Sexual Harassment in the Ivory Tower: Direct and Indirect Effects of Harassment Experiences on Professional Outcomes among Academic Faculty

Abstract

Many studies of sexual harassment in academia account for its prevalence in specific disciplines, though few studies have systematically examined the role of sexual harassment as a mechanism of resource and reward distribution. Although there is a sizable amount of literature documenting the emotional trauma and loss of organizational trust among survivors of harassment, there is also a long tradition of feminist theory that has identified sexual harassment and assault as a central mechanism of the subordination of women in the workplace and in society. Using a structural equation modeling approach, this study tests two alternative hypotheses concerning the relationship between sexual harassment and professional rewards on a sample of 527 academic faculty at high research activity institutions: (1) experiencing sexual harassment leads to workplace disengagement, and should therefore be associated with fewer professional rewards and more negative outcomes on objective measures of professional performance; and (2) experiencing sexual harassment is embedded in patriarchal systems of occupational resource distribution, and should therefore be associated with greater professional rewards and more positive outcomes on objective measures of professional performance. Results suggest strong support for hypothesis 2 for the woman sample.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ When extant literature used language of male/female instead of men/women, the language of the original work is used here. For problems associated with conflating male/female with men/women, see, Garvey et al. (2019).

² The Institutional Review Board of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa reviewed and approved this research (application number E201820).