You wouldn’t think it would still be considered risky to challenge traditional gender boundaries. Sadly, it turns out it is—and there are myriad ways that those resisting change try to punish gender role transgressors.
One of those was documented in a 2007 study in the Journal of Applied Psychology. “Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women” looked at whether sexual harassment (the study defines sexist comments as a subset of sexual harassment) is primarily directed toward women (1) whom harassers find sexually desirable or (2) who are perceived to break traditional gender roles. What makes this study interesting is that it’s commonly believed that male desire is at the root of sexual harassment and that men harass women they find attractive.
The study’s researcher found that it is women who break traditional gender roles who are the most likely to be harassed. She showed that women with personality traits traditionally defined as masculine (measured using a well-respected instrument for assessing traits defined as traditionally masculine or feminine) were more likely than others to be sexually harassed at school, among friends, or at work. Another part of the study indicated that women who violated gender roles by working in male-dominated occupations experienced more sexual harassment than did women in female-dominated ones. (The research controlled for the lower proportion of men in the second setting.) So men in male-dominated professions, which are higher paid than those in which woman predominate, appear to use harassment and sexist comments to protect their disproportionate access to power.
So if traditional boundaries are to be redefined so that women have equal access to opportunities, those of us who want to build something better will need to provide a little leadership. An organizational development specialist friend of mine says that in any group “leaders are by definition those who set the boundaries” (which includes redefining existing boundaries). In this sense, leadership is an informal role—it can be adopted by anyone who chooses to take it on. Addressing sexist comments, in part, is boundary setting—helping to define for a group what is acceptable behavior. When we challenge sexist comments, we are doing far more than standing up for ourselves or someone else; we are creating the future.
The risks of boundary setting can be high—being criticized, being perceived as too harsh and rigid, losing standing, status, and opportunities—and so we have to decide, in each setting, whether we’re willing to take on that leadership role. But one thing is likely: when we’re setting boundaries regarding sexist remarks, we are making it a little easier for those who come after us, both women and men.
Steve
