5 ms·

A sexual harassment survey of 600 men

30 points by tysone 9y ago

jackvalentine 9y ago
I'm surprised "Jokes or stories" and "Sexual remarks" had a similar proportion.
jhiska 9y ago
Self-reported. Not a random population. The numbers are higher because most men (the ones who refused to take part) are intelligent enough to not denounce themselves to the NYT for serious sexual offences. Not reliable, and may do more harm than good, because it maximizes minor harassment, but minimizes the numbers of serious harassment.
- grenoire 9y ago
  Sometimes you cannot get better data. Insights provided from self-reported studies are not necessarily externally valid, yet they are valuable nevertheless.
  - jhiska 9y ago
    There are decades of research studies on this topic in criminology alone that the NYT can tap into. Look up the field of "victimology". On the other hand, the NYT is not a scientific journal. Supposedly, they know what makes people interested in a topic. They want to start a public conversation, and while that's innocent and beneficial enough, they're starting the conversation on the wrong foot, and commentators like me end up having to talk about what I talked instead. It would also be interesting if they brought up women-on-men harassment figures, if only to point that the numbers are so much lower, and other data that suggests that this might be indicative of cultural differences between how men and women in the West are raised (and not some innate male proclivity to harass that supposedly has to be socially repressed).
  - trentmb 9y ago
    > are valuable nevertheless ... or incredibly harmful.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- vectorEQ 9y ago
  how people waste their time. imagine someone thought this was a sound idea to do it like this >.> and approved it for a big media outlet. this is like those "science proves cats are nice because 20 people like cats" articles >.<
  - soyiuz 9y ago
    Do you think shedding light on harassment is a waste of time? It is a relatively large sample size and the problems with methodology are addressed. What do you suggest is a better use of the paper's time in regards to the spate of recent news about sexual harassment in the workplace?
    - swiley 9y ago
      >Do you think shedding light on harassment is a waste of time? I think you should carefully reread that comment, that's not what I got out of it.
- forinti 9y ago
  At least you get people to think about their behaviour.
  - thinkMOAR 9y ago
    Only thing nytimes.com links get me to think about, is how much i hate paywalled links on HN.
- sevensor 9y ago
  Furthermore, the correlation with Trump approval is totally fishy. These numbers don't rule out the possibility that men harass women at roughly the same rates regardless, and self-report differently due to their awareness of the issue.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    Why is it fishy? I agree with the rest of your comment, but I think it's great to see an acknowledgement that there is a potential relationship to the brazenness of serial harrassers to the fact that someone on tape admitting to sexual assault (what Trump's "locker room talk" describes is not mere harassment) is President.
  - soyiuz 9y ago
    It makes sense that those who condone harassment would support others who harass, or at least tend not to see other harassers in a negative light? Self-reporting bias would certainly have some effect, but not as much as brute similarity of worldviews regarding women, gender, sex, workplace etc. Like attracts like. Nothing fishy about that.
    - whatok 9y ago
      Harvey Weinstein, several actors, tech people, politicians, etc who were serial harassers/assaulters were all outspoken on "women's rights" and feminist causes. It's very easy to think your own identical behavior is different from others and demonize people in turn. There are countless examples of this.
    - sevensor 9y ago
      Well, sure, that argument sounds reasonable to me, but nothing in the study actually supports it. And that's why this reporting is particularly dangerous. It gives us a fact that's not really a fact, further dividing the polity and making political reconciliation more difficult. Us versus them sells papers, but it's bleeding the republic.
  - jhiska 9y ago
    It's a politically-charged selection from the data and was quoted out of full context on a non-scientific, mass-appeal paper. A lot of things are possible. Maybe Trump supporters are more likely to harass or maybe they surprisingly aren't; the most dangerously effective misogynist is one that adopts the language of political correctness but not the beliefs. This requires further study.
- te_chris 9y ago
  They acknowledge all of the methodological stuff towards the end. The NYT itself didn't conduct the research and they compared to the results of similar surveys and it was consistent. How desperate are some people to minimise this stuff?
  - IronKettle 9y ago
