SelfhelpMagazine

by Maria Rotundo, Ph.D., Dung-Hanh Nguyen & Paul R. Sackett, Ph.D.

A super-analysis of 62 studies that looked at how men and women define sexual harassment. Reserachers involved in this large undertaking found little difference in what is condered "serious" harassment, but did find gender-based disagreement about the more subtle forms of harassing behavior.

These findings call into question the "reasonable woman" standard still used by some courts to decide harassment cases, especially in cases involving the less obvious forms of harassment.

"Men and women agree that sexual coercion and sexual propositions constitute sexual harassment," say the authors. "However, they do not necessarily agree that sex-stereotyped jokes or repeated requests for dates after refusal.

Therefore, a woman may perceive that sexual harassment has occurred after a number of the latter types of social-sexual behaviors have taken place, whereas a man may be less inclined to do so." For example, men may interpret repeated requests for dates as flattery, whereas women may perceive it as something that may escalate to harassment.

Another factor found to reduce the size of gender differences is the status of the harasser. Men and women demonstrated greater agreement as to whether behaviors constitute sexual harassment when the harasser is in a position of higher authority than the harassee.

However, when the harasser was a peer, coworker or fellow student, men and women disagreed more often on what constituted actual harassment.

Reference:"A Meta-Analytic Review of Gender Differences in Perceptions of Sexual Harassment," Maria Rotundo, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus, Dung-Hanh Nguyen, California State University, Long Beach & Paul R. Sackett, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus; Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86, No. 5.

This information received from the American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC.