Abstract
The now extensive literature on workplace sexual harassment provides compelling evidence for the persistence and pervasiveness of the phenomenon, with about half of all U.S. women experiencing harassment at some point in their working lives (Fitzgerald and Cortina 2018). One thought-provoking and counterintuitive finding from this literature is that relatively few of these women use the label “sexual harassment” in understanding their experiences (Magley et al. 1999; McLaughlin et al. 2012). The study described here explores definitional and motivational explanations for this low level of self-labeling, using data from questionnaires and in-depth interviews of 22 self-labeling and 20 non-labeling U.S. female college students who were victims of employment-based sexual harassment. Participants’ responses provided insight into normative beliefs about what constitutes harassment and the circumstances under which it occurs, and they suggest that the correspondence between experiences and normative definitions of harassment affects whether women self-label. However, the results also suggest that some women think of their experiences as something other than harassment in order to avoid negative consequences, such as damage to their self-identity as well as blame and derision from others.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alger, A., & Flanagan, W. G. (1996). Sexual politics: Sexual harassment in the workplace. Forbes, 157, 106–110.
Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2007). Self-regulation, ego depletion, and motivation. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00001.x.
Berdahl, J. L., Magley, V. J., & Waldo, C. R. (1996). The sexual harassment of men. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20, 527–547. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1996.tb00320.x.
Bergman, M. E., Langhout, R. D., Palmieri, P. A., Cortina, L. M., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (2002). The (un)reasonableness of reporting: Antecedents and consequences of reporting sexual harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 230–242. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.2.230.
Brunner, L. K., & Dever, M. (2014). Work, bodies and boundaries: Talking sexual harassment in the new economy. Gender, Work and Organization, 21(5), 459–471. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12048.
Bursik, K., & Gefter, J. (2011). Still s after all these years: Perceptions of sexual harassment in academic contexts. The Journal of Social Psychology, 151(3), 331–349. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224541003628081.
Chapin, J., & Coleman, G. (2017). Children and adolescent victim blaming. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 23, 438–440. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000282.
Clements, C. M., & Ogle, R. L. (2009). Does acknowledgement as an assault victim impact post-assault psychological symptoms and coping? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24, 1595–1614. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509331486.
Cohen, J. (1960). A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446002000104.
Cohen, C. F., & Cohen, M. E. (1993). Defending your life: When women complain about sexual harassment. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 7, 235–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02621115.
Crosby, F. (1982). Relative deprivation of working women. New York: Oxford University Press.
Crosby, F. (1984). The denial of personal discrimination: Here are three questions to ask yourself. American Behavioral Scientist, 27, 371–386. https://doi.org/10.1177/000276484027003008.
Crosby, F., Cordova, D. I., & Jaskar, K. (1993). On the failure to see oneself as disadvantaged: Cognitive and emotional components. In M. Hogg & D. Abrams (Eds.), Group motivation: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 87–104). London: Harvester- Wheatsheaf.
D’Andrade, R. G. (1992). Schemas and motivation. In R. G. D’Andrade & C. Strauss (Eds.), Motives and cultural models (pp. 23–44). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dalbert, C. (2001). The justice motive as a personal resource: Dealing with challenges and critical life events. New York: Plenum.
Diekmann, K. A., Walker, S. D. S., Galinsky, A. D., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. (2013). Double victimization in the workplace: Why observers condemn passive victims of sexual harassment. Organization Science, 24, 614–628. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0753.
Ellis, S., Barak, A., & Pinto, A. (1991). Moderating effects of personal cognitions on experienced and perceived sexual harassment of women at the workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 1320–1337. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1991.tb00473.x.
Fiske, S. T., & Linville, P. W. (1980). What does the schema concept buy us? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 6(4), 543–557. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616728064006.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Fitzgerald, L. F., & Cortina, L. (2018). Sexual harassment in work organizations: A view from the 21st century. In C. B. Travis, J. W. White, A. Rutherford, W. Williams, & S. Cook (Eds.), APA handbook of the psychology of women: Perspectives on women’s private and public lives (Vol. 2, pp. 215–234). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Fitzgerald, L. F., Shullman, S., Bailey, N., Richards, M., Swecker, J., Gold, A., … Weitzman, L. (1988). The incidence and dimensions of sexual harassment in academia and the workplace. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 32, 152–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(88)90012-7.