    Well, except all the similar surveys were also self-reported as far as I can tell. It's worth noting the social desirability bias here. It's likely the problem is actually much worse than the study indicates.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    A lot of people are legitimately skeptical of the Times and other outlets reporting on social/political topics. Both the social sciences and journalists skew hard to the left, so content like this is very often biased (and incorrect as a result). Skepticism seems like a valid response; arguably more so than blind faith.
- soyiuz 9y ago
  Self-reported data is better than no data, as long as the nature of the sample bias is clear (which in this case it is).
- awinder 9y ago
  this comment is completely unsourced, proposes illogical conclusions (numbers are higher because people can’t lie to the NYT on a survey response?), and then makes a wild claim about how a survey article is going to cause societal damage. This comment is not HN caliber and a lot of you know this and still upvoted. I sincerely hope some of you grow up or find a new community to trash in 2018.
- zython 9y ago
  Well its a start. No need to be so harsh. It's a serious issue and I think the more and the better we report on it, the effects will only be beneficial.
eofiueflkj 9y ago
I bet SJWs love these articles.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  Do you think they also like creating a new identity to hide behind when they say something they suspect will clash with who they usually pretend to be?
  - eofiueflkj 9y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA-TXdE5mpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA-TXdE5mpo
    - EliRivers 9y ago
      Oh, I do apologise. I didn't realise that you're afraid that saying "I bet SJWs love these articles" will get your life ruined. Sure sounds like you're at serious risk of being victimised. I reckon if your employer knew you'd said that, you'd be fired for sure. "I bet SJWs love these articles." I mean, that's really quite something. The way you hid yourself and said it anyway will really make a difference. It's a shame you have to pretend to be someone else; one day you'll be able to say "I bet SJWs love these articles" without having to hide your face. Extra bonus; you know I'm being sarcastic, but you also believe it's true and I just don't understand how dangerous it is for you, latter-day Otto Hampel that you are.
      - eofiueflkj 9y ago
        apology accepted peace out bye
- canadianwriter 9y ago
  Those three letters don't seem to mean anything any more. What the hell are you talking about?
- sidlls 9y ago
friedButter 9y ago
(Removed before you folks flag it and ban me)
- nkrisc 9y ago
  If having the 10 men and 10 women means inappropriate videos aren't shared at work, maybe it's a net gain because everyone's working and doing their job instead of sharing videos.
- sidlls 9y ago
  I view it differently. If it's not appropriate in the sense that it's harassment for any possible mix of employees (by gender, ethnicities, etc.), it's simply not appropriate period.
  - throwaway1067 9y ago
    Practical example: LGBT related videos most likely are viewed as harassment by Islam believers. Now choose which views you take as truth.
    - sidlls 9y ago
      That's not a practical example. It's vague and stereotypes "Islam believers." If anything your comment is an example of harassment of muslims, not what you're trying to imply.
      - throwaway1067 9y ago
        I'm just saying that there is an unsolved conflict of interests and values. And I don't see a good way to solve it any time soon. Everything will offend someone somewhere, just blindly saying "don't do anything offending" doesn't help anyone. Instead we should take a stance and hold it, even if it's offending someone. It just happens to be that Islam interests are contradicting to western values: if we take it to extreme we need to ban pork everywhere. This is one of unsolved examples: if pork is offending, do we serve pork? Or we stop serving pork just because part of the group finding it offending? I don't see a clear answer :(
weberc2 9y ago
It's unfortunate that the most prominent behaviors are characterized so vaguely. It seems that "could be considered offensive by some" is an extremely broad criteria that is likely to be padded with benign behaviors, especially given that these categories are each about 4X the size of the others, and the variance is otherwise quite low. Given that, I wonder what the aggregates look like after throwing these categories out? What percent of men engaged in any of the remaining categories? How are offenders distributed across blue/white collar jobs, etc.?
ameister14 9y ago
This is a bit ridiculous, as the questions aren't specific. For example, I've definitely said something some people might consider offensive at work in the past year, but it wasn't sexist and it was in context. According to this, I would be categorized into 'made sexist remarks' regardless. If you send a friend a direct message on slack with a comic that other people might find offensive, or reference something that they did the night or week before, would that fall into multiple categories? I've designed surveys before and been trained to do so in a way that limits inherent bias. This doesn't seem to be a well thought out or designed survey set. Also, what is a SQL server reporting system doing asking people about sexual harassment?
