A reader sent me a link from the local paper the heading said: Don’t want to be harassed? Stop acting like a man
The blurb said
Behaving like “one of the boys” to get ahead at work may not be the best strategy for women. A study had found that alpha-females are more likely to suffer sexual harassment.
The actual research said:
“The more women deviated from traditional gender roles – by occupying a ‘man’s’ job or having a ‘masculine’ personality – the more they were targeted,” Dr Berdahl said. “Although having a masculine personality would seem to help employees fit into male-dominated work environments, having such a personality appears to have hurt the women in this study.”
She said the study supported the theory that sexual harassment was motivated by a desire to punish “gender-role deviants” rather than by sexual desire.
Why is it always about punishing the gender role deviants? Or just the deviants in general? This post is getting linked along with a lovely one by Kyso over at Punkass Blog which is all about, ahem, someones assertion that a woman’s sole duty in life is to be a mother…
And to think I dared to believe we were past the stone age.
And yes, of course, let’s blame the women for being…assertive? smart? good in business? saavy? profit-making? aggressive…which of course are traits SOLELY found in the male of the species, rather, than, oh, the people harassing these “deviants”?
Beautiful, really (add sarcasam to taste)
Hm. Seems to me that when a woman takes a job that have traditionally been “male” jobs, she’s more likely to be in a predominantly male environment than she would be in a “female” job, and thus is more likely to be exposed to that subset of males that are a$$holes. Harassment happens, and the offenders should be disciplined. Not that this is limited to the male sex; I’ve personally seen examples of men being harassed in a predominantly female environment, but never physically.
I’m curious about the “one of the boys” and “acting like a man” comments. What does that mean? If what’s meant is that the simple act of taking and performing a job in a predominantly male environment is doing that, it seems quite ridiculous to me. With a few obvious exceptions (priest, stripper) (there’s a combination, eh?) the gender of a professional doesn’t matter. Does taking a job in a predominantly male profession make one an “alpha” female?
OTOH, I’m in a predominantly male environment at work. I do network support. Routers, hubs, switches, firewalls, load balancers, etc., etc. As I sit here there’s about 15 people here, 3 of whom are women. Now, when you have a bunch of guys together, you get “guy” humor. Insults, pranks (I left my cell phone on my desk and it took me an hour to find it when I got back yesterday), etc. Not everyone plays the game, mind you, and non-participants are left alone. But if you join in, you’re fair game. And sometimes feelings can be hurt if someone goes too far. It’s a thin line. It wouldn’t be hard to intrepret some of the remarks in the give-and-take as harassment. And I can see where a woman might end up joining in because she would feel excluded otherwise. In that limited circumstance, I’d say that both men and women have to understand the situation and adjust their behavior accordingly.
i’ll agree that the header is offensive and blames women because it suggests that the fix is for women to change behavior, not for men to change attitudes.
but i don’t think the study itself blames women, or at least not the part you quoted. it seems to be targeting the behavior of the harassers by identifying what it is they seem to pick on. knowing that sexual harassers (and harassers of gay people, for that matter) focus on “gender-role deviants” may make us more likely to identify future harassers early so we can send “that’s not okay” messages earlier.
but you’re absolutely right that the headline has to go.
And in other news, while 66% of Americans held a favorable view of Bill Clinton’s long-suffering wife at the end of Bill’s presidency,
52% now hold an unfavorable view of Senator (and presidential candidate) Hillary Clinton.
When people who reported unfavorable views were asked the open-ended question “Tell me what you dislike or don’t admire…?”, people volunteered the following:
14% say they don’t trust her.
11% say she’s an opportunist.
6% say she’s too aggressive and overbearing.
6% say they “just don’t like her.”
5% say she lacks morals and ethics.
4% say she’s arrogant.
3% say she lacks sufficient experience and knowledge to be president.
2% say she’s cold and unfeeling.
3% say we’re just not ready for a girl president.
7% say they object to everything about her, and (more inexplicably)
4% of those with unfavorable views acknowledge that they object to NOTHING about her.
3% declined to offer a reason.
To be sure, people also identified policy reasons for objecting to Hillary. But I wonder how many people will express objection to male candidates for being opportunistic, inexperienced, aggressive, cold or unfeeling.
