Accounting for Victimization: Male Professors’ Ideological Positioning in Stories of Sexual Harassment

Abstract

Ideologies constrain and shape the sense that people make of sexual harassment experiences in the workplace. Victims, harassers, and witnesses are all influenced by the discourse that informs the decisions they make in relation to sexual harassment in the workplace. This research examined the implications of ideologies and discourses surrounding sexual harassment through interviews with four male professors from a large, southwestern U.S. university, who describe their experience as victims of sexual harassment.The men’s accounts revealed shifts back and forth between several ideological positions as a way to make sense of their experiences, highlighting the impact of hegemonic masculinity, the complicated process of consent, and the contrast between the experiences of male and female victims.

Framing Agri‐Digital Governance: Industry Stakeholders, Technological Frames and Smart Farming Implementation

“…The seemingly contradictory positioning of growers enables industry stakeholders to differentiate between those aspects of technological change over which they have control, and those they do not. In this sense, positioning enables industry stakeholders to draw upon ‘their experience in relation to identity, power … [and] ideology’ (Scarduzio and Geist‐Martin 2010, p. 424) to shift the focus to others in the event that change outcomes may not be as planned.…”

“Maybe She Was Provoked”

“…In regard to IPV, female perpetrators are stereotypically described as acting abnormally, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and even as “black widows” in some cases (Carlyle et al, 2014). Men, too, experience gender stereotypes, often about their resistance to hegemonic masculinity and/or their experiences of being victims (Kiesling, 1997; Scarduzio & Geist-Martin, 2008, 2010). Hegemonic masculinity describes the notion that “men’s identity strategies are constituted through their complicit or resistant stance to prescribed masculine styles” (Wetherell & Edley, 1999, pp.…”

Boundaries and Borders: How Do Recipients Interpret Social-Sexual Behaviour at Work?

“…The ideological position (Scarduzio & Geist-Martin, 2010), beliefs and values (Tinkler, 2008) and moral reasoning (Bernstein, 1997), gender role stereotyping attitudes (Adikaram, 2014;Dill, Brown, & Collins, 2008;Foulis & McCabe, 1997) too are found to shape how people make sense of experiences of sexual harassment. Further, women who are low on hostile sexism (Wiener & Hurt, 2000), women with adversarial sexual beliefs (Murrell & Dietz-Uhler, 1993), and non-sexist attitudes (Foulis & McCabe, 1997;Lee, 2001) are also found to be less likely to identify a behaviour as harassing.…”