- ScottAS 9y ago
  100% agree. Some of the questions are ambiguously worded but the results are displayed through the lens of sexism.
- parenthephobia 9y ago
  > This is a bit ridiculous, as the questions aren't specific. The issue is the editorialising the results, and not providing the other questions they asked, the actual results, or a more detailed description of the methodology. If they did that we could ignore the article and potentially discovery something useful in the results. > Also, what is a SQL server reporting system doing asking people about sexual harassment? That's gone over my head.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    at the bottom, the small print says the survey is from SSRS
TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
Was expecting a survey of men who had been sexually harassed at work.
soyiuz 9y ago
Bottom line: besides being unethical, harassment at work results in a less competitive labor market (a huge percentage of talent opts out of the industry), a less productive workplace, and shoddier products (lack of diversity mirrors the lack of customer engagement). This is to say that doing the right thing is also good for business.
ScottAS 9y ago
Interesting survey, but it seems very disingenuous that the researchers have lumped in "objectionable behaviour" with "sexual harassment". These sets do not have that much overlap. "About a third of men said they had done something at work within the past year that would qualify as objectionable behavior or sexual harassment" Objectionable behaviour: doing something your boss doesn't like, breaking process, even being an outspoken feminist could be considered objectionable behaviour. If you have not completed one "objectionable" action in a year you must be a robot. "Made remarks that some might consider sexist or offensive?" - There are so many acceptable remarks that some might consider "offensive". Eg. "God is not real". Seems like bad research to lump these sets together and then present it strictly as a survey on sexual harassment.
EddieSpeaks 9y ago
Did they ask women the same question, because I think it will be quite worse
randyrand 9y ago
Notice nearly all of these end with "which might offend someone." Is that really how we draw the line? Someone, anyone just has to be offended? I think we really need to reevaluate sexual harassment law and culture.
smsm42 9y ago
What is bothering me here is "some might consider". I know for a fact some consider picture of a frog or milk to be a racist symbol (sad, but true). I know that calling oneself handsome can be construed sexual misconduct[1], what if I have done that? Another things that "some" think are sexual misconduct or sexist: compliments & drink invitations [2], fitting clothes[3], "ladies and gentlemen" [4], accidentally misspelling somebody's name [5], prioritizing facts over opinion [6], talking about sandwiches [7], using word "genius"[8]. True, some of these examples border on the insane, and some are opinions of a tiny minority that are clearly offense mining and oversensitive. But the questionnaire doesn't have any allowance for that - if I know some might consider using the word genius sexist, and I said that word, if I am a honest person, I have to report "yes" to that question, and forever enter the official scientific statistics as a sexual harasser. I think there's something wrong with that. [1] http://thetab.com/us/columbia/2016/10/01/i-was-reported-for-gender-misconduct-for-calling-myself-handsome-in-class-2611 http://thetab.com/us/columbia/2016/10/01/i-was-reported-for-... [2] https://www.dailywire.com/news/23852/study-lot-young-people-think-compliments-drink-amanda-prestigiacomo https://www.dailywire.com/news/23852/study-lot-young-people-... [3] https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/university-oregon-appropriately-fitting-clothes-now-cis-privilege https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/university-oregon-appropria... [4] https://www.dailywire.com/news/18600/london-tube-just-banned-innocuous-phrase-be-more-amanda-prestigiacomo https://www.dailywire.com/news/18600/london-tube-just-banned... [5] http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/04/u-tennessee-student-accused-of-sexual-ha http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/04/u-tennessee-student-accuse... [6] https://mobile.twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/778498097576116224 https://mobile.twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/77849809757... [7] https://www.dailywire.com/news/22084/australian-feminists-lose-their-minds-over-emily-zanotti https://www.dailywire.com/news/22084/australian-feminists-lo... [8] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/cambridge-university-sexism-row-genius-lecturers-students-a7787401.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/c...

