Life & Leadership After HBS
Pervasive & Pernicious: Sexual Harassment at Work
Pervasive & Pernicious: Sexual Harassment at Work
In 2018, as the #MeToo movement brought new attention to the prevalence of sexual harassment at work, we asked Harvard Business School alumni* about harassment and misconduct in their current workplaces and their experiences across their careers.
We sought to understand what kinds of harassment they experienced and how it affected them, as well as what organizational features were associated with more or less sexual misconduct. This brief report offers a snapshot of the key themes which emerged.
* We asked men and women about their experiences. While some men reported being victims of sexual harassment or misconduct during their careers, the numbers are very small. For the purposes of this report, we focused on women, since they represent the vast majority of HBS alumni who reported experiences of harassment.
Experiences
“Seeing what has been revealed by #MeToo and also, looking back over my career and the hundreds of acts of harassment and discrimination I endured, I’m discouraged that it appears that nothing has really changed for women in the workplace.”
Harassment by Region, Career
| By Region* | All | Asia | Europe | Latin America | US / Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Any Harassment | 88% | 80% | 91% | 87% | 88% |
Verbal Harassment, Career
| By Region* | All | Asia | Europe | Latin America | US / Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Made sexually suggestive remarks | 85% | 74% | 86% | 87% | 85% |
| Attempted to draw you into discussion of sexual matters | 25% | 38% | 54% | 68% | 55% |
| Sent sexually suggestive messages/postings | 54% | 24% | 22% | 27% | 25% |
| Continued to ask you for dates/drinks/dinner | 35% | 31% | 39% | 35% | 35% |
Physical Harassment, Career
| By Region* | All | Asia | Europe | Latin America | US / Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Touched you in a way that made you uncomfortable | 35% | 26% | 38% | 39% | 35% |
| Made uninvited attempts to stroke/fondle/kiss you | 24% | 23% | 28% | 28% | 24% |
| Offered/Implied rewards if you engaged in sexual behavior | 12% | 11% | 10% | 5% | 13% |
| Exposed a private part of his/her body | 4% | 6% | 5% | 9% | 4% |
Other Harassment, Career
| By Region* | All | Asia | Europe | Latin America | US / Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Treated you negatively for not looking / acting feminine enough | 31% | 32% | 27% | 22% | 31% |
*Regions with too few alumnae residents to analyze (Africa, Oceania) are not highlighted.
“[I’ve] clearly been discriminated against for my gender. I’ve been sexually harassed at work by my boss. Working in a US firm led by mainly old white men, being an Asian female means I don’t fit into the traditional stereotypes of the ideal worker.”
About half of alumnae had recently experienced some kind of harassment, ranging from sexually suggestive comments to pressure to go on dates to unwanted touching. Most incidents involved sexualized conversations and remarks.
Women up and down the organizational hierarchy experienced similar levels of harassment. At the junior, mid, senior, and even C-level, about half of alumnae cited harassment at their current workplace.
Women of color were more likely than white women to have recently experienced harassment, even when controlling for sector, industry, size of company, age, and marital/partner status.
“I was repeatedly the subject of sexual overtures when I first graduated from HBS. From the time I was 25 until about 45, the unwanted sexual suggestions, date requests, and other types of flirtation were both unwelcome and felt unrelenting.”
Harassment by Race, Last 3 Years
| All | Of Color | White | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any Harassment | 50% | 53% | 47% |
Verbal Harassment, Last 3 Years
| All | Of Color | White | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Made sexually suggestive remarks | 50% | 46% | 42% |
| Attempted to draw you into discussion of sexual matters | 14% | 6% | 4% |
| Sent sexually suggestive messages/postings | 5% | 6% | 4% |
| Continued to ask you for dates/drinks/dinner | 5% | 8% | 3% |
Physical Harassment, Last 3 Years
| All | Of Color | White | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Touched you in a way that made you uncomfortable | 7% | 9% | 6% |
| Made uninvited attempts to stroke / fondle / kiss you | 3% | 3% | 2% |
| Offered/implied rewards if you engaged in sexual behavior | 1% | 2% | — |
| Exposed a private part of his/her body | 1% | 1% | 1% |
Other Harassment, Last 3 Years
| All | Of Color | White | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Treated you negatively for not looking/acting feminine enough | 14% | 15% | 13% |
“I was sexually assaulted by my client and my company stood by me. I had to take time off for that but not because of anything that happened within my company. I came back to work after 4 months and moved out of sales and into HR. The #Metoo movement made me feel less alone and I decided to move to HR to help improve the workplace for everyone.”
ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS
Prior research has found that a set of organizational norms known as “masculinity contest culture” are associated with higher levels of sexual harassment.[1]
We asked alumnae to rate their workplaces on the prevalence of these masculinity contest norms, and found that the more a workplace endorsed these norms, the more likely alumnae were to have experienced verbal harassment, a result that holds true when controlling for age, race, marital/partner status, industry, sector, and size of company.
“Bottom-line, even if one doesn’t experience [harassing behaviors] directly, they are in the atmosphere in a very personal way. They show up in conversations and in how one perceives opportunities to money and opportunity. Even with great men supporting my career, there was a cultural double standard of unconscious bias that I don’t think is getting enough attention and HBS could help educate future leaders and change our culture.”
Composition of Senior Leadership
The gender composition of senior leadership emerged as another organizational factor influencing rates of sexual harassment.
Alumnae working in companies where women made up 15% or less of senior leaders experienced the highest rates of harassment, while those in companies where at least 30% of senior leaders were women experienced the least.
*Controlling for age, race, marital/partner status, industry, sector, and size of company.
By Industry, Last 3 Years
| Industry | All | Made sexually suggestive remarks | Treated negatively for not looking/acting feminine | Attempted to draw into discussion of sexual matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tech | 55% | 46% | 15% | 14% |
| Finance/Banking/Investment | 53% | 48% | 18% | 17% |
| Consulting/Professional Svcs. | 51% | 44% | 18% | 12% |
| Health Care | 51% | 41% | 11% | 14% |
| Education | 41% | 29% | 13% | 10% |
“When I was more junior and working in engineering, I got a lot of inappropriate attention, comments, and even sometimes physical touch from male colleagues and bosses. Now that I work in a more office-based environment with more representation of women, there are no overt gender issues.”
By Sector, Last 3 Years
| Sector | All | Made sexually suggestive remarks | Treated negatively for not looking/acting feminine | Attempted to draw into discussion of sexual matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public | 58% | 48% | 19% | 12% |
| Private | 52% | 46% | 15% | 14% |
| Nonprofit | 38% | 31% | 10% | 9% |
Impact
“My gender has detracted from my career because as a young woman in the workplace I was perceived as “too nice” to be a manager (my male boss actually said this). I also experienced harassment from male colleagues and more subtle gendered/sexual comments, which undermined my professional authority within my team and in front of clients.”
While one-third of women took direct action and confronted the person harassing them, the most common reactions were avoiding the perpetrator (53%), avoiding thinking about the harassment (50%), and trying to create an internal narrative that the incident was not important (49%). A significant proportion (44%) sought understanding and support from a friend or family member. Only a small minority brought the harassment to their employer’s attention: 15% talked with their supervisor or manager and just 7% lodged a formal complaint.
Harassment left many women (37%) feeling isolated or disconnected from their coworkers, and about a quarter felt that the harassment impeded their job performance. However, most opted not to change jobs or locations, perhaps reflecting the tendency to minimize the harassment and look outside of work for support.
| Women Working Full Time | |
|---|---|
| Avoided the person-people to the extent possible | 53% |
| Tried not to think about it | 50% |
| Told yourself it was not really important | 49% |
| Talked to a friend or family member | 44% |
| Felt isolated or disconnected from coworkers | 37% |
| Felt stressed, anxious, or burned out | 34% |
| Tried to let the person know I didn’t like it | 33% |
| Performed below your capabilities | 22% |
| Talked with a supervisor or manager | 15% |
| Pursued a different role, position, or location | 9% |
| Made a formal complaint | 7% |
| Limited travel | 7% |
| Limited time you spent at work | 7% |
| Left a job | 6% |
| Declined or decided not to work toward a promotion | 4% |
| Took days off or called in sick | 3% |
“I had some #MeToo moments along the way, all of which I successfully evaded/ignored/managed, although they were annoying and insulting.”
1Masculinity Contest Culture Norms assessed in the survey:
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- “Show no weakness”: a workplace that demands swaggering confidence, never admitting doubt or mistakes, and suppressing any tender or vulnerable emotions (“no sissy stuff”).
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- “Put work first”: a workplace where nothing outside the organization (e.g., family) can interfere with work, where taking a break or a leave represents an impermissible lack of commitment.
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- “Dog eat dog”: a workplace filled with ruthless competition, where “winners” (the most masculine) focus on defeating “losers” (the less masculine), and no one is trusted.
From: Jennifer L. Berdahl, Peter Glick, and Marianne Cooper. “How Masculinity Contests
Undermine Organizations, and What to Do About It.” Harvard Business Review. November
2, 2018.