Gender Prototypes Hinder Bystander Intervention in Women’s Sexual Harassment

Abstract

Bystander intervention is a powerful immediate response to sexual harassment that reduces victims’ burden to respond. However, narrow gender prototypes depicting sexual harassment victims as stereotypically feminine (prototypical) women may hinder intervention when harassment targets stereotypically masculine (nonprototypical) women. Across three preregistered experiments (N = 931), we test whether bystanders intervene less readily when sexual harassment targets a nonprototypical (vs prototypical) woman. Participants observed a man manager ask a series of increasingly sexually harassing job interview questions towards a woman who was portrayed as either gender prototypical or nonprototypical, and participants could intervene to stop the interview if/when they judged the questions as inappropriate. A meta-analysis revealed that participants intervened later when sexual harassment targeted a nonprototypical (vs prototypical) woman---a small but meaningful effect. Efforts to foster bystander intervention in sexual harassment would benefit by recognizing this neglect of nonprototypical women.