Halfon Carolyne Georgiana, McCray Destiny, Kulibert Danica
Department of Psychological Science, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144, USA.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Jun 1;15(6):757. doi: 10.3390/bs15060757.
Victims of sexual harassment report facing barriers and retaliation for reporting their sexual harassment. The current study assessed one potential reason for these issues: perceptions of sexual harassment events. Participants (N = 427) read about different sexual harassment events and were told that the woman in the event worked with a masculine (e.g., EMT, school police officer, plumber) or feminine job (e.g., nurse, teacher, cleaning staff). Across three different sexual harassment claims (e.g., unwanted romantic attention, physical groping, being shown sexually explicit images), participants reported that women in masculine jobs were less prototypical women than women in feminine jobs. Furthermore, these perceptions of prototypicality impacted how participants viewed the victim's sexual harassment event. The less a person views a victim as a typical woman, the less likely they are to label the victim's experience as sexual harassment. The results suggest that perceptions of sexual harassment are directly impacted by how people view a victim. Implications around prototypes of women and sexual harassment claims are discussed.
性骚扰受害者报告称，他们在举报性骚扰行为时面临诸多障碍并遭到报复。当前的研究评估了导致这些问题的一个潜在原因：对性骚扰事件的认知。参与者（N = 427）阅读了不同的性骚扰事件，并被告知事件中的女性从事男性化工作（如急救医疗技术员、学校警官、水管工）或女性化工作（如护士、教师、清洁人员）。在三种不同的性骚扰指控（如 unwanted romantic attention、身体抚摸、被展示色情图片）中，参与者报告称，从事男性化工作的女性比从事女性化工作的女性更不符合典型女性形象。此外，这些对典型性的认知影响了参与者对受害者性骚扰事件的看法。一个人越不认为受害者是典型的女性，就越不可能将受害者的经历认定为性骚扰。结果表明，对性骚扰的认知直接受到人们对受害者看法的影响。文中讨论了关于女性原型和性骚扰指控的相关影响。