30 points by tysone 9y ago

I'm surprised "Jokes or stories" and "Sexual remarks" had a similar proportion.

Self-reported. Not a random population. The numbers are higher because most men (the ones who refused to take part) are intelligent enough to not denounce themselves to the NYT for serious sexual offences. Not reliable, and may do more harm than good, because it maximizes minor harassment, but minimizes the numbers of serious harassment.

grenoire 9y ago
Sometimes you cannot get better data. Insights provided from self-reported studies are not necessarily externally valid, yet they are valuable nevertheless.
- jhiska 9y ago
  There are decades of research studies on this topic in criminology alone that the NYT can tap into. Look up the field of "victimology". On the other hand, the NYT is not a scientific journal. Supposedly, they know what makes people interested in a topic. They want to start a public conversation, and while that's innocent and beneficial enough, they're starting the conversation on the wrong foot, and commentators like me end up having to talk about what I talked instead. It would also be interesting if they brought up women-on-men harassment figures, if only to point that the numbers are so much lower, and other data that suggests that this might be indicative of cultural differences between how men and women in the West are raised (and not some innate male proclivity to harass that supposedly has to be socially repressed).
- trentmb 9y ago
  > are valuable nevertheless ... or incredibly harmful.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
vectorEQ 9y ago
how people waste their time. imagine someone thought this was a sound idea to do it like this >.> and approved it for a big media outlet. this is like those "science proves cats are nice because 20 people like cats" articles >.<
- soyiuz 9y ago
  Do you think shedding light on harassment is a waste of time? It is a relatively large sample size and the problems with methodology are addressed. What do you suggest is a better use of the paper's time in regards to the spate of recent news about sexual harassment in the workplace?
  - swiley 9y ago
    >Do you think shedding light on harassment is a waste of time? I think you should carefully reread that comment, that's not what I got out of it.
forinti 9y ago
At least you get people to think about their behaviour.
- thinkMOAR 9y ago
  Only thing nytimes.com links get me to think about, is how much i hate paywalled links on HN.
sevensor 9y ago
Furthermore, the correlation with Trump approval is totally fishy. These numbers don't rule out the possibility that men harass women at roughly the same rates regardless, and self-report differently due to their awareness of the issue.
- sidlls 9y ago
  Why is it fishy? I agree with the rest of your comment, but I think it's great to see an acknowledgement that there is a potential relationship to the brazenness of serial harrassers to the fact that someone on tape admitting to sexual assault (what Trump's "locker room talk" describes is not mere harassment) is President.
- soyiuz 9y ago
  It makes sense that those who condone harassment would support others who harass, or at least tend not to see other harassers in a negative light? Self-reporting bias would certainly have some effect, but not as much as brute similarity of worldviews regarding women, gender, sex, workplace etc. Like attracts like. Nothing fishy about that.
  - whatok 9y ago
    Harvey Weinstein, several actors, tech people, politicians, etc who were serial harassers/assaulters were all outspoken on "women's rights" and feminist causes. It's very easy to think your own identical behavior is different from others and demonize people in turn. There are countless examples of this.
  - sevensor 9y ago
    Well, sure, that argument sounds reasonable to me, but nothing in the study actually supports it. And that's why this reporting is particularly dangerous. It gives us a fact that's not really a fact, further dividing the polity and making political reconciliation more difficult. Us versus them sells papers, but it's bleeding the republic.
- jhiska 9y ago
  It's a politically-charged selection from the data and was quoted out of full context on a non-scientific, mass-appeal paper. A lot of things are possible. Maybe Trump supporters are more likely to harass or maybe they surprisingly aren't; the most dangerously effective misogynist is one that adopts the language of political correctness but not the beliefs. This requires further study.
te_chris 9y ago
They acknowledge all of the methodological stuff towards the end. The NYT itself didn't conduct the research and they compared to the results of similar surveys and it was consistent. How desperate are some people to minimise this stuff?
- IronKettle 9y ago
  Well, except all the similar surveys were also self-reported as far as I can tell. It's worth noting the social desirability bias here. It's likely the problem is actually much worse than the study indicates.
- weberc2 9y ago
  A lot of people are legitimately skeptical of the Times and other outlets reporting on social/political topics. Both the social sciences and journalists skew hard to the left, so content like this is very often biased (and incorrect as a result). Skepticism seems like a valid response; arguably more so than blind faith.
soyiuz 9y ago
Self-reported data is better than no data, as long as the nature of the sample bias is clear (which in this case it is).
awinder 9y ago
this comment is completely unsourced, proposes illogical conclusions (numbers are higher because people can’t lie to the NYT on a survey response?), and then makes a wild claim about how a survey article is going to cause societal damage. This comment is not HN caliber and a lot of you know this and still upvoted. I sincerely hope some of you grow up or find a new community to trash in 2018.
zython 9y ago
Well its a start. No need to be so harsh. It's a serious issue and I think the more and the better we report on it, the effects will only be beneficial.

