In the Company of Men: Male Dominance and Sexual Harassment

IN THE COMPANY OF MEN The Northeastern Series on Gender, Crime, and Law edited by Claire Renzetti, St. Joseph’s University Battered Women in the Courtroom: The Power of Judicial Responses James Ptacek Divided Passions: Public Opinions on Abortion and the Death Penalty Kimberly J. Cook Emotional Trials: The Moral Dilemmas of Women Criminal Defense Attorneys Cynthia Siemsen Gender and Community Policing: Walking the Talk Susan L. Miller Harsh Punishment: International Experiences of Women’s Imprisonment edited by Sandy Cook and Susanne Davies Listening to Olivia: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution Jody Raphael No Safe Haven: Stories of Women in Prison Lori B. Girshick Saving Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty Jody Raphael Understanding Domestic Homicide Neil Websdale Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence: Does She Call It Rape? Lori B. Girshick IN THE COMPANY OF MEN Male Dominance and Sexual Harassment Edited by James E. Gruber and Phoebe Morgan Northeastern University Press Northeastern University Press Copyright by James E. Gruber and Phoebe Morgan All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data In the company of men : male dominance and sexual harassment / edited by James E. Gruber and Phoebe Morgan. p. cm. — (The Northeastern series on gender, crime, and law) --- (cl : alk. paper)— --- (pa : alk. paper) . Sexual harassment—United States. Sexual harassment—Europe. I. Gruber, James. II. Morgan, Phoebe, – III. Series. ..I .ЈЈ—dc Designed by Amber Frid-Jimenez Composed in Minion by Coghill Composition Company in Richmond, Virginia. Printed and bound by Maple Press in York, Pennsylvania. The paper is Maple Tradebook, an acid-free sheet. MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS Tables vii Preface ix Editors and Authors xvii PART I: MEN, DOMINATION, AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT 1 1 Just Men Out of Control? Criminology and the Likelihood to Sexually Harass Robert S. Done 2 Toward a Criminology of Sexual Harassment Beth A. Quinn 3 Fitting In: The Conflation of Firefighting, Male Domination, and Harassment Dave Baigent 4 Sexualization of Work Roles Among Men Miners: Structural and Gender-Based Origins of ‘‘Harazzment’’ Kristen Yount 5 Recognition Processes in Sexual Harassment, Bullying, and Violence at Work: The Move to Organization Violations Jeff Hearn and Wendy Parkin 6 The Sexual Harassment of Men: Articulating the Approach-Rejection Theory of Sexual Harassment Margaret S. Stockdale 7 The ‘‘Reasonable Woman’’ and Unreasonable Men: Gendered Discourses in Sexual Harassment Litigation Michael S. Kimmel and Tyson Smith PART II: DOMINANCE, HARASSMENT, AND WOMEN 167 8 The Impact of Male Domination on the Prevalence of Sexual Harassment: An Analysis of European Union Surveys Greetje Timmerman 9 Sexual Harassment and Violence Toward Policewomen in Finland Kaisa Kauppinen and Saara Patoluoto 10 A Missing Link: Institutional Homophobia and Sexual Harassment in the U.S. Military Melissa Sheridan Embser-Herbert 11 Blue-Collar Feminism: The Link Between Male Domination and Sexual Harassment Carrie N. Baker 12 The Architecture of Sexual Harassment Carla Corroto 13 The Nexus of Race and Gender Domination: Racialized Sexual Harassment of African American Women NiCole T. Buchanan Index vi CONTENTS TABLES 1.1 Characteristics of the Likelihood to Sexually Harass Sample 1.2 Demographic Groupings of the Likelihood to Sexually Harass Sample 1.3 Predictors of the Likelihood to Sexually Harass 6.1 Sexual Harassment Surveys: Instructions, Scales, and Response Items 8.1 Prevalence Studies of Sexual Harassment in Northwest and Southern Europe by Country and Gender (–) 8.2 Reports of Sexual Harassment by Degree of Male Dominance 8.3 Changing Power Relationships Between Established Group and Outsiders in Work Organizations 9.1 Women’s and Men’s Perceptions of Officers’ Reactions to Women by Rank 9.2 Exposure to Sexual Harassment by Clients and Coworkers in Past Months 9.3 Health Consequences of Sexual Harassment and Violence by Gender 10.1 Who Believes Sexual Harassment Is a Problem? 10.2 Experiences and Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: Lesbians and Bisexuals 10.3 Who Is More Likely to Experience Sexual Harassment in the Military? 