Fitzgerald, L., Swan, S., & Magley, V. (1997). But was it really sexual harassment? Legal, behavioral, and psychological definitions of workplace victimization of women. In W. O’Donohue (Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 5–28). Needham Heights: Allyn & Bacon.
Fleiss, J. L. (1971). Measuring nominal scale agreement among many raters. Psychological Bulletin, 76, 378–382.
Gergen, M. (2001). Feminist reconstructions in psychology: Narrative, gender, and performance. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc..
Gettman, H. J., & Gelfand, M. J. (2007). When the customer shouldn’t be king: Antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment by clients and customers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 757–770. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.3.757.
Grubb, A., & Turner, E. (2012). Attribution of blame in rape cases: A review of the impact of rape myth acceptance, gender role conformity, and substance use on victim blaming. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17, 443–452. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2012.06.002.
Hafer, C. L. (2002). Why we reject innocent victims. In M. Ross & D. T. Miller (Eds.), The justice motive in everyday life (pp. 109–126). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511499975.007.
Hafer, C. L., & Olson, J. M. (1989). Beliefs in a just world and reactions to personal deprivation. Journal of Personality, 57, 799–823. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1989.tb00495.x.
Hamby, S. L., & Gray-Little, B. (2000). Labeling partner violence: When do victims differentiate among acts? Violence and Victims, 15, 173–186. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.15.2.173.
Hill, C. E., Thompson, B. J., & Williams, E. N. (1997). A guide to conducting consensual qualitative research. The Counseling Psychologist, 25, 517–572. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000097254001.
Hlavka, H. R. (2014). Normalizing sexual violence: Young women account for harassment and abuse. Gender & Society, 28, 337–358. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243214526468.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1989). Assumptive worlds and the stress of traumatic events: Applications of the schema construct. Social Cognition: Stress, Coping, and Social Cognition, 7, 113–136. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1989.7.2.113.
Johnstone, D. J. (2016). A listening guide analysis of women’s experiences of unacknowledged rape. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40, 275–289. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.
Kahn, A. S., Jackson, J., Kully, C., Badger, K., & Halvorsen, J. (2003). Calling it rape: Differences in experiences of women who do or do not label their sexual assault as rape. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 27, 233–242. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00103.
Landis, J., & Koch, G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33, 159–174. https://doi.org/10.2307/2529310.
Lee, D. (2001). “He didn’t sexually harass me, as in harassed for sex…he was just horrible”: Women’s definitions of unwanted male sexual conduct at work. Women’s Studies International Forum, 24, 25–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-5395(00)00163-1.
Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum.
Lerner, M. J. (1987). Integrating societal and psychological rules of entitlement: The basic task of each social actor and fundamental problem for the social sciences. Social Justice Research, 1, 107–125. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01049386.
Littleton, H., Breitkopf, C. R., & Berenson, A. (2008). Beyond campus: Unacknowledged rape among low-income women. Violence Against Women, 14, 269–286. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801207313733.
Littleton, H., Axsom, D., & Grills-Taquechel, A. (2009). Sexual assault victims’ acknowledgement status and revictimization risk. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33, 34–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2008.01472.x.
Lonsway, K., Cortina, L., & Magley, V. (2008). Sexual harassment mythology: Definition, conceptualization, and measurement. Sex Roles, 58, 599–615. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9367-1.
MacKinnon, C. A. (1979). Sexual harassment of working women: A case of sex discrimination. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Magley, V. J., & Shupe, E. (2005). Self-labeling sexual harassment. Sex Roles, 53, 173–189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-5677-3.
Magley, V. J., Hulin, C. L., Fitzgerald, L. F., & DeNardo, M. (1999). Outcomes of self-labeling sexual harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(3), 390–402. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.84.3.390.
Magley, V. J., Fitzgerald, L. F., Salisbury, J., Drasgow, F., & Zickar, M. J. (2013). Changing sexual harassment within organizations via training interventions: Suggestions and empirical data. In R. Burke & C. Cooper (Eds.), The fulfilling workplace: The organization’s role in achieving individual and organizational health (pp. 225–246). Surrey: Gower.
