If individuals believe they can enlist the support of an organizational entity, they may be more willing to complain than when they feel like a lone lamb confronting a lion. Programs to make superordinates aware of the possible penalties also address the power dimension. Traditionally, for women to achieve what they want, they appeal to […]

To develop strategies for preventing sexual harassment, we must con­sider the links between sexual scripts and the dimensions underlying ha­rassing behavior (consent, and power). Some women in corporations pur­sue individual solutions—trying to appear feminine enough to conform to others’ expectations of how women should behave and still be professional enough to be seen as appropriate […]

Traditionally, in business organizations men performed the tasks as­sociated with the prevailing male sexual script by initiating and dominat­ing, whereas women engaged in supportive tasks and passively awaited as­signments. The expectations for women as office wives have for some incorporated acting sexy, perhaps exemplifying sex-role spillover (Gutek, 1985). Some men want young women working for […]

In military organizations personnel are expected to follow orders and are dependent on those above them for positive ratings for career advance­ment. Problems may result from men being unwilling to take orders from women because of the belief that women should be submissive not men. Other men may illegitimately use their organizational power to sexualize […]

Military service may represent the essence of the male role for some men. Women may be perceived as the enemy invading sacred male territory who consequently deserve to be punished. When women enter into gender — integrated basic training units, their ability to successfully complete the training may be threatening to those for whom the […]

Despite formal regulations prohibiting sexual harassment, its contin­uing high levels of occurrence may be one of the military’s most open secrets based on public revelations of specific episodes and survey data collected from military personnel (Schmitt, 1993; Wilds, 1990). In 1990 the majority of military women questioned reported to investigators from the Department of Defense […]

Another important characteristic of academic settings is the prepon­derance of men in positions of power. Although women are an increasing part of academic institutions, men still hold most of the positions of power, whether central administrative or departmental leadership positions (Zalk, 1990). At the University of Iowa and Stanford Univerity medical schools the educational hierarchy […]

Performance of the professor role can incorporate elements of other roles, and boundaries can become unclear particularly if instructors engage in behaviors to reduce relational distance (Garlick, 1994). Especially for graduate students, a professor can serve as a teacher, mentor, counselor, and a friend. Each of these roles is negotiated within the context of an […]

Instead of academic institutions being models of ideal behavior (Strine, 1992), they may be resistant to forces that threaten the preroga tives of faculty relative to students and men compared with women. Be­ginning in the 1980s numerous research reports (Dziech & Weiner, 1984; McCormack, 1985; Reilly, Lott, & Gallogly, 1986) as well as many self­studies […]

Recognition of the overt and covert existence of sexuality in orga- izations aids understanding of how deep the seeds of harassment are planted in the soil. Certain organizational characteristics help to propagate these seeds. Drawing from Tangri, Burt, and Johnson (1982), the organizational model stipulates that authority relations that exist within a given organi­zational hierarchy […]