Sexual harassment is less prevalent among men than women, but it still happens. And according to a recent study, men struggle to deal with it.
Researchers at Michigan State University surveyed more than 6,000 men and women serving in the five branches of the U.S. military. The surveys touched on 16 different types of physical and verbal harassment—seemingly covering everything.
For women, sexual harassment was threatening, but only when they saw it as frightening—not when they saw it as bothersome. For men, sexual harassment was threatening whether it was frightening or bothersome.
Isis Settles, the study’s lead investigator, told EurekAlert:
People tend to underestimate the impact of sexual harassment on men. [Men] typically haven’t had a lifetime of experiences dealing with sexual harassment and may not know how to deal with it when it happens to them.
The study also says that sexual harassment is no less distressing for women than it is for men.
Settles noted that women experience sexual harassment so frequently—60 percent according to the survey—that they’re sort of developing something similar to “immunity to infection following exposure to a virus.”
Margaret Hartmann of Jezebel wrote:
Instead, the study suggests that women are experiencing so much harassment that they’ve learned to differentiate between annoying and threatening behavior. While harassment may be surprising for men, it’s so common for women that they’ve been forced to develop a way to keep functioning in a hostile environment.
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The results are an unsettling reminder of the harmful effects of male privilege. Men are so accustomed to not being vigilant and on guard against harassment, assault, and rape that we’re often blind to the ceaseless precautions women take. Our reaction to harassment is often one of indignation, as though men, by nature, are supposed to be exempt.
The status quo is so deeply ingrained that when men feel violated by unwelcome advances or even—yes, it happens, and more frequently than we think—assault or rape, we won’t speak up out of fear of shame and humiliation. We fear that by being male victims, we’re not real men.
Sexual harassment is pervasive and ubiquitous and happens to people of all genders. Even if the statistics are disproportionate—and my guess is, if you factor in undocumented male abuse in the prison system, it might not be—our support of victims needs to be gender-blind. Fighting rape culture means refusing to diminish victims’ experiences because of their frequency or their perceived abnormality. The impact of abuse is the same.
We’ve just got to start listening.
—Photo latinoman_2009/Photobucket
When I was younger, I had some experience with street harassment. I got verbally sexually harassed about 2 dozen times or so based on the standard in the article. I got groped about 6 times with 1 time being below the belt. There were a few other sexual experiences I won’t get into. At work, I got constantly asked by an older woman to vacation with her in Mexico or Puerto Rico. A woman rested her hand on my thigh when she was talking to me. Another woman just this year grabbed my upper thigh while trying to make a… Read more »
A male reports sexual assault (groping and fondling) by a woman to the appropriate government agency, and he has a witness, who happens to be a female. He’s laughed at, and asked, “What the matter? She ugly?” Then they show him the door. A male is threatened by his supervisor that his career prospects could be bleak if he doesn’t spend a little off-duty time with her. About two years later he self-commits to a behavioral health care clinic to prove his supervisors claims of him having a disorder are false. (And this was a specially manned position, meaning the… Read more »
Well, the title of the article is “Men cant deal with sexual harassment” which to use feminist terminology sounds like victim blaming. Because women are so out numbered in the military, the sexual harassment of men that was measured must mainly be male on male and for the same reasons the sexual harassment that women are reporting must mainly be male on female, so I’d imagine that a certain amount of homophobia must be recorded in the male responses that isn’t there in the female. I wonder why the researchers didn’t chose a workplace that is closer to the average… Read more »
A lot of the problem is that men are expected to defend themselves independently as much as possible. Women are (usually) trained to go to the appropriate authorities when they feel threatened. Aside from constant exposure to harassment, being forced to decide when to ask for help has probably made us (the women) more discerning about what and what kind of harassment is more than just annoying. But men believe very deeply (and erroneously) that if they have a problem that it is their sole duty to solve it and feel weak when they are unable to (at least it… Read more »
I think the “privilege” theme sets up an infinite regress of “nothing will ever be good enough” and has the subtle effect of disempowering both women and racial minorities. Emphasizing empowerment is a far better strategy. Those with privilege won’t give it up, so the idea is to strengthen anyone who doesn’t have it. Most women and men don’t live in rape culture. There are rape cultures, to be sure. Prison is one. A recent article (maybe here, maybe not) (Oh, I think it was in NYT) said the guards perpetrate most prison rapes. That’s incorrect: it’s mostly inmates who… Read more »
I’ve been sexually harrassed by women about three times and by gays about twice. I just ignored it in each case, and left the setting in one case. If a man harrasses me in another sense, I can do one of three things: (1) Ignore it (in academia, I’ve learned to do this.) (2) Threaten him verbally (I’m pretty good at this, and believe me it’s sometimes necessary. Putdowns can be your friend here, where you humiliate the person, instead of threaten to hurt him. [You hurt his social standing instead.]) This too is sometimes necessary in academia. 3. Physically… Read more »
But I need to add that what we need to do is get women using these tools, rather than emphasizing their victimhood.
