THE IMPACT OF MALE WORK ENVIRONMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES ON WOMENS EXPERIENCES OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Women's experiences with sexual harassment were analyzed with three ty pes of variables: occupational and workplace sex ratios, organizationa l policies and procedures for dealing with sexual harassment problems, and women 5 cultural status (age and marital status). Regression anal yses revealed that extent of contact with men was a key predictor of i ncidence of harassment, number of different types of harrassment, sexu al comments, sexual categorical remarks, and sexual materials. Gender predominance was a significant predictor of physical threats and sexua l materials. Informational methods were less successful than proactive methods in reducing incidents of sexual harassment. The analyses supp ort two generalizations. The ''contact hypothesis'' tested and verifie d by Gutek and her colleagues provides a substantive understanding of our findings on workplace and occupational numerical predominance. Sec ond, organizations that take a variety of steps to address sexual hara ssment are more apt to be successful in curtailing the problem than th ose relying mainly on ''get out the word'' techniques.