Risk Factors Associated with Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces: Does It Vary by Sex and Environmental Command?

Sexual misconduct reporting: the silencing effects of hegemonic masculinity

Purpose

Drawing on hegemonic masculinity theory, this study provides evidence supporting how gender, race and sexual identity, may shape the rates of sexual misconduct reporting, by keeping those targets who traditionally enjoy positions of power (i.e. white, cisgender men) silent.

Design/methodology/approach

Across 3,230 gender harassment, 890 sexual advance harassment and 570 sexual assault incidents that occurred within a traditionally masculine organization, the authors conducted tests of independence and hierarchical regression analyses to examine whether targets' social identity characteristics (i.e. sex, race, sexuality and gender alignment), predicted the reporting of sexual misconduct.

Findings

Although reporting rates varied based on the type of incident, white men were less likely than their colleagues to report workplace sexual misconduct. In general, men were approximately half as likely as women to report. Lower rates of reporting were similarly seen among all white (vs BIPOC) targets and all cisgender and heterosexual (vs LGBT) targets, when controlling for other identity characteristics.

Originality/value

Research on sexual misconduct has largely privileged the experiences of (white, heterosexual) women, despite knowledge that men, too, can experience this mistreatment. This research broadens this lens and challenges the notion that sexual misconduct reporting rates are uniform across employee groups. By articulating how the pressures of hegemonic masculinity serve to silence certain targets – including and especially white, cisgender men – the authors provide means of better understanding and addressing workplace sexual misconduct underreporting.

Professional authority and sexual coercion: A paradigmatic case study of doctor abuse

Professionals occupy a position of esteem in society. Doctors and health professionals tend to score especially highly on public opinion surveys of trust. Sexual violence and abuse (SVA) by medical professionals towards their patients is a grave breach of that confidence. This paper uses thematic analysis of a paradigmatic case study of doctor abuse, drawn from a larger sample of semi-structured interviews conducted for an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded United Kingdom (UK) study 2015-2018 into justice and gender based violence. It explores how professional authority can both facilitate and conceal sexual coercion through building dependency; use of language and authorship of the official record; and by functional complicity and 'data doubling' within intra and inter-professional cultures. While there is an established literature on child sexual abuse, including in institutional contexts, this paper focuses on the lived experience of grooming and sexual violence of an adult survivor of doctor abuse.