Reactions to sexual harassment: A comparison of policewomen in Thailand and the United States

The study examined how female officers in law enforcement agencies in Thailand and the U.S. react to sexual harassment. It was anticipated that Thai women would hold more traditional beliefs about gender roles, have higher interdependent views of self-construal (collectivistic orientation) and lower independent views of self (individualistic orientation). They were also expected to have lower participation in decision-making and to be less likely to agree that their work organization's policy clearly prohibits harassment. These features were anticipated to lead to lower perceived severity of sexual harassment and higher concerns about negative social reactions in using assertive reactions, which in turn, would decrease assertive reactions in responding to harassment.; The population studied was comprised of 106 female law enforcement officers from 5 police agencies in a mid-western state in the U.S. and 109 female law enforcement officers from 4 police agencies in Thailand. Each study participant had experienced an incident of sexual harassment by male coworkers within their organization at least once within the past two years. A survey instrument was used to obtain the data. T-tests were used to analyze national differences on study variables, while regression analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between independent and dependent variables separately for each group.; Results suggest that Thai women had more traditional gender role stereotype beliefs, higher interdependent view of self, lower independent view of self, were less likely to view that their organizational policy prohibits harassment, but there was no difference in participation in decision-making. Although Thai women had higher concern about social reactions as hypothesized, contrary to the predictions, in handling harassment, they viewed harassment as more severe and relied more on assertive reactions than American officers. Thus, findings give limited support to the idea that Asian women would be more likely to trivialize harassment and to rely less on assertive reactions. For the American sample, those who perceived sexual harassment events as a violation of organizational policy viewed those events as more severe. Perceived severity, in turn, was accompanied with assertive reactions. Those with a high independent view of self and who felt they had high participation in decision-making felt less concerned about social reactions. Concern about social reactions, in turn, was associated with the use of passive responses. For the Thai sample, women with traditional beliefs about gender roles viewed sexual harassment as less severe and reported higher concern about social reactions. In addition, women with an interdependent view of self showed higher concern about social reactions. Nevertheless, concern about social reactions was not related to assertive reactions. The results were interpreted by drawing on qualitative data on differences in circumstances in each setting which frame how sexual harassment is perceived and resolved.