eofiueflkj 9y ago

I bet SJWs love these articles.

EliRivers 9y ago
Do you think they also like creating a new identity to hide behind when they say something they suspect will clash with who they usually pretend to be?
- eofiueflkj 9y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA-TXdE5mpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA-TXdE5mpo
  - EliRivers 9y ago
    Oh, I do apologise. I didn't realise that you're afraid that saying "I bet SJWs love these articles" will get your life ruined. Sure sounds like you're at serious risk of being victimised. I reckon if your employer knew you'd said that, you'd be fired for sure. "I bet SJWs love these articles." I mean, that's really quite something. The way you hid yourself and said it anyway will really make a difference. It's a shame you have to pretend to be someone else; one day you'll be able to say "I bet SJWs love these articles" without having to hide your face. Extra bonus; you know I'm being sarcastic, but you also believe it's true and I just don't understand how dangerous it is for you, latter-day Otto Hampel that you are.
    - eofiueflkj 9y ago
      apology accepted peace out bye
canadianwriter 9y ago
Those three letters don't seem to mean anything any more. What the hell are you talking about?
sidlls 9y ago

friedButter 9y ago

(Removed before you folks flag it and ban me)

nkrisc 9y ago
If having the 10 men and 10 women means inappropriate videos aren't shared at work, maybe it's a net gain because everyone's working and doing their job instead of sharing videos.
sidlls 9y ago
I view it differently. If it's not appropriate in the sense that it's harassment for any possible mix of employees (by gender, ethnicities, etc.), it's simply not appropriate period.
- throwaway1067 9y ago
  Practical example: LGBT related videos most likely are viewed as harassment by Islam believers. Now choose which views you take as truth.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    That's not a practical example. It's vague and stereotypes "Islam believers." If anything your comment is an example of harassment of muslims, not what you're trying to imply.
    - throwaway1067 9y ago
      I'm just saying that there is an unsolved conflict of interests and values. And I don't see a good way to solve it any time soon. Everything will offend someone somewhere, just blindly saying "don't do anything offending" doesn't help anyone. Instead we should take a stance and hold it, even if it's offending someone. It just happens to be that Islam interests are contradicting to western values: if we take it to extreme we need to ban pork everywhere. This is one of unsolved examples: if pork is offending, do we serve pork? Or we stop serving pork just because part of the group finding it offending? I don't see a clear answer :(

weberc2 9y ago

It's unfortunate that the most prominent behaviors are characterized so vaguely. It seems that "could be considered offensive by some" is an extremely broad criteria that is likely to be padded with benign behaviors, especially given that these categories are each about 4X the size of the others, and the variance is otherwise quite low. Given that, I wonder what the aggregates look like after throwing these categories out? What percent of men engaged in any of the remaining categories? How are offenders distributed across blue/white collar jobs, etc.?

ameister14 9y ago

This is a bit ridiculous, as the questions aren't specific. For example, I've definitely said something some people might consider offensive at work in the past year, but it wasn't sexist and it was in context. According to this, I would be categorized into 'made sexist remarks' regardless. If you send a friend a direct message on slack with a comic that other people might find offensive, or reference something that they did the night or week before, would that fall into multiple categories? I've designed surveys before and been trained to do so in a way that limits inherent bias. This doesn't seem to be a well thought out or designed survey set. Also, what is a SQL server reporting system doing asking people about sexual harassment?

