Measuring sexual harassment in the military: The Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ-DoD)

The harassment of women in the military is receiving increased attention fr om both policymakers and the popular media. Stimulated originally by the Na vy's Tailhook episode in 1991, and more recently by revelations of widespre ad sexual harassment of female Army recruits, there appears to be a growing consensus that the harassment of female military personnel is a problem wi th profound consequences for both individuals and the armed services more g enerally. At the same time, there are few reliable estimates of the actual nature, prevalence, and severity of this problem; those that do exist are m arked by a variety of shortcomings. This article attempts to address the issue. We begin by describing the deve lopment and measurement characteristics of a military version of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ-DoD; Fitzgerald, Gelfand, & Drasgow, 1995; Fitzgerald et al., 1988), which was administered to more than 28,000 milita ry personnel as part of the Department of Defense (DoD) 1995 study of gende r issues in the services. Following analysis of the structure of the instru ment, we examine incidence rates for the effects of gender, race/ethnicity, armed service, and rank. We then discuss options for scoring the SEQ-DoD a nd conclude with a discussion of the difficult question, "Who should be cou nted as sexually harassed?"