Testimony on Sexual Harassment to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women
Hello, I'm Jennifer Berdahl. I've been a professor at the Rotman School of Management since 2001. I have been studying sexual harassment for over 20 years. I have several research papers on the topic, I have developed a theoretical framework for understanding it, and I have two review chapters in major volumes on organizational behaviour and industrial organizational psychology. My training is in social, organizational, industrial psychology from the University of Illinois, where I received my PhD. I have served as an expert witness on sexual harassment cases...
I began studying sexual harassment in the early 1990s when it was still conceived largely as a problem of unwanted sexual behaviour and predation of men upon women in the workplace, and at the time this was on the heels of the Clarence Thomas Senate hearings and the Anita Hill controversy, when sexual harassment was largely conceived in this way of being sexual in content, sexual in motive and being something that men do to women.
I will go over my research that has given me an understanding of sexual harassment as largely a form of gender-based dominance and derogation in the workplace, what motivates sexual harassment, and how to prevent and address sexual harassment when it occurs.
My research began by studying sexual harassment against men in the workplace. At the time, in the early nineties, people started asking the question, what about men? If sexual harassment is simply a method of making inappropriate sexual comments within the workplace, or propositioning people, then women can do this to men, too, especially as they gain power within the workplace. There was a popular movie in 1994 starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore called Disclosure, which displayed sexual harassment against men in the form of a female boss coming on to him sexually, and there were also statistics coming out on sexual harassment against men that really, in my view and my colleagues' view, overinflated its prevalence, because it simply gave men measures designed to study sexual harassment against women, what women found harassing, and asked them if they ever experienced it, such as lewd comments. Well, of course, men hear lewd comments in the workplace, but they don't necessarily find them harassing.
So we asked the question, do men experience harassment, and if so what kind do they experience in the workplace? With a few studies, we found that in general men do not experience what women experience as harassing in an harassing manner. So lewd comments, sexual attention, typically is not threatening to men—it is to women—but we did identify a form of harassment against men that previously had not been identified, and that was harassment against men for not being man enough in the workplace. This primarily came from other men, and it was experienced as the most threatening form of harassment to men, harassment that derogated them based on their status as men. So it involved masculinity teasing. One example is a man who took a two-week paternity leave after the birth of his second child and when he returned to work, he was teased so relentlessly about it that he feared for his status in the workplace.
I give you this background because it draws attention to the phenomenon of sexual harassment as being largely about a negotiation of gender within the workplace and a form of gender-based harassment, that is, harassing people based upon their gender performance, not necessarily their biological sex (being male or female), but how well they performed their masculinity within the workplace, and potentially how well they performed their femininity in the workplace. So sexual harassment does not have to be sexual in content, and does not have to come from someone of the other sex, to constitute sex discrimination. It can, and usually does, involve derogating someone based upon their sex or their gender performance, and can be perpetuated by same-sex as well as other-sex others.
From this research, I went to study this phenomenon in women. Is sexual harassment against women largely directed at women who also do not engage in prototypical feminine behaviour in the same way that it's directed at men? So again with three studies and a paper I published in 2007 titled The Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women, I demonstrated that it's primarily women who engage in masculine styles of behaviour — being assertive and being outspoken — who get targeted for unwanted sexual attention, sexual comments, and even sexual coercion within the workplace. I also demonstrated that having a masculine personality did not make women more sensitive to this kind of behaviour -- that's not why they were reporting it. They were disproportionately targeted for this kind of behaviour.
In five organizations I found women in male dominated ones were the most likely to be sexually harassed, which had already been demonstrated, but it was particularly women with those masculine styles of behaviour; women who were outspoken and assertive were disproportionately targeted for sexual harassment.
The conclusion from these studies was it is not the women who meet feminine ideals, it's women who do not meet feminine ideals who are targeted for traditional forms of sexual harassment. In the same way, it's men who do not meet masculine ideals who are targeted for male forms of sexual harassment.
It's not a matter of women in male dominated occupations being surrounded by men who are sexually attracted to them, and therefore giving them unwanted sexual attention—that might be part of the problem—but it's largely women who are encroaching upon male territory, either occupationally or in their behaviour that get targeted. Thus, sexual harassment serves to reinforce traditional gender roles and behaviour in both men and women by punishing those who veer outside the lines of gendered behaviour.
At the individual level, I theorize that sex-based harassment does not have to involve a conscious attempt necessarily to reinforce these roles and territories, but rather it is an attempt to protect or enhance one's personal status through gender. This is made possible because status is stratified by sex — being male is given more status than being female—and by gender—masculinity is accorded higher status than femininity. Within gender there are privileged masculinities, and privileged femininities, which give people the tools to put others down based upon these identities.
In the competitive world of work where people are vying for social status, which of course affects their professional status, this sex and gender stratification gives people the possibility to enhance their own status by putting others down based upon these identities.
I define sex-based harassment as behaviour that derogates, demeans, or humiliates an individual based on sex. Even behaviour that on the surface does not appear to be sex based, that may not be sexual in content or nature, might constitute sexual harassment or sex-based harassment in this way if it's motivated by the desire to put someone down based upon that person's sex or their gender performance.
