Bar-David Consulting

Women who are attractive and feminine are most prone to getting sexually harassed in the workplace, right? Wrong!
In a recent article published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, University of Toronto management professor Jennifer L. Berdahl describes three studies she conducted, in which she found the following: women who have more “masculine” personality traits experience the most sex-based harassment. These women, who are higher on stereotypical characteristics like assertiveness, independence and dominance (regardless of whether or not they also demonstrated more `feminine’ qualities), are 1.5 more likely to be harassed based on their gender.
In one interview, Dr. Berdahl commented that this types of sex-based harassment is “really a mechanism for making people who have crossed a line go back on the other side,” she explains. In a way, women are in a double bind: if you’re very feminine and attractive, you may be subject to unwelcome advances. If you’re `like the boys’, you’ll be subject to sexual comments, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion.
Fascinating stuff. As to you, in your own workplace, what difference does this information make?