Gender-based public harassment: An intersectional approach to exploring frequency and effects of harassment experiences

The current study examined the self-reported frequency of 369 undergraduate women’s past year public harassment experiences with attention to an intersectional feminist framework. Employing an exploratory measure created specifically for the study, two dimensions of public harassment were examined: uninvited attention/appraisal and reactive intrusions. Women reported a wide variety of experiences across both dimensions of public gendered harassment. Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White women reported experiencing harassment at similar rates. Asian-American women endorsed significantly lower rates of uninvited attention/appraisal and comparable rates of reactive intrusions. On average, queer women endorsed experiencing more incidents of reactive intrusions, a finding which trended towards statistical significance; this endorsement pattern was particularly evident in non-Hispanic White respondents. Statistically-significant variance was identified between ethnoracial groups on both subscales, and between sexual orientation groups on the reactive intrusions subscale. Low statistical power was observed for sexual orientation, which potentially impacted the ability to identify significant statistical differences between mean endorsement rates of heterosexual and queer respondents. Finally, this study also examined the impact of the uninvited attention/appraisal and reactive intrusions dimensions of gender-based public harassment on self-reported general psychological distress. Results from a regression analysis indicate that the reactive intrusions dimension contributes statistically significant predictive power for psychological distress, even when accounting for other potentially traumatic experiences.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Holland, Hope D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Allen, Nicole E.
• Todd, Nathan R.

• gender-based violence
• public harassment
• street harassment
• catcalling
• sexual harassment

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Hope Holland

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105837

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105837