Accounting for victimization: Male professors' ideological positioning in stories of sexual harassment

Ideologies constrain and shape the sense that people make of sexual harassment experiences in the workplace. Victims, harassers, and witnesses are all influenced by the discourse that informs the decisions they make in relation to sexual harassment in the workplace. This research examined the implications of ideologies and discourses surrounding sexual harassment through interviews with four male professors from a large, southwestern U.S. university, who describe their experience as victims of sexual harassment.The men's accounts revealed shifts back and forth between several ideological positions as a way to make sense of their experiences, highlighting the impact of hegemonic masculinity, the complicated process of consent, and the contrast between the experiences of male and female victims.