[Please resist the urge to turn this entire discussion into a Hillary blog or Maia will ban me for sure!]
The assumptions at the heart of this study strike me as dubious. How does it define masculine and feminine traits? The complexity of human personality is what I thought of as the drive at the heart of feminism. How on earth could independence be described as masculine? These women are after all described as conforming to their environment, surely those that are supposedly their opposite could be described as truly independent? Are they real Alpha’s, if so don’t they feel twice ‘tough’ therefore twice as able to brush it off as a more sensitive flower? If they are copying or are like men, then they will find out the limitations of ‘male’ traits, they like a lot of men before them will find out that ‘toughness’ is often about blunting your sensitivity, curbing your finer feelings to fit in and get ahead, or least to hold you own or not be driven out. Unfortunately this blunting can end up meaning that you lose touch with the what makes you stand out, IOW it can be self-defeating, as much for men as women. Many radical feminists have made a similar point . I detest sexual harassment in any form, but the point is, is this behaviour in itself seen as ‘Alpha Male’?
Excuse me, see above.
Yeah, I don’t know what the hell “alpha-female” is supposed to mean here either. From the context of the article, I rather get the impression that it’s a synonym for “uppity.” Or perhaps for “needs to be put back in her place.”
I agree with Polymath that while the results of the study are unsurprising, the spin the local paper chose to put on those results is appalling.
Alpha is probably sort of like this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/female_boss_walking_around
I.e. “nonsubservient” = “alpha.”
Hee!
Yup, that’s probably it.
What’s kind of beautiful is that the newspaper headline itself is an example of sexually harrassing women who are gender variant. It’s like a perfect circle.
To be fair, I think that the headline is supposed to be sarcastic, I’m just not sure that the character of women determines the level of sexual harassment at work, or anywhere else as the study concludes. Or am I wrong on this?
I mean, the latter ought to be a “duh;” most of us knew that harassment is not, in fact, about Dagwood chasing the coy hotsy Blondie secretary around a table with his tongue out because she’s just so damn irresistible;
but the “gender role deviant” thing: yeah. well in the case of women in traditionally “male” jobs, there’s the “keep her out of the treehouse” thing; there’s “shit she might be better at me or take my job and that would be a death blow to my fragile sense of identity” thing; and there’s also punishing her for not conforming and thus upsetting the binary.
I get the points made in No.12 post, but I find it hard to believe that women that are say more in the background are not also harassed just as much, they also by their presence are encroaching into the citadel. I have not found that being more introverted to be any defense against sexual harassment, maybe you just keep your head down and try to ignore it, but you have to remove yourself out of harms way. Is the less harassed thing really that you are just, not there?
I’ve ALWAYS noticed this.
As an older teen (I’m 21) I still used to go out at night. My preferred dress style was loose tough pants such as combat pants or thick jeans and a loose shirt (usually a death metal logo shirt).
You would have thought I’d get left alone, right? After all, I was doing the good girl thing and dressing “modestly”, right?
No. Only initially. I’m moderately tall for a woman (5’7″) and quite harsh featured, and in loose clothes I can look male. And for the first half hour I’d get left alone. Then someone would hear me talk in a loud, animated voice, and realize I was female. Then the behaviour started. Men would grab my backside, wrench at my hair as if to control me while raping me, and other assorted niceties.
How was this about sex? It wasn’t, clearly. It seemed more to be about anger – the only logical explanation seemed to be that they were annoyed that I wasn’t dressing to please them.
Jessica,
I spent years and years agonizing over some of these ongoing “arguments” before giving up on some of this a few months ago. My reasoning is this:
What you’re describing, the butt-grabbing, hair-pulling, etc…. it’s WRONG and there is no possible way to deny that. No one SHOULD try to deny it, given your description of the scenario. Further, it’s demeaning, irritating and it sends an awful message to the person who is dealing with it AND to society at large.
But in the end, here’s the problem: No matter where you go in life you’re going to have to deal with a combination of assholes and bitches, in varying quantities. Sometimes they’re in a position to make your life difficult, and that’s frustrating. Sometimes they’re NOT, and you can shrug the minor inconvenience off, forgetting about it. NONE of it is right, not one single bit; but it’s human nature whether we like it or not.
