esteem and experienced less global life satisfaction.

Aiding Soviet scientists

For several years, U.S. scientists have watched with growing concern the difficulties experienced by a number of their colleagues in the Soviet Union. As outlined in an article on page 18, there are two groups involved—those active in the human rights movement and Jewish scientists who have applied to emigrate. Soviet scientists have led the struggle for reform and the rule of law in the U.S.S.R. Among this distinguished but diminishing band have been physicist Andrei Sakharov (still active but repeatedly the target of harassment, and organized attacks by press and fellow scientists), physicist Valery Chalidze and biochemist Zhores Medvedev (both now exiled), biologist Sergei Kovalev (now in prison), and physicist Andrei Tverdokhlebov (expected to go on trial this month). And scientists have been prominent leaders of the Jewish refuseniks—those refused exit visas. Official statements outlining Soviet policy and actions conflict rather markedly, to say the least, with the reality described by emigrants, ...