
In the fire-hose torrent of sexual harassment scandals we are staggering under these days, one thing stands out as aΒ common factor in all the cases: The accused are men.
“One of the reasons it is men who harass women, andΒ sometimes other men, is that this is about power and overwhelmingly (workplace) upper management is male, so the positions of power are disproportionately occupied by men and the bottom is disproportionately occupied by women,” saysΒ Abigail Saguy, professor of sociology and gender studies at UCLA and author of the 2003 book, What is Sexual Harassment?
You may be thinking at this point…Β well, duh, this is something we all know instinctively. Women don’t do this kind of thingΒ β grope, talk dirty, assault, sexually coerce, even rape their work colleagues. It’s a Y chromosome kind of thing, right?
But not so fast.Β Franklin Raddish, a South Carolina Baptist pastor with aΒ nationwide following, last month declared, as a means of supporting Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (who lost Tuesday), that accusations of sexual harassment against men in politics andΒ Hollywood amounted to a “war on men.”
“More women are sexual predators than men,” opinedΒ Raddish. “Women are chasing young boys up and down the road, but we don’t hear about that because it’s not PC.”
He provided no evidence of this because, well, there isn’t any.
Still, there are exceptions that prove the rule:Β On Friday, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Kansas dropped out of her race afterΒ The Kansas City StarΒ found out she had been accused in a 2005 lawsuit ofΒ sexually harassing and retaliating against a male subordinateΒ who rejected her advancesΒ when she was a corporate executive.
….
Which leads to the question: What are the numbersΒ on women accused of sexual harassment? Has anyone conducted scientific surveys and found some? Whatβs the reason why it appears the vast majority of people accused of workplace sexual harassment are men?
And what’s the reason few men ever file formal complaints?
“Pride gets in the way,” says Todd Harrison,Β a partner in a California firm that handles thousands of employment-law cases per year. “Most good plaintiffs attorneys who handle discrimination andΒ harassment claimsΒ take on female-to-male harassment and the same (laws) apply. Itβs just a matter of whether the men who are victims want to come forward.”
There are few numbers available about women sexual harassers, and some of the numbersΒ available are more than a decade old.
“It is extremely rare βΒ itΒ does happen but it is extremely rare,” says Genie Harrison, a Los Angeles-based attorney who specializes in workplace sexual-harassment cases. “Men can be victims and women can be abusers, and I’ve represented victims where a woman was the harasser, but I would say it’s at best a 99.9%-to-.01% ratio.”
Various government agencies, such as the military, the federal employee system or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, keep track of complaints of workplace sexual harassment but they generally focus on the accusers, not the accused.
β In the most recent data available from the EEOC, there were 6,758 complaintsΒ of sexual harassment allegations received by the commission in 2016, and a little more than 16% were filed by men. But the data don’t say who did the harassing βΒ a woman or another man.
Moreover, EEOC data do notΒ provide a comprehensive picture of the entire country. Plus, the agencyΒ estimates that most people, male or female, who have experienced harassment (more than 80%) never file a formal complaint about it.
….
Emily Martin, general counsel and vice president for workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, who handles workplace sexual harassment issues, agrees that women harassers are a “minority of cases” becauseΒ women are less likely to exercise power over men at work.
“I’ve never worked with a client where a woman was the harasser; we’re aΒ womenβs-rights organization so theΒ individuals whoΒ tend to reach out to us are women,” Martin says. “And women who target other women (for harassment) is an unusualΒ fact pattern.”
Jennifer Berdahl, a professor in the business school at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver who studies the harassment of men, says harassment is also about gender and how society defines it.Β MalesΒ learn a sense of superiority over females from the time they are children, she says.
Being a man means being superiorΒ to a woman and dominating women sexually or otherwise; sexual harassment is taking that (thinking) to an extreme,” Berdahl says. “It’s possible there’s a rare woman who might get off on dominating a person like that butΒ men are socialized from the age of 3 to think of themselves as being ‘aΒ real man,’ defined as dominating women.”
In her research, she says, she’s found that the most common way a woman would harass a man is to question his manhood. For many men, she says, being scorned as “feminine” or “weak” is too humiliating to report.
Another source of limited data on women harassers: Law firms that specialize in employment law and sexual harassment cases, such asΒ Perona, Langer, Beck, Serbin, Mendoza & Harrison in Long Beach, Calif.
Todd Harrison, a partner in the firm,Β estimates he handles about 150 cases of employment law a year, and about 65% of them are sex harassment cases. Of those, 10% βΒ or less than 10 cases per year βΒ involve women as the accused harassers, he said.
“Sexual harassment is not just about sexual innuendo or jokes or pats on the butt, itβs about power and intimidation, so the cases Iβve handled (involving women harassers), itβs normally a woman in a control position and using that power to intimidate men,” HarrisonΒ says.
“Sometimes there are sexual overtures, inappropriate touching without consent, offers for quid pro quo or sex for promotion,” he added. “A lot of times itβs a powerful woman in an organization who will talk down orΒ treat a man different fromΒ his female counterparts.”
But men can be reluctant toΒ come forward to complain due to fear of mockery, he says. Men may also buy into the notion that female-on-male harassment isn’t even possible.
“Embarrassment is always an issue,” HarrisonΒ says. “SocietalΒ norms sayΒ menΒ are supposed to be able to handle this. But we have men (clients) who say, ‘Itβs just not fair. Weβre always accused of it, here’s a situation where we’ve been victimized by a person in authority.’ ”
….
— Maria Puente, USA Today, Women are Rarely Accused of Sexual Harassment, and There’s a Reason Why, December 18, 2017
Sexual harassment is about abuse of power. As the author says men are generally in positions of power. Plus men are taught to be “hot for teacher” and to seek MILFs and to think k the Mrs. Robinson thing is cool.
I made this exact same argument on Facebook and got blasted for doing so.
There’s a double standard. If a male teacher has sex with a female student, it is considered rape. If a female teacher has sex with a male student, it is every boy’s dream. Both are criminal and should be prosecuted equally.
Back in my junior high/high school days (lates 60s-early 70s), we would have student teachers from Bowling Green State University. Some of these student teachers were quite attractive and had every boy’s undivided attention. π Flirtation is part of the human experience. It is when flirtation turns into inappropriate sexual relationships that there’s a problem.
It’s up to the adults in the room to understand boundaries, not the students. From time immemorial, teenagers have had crushes on their teachers. The same thing happens in church settings. Again, it is up to adults to maintain proper boundaries. One man told me, after he was arrested for having sex with a 15-year old, “I couldn’t help myself.” Really? Are you that weak that you can’t keep yourself from committing statutory rape? No matter how friendly a student might be, the adult is the one in control of things.