Parents should always take care to rear their children to respect other people regardless of gender. First developmental hump: Every person (parent) has a very different idea of what “respect” entails/means/applies to.
In order for the world at large to change, people as a whole would have to be smarter and more moral; and not moral in that faux-philosophical Catch-22 of “by whose morality?” but by a kind of Golden Rule simplicity… only that’s not people… who are basically idiots.
I’d call your evaluation wrong, at least partially. In a scenario like you describe, the touching and hair-pulling begins by being about sex, because these are still idiot children regardless of age and accountability, and not only have they stuck with this ploy all their lives, but it’s WORKED for them on many occasions, sadly enough. We in the mature world are supposed to pretend all men should learn to be above the demeaning version of dipping pigtails in the inkwell just as we’re supposed to pretend that there are NO women out there who, whether you agree or not, actually LIKE it and respond positively. Not all, not by a long shot; but it’s the same long shot by which not all men behave thusly.
The annoyance/anger part you refer to… that’s partially right, but it’s less about you not dressing to please them and more you not responding positively to their brutish overtures and BEHAVING to please them.
You certainly should NOT, and certainly shouldn’t have to. By IDEALISTIC standards, you should be able to walk unmolested, anytime and anywhere.
But again, that’s NOT life, much as I wish it was.
Time and again I’ve said this to people, and typically it’s a load of responses telling me why it SHOULD be “that way” [insert ideal here], as though I’m somehow responsible for changing the world and making things fit someone’s expectations and ideals. I wish I could; I wish I had that kind of power because I’m a pretty intelligent, reasonable and compassionate guy — but I STILL wouldn’t even come close to pleasing all the people all the time.
I wish I had an answer for you, but all I have is a suggestion or two:
Don’t think this is MEN; instead, realize these are badly-behaved individuals with no respect for you and recognize that they do not embody men at large one bit more than a saint would representatively embody people at large.
Go where you want, do what you want to the best of your ability and recognize that men AND women, neither side lives anywhere near as freely as the other side believes during moments of anger and irritation. And we’re not even supposed to be on “sides”.
As a man, I’ll tell you this: The majority of little boys in the guise of social bad-asses and “men” have lacked authority and education on many levels, and the simplest way to deal with what you describe (let’s leave aside that you shouldn’t have to, that’s a GIVEN, but it’s not the reality) is when this is done to you, put a cold stare in your eye and say in a very solid voice “You need to stop this right now. I do NOT have to put up with your BS and I won’t.” Hold their eyes, accept that they’ll probably try to blow it off with a typically bully (after all that’s what these people are) remark about just joking/what’s your problem… and they’ll likely call you some kind of uppity bitch…
…and then move on with your life as though they never existed. Just like a million people do a day.
If you’re asking “Well, what about when that doesn’t work?” then I may only say watch your arse, do what men do and maintain some situational awareness, and don’t be ashamed to ask for help in coping with someone bigger than you.
Best of luck.
Punishing gender role deviants is a national sport. Just have to watch how good companies treat transgender and transsexual employees to get any idea of it. This applies to men, women, and those who are both, neither, genderqueer, agender, two-spirit.
Everyone is pushed aggressively towards that rigid box. It’s what partly explains the lack of men in caregiving and teaching – being presumed to “not really care” about kids, except sexually. I can very much imagine discrimination in nursing that presumes men do the heavy lifting (lifting patients off bed) because they’re stronger (regardless of the reality of their strength).
The same way I can imagine a female boss’s authority being taken less seriously, unless she’s more authoritarian. Because to be more intimidating is harder.
Men have some inherent (due to social forces presuming they all do, and are dangerous – not due to biology) intimidating coscient it seems, and the women’s harmlessness coscient plays against them when they do need to be somewhat intimidating.
Schala, you’re correct. I’m actually in the process, as a man, of entering the Nursing field and during some of my clinicals (at a much lower level of CNA) I was the only man in the class — and therefore the one constantly shouted for when it was time to lift a patient, lift a large box, etc. It wasn’t just the other students; it was the actual nurses under whom we were working during those weeks, who quickly elected to take advantage of my presence since there were no men on the shifts to which our class was assigned.
