While both male and female students experience sexual harassment, rates are particularly high for women in male-dominated fields like engineering and medicine. Women faculty also report high rates of harassment. Both men and women suffer negative physical, emotional, and professional impacts from harassment. However, women generally experience harassment more frequently due to enduring inequalities and power imbalances between genders in academic and workplace settings. Intersectionality must also be considered, as other demographic factors influence individual experiences.

1. SEX, GENDER, AND ENGINEERING
Sexual Harassment and Intersectionality:
Gender Differences

2. INTERSECTIONALITY
While it is generally acknowledged that women are sexually harassed more often
than men across the workforce and in school, in engineering and in tech, in
particular, this is not always the case. Further, race, ethnicity, and other
demographic characteristics also play into the sexual harassment landscape:
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Age
• Sexual Orientation
• Non-conforming gender
• …and more
Intersectionality is important and worth exploring in greater depth!

3. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
INTERSECTIONALITY BY GENDER
Are there gender differences in
sexual harassment? If so, what
are they and what do they
mean?

4. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT
The Academe

5. WHEN FACULTY ARE
SEXUALLY HARASSED BY STAFF
“A university photographer, a man, once said to me, as he was taking my
photograph for a marketing catalogue: “Now that you are no longer beautiful
and don’t have your ego in the way, are you able to focus on your work?” I
can’t remember what I said. I walked away and sat trembling on the back
step of an abandoned building on campus, embarrassed. Later, at home,
still thinking about it and unable to shake the feeling of being somehow
exposed to view, I made myself a cup of tea and ate a slice of buttered toast,
in my own personal re-enactment of the Chronicles of Narnia. I am not sure
it worked. This moment – being told how beautiful, or how ugly, I am, in a
university setting – has recurred with regularity. I remember writing to the
Provost about the experience with the photographer; I did not receive a
reply.”
Source: https://www.goddard.edu/blog/goddard-mfa-writing/academia-sexual-harassment-and-a-slice-of-buttered-toast-with-tea/

6. WHEN FACULTY ARE
SEXUALLY HARASSED
The unfortunate truth about sexual harassment in the (STEM, tech, and
engineering) academic workplace is that while we know that more than 50%
of women faculty and staff are harassed in the engineering, science, and
medicine disciplines, we know very little about the details of such
harassment (what the harassment looks like and who is doing the harassing)
and further, we know almost nothing about the rates of sexual harassment of
women faculty vs. what goes on with male faculty.
A more significant body of research has studied the harassment of students.
Source: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Policy and Global Affairs; Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine;
Committee on the Impacts of Sexual Harassment in Academia; Benya FF, Widnall SE, Johnson PA, editors. Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and
Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2018 Jun 12. 3, Sexual Harassment in
Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519457/

7. WHEN FEMALE STUDENTS ARE
SEXUALLY HARASSED BY FACULTY
“Jeanne was a Ph.D. student at Stanford in the early 2010s
when her advisor, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
and Iberian and Latin American Cultures Vincent Barletta, rolled
his chair over and kissed her when she was working with him to
prepare for an exam.
University officials found that Barletta, a tenured associate
professor and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, had violated Stanford’s
sexual harassment policy. He had “groomed [Jeanne] to be his
advisee even before [she] arrived at Stanford” and “blurred the
lines of a professional and overly personal advisor-advisee
relationship” with her.”
Source: https://stanforddaily.com/2022/06/19/a-stanford-professor-sexually-harassed-his-student-a-decade-ago-some-female-students-say-his-inappropriate-behavior-never-stopped/

8. WHEN MALE STUDENTS ARE
SEXUALLY HARASSED BY FACULTY
“A professor engages <male> students in class in discussions
about the students’ past sexual experiences, yet the
conversations are not in any way germane to the subject matter
of the class. The professor inquires about explicit details and
demands that students answer them, though the students are
clearly uncomfortable and hesitant.”
Source: https://www.pugetsound.edu/sites/default/files/2021-06/policy-examples.pdf