Marin, A. J., & Guadagno, R. E. (1999). Perceptions of sexual harassment victims as a function of labeling and reporting. Sex Roles, 41(11–12), 921–940. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018888614601.
McClelland, S. I., Rubin, J. D., & Bauermeister, J. A. (2016). Adapting to injustice: Young bisexual women’s interpretations of microaggressions. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40, 532–550. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684316664514.
McLaughlin, H., Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A. (2012). Sexual harassment, workplace authority, and the paradox of power. American Sociological Review, 77, 625–647. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412451728.
Orchowski, L. M., Untied, A. S., & Gidycz, C. A. (2013). Social reactions to disclosure of sexual victimization and adjustment among survivors of sexual assault. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28(10), 2005–2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260512471085.
Osman, S. (2007). The continuation of perpetrator behaviors that influence perceptions of sexual harassment. Sex Roles, 56, 63–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9149-1.
Peterson, Z. D., & Muehlenhard, C. L. (2011). A match-and-motivation model of how women label their nonconsensual sexual experiences. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 35, 558–570. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684311410210.
Phillips, L. M. (2000). Flirting with danger: Young women’s reflections on sexuality and domination. New York: New York University Press.
Sallay, H., & Dalbert, C. (2004). Introduction. In C. Dalbert & H. Sallay (Eds.), The justice motive in adolescence and young adulthood: Origins and consequences (pp. 2–8). New York: Routledge.
Schweinle, W. E., & Roseman, C. P. (2015). Sexual harassment training: Effective strategies. In M. A. Paludi, J. L. Martin, J. E. Gruber, & S. Fineran (Eds.), Sexual harassment in education and work settings: Current research and best practices (pp. 247–260). Santa Barbara: Praeger.
Settles, I. H., Buchanan, N. T., Yap, S. C. Y., & Harrell, Z. A. T. (2014). Sex differences in outcomes and harasser characteristics associated with frightening sexual harassment appraisals. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 19, 133–142. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035449.
Sojo, V. E., Wood, R. E., & Genat, A. E. (2016). Harmful workplace experiences and women’s occupational well-being: A meta-analysis. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40, 10–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684315599346.
Stockdale, M. S., Vaux, A., & Cashin, J. (1995). Acknowledging sexual harassment: A test of alternative models. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 17, 469–496. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1704_4.
Strauss, C., & Quinn, N. (1997). A cognitive theory of cultural meaning. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Summers, R. J., & Myklebust, K. (1992). The influence of a history of romance on judgments and responses to a complaint of sexual harassment. Sex Roles, 27, 345–357. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289944.
Swim, J. K., Hyers, L. L., Cohen, L. L., & Ferguson, M. J. (2001). Everyday sexism: Evidence for its incidence, nature, and psychological impact from three daily diary studies. Journal of Social Issues, 57, 31–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00200.
Taylor, S., & Crocker, J. (1981). Schematic bases of social information processing. In E. T. Higgins, C. P. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Social cognition: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 1, pp. 89–134). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
van Roosmalen, E., & McDaniel, S. (1998). Sexual harassment in academia: A hazard to women’s health. Women and Health, 28, 33–54. https://doi.org/10.1300/J013v28n02_03.
Witkowska, E., & Gadin, K. G. (2005). Have you been sexually harassed in school? What female high school students regard as harassment. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 17(4), 391–406. https://doi.org/10.1515/IJAMH.2005.17.4.391.
Wright, C. V., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (2007). Angry and afraid: Women’s appraisal of sexual harassment during litigation. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 73–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00332.x.
Wright, C. V., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (2009). Correlates of joining a sexual harassment class action. Law and Human Behavior, 33, 265–282. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9156-6.
Acknowledgements
A portion of the data reported in the present paper was presented at the 2016 Annual Convention of the American Psychological Society in Chicago, IL.
The author wishes to thank Sara Hayes and Michelle Hunt for serving as research assistants on the project.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
I verify my compliance with ethical standards adopted by the American Psychological Association pertaining to the treatment of human participants and the reporting and use of data. I also verify that the manuscript has not been previously published in whole or part, and is not under consideration elsewhere.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 62 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shupe, E.I. Beneath the Surface of the Sexual Harassment Label: A Mixed Methods Study of Young Working Women. Sex Roles 83, 179–192 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01106-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01106-z