Recent research of mine shows that general mistreatment—ignoring somebody, putting down their work performance—which doesn't have anything to do with sexual content, is disproportionately targeted at gender deviants within the workplace. Women with masculine personalities are primarily targeted for mistreatment in general, not just sexual harassment, and men with feminine personalities, particularly in high status masculine occupations, are disproportionately targeted for mistreatment in general.
This has led me to conduct research on other marginalized identities that make individuals deviate from gender ideals, for example sexual deviants and sexual minorities are disproportionately targeted for sexual harassment. People who deviate from traditional family roles, for example men who do a lot of caregiving in the home, and women who do not have children, are disproportionately targeted for mistreatment in the workplace and sexual harassment.
I've also looked at racial deviants. Racial minorities are disproportionately targeted with sex-based harassment, and those who fail to conform to racial stereotypes are alsotargeted for more racial harassment in the same way that people who do not conform to gender stereotypes are disproportionately targeted for gender harassment.
This kind of behaviour in the workplace is a form of social control that keeps the status quo in place.
Environmentsthat trigger it are environments in which status is highly stratified by sex and gender: male dominated environments in which men out number women, but also when men have more power than women in that environment; the environments that reinforce distinctions between the sexes and the association between being male and having status; and environments that motivate people to be in the “in group” or masculine club, and keep others out of it.
Competitive environments are also much more prone to witnessing this type of harassing behaviour, where promotions are highly desired and difficult to obtain. People are going to use what they can to gain an advantage and will put others down based on sex and gender in order to do so.
Leadership that does not explicitly call out and combat the problem. Leaders who are silent on the topic — neutrality tends to reinforce and side with the status quo — leadership that ignores cases, or even rewards and promotes harassers, and leaders who obviously engage in this behaviour themselves.
So what to do? Prevention starts with leadership. Leadership sets the tone. Leaders have to acknowledge the inequality between groups within the workplace. So typically when we're talking about sexual harassment we're talking about men and women, and the belief that this inequality is wrong. If the leader does not have religion, if people do not think the leader truly believes this in his or her heart it's not going to have much of an effect.
So explicitly stating the belief that men and women are equal and should also have equal chances at promotion and holding people accountable if not has been shown to be very effective. 360° evaluation — having subordinates evaluate leaders, not just having superiors evaluate employees — is critical.
Trying to foster more cooperative work environments that does not pit employees against each other, and especially de-emphasizing sex and gender differences through desegregation both horizontally and vertically within organizations, and being careful not to symbolically reinforce gender inequality with a variety of methods. I can go into those if you're interested.
[Time running out] I have some other comments on problem solving, but perhaps we can get to that in the question and answer period. Thank you.
Q&A
Ms. Niki Ashton (Churchill, NDP): Thank you very much to all three of our presenters. Your testimony was very interesting and certainly you touched on .... While you touched on themes that have come out through this study, you've used an academic lens and perhaps a broader lens to really enhance some of the things that we've learned in this committee. We truly appreciate that. I want to pay particular attention to the repeated reference to systemic discrimination requiring systemic responses and also the work Professor Berdahl that you've been involved with around gender-based discrimination which actually hasn't been a theme that we've dealt with. I don't think we've heard about it as such throughout our study. So you've given us a lot to work with here.
As a Status of Women Committee, our interest is to give recommendations to Status of Women Canada, to the minister and to the government with regards to obviously sexual harassment in the federal work place. I'm wondering with sort of that starting point of Status of Women Canada, I would like to put the question to all three of you. Perhaps we can do it in the order that you spoke, so beginning with Professor MacQuarrie, what you believe the role of Status of Women Canada could be in providing leadership in this area?
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Prof. Jennifer Berdahl: I would echo [Barb MacQuarrie & Sandy Welsh] that we're long overdue for some national statistics on this.
In addition, the Status of Women Canada can offer guidelines and definitions of the problem and the nature of it by defining sexual harassment broadly in the way that I tried to communicate to the committee, so pointing out the very overt sexual forms that we can all recognize are just the tip of the iceberg and that this is a systemic problem that affects both women and men in the workplace.
Where you see men being teased about their masculinity, you can be sure it's going to be a hostile place to women, and that men are going to have to start reporting and stepping up to this as well if the problem is going to be solved.
In outlining best practices and policies, providing that kind of information for companies if it's not already, it would be most helpful, such as the importance of bystander intervention. We know a lot about how effective that is in schools for bullying. Why not do that in organizations? We need bystanders not just to be given the choice of intervening, but actually being told that that is their responsibility as citizens, to intervene and stand up.
Giving victims multiple channels of reporting that start with sort of informal ombudspeople instead of having to go directly to a formal complaint, which we know is extremely rare and people hesitate to do for good reason.
I thought Sandy [Welsh]'s comment about filing complaints and telling organizations that's not a bad sign, that's a good sign, that would be another example of best practices and policies, as well as emphasizing the importance and the responsibility of leadership in this problem.
