Reasons for Policewomen's Assertive and Passive Reactions to Sexual Harassment

Abstract

To understand how constructive responses could be encouraged and supported, research was conducted to show the reasons for female police officers' responses to sexual harassment. A survey was administered in small groups to 117 female officers from 5 law enforcement agencies in a Midwestern state. For the 106 who had experienced harassment in the last 2 years, perceiving sexual harassing behavior as a violation of organizational policy predicted seeing harassing acts as severe, which in turn predicted assertive reactions. A de-emphasis on individuality and not participating in organizational decision making were predictive of high concern about social reactions, which then predicted the use of passive responses to harassment.