My role transformed so quickly and so completely from student to “strong back” that I actually had to point out that by running all these strongman errands I was being forced to miss out on caregiver opportunities which would have provided for my educational benefit. Jobs these women would have done without me had I not been there were “automatically” mine by virtue of being a man on the floor.
I might as well have dumped my scrubs for a shirt reading “I’m not real smart but I can lift heavy things.” — and it was the women in charge who were making this happen.
Sasquatch, you have some good points, but I disagree with this one
‘I’d call your evaluation wrong, at least partially. In a scenario like you describe, the touching and hair-pulling begins by being about sex, because these are still idiot children regardless of age and accountability, and not only have they stuck with this ploy all their lives, but it’s WORKED for them on many occasions, sadly enough. We in the mature world are supposed to pretend all men should learn to be above the demeaning version of dipping pigtails in the inkwell just as we’re supposed to pretend that there are NO women out there who, whether you agree or not, actually LIKE it and respond positively. Not all, not by a long shot; but it’s the same long shot by which not all men behave thusly.
The annoyance/anger part you refer to… that’s partially right, but it’s less about you not dressing to please them and more you not responding positively to their brutish overtures and BEHAVING to please them.’
I’m afraid I can’t agree that it was about sex.
Reasons:
1. I am androgynous looking and for the most part didn’t draw male attention. The only time these behaviours started was when someone noticed me talking loudly and seemed to realize I was a female. If it was about sex I’d expect to see these men concentrate on women who were attractively dressed and clearly LOOKED FEMALE.
2. Let’s look at exactly who this behaviour was directed at.
These men had a whole room full of women in tiny miniskirts, 6″ heels and lurid makeup who they could have focused their lamentable simian behaviour on…but they didn’t. They chose me, a harsh-featured, androgynous chick in rough combat pants and a loose shirt over a room full of ‘sexy’ women.
This does not suggest that the behaviour was about sex. Seems more along the lines of ‘How dare she. I’m going to go put her in her place, which is that of a sex object, there to please me.’
I also feel the need to point out that it’s not just about people being regular ‘assholes’ – this issue IS about gender. We do not see an equivalent rash of women treating men like meat and men’s bodies as goods they are entitled to.
As for dealing with them, believe me, none of those strategies are new to me. I’ve done the cold stare and assertive body language. Sometimes it works, sometimes they laugh at you and continue doing it. Some of the ‘survival’ methods I’ve had to work out are unreal, including things like only going to the bathrooms when a large group of women go because idiot men would otherwise corner you on the way in or out, and asking specifically for an empty cab or at least one with no men when ordering a taxi.
Yes.
You read that right.
I used to do everything on the ‘what a good responsible girl does to avoid rape’ list, including ordering a taxi home. Guess what, that wasn’t good enough.
I was taking the cab home from kickboxing class aged 18…and there was this drunk guy in the back. Halfway out along the route home this dude decides to try and touch me in ways he shouldn’t. Well, running away wasn’t an option given I was in a moving vehicle. I was stuck in a space about 1.5ft x 1.5ft with this adult male, who is bigger than me, trying to touch me up. I freaked completely. I pulled my small knife with the locking blade, held it in front of his face and I think my exact words were “If you touch me again, I’ll rip out your adrenal glands, you sick {long stream of obscenities}.’ I continued screaming until the driver ordered him out.
The list gets longer and longer, and every time you find an adaptation someone finds a way to be a more effective pervert. Because we focus on what women ought to be doing to avoid the behaviour, and blame them for not being better world-proofed when they don’t manage to avoid it, while shrugging our shoulders and saying nothing to boys and men and acting as if their behaviour is some agentless natural hazard that ‘just happens’.
Jessica,
As for the cab incident and others comparable — you’re right; the more assertive doesn’t guarantee anything. Sadly, there IS no guarantee. As a man I raise my son to be a gentleman. Because he’s only four, I try to teach him the difference between “good guys” and “bad guys”. Recently asked how I’d behave if I had a daughter, I said “Exactly the same way, except I’d teach her to braid her hair in case she wanted to and I wasn’t around.”
Beyond that, I’m helpless in this world to do other than call men out when I see poor behaviour, let them know in no uncertain terms it’s unacceptable; to stop them when I see it. And contrary to popular belief, this has been the attitude of the majority of men with whom I’ve associated, rather than the jeering, leering crowds of hyaenic apes so popularized in modern culture.