I'm wondering if some kind of organizational support system outside would help, because naturally if there's a sexual harassment problem within the organization, typically leadership is somehow condoning this and that's why victims are not reporting it and are hesitant to say anything. So some kind of organizational support that can give victims legal information and options and best practices for how to handle the situation, in addition to the sort of social support, connecting victims from other organizations is really important, knowing that you're not alone, that other people experience this.
People are divided within their own organization [where sexual harassment is a problem], so people typically don't go to each other within them when there's a problem. So connecting people in that kind of a social support network would be really important.
Hon. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and good morning to all our witnesses. Thank you so very, very much for the work that you've done on this issue. Clearly, it's something that you're very well versed in.
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The issues of the RCMP and the rationale for starting this particular study, and many of the things that you have said today, all three of you, are some of the answers that the RCMP should have been responding to much earlier. They would not have found themselves in the situation that they are today with the kind of damage that has been done to their reputation, but most importantly to the many women who have been subjected to this.
In particular you mentioned the issue about having an outside organization to go to, with people who are experienced in that kind of harassment, and in a hierarchy like you have in the RCMP, all they had to do was go to the next manager or to the human rights or whatever.
How would you see this outside organization, as something for the federal government to have, other than just one of our normal community organizations that they could go to? Something that the government would have confidence in to try to deal with those problems? Whoever would like to respond to that, please go ahead.
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Prof. Jennifer Berdahl: I would echo what has already been said but I would add that having it funded by the companies using it might be problematic. It would nice and ideal if there could be some government funding for this so there's not any conflict of interest involved in the advice being given. It would also serve as a resource, not just for victims, but also for leaders and managers who might be struggling with this issue in their organizations and may not know how best to address or handle it. It would be sort of a safe haven for both sides of the conflict to go to get good advice.
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Hon. Judy Sgro: Professor Berdahl, in your description of the individuals that tend to be the victims of harassment, whether it's male or female, I think describe so very well members of the RCMP in particular. When you talked about individuals who are outspoken and assertive, I would suggest that's very much what we've seen between women who are showing leadership in those areas as shown in the RCMP in advancing their own careers and being harassed by many of their fellow managers and so on. So it was a perfect description of what we have heard when it comes to the RCMP in your description.
The lack of leadership you mentioned as well and its setting that tone to change the culture. That's very difficult for an organization to do. Do you have anything else to recommend, over and above the comments that you have made, that would deal with that kind of an institution which is male dominated and highly respected by all of us that is struggling to make the changes? Have you had a chance to review any of the information that they have put forward as to the kind of changes they plan to make within the organization?
The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Tilly O'Neill Gordon): Please keep your answer short because we just have a few seconds.
Prof. Jennifer Berdahl: I'm aware that they're trying to address it. They have now made it so people have to report relationships, etc. and sexual interactions within the organization, but I am not familiar with everything they have tried to do. There are some very good examples of military leaders—even the dean of the Harvard Business School which has historically faced some of the same issues—of leaders coming out and explicitly addressing the problem and making it top on their agenda, and the change is almost immediate. Of course you've still got some bad apples but the barrel is not as rotten, and they're not going to thrive.
Mme Anne-Marie Day: Jennifer Berdahl, je crois que ça se prononce ainsi, dans un article paru en 2008, vous avez examiné des études menées sur le harcèlement sexuel en milieu de travail au cours des dernières décennies et vous indiquez que le harcèlement sexuel n'est plus uniquement considéré comme un problème de femme. Pourriez-vous me dire combien il y a d'hommes pour combien de femmes? Est-ce que c'est un rapport de 10 pour 1? Qui est le plus harcelé?
[English]
Prof. Jennifer Berdahl: That's a good question.
We do not have enough systematic evidence on that. We can look at complaints, and men form perhaps one-third of complaints that women make, at least at the federal level. For example, in the U.S. in systematic surveys, we find that about half of men report experiencing these kinds of behaviours, but only a fraction of those find them to be harassing or threatening. So I would put it on the order of more like 10% if the order of women being harassed is around 50%. So it's a fraction, but it is a significant fraction and proportion of men.
One thing I'd like to point out in terms of the training of people, I teach MBA students—they're mostly men—when I talk about the harassment of men, they get it, they understand. Everybody has experienced these gender-based put-downs as men, and that helps train them to see it much more clearly from the woman's perspective.
[Français]
Mme Anne-Marie Day: On a reçu ici en témoignage des gens qui représentaient la Défense nationale et des corps policiers où il y avait majoritairement des hommes dans leur situation. En quoi pensez-vous que la situation est différente ou que les problèmes sont plus flagrants dans les organisations comme la GRC et les Forces armées, alors que celles-ci nous disaient qu'elles avaient une à trois plaintes seulement à caractère sexuel?
[English]
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Prof. Jennifer Berdahl: We know that the number of complaints is very, very small compared to the number of incidents typically, and often the fewer the complaints, like Professor Welsh pointed out, that doesn't necessarily mean there's less harassment going on. There might be more intimidation and fear of complaining going on.
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