Who else besides (White) women? The need for representation in harassment training

Abstract

Hayes et al. (2020) raised the million-dollar question in the midst of the #metoo movement: Why has antidiscrimination/harassment training to date been mostly ineffective? They contended that this is likely a reflection of misalignment among training content, goals, and effectiveness criteria. They proposed adopting novel perspectives beyond traditional applied psychology theories to refocus both research and practical efforts to tackle this all-important issue. Although we commend the vast array of perspectives and associated research questions raised by the authors, one factor that also merits consideration is the degree to which existing antidiscrimination/ harassment training representatively and accurately reflects the daily occurrences in the workplace. Specifically, we believe that current sexual harassment (SH) training often portrays these issues to be gender specific (i.e., heterosexual men harassing heterosexual women), and such misrepresentation is likely to impact trainees' attitudes and training transfer negatively. In this commentary, we draw from intersectional research on SH and the training literature to argue that current training should represent a more extensive set of minorities whose intersecting stigmatized identities make them especially vulnerable to SH. Furthermore, although we acknowledge that SH is a specific manifestation of discrimination, we are focusing our discussion on SH because this is often a separate category of training in both research literature and organizational settings while operating under some of the similar mechanisms as discrimination. Sexual harassment-who else besides (White) women? The typical portrayal of SH tends to be heterosexual (and often White) women being harassed by heterosexual men; hence, SH is primarily viewed as a women-specific and sexual-desire-driven problem. Indeed, women make up a considerable portion of harassment victims, and they also tend to report more cases of SH than men do (Quick & McFadyen, 2017). According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in 2011, 83.7% of the sexual harassment claims were made by women (EEOC, n.d.). Additionally, survey work examining firefighters found 84.7% of women were treated differently because of their sex, and 30.2% of women experienced sexual advances in the workplace (Hulett et al., 2008). However, this is an oversimplification of the reality of the issue: Women are not the only gender being harassed. The intersection of one's gender with other stigmatized social identities (e.g., race, sexual orientation) can further exacerbate the degree to which he or she is harassed. Sex-based harassment (SBH), as proposed by Berdahl (2007), is a more accurate, inclusive portrayal of the issue. Traditional SH tends to frame The first four authors contributed equally to this article.

Gender Prototypes Hinder Bystander Intervention in Women’s Sexual Harassment

“…These studies suggests that bystander intervention trainings should challenge the false assumption that sexually harassment is directed primarily at women who embody the traditional prototype of womanhood. Specifically, trainings should emphasize that anyone can be sexually harassed and highlight those most vulnerable (Danna et al, 2020). Whereas we focused on variation along the masculinity and femininity dimensions, this expanded focus can include women who belong to social categories that are often neglected from who is considered a sexual harassment victim, such as Black women (Crenshaw, 2019).…”