The Relationship Between Sexual Minority Verbal Harassment and Utilization of Health Services: Results from Countywide Risk Assessment Survey (CRAS) 2004

In this article we examine the prevalence of and associations between sexual orientation–based verbal harassment and reported utilization of health services across levels of sexual orientation in a diverse sample of adult recipients of Los Angeles County–funded HIV-related health and social services. Thirty-two percent reported they had experienced verbal harassment, the majority (80.3%) of whom identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). Those who reported being verbally harassed received significantly more services overall than those who were not verbally harassed, and service utilization varied by sexual orientation. These findings inform future efforts to identify and assess social discrimination in health and social service settings.     

Policy Learning and Transformational Change: University Policies on Sexual Harassment

ABSTRACT

This essay comes out of my experience as an attendee at the #MeTooPoliSci short course in the American Political Science Association meeting in 2018. I use the framework of policy feedback theory to explain the difficulty in reforming sexual harassment policies at universities and prescribe some actions we as scholars can take to improve the situations at our places of employment.     

Installing Circuit Breakers: Mechanisms to Avoid Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

This paper suggests that a synergy is both possible and necessary between two traditionally distinct management approaches: the Weberian approach, which contends that the bureaucratic structure of a company affects the daily activities of employees, and the human relations model, which holds that small group leadership dynamics at the divisional/department level affects daily activities of employees. The tendency within organizations is to promote one approach over the other. A resolution to the debate is suggested in applying mechanisms to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Indeed, the courts have inadvertently pointed the way: the reasonable woman standard urges a human relations approach to resolving the problem of sexual harassment, placing the burden of solving the problem on supervisor personnel and their ability to direct their employee's behavior; the hostile environment issues promotes a Weberian structural solution, requiring sound policy be developed at the executive level to ensure workplace compliance to appropriate normative behavior. A one-sided approach is doomed to failure, which may explain why the issue continues to rage in the corporate sphere.     

Perceived Climate in Physical Activity Settings

This study focused on the perceived climate for LGBT youth and other minority groups in physical activity settings. A large sample of undergraduates and a selected sample including student teachers/interns and a campus Pride group completed a school climate survey and rated the climate in three physical activity settings (physical education, organized sport, exercise). Overall, school climate survey results paralleled the results with national samples revealing high levels of homophobic remarks and low levels of intervention. Physical activity climate ratings were mid-range, but multivariate analysis of variation test (MANOVA) revealed clear differences with all settings rated more inclusive for racial/ethnic minorities and most exclusive for gays/lesbians and people with disabilities. The results are in line with national surveys and research suggesting sexual orientation and physical characteristics are often the basis for harassment and exclusion in sport and physical activity. The current results also indicate that future physical activity professionals recognize exclusion, suggesting they could benefit from programs that move beyond awareness to skills and strategies for creating more inclusive programs.     

An Exploration of Sexual Minority Stress Across the Lines of Gender and Sexual Identity

Despite growing evidence to suggest that gays, lesbians, and bisexuals experience a range of stressors and consequences related to their sexual minority status, no known studies to date have employed focus group discussion to explore and document their perceptions of sexual minority stress. In this exploratory study, we present focus group data on a range of sexual minority stressors as described by 43 gay men, lesbians, and bisexual men and women. We explore gender and sexual identity differences in the respondents' perceptions of heteronormativity, disclosure issues in different social settings, sources of support, and strategies for coping with stress. Respondents reported that women's same-sex relationships were eroticized and distorted to accommodate heterosexual male desire, while men were negatively depicted as sexually promiscuous and deviant. These differing stereotypes held important consequences for disclosure decisions and affected men's and women's social interactions with heterosexual men. Bisexual respondents reported unique strategies to cope with exclusion and isolation associated with misunderstandings about their sexual identities. Directions for future research on sexual minority stress are discussed.     

Student views on campus sexual assault

Abstract

Objective: To report on college student opinions about the scope of college sexual misconduct (CSM), suggested university sanctions, and treatment of students found responsible of CSM.

Participants: In all, 23?US undergraduate students (14 females and 9 males) with a mean age of 20 years.