Yes, if you are an amoral or only primitively moral person (i.e. rule-adherent or rule-objecting but not understanding the meaning behind rules), you would not get what all the fuss is about “rape culture,” I suspect.
Kohlberg’s highest stage of moral development (post-conventional) emphasizes seeing each ethical decision in terms of its unique characteristics, rather than in terms of a rule.
Lack of boundaries (like I gather Kohlberg is promoting) tends to be promoted by male privilege fans on the left; and too-rigid boundaries tend to be promoted by male privilege fans on the right. Please read some women and not just men.
I think that boundaries are needed; they need to be porous, flexible and amendable, however.
And, again, you’ll get nowhere in any sort of quality morality when you don’t learn to empathize, which requires full emotional range.
Obviously some boundaries are necessary. I tend to like what Herbert Marcuse implies. He wrote before the term “boundaries” was much in use. We sometimes develop surplus repression (read surplus boundaries) because of the need to be part of a productive (also bureaucratic) economy. We have to make a living, raise kids, etc., and that needs rules. He said we can go overboard with these rules, though, and this just strengthens those in power bcause people live in fear (especially sexually.) Sex is a great hook for guilt and fear, and is often the currency of a more general repression.… Read more »
Have you seen “Spartacus: Blood and Sand”? An interesting look at both male and female sexual harassment – of actual slaves, not employees – in Rome B.C..
The results are an unsettling reminder of the harmful effects of male privilege. It cannot be a privilege for bad things not to happen unless bad things regularly occur. The majority of people are not sexually harassed, and while some women may experience sexual harassment, it is an everyday event for all or most women experience it everyday. Therefore, it is not a male privilege not to be sexually harassed anymore than it is a female privilege not to be assaulted by a stranger. Men are so accustomed to not being vigilant and on guard against harassment, assault, and rape… Read more »
I agree with some of what you say but when you say “The first step to listening to men is to lose the preconceived notions and victim-blaming theories like “rape culture” and start talking about the issues on their own merits.” “Rape culture” is not a victim-blaming theory; it is a perpetrator-blaming theory that looks at who becomes the perpetrator and why. Sometimes this is because the perpetrator was him/herself a victim as a child or in other circumstance. Sometimes it is because of entitlement borne of privilege (such as male privilege in the political economy or mommy or daddy… Read more »
Holding an opinion about a gender issue, and believing one’s opinion to be correct, is no more an example of male privilege than holding an opinion about health care is an example of social democratic privilege.
Validity does not enter the equation.
“The results are an unsettling reminder of the harmful effects of male privilege. Men are so accustomed to not being vigilant and on guard against harassment, assault, and rape that we’re often blind to the ceaseless precautions women take. Our reaction to harassment is often one of indignation, as though men, by nature, are supposed to be exempt.” I’m sorry but that was total and utter nonsense in my opinion, men are x8 more likely to be victimised by violent crime than women are. and more likely to be abused as children and the men in the military that are… Read more »
I think the idea is that the culture (or at least MRAs) lets men fight back and trains them to do so, but not women. That doesn’t make violence or harassment of men right, but just means that they have more means to defeat it when it arises. Some women are increasingly skilled at self-defense and even non-violent means of defusing a violent act, though. I agree with the author. I think many men (and some women – like Sarah Palin?) have become desensitized to violence. They are then highly reactive when they are the receiving end of it, and… Read more »
Mother is main child abuser, boys are disproportionately affected, learn its ok for boys to be hit and is also told not to hit their sisters, so negative suggestion informs it must be ok to hit boys and you see this pattern throughout the culture, if the mother goes too hard on the boy he might just go on to regain his power from someone like her in negative ways as an adult, sister learns from mother in that this goes on behind closed doors and this is all hidden and protected by taboo, the truth is guarded by females,… Read more »
Failure to see the father as a source of child abuse is a sure sign of denial.
