The Influence of Prototypical #MeToo Features on the Perception of Workplace Sexual Harassment Across Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation (LGBTQ +)

Abstract

Introduction How we perceive social-sexual behavior, and to what extent we consider such behavior to be sexual harassment, is dependent on several situational factors. Prototypical #MeToo features (male actor and female target, higher status, repeated, private behavior, sexualized physical contact) have previously been shown to increase the degree to which social-sexual behavior is perceived as sexual harassment. The effect of those features needs to be investigated for types of harassment that involve same-gender sexual harassment and harassment of LGBTQ + people. To gain a wider perspective on the perception of social-sexual behavior as sexual harassment, this preregistered study aims to examine same-gender interactions and lesbian and gay actors and targets, in addition to replicating earlier findings about #MeToo features in opposite-sex constellations. Methods We applied five hypothetical scenarios to a Norwegian online sample of 888 participants between 18 and 60 (58.3% cis women, 40.8% cis men, 0.9% transgender/genderfluid/non-binary). The sampling process took place during the spring term 2020 and aimed at recruiting LGBTQ + people (63.3% of the sample self-identifying as heterosexual, 20% gay/lesbian, 10.7% bisexual, 3.2% pansexual, and 1.9% “other”). Results #MeToo features in each scenario clearly increased the degree to which social-sexual behavior was perceived as sexual harassment across gender identity and sexual orientation. The effect of private vs. public behavior was contingent on the type of behavior. Men rated behavior less as sexual harassment than women and people of other gender identities. Conclusions The current study shows that there was considerable consensus as to what sexual harassment entails in the five scenarios across gender identity and sexual orientation. Policy Implications Organizations should include prototypical #MeToo features in interventions, to illustrate how a situation might be more or less undesired and therefore experienced as harassment under different circumstances.

Workplace sexual harassment: a qualitative study of the self-labelling process among employees in Denmark

“…These studies have investigated a wide range of factors related to the target and the harasser (e.g., age, gender, and gender beliefs) and attributes of the behaviour (e.g., type of behaviour and frequency). These studies show that employees are more likely to label behaviours as workplace sexual harassment, if the target is a young woman and the harasser is a male supervisor, and when the behaviour includes coercion and physical touching (Gutek, 1995 ; Hehman et al, 2022 ; Kessler et al, 2020 , 2023 ; Magley & Shupe, 2005 ), while men who report sexual harassment are viewed less favourably and suffering less (Cesario, 2020 ) Moreover, women tend to label a wider range of behaviours as workplace sexual harassment than men, although gender differences are typically small (Baker et al, 1990 ). A limitation is that these studies have ignored the underlying, complex processes that lead employees to accept or reject the label of sexual harassment.…”