Female managers face more sexual harassment

Female managers are 137 percent more likely to experience sexual harassment than their rank-and-file counterparts, according to a recently released study.Even Heather McLaughlin, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota and the primary investigator on the study, was surprised by the findings. “It’s sort of a paradox,” she says. “You would expect that having that status and power over other employees would protect you from that behavior.” Turns out it doesn’t, and McLaughlin’s conclusion is that “because of gender norms, people are still not accepting women in power positions.”

The women in the study reported that men were not sexually harassing them because they wanted a relationship with them, McLaughlin says. “It was more about proving themselves,” she says about the harassers. Among the women in the study, many believed the harassment they encountered was all about undermining their authority.

“I was being harassed. I was being undermined,” she explains. “I think they were intimidated by me, and this was the only way to get power back.”

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“The higher you were, the more of a power trip it became for men, and sometimes I thought they were not even aware of what they said,” she says.

“Sexual harassment is, and always has been, about power more than it is about sex,” says Kathleen Neville.

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“What is so difficult and frightening for women who are in management positions and have worked hard to get there is that they are suddenly feeling extremely vulnerable because they find themselves in a situation which might cost them everything.”