Silence, Voice, and Resilience: An Examination of Workplace Sexual Harassment

Ford, Jeffrey D.; Ivancic, Sonia R.; Scarduzio, Jennifer A.

doi:10.1080/10510974.2021.1953092

Cited by 11 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Policies encouraging victim/survivors to report their abuse can overlook the complex organizational structures and discourses that silence victim/survivors after they speak out (Ford et al., 2021). Sofia's employment in a hyper competitive hierarchical institution with a high‐power distance constructed and strengthened a culture of silence.…”

Section: Policy Failurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Organizational efforts to promote reporting sexual harassment can be riddled with strategic ambiguities that serve the interests of the organization rather than the victim (Ford et al., 2021). Clair (1993b) revealed how formal reporting mechanisms can bureaucratize sexual abuse and neglect its deep and ongoing effects.…”

Section: Policy Failurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is antithetical to voice (Donaghey et al., 2011), which involves having “a say” over matters that affect one's work (Dundon & Rollinson, 2011). While silence, voice, and speaking out draw attention to organizational silence, Ford et al.’s (2021) deeper and more nuanced concept of “reluctant acquiescence” helps to understand how Sofia responded to organizational silencing.…”

Section: Silence and Silencingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A positive duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment has recently been written into Australian law (Human Rights Commission, 2020). We are cognizant of the comprehensive literature that explores workplace interventions (Bergman et al., 2002; Buchanan et al., 2014; Cassino & Besen‐Cassino, 2019; Chawla et al., 2021; Clark, 2004; Collinson & Collinson, 1996; Dobbin & Kalev, 2020; Fernando & Prasad, 2019; Fielden et al., 2010; Ford et al., 2021; Hershcovis et al., 2021; Johnson et al., 2018; McDonald, 2012; Pei et al., 2021; Vijayasiri, 2008). Against the backdrop of this legislative enactment, scholarship, and Sofia's experiences, we perceive a need for organizations to take three key actions.…”

Section: What Should Organizations Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Leading from Ford et al. (2021), we unpack how once Sofia began to voice her discontent, she was silenced by actors within and external to her workplace. Calder‐Dawe (2015) emphasized that the “unspeakability” of sexism is more than an absence of talk, it is a structured silence that confines what is said and when, or that we find ourselves reluctant to speak out about it at all (p. 90–91).…”

Section: Introduction and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sexually harassed, assaulted, silenced, and now heard: Institutional betrayal and its affects

Duffy

O’Shea

Tang

2023

Gender Work & Organization

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This work explores the processes of sexual violence and its consequences, within an organizational context through a detailed examination of a professional woman's experience.By centralizing Sofia's lived experiences, we demonstrate how acts of institutional betrayal occur when an organization protects a perpetrator and silences and further traumatizes a victim/survivor. Outwardly this organization purports to champion gender equality, but inwardly they reflect the values and misogynistic norms present in parts of the Australian culture. We lay bare the multiple ways inequity regimes intersect with the disadvantage experienced by Sofia as a junior employee, a migrant, and a woman.We detail and account for Sofia's story through a process of listening deeply and writing differently to illustrate how sexual harassment in the workplace is not confined to a victim/survivor-perpetrator dichotomy but is embedded within organizational structures, policies, processes, and employees themselves. We explore how power relations silenced both victim/survivors and bystanders who spoke out and failed to disrupt the status quo or hold the organization to its purported gender equality values. We describe Sofia's battle for justice within this organization and provide a conceptual framework that highlights how reluctant

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Section: Policy Failurementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Policy Failurementioning

confidence: 99%