Christopher Uggen and Amy Blackstone. 2004. "Sexual Harassment as a
Gendered Expression of Power." Forthcoming in American Sociological Review.
ABSTRACT
Drawing on recent
insights from the study of legal consciousness and gender relations, the
authors test the generality of Catharine MacKinnon’s theory of the sexual
harassment of adult women. Survey and interview data from the Youth Development
Study and the General Social Survey are analyzed to identify a behavioral
syndrome of sexual harassment for males and females at distinct life course
stages, and to compare the syndrome against subjective reports of sexual harassment.
A clear harassment syndrome is found for all age and sex groups and MacKinnon’s
predictions about the influence of workplace power and gender relations are
generally supported. Financially vulnerable men as well as women are most
likely to experience harassing behaviors, and men pursuing more egalitarian
gender relationships are most likely to identify such behaviors as sexual
harassment. Nevertheless, adult women remain the most frequent targets of
classic sexual harassment markers such as unwanted touching and invasion of
personal space.