The promise and peril of sexual harassment programs


The promise and peril of sexual harassment programs
Frank Dobbina,1 and Alexandra Kalevb

aDepartment of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138; and bDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University, 6997801
Tel Aviv, Israel

Edited by Susan T. Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved May 6, 2019 (received for review November 2, 2018)

Two decades ago, the Supreme Court vetted the workplace
harassment programs popular at the time: sexual harassment
grievance procedures and training. However, harassment at work
remains common. Do these programs reduce harassment? Pro-
gram effects have been difficult to measure, but, because women
frequently quit their jobs after being harassed, programs that
reduce harassment should help firms retain current and aspiring
women managers. Thus, effective programs should be followed
by increases in women managers. We analyze data from 805
companies over 32 y to explore how new sexual harassment
programs affect the representation of white, black, Hispanic, and
Asian-American women in management. We find support for
several propositions. First, sexual harassment grievance proce-
dures, shown in surveys to incite retaliation without satisfying
complainants, are followed by decreases in women managers.
Second, training for managers, which encourages managers to
look for signs of trouble and intervene, is followed by increases in
women managers. Third, employee training, which proscribes
specific behaviors and signals that male trainees are potential
perpetrators, is followed by decreases in women managers. Two
propositions specify how management composition moderates
program effects. One, because women are more likely to believe
harassment complaints and less likely to respond negatively to
training, in firms with more women managers, programs work
better. Two, in firms with more women managers, harassment
programs may activate group threat and backlash against some
groups of women. Positive and negative program effects are
found in different sorts of workplaces.

sexual harassment | workforce diversity | grievance procedure |
harassment training

In 1998, the Supreme Court vetted the two most popular cor-porate sexual harassment programs, sexual harassment griev-
ance procedures and training. By then, 95% of companies had
grievance procedures and 74% had training (1). It is hard to
know whether these programs have helped, because harassment
program effects, and harassment itself, are notoriously difficult
to measure. Training and grievance systems may appear to
backfire because, by increasing recognition of harassment, they
increase complaints (2, 3). Surveys may not pick up harassment
in workplaces where it is common because rampant harassment
can foster psychological denial (4). While harassment is hard to
measure, and thus program effects are hard to gauge, some
studies suggest that grievance procedures and training may not
reduce harassment. Early evidence came from surveys of federal
workers in 1980, 1987, and 1994. Training and grievance proto-
cols were virtually unknown in 1980, but, by 1987, three-quarters
of federal workers had completed training, and, by 1994, four-
fifths knew how to file a grievance. Did harassment decline?
When asked about six specific forms of harassment, 42% of
women reported in both 1980 and 1987 that they had been
harassed in the past 2 y. In 1994, 44% reported the same (5–7).
Much of the subsequent research also suggests that sexual ha-
rassment grievance procedures and training may be managerial
snake oil. We review this research to develop predictions.
To assess whether harassment grievance procedures and

training for managers and employees have reduced harassment

we estimate the effects of these programs on the share of women
in management. Because it often causes women to leave their
jobs (4, 7, 8), harassment should reduce women in management.
Programs that reduce harassment should increase women in
management.
We develop five predictions based on laboratory and field

studies. The first concerns sexual harassment grievance proce-
dures, which give victims a formal avenue for filing complaints.
Survey research points to four problems. First, women distrust
grievance procedures and rarely file complaints (9). Second,
formal complaints rarely lead to the transfer or removal of the
harasser (9, 10). Third, women who do file complaints face
retaliation—66% of them, according to one survey of federal
workers (11). Finally, the adversarial grievance process itself can
harm victims; studies comparing women who file complaints to
women who keep quiet show worse career, mental health, and
health outcomes for those who file (7, 8). Grievance procedures
should make it more likely that women will leave their jobs, re-
ducing women in management.
The second prediction concerns sexual harassment training for

managers which, while little studied itself, resembles bystander
intervention training in important ways. It treats trainees as
victims’ allies, reviewing how to prevent harassment, recognize
its signs, intervene to stop it, and use grievance processes (12).
“If you see something, say something” curriculum has been
studied extensively among college students and military personnel.
A metaanalysis of campus field studies finds that it increases
reported trainee efficacy, intention to intervene, and helping be-
havior (13). One study showed increased intention to intervene and

Significance

Do corporate sexual harassment programs reduce harassment?
Those that do should boost the share of women in management,
because harassment causes women to quit. Sexual harassment
grievance procedures incite retaliation, according to surveys, and
our analyses show that they are followed by reductions in women
managers. Sexual harassment training for managers, which treats
managers as victims’ allies and gives them tools to intervene, are
followed by increases in women managers. Training for em-
ployees, which treats trainees as suspects, can backfire. Programs
work better in workplaces with more women managers, who are
less likely than men to respond negatively to harassment com-
plaints and training. Employers should select managers—men and
women—committed to eradicating harassment.

