{"id":9047,"date":"2018-03-28T10:29:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T14:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=9047"},"modified":"2025-10-20T09:32:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:32:40","slug":"the-real-toll-of-workplace-harassment","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/the-real-toll-of-workplace-harassment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Toll of Workplace Harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n The Real Toll of Workplace Harassment\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

It\u2019s little surprise that many incidents of sexual harassment happen in the workplace – whether those are film sets, office buildings, the House of Commons or an RCMP detachment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assistant Prof. Angela Dionisi of Carleton University\u2019s Sprott School of Business has been closely tracking the #MeToo movement and her focus on workplace sexual harassment has led her to some unsettling insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The numbers themselves are disquieting. Recent Abacus survey findings made a strong case for Canadian workplaces as crucibles of power imbalances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twelve per cent of survey respondents reported that sexual harassment of women was \u201cquite common\u201d in their workplaces and another 44 per cent said it was infrequent but did happen. These perceptions were shared almost equally by men and women respondents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Dionisi thinks the problem is even bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe survey question didn\u2019t define “sexual harassment,\u2019\u2019 but that term is usually interpreted to mean sexual coercion or pressure to comply with sexual requests,” she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn fact, sexual harassment typically takes the form of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviour, such as undermining or insulting a woman\u2019s competence or addressing women in terms that disparage them. This type of behaviour is much more prevalent than explicit or overt forms of misconduct, so it\u2019s very likely that the real numbers of sexual harassment at work are even higher than the survey suggested. It\u2019s a huge problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harassment Follows You Home<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the damaging effects of sexual harassment on women workers are well documented, Dionisi has been conducting groundbreaking research suggesting these effects extend well beyond the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#MeToo, it turns out, could be #WeToo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one study, the husbands and romantic partners of women experiencing sexual harassment reported being less satisfied in their relationships, having higher levels of conflict and being less able to deal with or resolve those conflicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more troubling, another study\u2014one funded by Carleton\u2019s Centre for Research and Education on Women and Work\u2014suggests that children of mothers experiencing workplace sexual harassment feel the effects of that harassment too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dionisi and Prof. Kate Dupr\u00e9 of the Psychology Department conducted a survey with several hundred mothers to discover whether such mistreatment could have consequences for their parental functioning.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe learned that women who experience sexual harassment at work are more likely to behave in an authoritarian way with their kids, which means that they are more likely to use strict discipline and to be insensitive to their children\u2019s emotional needs,\u2019\u2019 says Dionisi.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re less likely to show high levels of affection or to be emotionally available to their kids, and they\u2019re less likely to set respectful limits with their children. These impacts on women haven\u2019t been documented before, and they expand the toll that sexual harassment takes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at Understudied Victims<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dionisi was drawn to study organizational behaviour after taking a degree in Psychology and Sociology.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cAs a discipline, organizational behaviour offers a unique approach in business because it\u2019s informed by many different perspectives. It\u2019s an amazing field, and it allows me to focus on issues around gender and workplace mistreatment that I\u2019m passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Understudied victim populations are Dionisi\u2019s main area of concern. For example, she\u2019s currently collecting data on women leaders who experience sexual harassment from men who nominally have less power.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cTypically people with higher status and power are the harassers,\u201d she reports. \u201cHowever, we know that gender connotes power. Thus, even if a woman holds a position of power in the organizational hierarchy, a male subordinate may hold social forms of power over her. In these situations you might see a man making sexually suggestive remarks to his supervisor, or questioning her competence because she\u2019s a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men also experience workplace aggression, most often from other men. Dionisi has researched a gender-based form of this known as \u201cnot-man-enough harassment,\u201d in which a man might be ridiculed for things like choosing to take on domestic responsibilities or refusing to join in the objectification of women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn one particular study,\u201d Dionisi says, \u201cwe found that witnessing a male colleague being harassed this way was associated with adverse psychological and physical health symptoms, as well as with work withdrawal and workplace deviance. Moreover, female witnesses also experienced lower levels of self-worth, which suggests that even when sex-based harassment is directed at a man, it communicates implicit patriarchal messages that are uniquely damaging to women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s About Power, Not Sex<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These results also underline the fact that power, not sexual desire or attraction, is at the heart of all sexual and gender-based mistreatment. \u201cThis type of harassment is rooted in ideas that men and women are supposed to behave in particular ways and when they don\u2019t, whether they\u2019re a man or a woman, they\u2019re punished for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the pervasive damage of sexual harassment, Dionisi is happy that it\u2019s currently in the spotlight. \u201cUntil we can acknowledge that this is going on and call it what it is, we\u2019re not going to be able to make changes. There\u2019s a receptivity to #MeToo stories that hasn\u2019t been there for a long time, which is positive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And is change really possible? Dionisi is turning her attention to investigating what can encourage bystanders to intervene, so that sexual harassment can be stopped when it occurs. Nonetheless, larger shifts are needed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cFor a long time, the motivation for dealing with sexual harassment for many organizations may have been its negative impact on productivity: it wasn\u2019t good for business,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m hopeful, given the new levels of awareness, that organizations are motivated to do something about the issue because of the people involved and because it\u2019s the moral, ethical thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody should have to go to work feeling afraid,\u201d she continues. \u201cNobody should be demeaned and objectified on the job, and that\u2019s<\/em>the reason we should be dealing with this. I think that we\u2019ll really see change in sexual harassment when organizations have as the motivating goal the well-being of their employees and, by extension, of people more generally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt affects us all, whether we\u2019re targeted or not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s little surprise that many incidents of sexual harassment happen in the workplace – whether those are film sets, office buildings, the House of Commons or an RCMP detachment. Assistant Prof. Angela Dionisi of Carleton University\u2019s Sprott School of Business has been closely tracking the #MeToo movement and her focus on workplace sexual harassment has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":9050,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13,1931],"cu_story_tag":[1922],"class_list":["post-9047","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_type-social-innovation","cu_story_tag-sprott-school-of-business"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/9047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/9047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97712,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/9047\/revisions\/97712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=9047"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=9047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}