10.4 Who Experiences Sexual Harassment? viii TABLES PREFACE Browse any library’s holdings or bookstore’s inventory and you will find an overwhelming number of publications about sexual harassment. Depending upon the holdings’ size, the search term sexual harassment can produce a listing of books or more. Within the Expanded Academic Index alone, the same search generates more than , articles, of which have appeared in print in just the last six months. Clearly, sexual harassment is one of the most written about—and therefore discussed—social problems of our time. The impact of this literature has been significant. Sexual harassment scholarship played a major role in shifting public opinion. A majority of Americans today believe that sexual harassment is wrong and should not be tolerated. Published research has also provided a solid foundation for the development of prohibitive policy. While the frequency and severity of sexual harassment have been reduced in a number of gender-integrated workplaces, the problem appears especially impervious to change within male-dominated workplaces and occupations. In male-dominant settings, unwanted sexual attention is especially problematic: harassment rates are higher than in other settings, and the consequences of it are often more severe. For example, women in the military experience sexual harassment (Bastian, Lancaster, & Reyst , Firestone & Harris ) at rates that are to percent higher than those experienced by female federal employees (USMSPB ). Also, women in protective ser- vices (e.g., fire, police) are exposed to more harassment than civilian employees in the same community (LA Commission on Women , Brown et al. ). These women also experience more severe types of harassment—such as pressures for sex and sexual as- sault—at higher rates (Gruber ). In a variety of ways, each of the thirteen chapters in this collection focuses analytic attention on the relationship between two social problems: male dominance and sexual harassment. Beneath every analysis lie two assumptions: () both are complex problems rooted in cultural constructions of gender and institutional roles, identities, and processes, and () these processes are inextricably intertwined. Ironically, while sexual harassment’s status as a legitimate subject of scholarly study has waxed, attention to the role that male dominance plays in its perpetuation has waned. The first wave of sexual harassment scholarship placed the problem of patriarchy—specifically, men’s dominance of economics, production, and sexuality—at the center of the analysis (see, for example, Farley , MacKinnon , Paludi ). But over time, the focus on male dominance has diminished to the point that cur- rent research rarely mentions male domination, much less analyzes it. Theory and research, especially in the United States, have drifted from an analysis of sexual harassment as a cultural issue to a nar- rower focus on it as an organizational problem. As the latter view has gained prominence, a focus on organizational sex ratios, atti- tudes of leadership, workplace climate, articulation and implemen- tation of effective policies, workshops and training regimes for employees and supervisors, and the like has become stronger. Although these are all important concerns, we see a danger that sexual harassment will become defined primarily as a bureaucratic problem that can be remedied by effective management strategies. By restoring the notion of male dominance as both a normative (i.e., cultural and historical) and a numerical (e.g., workplace sex ratios) phenomenon to sexual harassment theory, this collection attempts a ‘‘course cor- rection’’ in the trajectory of sexual harassment research. While they employed widely different methods within differing disciplinary traditions, early scholars agreed on three basic propositions: () men sexually harass women because they are culturally privileged, () social mores and practices sanction their right to do so, and () organizations do not adequately protect victims or ap- x PREFACE propriately punish harassers. Although we owe a great debt to these pioneers, we can now see that these propositions are overly simplis- tic. They do not, for example, account for the fact that the vast majority of men are not sexual harassers, or that men often sexually harass each other. Recent advances in masculinity studies offer theoretical bases for addressing these issues. This emerging body of literature provides a theoretical frame for appreciating the complexity and fluidity of male dominance (see, for example, Corrigan, Con- nell, & Lee , Hearn & Parkin , Kimmel , Martin & Jurik ). Drawing upon the conceptualization of male dominance within these works, our collection revises and expands the thesis asserted by feminists nearly thirty years ago—that male dominance and sexual harassment are inextricably intertwined. Our collection presents a more complete, albeit more complex, picture of the relationships

Load more