Friday, January 30, 2009

Patterns of sexual harassment: The General Social Survey asked 3,488 Americans if they have been sexually harassed on the job in the past 12 months. Here are the numbers:


Percent sexual harassed in past 12 months

Surveyed in 2000 4.8
In 2006 3.2

Female 5.8
Male 2.1

Straight woman 6.7
Straight man 2.2
Gay man 2.1
Lesbian 2.3

Single 6.6
Married 2.0
Separated 5.6
Divorced 5.5
Widowed 2.7

White 4.3
Black 4.5
Other 1.0

Age 20-24 7.2
25-29 6.8
30-34 6.2
35-39 3.3
40-44 3.7
45-49 3.1
50-54 2.4
55-59 2.3
60 plus 1.2

Italian 7.6
Irish 6.2
Scottish 6.4
French 5.6
Amerindian 5.0
English/Welsh 3.7
German 2.7
Polish 2.6
Norwegian 2.0
Mexican 1.6

Protestant 3.8
Catholic 3.9
Jewish 0.0
No religion 4.5

Less than high school 6.3
High school 3.5
Some college 4.6
College grad 4.8
Grad school 2.8

Working full-time 4.0
Part-time 3.4
Temp. not working 8.5

Low prestige job 5.7
Middle 3.4
High 4.0

Voted in 2000 for Bush 2.6
Gore 5.0
Nader 10.7

Has cheated on spouse 5.8
Has not 2.5

It always wrong to cheat 3.3
Almost always wrong 2.6
Sometimes wrong 5.3
Not wrong at all 5.7

Goes to bar almost daily 12.5
Several times a week 6.6
Never 2.7

Very happy 3.0
Pretty happy 3.5
Not to happy 5.7


There is a lot here. Let me only make a comment or two--you're input is appreciated. The number seems to be down a bit since 2000. I'd like to think the hysteria is subsiding, but the truth is probably that men have become even more neutered in the workplace. Myself, I never even compliment a woman on how she looks.

Homosexuals are not being harassed at high numbers, although I'm sure that elites assume they are.

For a profile of a harassed person, I'm getting the picture of a young, single, low status woman with a wilder type of lifestyle and a liberal orientation. She attracts attention, some of it unwanted, she probably works in a place with fewer castrated men (lower status men or higher status men in less sensitive fields) and her politics lead her to define ambiguous interactions as harassment.

5 comments:

  1. 25-29 6.8
    30-34 6.2 (-0.6)
    35-39 3.3 (-2.9)
    40-44 3.7
    (-0.4)

    35-39 significantly steeper than every other 5 year decrease. Even though, from an evolutionary perspective, you might expect the menopausal stretch of 45-49 to co-vary with the steepest decline in aggressive male interest.

    Quantitative evidence for The Wall?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excuse me, that's +0.4 for 40-44. So the drop from 35-39 to 45-49 is only -0.2! I would have really predicted the largest drop in this age range. But it's 15x smaller than the drop from early-mid to mid-late 30s.

    Yet this is the age range women self-report the girliest emotions and (according to one recent news story) say they "feel the sexiest". This time of precipitous decline is when the gap between how they describe themselves and how others perceive them is largest.

    It has been proposed that "she wants me" false belief could be adaptive for males. But apparently it may be adaptive for aging females as well. If there is a psychological syllogism, I predict the largest gap in other/self-perception for males is probably 15-19.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nobody likes Republican women :(

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9:04 PM

    Naaah, they just don't think they've been harassed.

    I find it hilarious that no Jewish women think they're being harassed. Or maybe it reflects the truth: nobody wants those feminist harridans. Geez, and they wonder why there's a fifty percent intermarriage rate. I say we coin a new word: misoJewny for the intersection of misogyny and anti-semitism.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unhappy Nader-supporting women of Italian extraction who hang around in bars and are between low-prestige jobs - just be VERY POLITE when you ask them out. (And don't expect them to be faithful.)

    Naw, I'm just kidding. I know you can't mix conclusions like that (in particular I doubt many people in low-prestige jobs voted for Nader).

    ReplyDelete

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