An Updated Examination of Gender Differences in Sexual Harassment Perception: A Meta-Analysis and a Survey Study

Twenty years ago, Rotundo et al. (2001) meta-analyzed the gender differences in sexual harassment (SH) perception. They found an overall d of 0.30: Women are more likely than men to label certain behaviors as SH. Much has changed since then, including the increased social awareness and the prevalence of SH training. Given the prevalence of SH in the workplace and the importance of SH perception in SH research, we conducted a mixed-methods research program to explore possible changes in the gender gap. In Study 1 (k = 72, N = 27, 767), we meta-analyzed the perceptual gender differences to compare with those in Rotundo et al. and examined several moderators of the differences. We found an overall mean d of 0.33, implying a similar gender gap in SH perception as 20 years ago, yet none of the moderators examined in this study showed significant results. In Study 2, we empirically examined gender differences in mean levels of SH perception using the same measurement scales used in two older studies and compared with the differences found in these two studies. We found higher levels of SH perception for both men and women, but no difference in the mean d between men and women, suggesting that no change over time in mean d does not mean no change in SH perception. The implications of our findings are discussed.