Author contributions: F.D. and A.K. designed research, performed research, and wrote
the paper.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).

Data deposition: Our Stata code and the blinded survey data have been deposited in the
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) database, http://doi.
org/10.3886/E109781V3.
1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: frank_dobbin@harvard.edu.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.
1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental.

Published online June 3, 2019.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116 PNAS | June 18, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 25 | 12255–12260

SO
C
IA
L
SC

IE
N
C
ES

D
o
w

n
lo

a
d
e
d
 a

t 
C

a
rn

e
g
ie

 M
e
llo

n
 U

n
iv

e
rs

ity
 o

n
 A

p
ri
l 5

, 
2
0
2
1
 

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1073/pnas.1818477116&domain=pdf
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
http://doi.org/10.3886/E109781V3
http://doi.org/10.3886/E109781V3
mailto:frank_dobbin@harvard.edu
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116


confidence about intervening after a year (14). Four months out,
Army trainees were more likely to report having intervened to stop
sexual assault or stalking (15). We expect manager training to
provide managers with tools to address harassment, and thus to be
followed by increases in women in management.
The third prediction concerns employee training, which typically

reviews harassment law, specifies verboten actions, and outlines
complaint processes and punishments (16). The message is that
employees are potential perpetrators, not victims’ allies. Most lab-
oratory experiments examine this type of training. It can improve
recognition of harassment and knowledge about employer policy
and complaint processes (17, 18). However, men who score high on
“likely harasser” and “gender role conflict” scales—the men
trainers hope to reform—frequently have adverse reactions to this
sort of “forbidden behavior” training, scoring higher afterward (19,
20). Thus, any positive training effects may be reversed by backlash.
We expect employee training to be more likely than manager
training to have adverse effects.
Two final predictions address how the gender composition of

management moderates program effects. The fourth concerns
how managers respond to harassment grievances and training.
Research shows that men often don’t believe women who com-
plain of harassment, thinking they have overreacted or have
extortion in mind. Women are less likely to buy into to these
“harassment myths” (21–23). Thus, we expect that women
managers will handle reports of harassment better than men,
which will improve the efficacy of grievance procedures. Men
may also respond poorly to sexual harassment training. Training
has been shown to make men less likely to see coercion of a
subordinate as sexual harassment, less likely to report harassment,
and more likely to blame the victim (18). This is not so for women.
Training can also incite backlash against women and activate gen-
der stereotypes (24). Training, like grievance procedures, should be
more effective in workplaces with more women managers.
The fifth prediction modifies the fourth and concerns group

threat. For Blalock, when members of the dominant group feel
threatened, they may resist the group perceived as a threat (25).
He describes a tipping point beyond which the majority group
resists. Where might that tipping point be? Kanter argues that,
when women hold 15 to 35% of jobs, they overcome the disad-
vantages of being “tokens”—they can create alliances, for
instance—but that, above 35%, they become a “potential
subgroup” (26). We do know that, where sex ratios are highly
skewed (below 15% women, or above 85%), gender salience is
high and so is harassment (27, 28). Cohen, Broschak, and
Haveman find that increases in women in upper management
improve matters for women in lower and middle management up
to a point; the peak is about 25%, at the midpoint of Kanter’s
range (29). Thus, increases in women managers, up to about
25%, may improve harassment program effects.
Do all groups of women activate group threat? Research on

intersectionality suggests that perceived threat may depend on a
group’s location in the race/gender hierarchy. White women carry
one dominant status (white) and one subordinate status (female).
Minority women carry two subordinate statuses, and, in certain
contexts, they elicit less backlash for dominant behavior than white
women do (30, 31). Moreover, white women hold more manage-
ment jobs than any other group of women, and their sheer numbers
may activate threat (26). Thus, we expect group threat to affect white
women more than black, Hispanic, or Asian-American women.
In sum, we expect positive effects of manager training and

negative effects of grievance procedures and employee training.
We do not expect the negative effects to simply wipe out the
positive effects, because these effects are conditional on women
in management, and thus these effects should appear in different
workplaces. Higher numbers of women managers should catalyze
positive effects of manager training and prevent adverse effects
of grievance procedures and employee training. This should hold

for the three groups of minority women, because they are less
likely to activate group threat. However, for white women, group
threat should reverse this pattern—higher numbers of women
managers should prevent the positive effects of manager training
and activate the negative effects of grievance procedures and
employee training.

