NCJ Number
159145
Journal
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1995) Pages: 503-515
Date Published
1995
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study is one of the first attempts to explore how Chinese college students would define sexual harassment.
Abstract
Approximately 3,000 booklets that consisted of paper-and- pencil questionnaires on sexual harassment on campus were distributed to both undergraduate and graduate students of a local university in Hong Kong in the spring semester of 1992. Approximately 900 students returned the questionnaires, which yielded a response rate of about 30 percent. After excluding those students who missed over half of the questions, valid respondents were 358 men and 491 women. Instruments used in the study were an Attitude Toward Women Scale, the Sexual Harassment Index, and an Attitude Toward Sexual Harassment Scale. The students showed a high level of consensus in regarding overt, unwelcome physical contact and coercive sexuality as sexual harassment. Only a small percentage of the students classified sexist and misogynistic behaviors, pressure for dates, and unsolicited disclosure of personal and emotional feelings as sexually harassing. Factor analyses show that faculty-student sexual harassment was composed of three factors: sexual coercion, physical seduction, and gender harassment. Peer sexual harassment, on the other hand, included four factors: sexual coercion, physical seduction, nonphysical seduction, and gender harassment. Individuals' intolerance toward sexual harassment was related to their support for gender equality and flexible gender roles. Compared to men, women had broader definitions of sexual harassment and were less tolerant of these behaviors. 3 tables and 28 references