Sociological Perspectives on Sexual Harassment and Workplace Dispute Resolution

Lach, Denise; Gwartney-Gibbs, Patricia A.

doi:10.1006/jvbe.1993.1007

Cited by 40 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…Educated or liberal women exposed to increasingly globalized media products are more likely to have internalized contemporary "Western" sexual and gender narratives, and therefore "Western" notions of propriety. Past literature also suggests that reporting tendencies are particularly evident among more educated (Lach & Gwartney-Gibbs, 1993) or liberal (defined as sensitive to sexism) women (Vaux, 1993). While our results may partially reflect heightened sensitivity, we suggest there is more to the story.…”

Section: Mechanismscontrasting

confidence: 64%

Sexual Harassment of Women in Urban China

2006

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Using data from the Chinese Health and Family Life survey, this study analyzed the prevalence of and risk factors for sexual harassment in China in the year 2000. It was the first study to use a general population sample to examine all types of harassment in an Asian country. The dataset was a stratified probability sample with 3,821 participants, and was nationally representative (apart from Hong Kong and Tibet) of China's adult population aged 20-64. In total, 12.5% of all women and 15.1% of urban women reported some form of harassment in the past year. Among urban women age 20-45, most cross-sex harassment was not from supervisors or superiors (1.4%) but from coworkers and other peers (7.0%), strangers (4.6%), dates and boyfriends (3.6%), and others (2.6%). Multivariate analysis of risk factors for cross-sex harassment suggested that, despite its predominance in the Western literature on sexual harassment, the power differentials approach, focusing on male-female power differentials in patriarchal societies, was of modest utility. The results were more consistent with a more comprehensive routine activities approach borrowed from criminology, which emphasizes situational opportunity, perceived benefit to the harasser, and reduced costs for the harasser. The most striking result from the data represents the area receiving the least attention in the West, namely, the perpetrator's perception of "benefit," deriving from the victim's inadvertent "signaling."

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Section: Mechanismscontrasting

confidence: 64%

Sexual Harassment of Women in Urban China

2006

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“…The objective of this research is to discuss why victims of unwanted sexual behavior are reluctant to use the internal grievance process to address these discriminatory behaviors. I extend beyond the more often studied circumstances of the incident, such as the seriousness of the behavior experienced, and demographic and personal makeup of the victim, such as age and tenure in the organization, to the less studied organizational context [28]. Organizational conditions in which a victim finds herself may influence victim response to harassment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Reporting Sexual Harassment: The Importance of Organizational Culture and Trust

Vijayasiri

2008

Gend. Issues

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Few victims of sexual harassment at work file complaints. The current study looks at ways in which the organizational climate, including trust in the system and fear of reprisal, impacts victim decisions to file complaints. A military sample offers the advantage of a work context with formalized reporting processes and a highly segregated and gendered work environment. The findings indicate that fear of coworker backlash keeps victims from seeking organizational relief. Such non-formal consequences of reporting should be addressed in future workplace sexual harassment policies. The findings also suggest that widespread mishandling of complaints erodes trust in the grievance process, which may in turn influence future responses to sexual harassment. The discussion highlights the limitations of current cross-sectional research designs for identifying the causal order of this trust-filing relationship and suggests ways in which future quantitative studies may be designed to gain a broader understanding of the dynamic relationship between organizational context and victim response.

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“…Because both current and past behaviors are commonly reviewed as part of the arbitration process, published decisions can provide a longitudinal perspective that is rarely found in sexual harassment research. Furthermore, the use of arbitration cases from largely unionized locations addresses the need to include blue-collar workers in studies of sexual harassment (e.g., Fitzgerald & Shullman, 1993;Lach & Gwartney-Gibbs, 1993;Sbraga & O'Donohue, 2000). Published arbitration decisions have been used as a data source for research purposes in other studies of aggressive workplace behaviors including verbal or physical assaults on supervisors (Allen & Lucero, 1996;Jennings, 1974), employees fighting (Adams, Davis, & Jennings, 1988), and sexual harassment .…”

Section: Arbitration Decisions As a Data Sourcementioning

confidence: 99%

“…O' Connell and Korabik (2000) pointed out that the lack of formal policies and enforcement concerned with sexual harassment could encourage the behavior. Many have suggested that formal organizational procedures for dealing with incidents of sexual harassment are paramount in reducing its prevalence (e.g., Bowes-Sperry et al, 2002;Lach & Gwartney-Gibbs, 1993;Sbraga & O'Donohue, 2000). Hulin, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow (1996) proposed that sexual harassment is less likely to occur in organizational settings that are not tolerant of it.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual Harassers: Behaviors, Motives, and Change Over Time

2006

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This research was designed to examine the characteristics of sexual harasser behaviors in 118 published arbitration decisions. A qualitative coding process was used to describe behaviors in terms of their severity, type, duration, and frequency. The interrelationships between these characteristics were examined along with the individual's record of discipline and past aggression. The results indicate that harassers tended to repeat the same types of behavior, and that severity generally increased over time. Although past discipline for sexual harassment appeared to reduce this escalation, it was not very effective in stopping the behaviors. Perpetrators who had engaged in gender harassment were more likely to have a record of aggressive behaviors. Additional comparisons indicate important differences in the behavior of perpetrators as categorized by type of behavior.

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Sociological Perspectives on Sexual Harassment and Workplace Dispute Resolution

Cited by 40 publications

References 0 publications

Sexual Harassment of Women in Urban China

Sexual Harassment of Women in Urban China

Reporting Sexual Harassment: The Importance of Organizational Culture and Trust

Sexual Harassers: Behaviors, Motives, and Change Over Time

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