Sexual harassment research cited in New Yorker article on Fox News

Research conducted by a University of Maine alumna with Amy Blackstone, a sociology professor at UMaine, was cited in The New Yorker article, “Fox News and the repercussions of sexual harassment.” The 2012 study, “Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power,” found that women in supervisor positions were more likely than nonsupervisors to say they had been sexually harassed on the job in the previous year, according to the article. Blackstone conducted the study with Christopher Uggen and Heather McLaughlin of the University of Minnesota. McLaughlin, a UMaine alumna who is now a professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University, called the study’s finding “counterintuitive,” because “to most people the most common scenario is still the powerful male boss and the vulnerable female secretary,” the article states. That scenario still happens, of course, but sexual harassment may be even more prevalent, she said, where women are “gaining power in the workplace, and it becomes a way of trying to re-establish who’s actually in charge.” McLaughlin said the findings make sense because, she believes, workplace sexual harassment is really about power.