This is a classic MRA position. To the extent there is a unifying view among them it is a blaming of women (especially women who speak, who are called “feminists” even if they don’t self-identify that way, like Kay Hymowitz) for all problems AND a failure to hold any man accountable, especially any father.
No, of course fathers can be the source of abuse too, but generally most peoples first taste of violence comes from the mother and mothers show up as doing most of the child abuse and obviously have been doing most of the socialising. Also, abuse is supposedly more damaging when it comes from the mother, it feels like more of a betrayal for the child. So, mothers are conditioning most of the dysfunction into society, but we are supposed to keep that quiet and blame the culture or lay the blame 100% on men instead, and that is an abuse… Read more »
I would imagine at least as much abuse/neglect comes at the hands of fathers, but because some boys identify with their fathers and want the power that being the abuser/neglecter brings, it becomes much more convenient to blame women and say things like “most peoples first taste of violence comes from the mother and mothers show up as doing most of the child abuse and obviously have been doing most of the socialising. Also, abuse is supposedly more damaging when it comes from the mother, it feels like more of a betrayal for the child.” Placing the majority of the… Read more »
Reader Im sorry to hear that about your childhood, but I’m going by the statistics, women are more likely to abuse children is all categories of abuse, except the 4% or so of it that is sexual, but some experts believe that female child sex abusers are being kept hidden by various cultural taboos and, I believe the two ideologies that feature a female as morally superior construct, Christianity and feminism. As for your second to last paragraph, I can just as easily turn that around and say that you are conveniently avoiding developing and adult psychology buy blaming the… Read more »
MRA = Abuser’s lobby.
Not surprised in the least.
generally most peoples first taste of violence comes from the mother In a culture where it’s assume that fathers only play a limited role in raising children and where corporal punishment is practiced. Sounds like (one more) good reason to question those assumptions and chance practice accordingly. and mothers show up as doing most of the child abuse and obviously have been doing most of the socialising. Also, abuse is supposedly more damaging when it comes from the mother, it feels like more of a betrayal for the child So, where did that “obviously” come from? From assuming that raising… Read more »
This is not talking about violent crime. It is talking about harassment.
Fighting rape culture means refusing to diminish victims’ experiences because of their frequency or their perceived abnormality. The impact of abuse is the same. Not only diminishing victims experience but then shaping laws and policies around those perceptions. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen stories where men/boys are the victim of a sexual harassment/assault/rape and its like the writer will try to play it up as if by virtue of gender he cannot be a victim of such things. (I think this also contributes to why female sex offenders for the most part seem to get off with… Read more »
You’re right, that would be female privilege, but the male privilege in this case is having little sexual harassment; ergo, they don’t know how to handle it when it does happen because for so long it was primarily females who were harassed. Men react to it the way they do because they haven’t been forced to develop that immunity yet this article is talking about. The fact that women have is an unsettling reminder of just how much sexual harassment women have been put through to finally develop those barriers.
Men react to it the way they do because they haven’t been forced to develop that immunity yet this article is talking about. I think there’s a lot more to it than that. I think a big part of the reaction is that men have been forced to develop a different kind of “immunity”. As in men/boys are actively told that it doesn’t matter as much, its not as harmful, or even that its okay and that said guy should be happy about it because they should have wanted it since they are a guy. If it were just a… Read more »
I think by framing “not as much negative experiences” as “privelege” goes a long way towards preventing inter-gender dialogue and understanding