9. WHEN STUDENTS ARE
SEXUALLY HARASSED
Both male and female students are sexually harassed at universities and colleges
around the United States. The primary form of sexual harassment is gender
harassment although unwanted and sexual attention, sexual coercion, and sexual
assault also occur far too frequently. Worse, other forms of sexual harassment
occur in tandem with gender harassment, which highlights a disturbing pattern of
behavior in higher education.
Women are harassed more than men and the more male dominated the field, the
more sexual harassment occurs.
Source: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Policy and Global Affairs; Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine;
Committee on the Impacts of Sexual Harassment in Academia; Benya FF, Widnall SE, Johnson PA, editors. Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and
Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2018 Jun 12. 3, Sexual Harassment in
Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519457/

10. WHEN STUDENTS ARE
SEXUALLY HARASSED BY STUDENTS
“An ex-partner widely spreads false stories about their
sex life with their former partner to the clear discomfort
and frustration of the former partner, turning the former
partner into a social pariah on campus.”
Source: https://www.pugetsound.edu/sites/default/files/2021-06/policy-examples.pdf

11. WHEN STUDENTS ARE
SEXUALLY HARASSED BY STUDENTS
“A student repeatedly sends graphic, sexually-oriented jokes and pictures
around campus <or around the research lab> via social media to hundreds
of other students. Many don’t find it funny and ask them to stop, but they do
not. Because of these jokes, one student avoids the sender on campus and
in the residence hall in which they both live, eventually asking to move to a
different building and dropping a class they had together.”
Source: https://www.pugetsound.edu/sites/default/files/2021-06/policy-examples.pdf

12. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF
STUDENTS
While students experience
sexual harassment in all
disciplines, rates in medicine
and engineering are
particularly high, especially
for women.
Source:
National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM]. 2018. Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24994/sexual-harassment-of-women-climate-culture-and-
consequences-in-academic.

13. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT
While inappropriate and
unacceptable, graduate
students are still often
treated as second class
citizens in the academic
community. Both male and
female students are
harassed by faculty, staff,
and by other students.
Source: Rosenthal, Marina N., Alec M. Smidt, and Jennifer J. Freyd. 2016. “Still Second Class.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 40, no. 3 (July 9): 364–377.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684316644838.

14. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT
The Workplace

15. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Rates of Sexual harassment
overall are greater in male
dominated workplaces and
consistent with a vast majority of
studies, women are sexually
harassed more often than men.
Source: McLaughlin, Heather, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone. 2012. “Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power.” American
Sociological Review 77, no. 4 (July 2): 625–647. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412451728.

16. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Even in female dominated
workplaces, women are often
sexually harassed more frequently
than men.
Source: McLaughlin, Heather, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone. 2012. “Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power.” American
Sociological Review 77, no. 4 (July 2): 625–647. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412451728.

17. GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SEXUAL
HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE
While women have made progress at all levels of society toward
achieving equality with men, they remain in a second-class position to
men. In the workplace, the pay gap, the ongoing prevalence of sexual
harassment, the lack of effective and realistic reporting and grievance
policies, and a broad swath of other factors contribute to stalling further
progress and, in some cases, even pushing women backward in their
fight for equality.
Outside of the workplace, other issues such as the fight over
reproductive rights and the exclusion of women in certain professions
altogether (e.g., some elements of the clergy) only worsens the fight for
progress and equality in the workplace.

18. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT
The Impacts

19. GENDER DIFFERENCES
IN IMPACTS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Contrary to popular belief, women
are not over-reacting to sexual
harassment.
Instead, a large body of evidence has
shown that men suffer the same
physical, emotional, and job harms
that women do when they are
sexually harassed.
Source: Chan, Darius K-S, Suk Yee Chow, Chun Bun Lam, and Shu Fai Cheung. 2008. “Examining the Job-Related, Psychological, and Physical Outcomes of
Workplace Sexual Harassment: A Meta-Analytic Review.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 32, no. 4 (December): 362–376. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-
6402.2008.00451.x.

20. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
INTERSECTIONALITY BY GENDER
Different groups of individuals experience different rates
of sexual harassment and may suffer more or less
harmful impacts from such harassment. Such
intersectionality is important not only in understanding
what individuals experience but how to reduce or
eliminate harmful culture in the workplace. Women,
historically and broadly, across many different
disciplines, face more sexual harassment than men –
making gender the first level of intersectionality to
consider in conversations about sexual harassment.

21. SEX, GENDER, AND
ENGINEERING
For more information on sexual harassment in work and
in school, see our book on Sex, Gender, and Engineering:
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/news/item/book-in-
focus-sex-gender-and-engineering