How Do Men and Women Perceive Sexual Harassment?

We are all looking for power, of any kind, but when the power gets in the hands of an unbalanced person, the situation can go out of control.

Often, in the workplace, power abuse can lead to sexual harassment, a theme investigated by Debbie Dougherty, assistant professor of communication in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

She found that behind sexual harassment is power, not specifically sex drive.

"Power. It was the common answer. It came up repeatedly. However, what I found were multiple definitions of power."

That was linked to gender.

Her investigation was based on the opinions and perceptions of a pool of 23 volunteers (11 women and 12 men), with an age average of 38, from a range of hierarchical levels and job types within a healthcare organization (but none was doctor).

Each subject had been working for the company for an average of seven years.

"After being placed in discussion groups, they openly discussed sexual harassment and confirmed what some researchers have argued - sexual harassment is more about power than sex," Dougherty said.

In fact, moderators did not address the theme of power.

For males, power represented formal authority, and they regarded as sexual harassers mainly the managers and supervisors while the co-worker harassment was interpreted by them just as a "misunderstanding."

"I have power, so I sexually harass," said Dougherty explaining one reason.

Females perceived power in a more complex way and formal authority was only one factor in male-dominated workplaces. Power to women is a pact between the harasser and harassed.

"Women often perceive all members of an organization as possible harassers - thinking it can be initiated by any person who is perceived as having power," said Dougherty.

"There is a discrepancy regarding the types of actions, behavior and communication that men and women consider sexually offensive. They also differ in their views of how power in the workplace can contribute to sexual harassment. In the study, the participants never recognized that they defined power differently," added Dougherty.

"The fact that men and women were using the same word to describe different behaviors may contribute to the continued existence of sexual harassment," she said.

"So if a man thinks that sexual harassment only comes from a supervisor, he may feel free to make sexual comments to a female coworker. The female coworker is likely to see the sexual comments as a quest for power and label it as sexual harassment."