The combined influences of race, sexuality, and gender on perceptions of sexual harassment

The current research examines the perceptions of sexual harassment based on the influence of the victim’s gender, and the race of both the victim and the perpetrator, and perceiver’s feminist beliefs. By using vignettes (a brief description of an event), we manipulated a) the gender of the victim (man or woman), b) the race of the victim (POC or white), and c) the race of the perpetrator (POC or white). Our hypotheses were as follows: a) vignettes depicting same-sex harassment will be less in line with the definition of sexual harassment; b) vignettes portraying the victim as a woman of color will be deemed as less problematic than white victims displayed in the vignettes, and c) in vignettes portraying the perpetrator as a black man, the participant will more likely consider the situation as sexual harassment. After responding to the vignettes, the participants completed scales measuring feminist identification, rape myth acceptance, and homophobic beliefs. Unfortunately, the present study did not support any evidence for the combined influence of perpetrator race, and victim gender and race, on perceptions of sexual harassment scenarios. Nevertheless, the present findings suggest feminist identification may play a role in how people perceive sexual harassment scenarios