Sexual Harassment Among Male and Female Police Officers

An article published in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology examines the impact of sexual harassment on mental and physical health of both men and women, and to explore the possible moderating effects of gender on the relation between sexual harassment and health. Often defined as "“unwanted sex-related behavior at work that is appraised by the recipient as offensive, exceeding her resources or threatening well-being”, sexual harassment occurs frequently in many organizations. This is especially true in police forces where research has shown that 77% of policewomen from 35 countries have reported harassment from colleagues. Not only does sexual harassment impact psychological well-being, but it has been linked to health problems relating to emotional distress. The present study used a representative sample of 3,001 policemen and 1,295 policewomen in the Dutch police force who were asked to fill out an Internet questionnaire. Based on research results, it appeared that women were more often bothered by sexual harassment than men, but gender did not moderate the relation between sexual harassment and mental and physical health. In addition, victims who felt bothered by the harassing behaviors reported more mental and physical health problems than victims who did not feel bothered. The distinction between bothered and nonbothered victims is important because appraisal is an essential aspect in evaluating the impact of sexual harassment on victims.  The authors conclude that sexual harassment policies need to address male and female victims and also addresses the need to take sexual harassment seriously, even when the victims don't seem bothered by it.

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Comments

[Alice]

Sadly, this scenario plays out every day in offices, in hospitals, universities and in stores around the world. Recent statistic on sexual harassment at workplace shows that 79% of the victims are women and 21% are men.

You can check this research on this link:
http://www.franknicholas.com/sexual-harassment-lawyer-research/