Methods: Students participated either in female, male, or mixed-sex focus groups that facilitated the discussion of factors related to CSM.

Results: Students provided in-depth feedback on the climate on US college campuses and factors related to CSM. They agreed upon CSM risk factors and context characteristics, but raised different male and female issues across sex groups. They further provided resolute suggestions for the solution of CSM, experienced treatment barriers, and limited victim reporting.

Conclusion: Student focus groups provide important information about the scope of CSM and offer valuable suggestions for the solution of the problem that may be crucial for the development of successful sexual assault interventions.     

Are social networking sites a source of online harassment for teens? Evidence from survey data

Media reports on incidences of abuse on the internet, particularly among teenagers, are growing at an alarming rate causing much concern among parents of teenagers and prompting legislations aimed at regulating internet use among teenagers. Social networking sites (SNS) have been criticized for serving as a breeding ground for cyber-bullying and harassment by strangers. However, there is a lack of serious research studies that explicitly identify factors that make teenagers prone to internet abuse, and study whether it is SNS that is causing this recent rise in online abuse or is it something else. This study attempts to identify the key factors associated with cyber-bullying and online harassment of teenagers in the United States using the 2006 round of Pew Internet™ American Life Survey that is uniquely suited for this study. Results fail to corroborate the claim that having social networking site memberships is a strong predictor of online abuse of teenagers. Instead this study finds that demographic and behavioral characteristics of teenagers are stronger predictors of online abuse.     

Approche socioclinique de la souffrance au travail1

Suffering at work has become a major social phenomena. This situation has many causes: high performance enhancement, urgency seen as an obligation, pressure for results, but also fear, and the soaring of ‘the battle for places’ (la lutte des places). The psychopathological consequences of pressure at work are now well known: breakdowns, professional exhaustion, work addiction, burnout, harassment. Stress has become an ordinary tool for management. Employees cannot find a meaning to this context, nor can they identify the causes of their ill being or the reasons for the violence they endure. They confront an opaque and paradoxical power. Looking for solutions to the contradictions to which management has given rise without resolving, they become responsible for those difficulties and guilty of their own suffering. These are ‘innocent violences’ in so far as they are justified by an indisputable system of management.     

Mentoring,Sexual Harassment,and Black Women Academics

ABSTRACT

The #MeToo Movement both within academia and popular culture has largely been seen as an issue for white women (and men). While the phrase Me Too was originally coined by Tarana Burke in 2006 to raise public awareness of sexual harassment, violence and assault experienced by women of color, the Movement has largely been whitewashed by primarily depicting victims and survivors as white women. Black women academics, like myself, also experience sexual harassment. By highlighting the ways that race-based sexual harassment further marginalizes already underrepresented groups in political science, I use my personal story to elucidate how a gender-only lens misses the complexities of Black women’s experiences with power inequities in academia. Throughout this narrative I underscore the importance of mentorship, professional networks, and the ability to harness scholarship as a vehicle to combat the pervasiveness of sexual harassment, violence, and assault for Black women in political science.     

Challenging gendered power: How sexual harassment perpetrators respond to victim confrontation

Sexual harassment is a problem that continues to plague mostly women in the American workforce today. One tool that victims can use in these situations is confrontation, either through verbal or physical means. Yet, understudied to this point is how perpetrators respond to confrontation, which is highly salient as to whether this is an effective tool for victims. This study uses grounded theory methods to analyze 31 accounts of sexual harassment from within the fashion industry that recorded perpetrators' responses to victim confrontation to clearly unwanted, abusive behavior. I argue that specific features of the fashion industry, or a “display work culture,” embolden perpetrators to effectively thwart any type of confrontation. Indeed, this study finds that these predominantly male perpetrators of sexual harassment moved to reassert their dominant position over their female victims in the moment of confrontation, immediately after being confronted, and even later, well beyond confrontation, as they aimed to reestablish normal business practices as usual. This research thus dispels a significant sexual harassment myth that victims working within this culture are able to stop perpetrators simply by speaking up and/or fighting back and points to the need for the development of sexual harassment theory to incorporate work culture-related risk factors and remedies.