In a puzzling and shocking outcome, Professor Jennifer Berdahl of the University of Toronto reports that women who act like men get harrassed more at work than if women are just more stereotypically “womanly”. Dr. Berdahl reports that:
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.
Women who display what many regard as traditional male traits – such as assertiveness, independence and ambition – are more often the targets of sexual harassment than “feminine” women, the Canadian research has found. The situation is worst in workplaces dominated by men, where women with so-called masculine personalities – described in the study as “uppity” – suffered more than twice the harassment of other women.
Of course this begs the question, what if a woman is simply more masculined traited would her acting more stereotypically feminine get her someplace or would that be seen as non-stereo typical too?
The report goes on to say that:
“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.”
But why is this? Accroding to Dr. Berdahl, it appears that sexual harrassment is not so much about sex it’s about punishing gender role deviance.
You can find the full report at Pscynet here or if your cheap (like we are at The Cafe) go here for the summary.
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Hello Becki,
Here’s a bloggy sort of response–not directed at you personally, so don’t take offense–but written for all of your readers.
The finding isn’t the least bit shocking or surprising in the context of the gender binary. A fundamental part of this concept is that everyone can be placed into one of two categories–the concept denies gender variance. The result is that the concept of gender we all learn growing up has no place for the reality of gender variance. This leaves us unable to even comprehend gender variance. “Us” here doesn’t just mean gender variant people, it means everyone who hasn’t thought long and hard to develop a mental model that allows for gender variance. By my observation, binary thinking is so pervasive that even most gender variant people have trouble thinking beyond it.
Viviane Namaste, in her book Invisible Lives explains how this thinking drives society to actively eliminate gender variant people from existence She calls this “erasure” and certainly encompasses harassment as described in this study.
Binary thinking explains so much. It explains the difficulty of friends and family to accept us (us gender variants.) It explains rigid models of gender variance, such as have been thrust on us by the psychiatric community over the years. Moreover, it explains our difficulty in understanding findings about gender variance, such as this article. We are have been indoctrinated by binary thinking just like everyone else.
Another example of a gender variant “finding” is when we find ourselves to be gender variant. With only gender binary education, we are unequipped to understand, accept, or even recognize ourselves. This leads to all sorts of self-esteem issues. At last Saturday’s Tiffany Club house party, for example, a friend was telling me how her outlook had dramatically improved in the month since I had last seen her; improved with the realization that much of her life had been controlled by shame. Shame of what? Of not fitting into the binary. In order to get over this, she had to develop mental concepts that allowed for the resistance of a person outside the binary. (Then of course, she had to take ownership and move in.) This realization comes to her at age 58. I think she’s lucky. I think most transgenders never see this light.
I used the term “gender binary,” by the way, because it includes that word “binary” which is central to the problem. A very similar term which refers to this problem of rigid gender binary thought is heteronormativity. Evidence of my claim that thinking outside the binary is incredibly difficult and rare is that the Wikipedia entries for these terms don’t reference each other. The entry for gender binary acknowledges that it encompasses sexual orientation, and the entry for heteronormativity acknowledges that it encompasses gender identity, and yet the authors of both articles missed the opportunity to reference the the other term. Neither references the converse term gender variance. The best starting point in Wikipedia for these concepts currently seems to be the entry on gender roles.” I recommend reading all four Wikipedia articles I’ve referenced here. (And then of course, reading what they reference…)
Sonia Keys,
Student of gender enlightenment -
Hi Sonia,
No offense at all. Your comments are welcome here as is the open discussion on this important topic.
Thank you!
Becki
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