ScottAS 9y ago
100% agree. Some of the questions are ambiguously worded but the results are displayed through the lens of sexism.
parenthephobia 9y ago
> This is a bit ridiculous, as the questions aren't specific. The issue is the editorialising the results, and not providing the other questions they asked, the actual results, or a more detailed description of the methodology. If they did that we could ignore the article and potentially discovery something useful in the results. > Also, what is a SQL server reporting system doing asking people about sexual harassment? That's gone over my head.
- ameister14 9y ago
  at the bottom, the small print says the survey is from SSRS

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago

Was expecting a survey of men who had been sexually harassed at work.

soyiuz 9y ago

Bottom line: besides being unethical, harassment at work results in a less competitive labor market (a huge percentage of talent opts out of the industry), a less productive workplace, and shoddier products (lack of diversity mirrors the lack of customer engagement). This is to say that doing the right thing is also good for business.

ScottAS 9y ago

Interesting survey, but it seems very disingenuous that the researchers have lumped in "objectionable behaviour" with "sexual harassment". These sets do not have that much overlap. "About a third of men said they had done something at work within the past year that would qualify as objectionable behavior or sexual harassment" Objectionable behaviour: doing something your boss doesn't like, breaking process, even being an outspoken feminist could be considered objectionable behaviour. If you have not completed one "objectionable" action in a year you must be a robot. "Made remarks that some might consider sexist or offensive?" - There are so many acceptable remarks that some might consider "offensive". Eg. "God is not real". Seems like bad research to lump these sets together and then present it strictly as a survey on sexual harassment.

EddieSpeaks 9y ago

Did they ask women the same question, because I think it will be quite worse

randyrand 9y ago

Notice nearly all of these end with "which might offend someone." Is that really how we draw the line? Someone, anyone just has to be offended? I think we really need to reevaluate sexual harassment law and culture.

smsm42 9y ago

What is bothering me here is "some might consider". I know for a fact some consider picture of a frog or milk to be a racist symbol (sad, but true). I know that calling oneself handsome can be construed sexual misconduct[1], what if I have done that? Another things that "some" think are sexual misconduct or sexist: compliments & drink invitations [2], fitting clothes[3], "ladies and gentlemen" [4], accidentally misspelling somebody's name [5], prioritizing facts over opinion [6], talking about sandwiches [7], using word "genius"[8]. True, some of these examples border on the insane, and some are opinions of a tiny minority that are clearly offense mining and oversensitive. But the questionnaire doesn't have any allowance for that - if I know some might consider using the word genius sexist, and I said that word, if I am a honest person, I have to report "yes" to that question, and forever enter the official scientific statistics as a sexual harasser. I think there's something wrong with that. [1] http://thetab.com/us/columbia/2016/10/01/i-was-reported-for-gender-misconduct-for-calling-myself-handsome-in-class-2611 http://thetab.com/us/columbia/2016/10/01/i-was-reported-for-... [2] https://www.dailywire.com/news/23852/study-lot-young-people-think-compliments-drink-amanda-prestigiacomo https://www.dailywire.com/news/23852/study-lot-young-people-... [3] https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/university-oregon-appropriately-fitting-clothes-now-cis-privilege https://www.truthrevolt.org/news/university-oregon-appropria... [4] https://www.dailywire.com/news/18600/london-tube-just-banned-innocuous-phrase-be-more-amanda-prestigiacomo https://www.dailywire.com/news/18600/london-tube-just-banned... [5] http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/04/u-tennessee-student-accused-of-sexual-ha http://reason.com/blog/2016/10/04/u-tennessee-student-accuse... [6] https://mobile.twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/778498097576116224 https://mobile.twitter.com/RealPeerReview/status/77849809757... [7] https://www.dailywire.com/news/22084/australian-feminists-lose-their-minds-over-emily-zanotti https://www.dailywire.com/news/22084/australian-feminists-lo... [8] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/cambridge-university-sexism-row-genius-lecturers-students-a7787401.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/c...