As for my take on it being about sex — you may find yourself “androgynous looking”, I’ve no idea what you look like. However, it’s been my experience as a man among men in various settings to see that a LOT more men than is realized go very specifically for the less-feminine female of a group for various reasons ranging from approachability and a presumed acceptance of “male roughness” (a common bonding approach among men — NOT saying this was specifically the case for you, but it’s quite common) all the way to such women simply seeming “cooler”. Another typical phenomenon is when women dress in a more masculine fashion and draw attention from men that way — perhaps unintentionally, but people are often drawn to whatever seems different.
And yes, I realize there is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” aspect to that explanation.
I’m not trying to tell you what to think; you were there, you made your own evaluation. I’m just tossing things out there from a male perspective for mulling over, and even I admit the potential for error on my part. I’m hazarding guesses — nothing more.
‘…a LOT more men than is realized go very specifically for the less-feminine female of a group for various reasons ranging from approachability and a presumed acceptance of “male roughness” (a common bonding approach among men — NOT saying this was specifically the case for you, but it’s quite common) all the way to such women simply seeming “cooler”. Another typical phenomenon is when women dress in a more masculine fashion and draw attention from men that way…’
Wow, really?
So if you wear ‘sexy’ clothes you’re damned and if you wear functional, ‘modest’ clothing you’re damned too…
Yep, you’re correct. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Is there ANY technique that simply keeps men away from you? I find that even being much physically larger doesn’t do it. I’ve had guys who were about 5ft tall feel totally free to grab my ass, try and touch me and get annoyed if I said no, etc. It didn’t seem to strike them that doing this to someone 7″ taller and generally bigger than you was not a good idea.
Jessica,
Not really sure what to say here. I’ve talked to a LOT of women over the years, and they’ve run a complete physical gamut from women who were gorgeous all the way to women who were most decidedly… not. Classy dressers, sexy dressers, casual dressers, rough-and-tumble dressers; cowgirls, catgirl-wannabes, strippers and Daisy Dukes. I’ve lived in a lot of different places and associated with a variety of social classes.
On both ends of that physical and fashionary spectrum:
I’ve encountered women who make wry faces at the suggestion men are pigs-in-heat and perpetu-gropers, women who say they’ve never dealt with such a thing in their lives and find the suggestion absurd…
I’ve encountered women who speak of “this one time/this one incident” with a disgusted, indignant expression, and then follow on with “I’m certainly glad THAT never happened again”…
And I’ve encountered women with tales much like yours, women who insist they cannot cross a moderately crowded room without feeling they’ve just about been thrust into a reenactment of Jodie Foster’s horrific rape scene in “The Accused”.
Apparently there is simply no way out for you and I may only suggest you move, because where you’re living is not a very nice place at all.
Lol yes, I live in a rural area which isn’t the most enlightened…Add alcohol and late night silliness to the mix and people get very very backward, which is why I don’t go out at night any more…
I never experienced being the strong back like this, given I never was the only MAAB, or the strongest (by far, if there was anyone else my age or older, he was stronger). The closest I did experience was being thrust in manual labor jobs like warehousing and manufacturing (crafting cheap furniture). Stuff that I would obviously struggle to do given my physical size and strength, and I had said I’d prefer a cashier or a data entry or anything based on a computer if there was any open… Never got any of those positions (which also required no experience, and didn’t involve active sales). But I did have the chance of getting fired for underperformance from many of those jobs.
In short, they hired me based on the presumed presence of a penis, and fired me because it didn’t actually make me as strong as Superman. Couldn’t give me work that was more appropriate for my size, strength and capabilities. I was completely clueless about where and how to ask for another more appropriate position within the same company (they all had some sized offices).
In fact, only the last warehousing job eventually understood that I was much faster and waaay more productive if given small, but relatively far from each other orders than if given very heavy orders that were right next to each other. At some point I was judged as underproductive, late too often…and the other extreme I was judged as too productive, and told to slow down (by other employees), and they (the bosses) regretted my quitting the job, in 2005, in order to transition (I didn’t tell them about transition). I lasted 30 months there.