Ignoring sexism increases women’s tolerance of sexual harassment

ABSTRACT

Women often ignore gender harassment (i.e., sexism). Two studies tested whether ignoring real or imagined sexism increases tolerance of sexual harassment and decreases support for survivors. In Study 1 (n = 252) undergraduate women were randomly assigned to receive a sexist or offensive remark delivered in a serious or humorous manner. Compared to women who confronted sexism, women who ignored it aligned attitudes with behavior and reported more tolerance of sexual harassment. In Study 2 (n = 384), women reported more dissonance when they imagined ignoring a sexist remark compared to having no chance to confront or confronting. Regardless of whether humor was present, the more dissonance, the more they endorsed sexually harassing attitudes and the less they supported survivors.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexism
• confronting
• sexual harassment
• dissonance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A pilot test showed that the jokes were funnier than the serious statements, ts(29) ≥ 2.07, ps ≤ .04. Ford (2000) also reports pretest ratings for the sexist joke and statement. The sexist and offensive jokes were rated as equally offensive, t(29) = −1.89, p = .07. The serious sexist remark was rated as more offensive than the serious offensive remark, t(29) = −8.91, p < .001.

2. We include an analysis of how the content of the remark (offensive, sexist) and the type of remark (joke, serious) affect ingratiation and confrontation in the supplemental materials.

3. Twenty-eight additional people completed the study but failed an attention check and were excluded from analysis. The pattern of results remains unchanged when they are included.

4. We find the same pattern of results when we compare the women who imagined they confronted to the women who imagined they had no chance to confront.