Dataset Information

Breaking the Silence: Sexual Harassment of Mexican Women Farmworkers.

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to understand Mexican women farmworkers' perceptions of workplace sexual harassment, its related factors and consequences, and potential points of intervention. This community-based participatory research study conducted focus groups with 20 women farmworkers in rural Washington. Four coders analyzed and gleaned interpretations from verbatim transcripts. Three main themes were identified. It was learned that women farmworkers: (1) frequently experienced both quid pro quo and hostile work environment forms of sexual harassment; (2) faced employment and health consequences due to the harassment; and (3) felt that both individual- and industry-level changes could prevent the harassment. Based on these findings, the authors identified three sets of risk factors contributing to workplace sexual harassment and recommend using a multilevel approach to prevent future harassment in the agriculture industry.

SUBMITTER: Kim NJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5957069 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Breaking the Silence: Sexual Harassment of Mexican Women Farmworkers.

Kim Nicole Jung-Eun NJ Vásquez Victoria Breckwich VB Torres Elizabeth E Nicola R M Bud RM Karr Catherine C

Journal of agromedicine 20160101 2

The purpose of this study was to understand Mexican women farmworkers' perceptions of workplace sexual harassment, its related factors and consequences, and potential points of intervention. This community-based participatory research study conducted focus groups with 20 women farmworkers in rural Washington. Four coders analyzed and gleaned interpretations from verbatim transcripts. Three main themes were identified. It was learned that women farmworkers: (1) frequently experienced both quid pr ...[more]

PMID: 26797165

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Project description:BackgroundDespite explicit policies and reporting mechanisms in academia designed to prevent harassment and ensure respectful environments, sexual harassment persists. We report on a national survey of Canadian medical students' experiences of sexual harassment perpetrated by faculty, patients and peers, their responses to harassment, and their suggestions for improving the learning environment.MethodsWith ethics approval from all 17 Canadian universities with medical schools, an invitation to participate in an anonymous, electronic survey was included in three Canadian Federation of Medical Students' newsletters (2016). Narrative information about sexual harassment during medical training, perpetrators, ways of coping, sources of support, formal and informal reporting/discussion, and suggestions for change was sought. Three authors then conducted a qualitative analysis and identified emergent themes.FindingsWhen asked to estimate the number of occurrences of SH experienced during medical school, 188 students reported 807 incidents perpetrated by peers, patients, and, to a lesser extent, faculty. Perpetrators were almost always men and 98% of victims were women. What emerged was a picture of social, educational, and individual conditions under which sexual harassment becomes normalised by faculty, peers and victims. Students often tried to ignore harassment despite finding it confusing, upsetting, and embarrassing. They offered strategies for schools to raise awareness, support students, and prevent or mitigate harms going forward.InterpretationSexual harassment is a part of the Canadian medical education environment where most who reported harassment are subject to the dual vulnerabilities of being learners and women. Although survey respondents recognised the systemic nature of the problem, as individuals they often described shame and self-blame when victimised, came up with solutions that implied they were the problem, and often reported thinking silence was less risky than confrontation or official reporting. Many participants believed in the transformative power of education - of themselves and faculty - as a means of improving the medical environment whilst we await social change.

Project description:Sexual harassment (SH) is a form of gender-based violence (GBV) that negatively impacts women's physical, mental, social, and financial well-being. Although SH is a global phenomenon, it also is a contextualized one, with local and institutional norms influencing the ways in which harassment behavior manifests. As more women attend institutions of higher education in Jordan, these women are at increased risk of experiencing SH in university settings, with potential implications for their health and future employment. Social norms theory, which examines the informal rules governing individual behavior within groups, has been a useful framework for understanding and developing interventions against GBV globally. We sought to apply a social-norms lens to the understanding and prevention of SH at a Jordanian university. To gain a comprehensive and nuanced picture of social norms surrounding SH, we collected qualitative data using three complementary methods: focus group discussions (n = 6) with male and female students (n = 33); key informant interviews with staff and faculty (n = 5); and a public, participatory event to elicit anonymous short responses from students (n = 317). Using this data, we created a codebook incorporating social-norms components and emergent themes. As perceived by participants, SH was unacceptable yet common, characterized as a weak norm primarily because negative sanctioning of harassers was unlikely. Distal norms related to gender and tribal affiliation served to weaken further norms against SH by blaming the victim, preventing reporting, discouraging bystander intervention, and/or protecting the perpetrator. The complexity of the normative environment surrounding SH perpetration will necessitate the use of targeted, parallel approaches to change harmful norms. Strengthening weak norms against SH will require increasing the likelihood of sanctions, by revising university policies and procedures to increase accountability, increasing the acceptability of bystander intervention and reporting, and fostering tribal investment in sanctioning members who harass women. Creating dialogue that emphasizes the harmful nature of SH behaviors and safe spaces to practice positive masculinity also may be an effective strategy to change how male students interact in the presence of peers. Any social norms change intervention will need to consider the various reference groups that dictate and enforce norms surrounding SH.

Dataset Information

Breaking the Silence: Sexual Harassment of Mexican Women Farmworkers.

Publications

Breaking the Silence: Sexual Harassment of Mexican Women Farmworkers.

Similar Datasets

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