Data and Methods
We assess effects of the introduction of harassment grievance and training
programs on women in management by combining data from two sources, a
retrospective survey of corporate policies and programs and an annual de-
mographic census of employers. Data cover the period in which employer
harassment programs spread (1971–2002), which makes it possible to esti-
mate the effects of program adoption (32). This was before the widespread
use of online training.

Data on establishment harassment programs, and other management
practices and policies, come from our own retrospective survey, administered
by the Princeton Survey Research Center in 2002. The survey provides time-
varying information for a national sample of 805 private sector employers.
Princeton’s Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects approved the
research protocol (the authors were, respectively, Professor of Sociology and
doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Princeton at the time).
Each respondent received a letter covering the purpose of the study; the
topics to be covered; and the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the
principal investigator and Survey Research Center. The letter explained that
participation was voluntary and could be terminated at any time, and that
all data would remain confidential. Phone interviewers asked for verbal
consent to participate before starting the interview. The survey covered
organizational practices—no personal information was collected.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) annual census
of private sector workplaces with more than 100 workers provides gender,
race, and ethnic composition for surveyed workplaces by occupational cat-
egory (33). The EEOC data are confidential, by statute, but the EEOC makes
them available to academic scientists through Intergovernmental Personnel
Agreements. Time series data on external labor market characteristics come
from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surveys. Our Stata code and the blinded
survey data are available through Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research. We will provide the key for matching establishments
with the EEOC’s workforce data to researchers with access to those data.

Fig. 1 reports the prevalence of sexual harassment grievance procedures,
sexual harassment training for managers, and sexual harassment training for
employees for the 805 employers in our analysis. By 2002, 98% of employers
had grievance procedures, 82% had training for managers, and 64% had
training for employees. Only 18% of the observations (workplace years)
have all three practices, permitting us to disentangle their effects.

1991 1996 2001

P
er

ce
nt

 o
f 

w
or

kp
la

ce
s

w
ith

 e
ac

h 
pr

og
ra

m

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1971 1976 1981 1986
Sexual harassment grievance procedure
Sexual harassment training for managers
Sexual harassment training for employees

Fig. 1. Percent of workplaces with sexual harassment grievance procedures,
training for managers, and training for employees. Maximum n = 805. The
figure is based on employer years included in the analysis. Not all workplaces
are represented in each year because 1) some workplaces were established
during the period and 2) some crossed the EEOC reporting thresholds (100
workers, or 50 workers for federal contractors).

12256 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116 Dobbin and Kalev

D
o
w

n
lo

a
d
e
d
 a

t 
C

a
rn

e
g
ie

 M
e
llo

n
 U

n
iv

e
rs

ity
 o

n
 A

p
ri
l 5

, 
2
0
2
1
 

https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116


Fig. 2 reports change over time in the representation of each group of
women in management jobs in the sample of 805 employers. In the average
sampled workplace, white women made up 15% of managers in 1971 and
26% in 2002. Black women rose from 0.4 to 1.8%; Hispanic women rose from
0.1 to 1.1%; and Asian-American women rose from 0.1 to 0.9%. These fig-
ures understate national gains for women in management because the
sample excludes several groups of employers that saw greater gains in
women on average, including newly established firms and public sector
workplaces.

We examine changes in the share (log odds) of white, black, Hispanic, and
Asian-American women in management following the adoption of sexual
harassment grievance procedures, training programs for managers, and
training programs for employees. Coefficients estimate the average effects of
new programs across all of the postadoption years that we observe. The
number of years observed depends on when an employer adopted. For each
program, we have an average of a least 7 y of postadoption data (Fig. 1). We
report panel data models with fixed effects and robust SEs (see SI Appendix
for a detailed methodological discussion). The fixed-effects specification
accounts for organizational features that do not vary over time, such as
industry. In the models, we control for a host of human resources, diversity,
work−life, and general harassment policies and programs, as well as for
demographic characteristics of the focal workplace and of the state and the
industry workforces. To capture environmental changes not covered by
variables in the models, we include a time trend, interacted with both state
and (two-digit) industry (see SI Appendix for full models).

Results
Results are presented in Figs. 3–6. Fig. 3 shows average change
in the share of each group in management, over the years each
program was in place, for workplaces that created grievance
procedures, manager training, and employee training. The bars
represent 95% confidence intervals around the point estimates.
Following the creation of sexual harassment grievance procedures,
the share of Asian-American women in management declines.
Coefficients for other groups are not statistically significant—
confidence intervals cross the 0 threshold. Sexual harassment
training programs for managers are followed by significant in-
creases in white, black, and Asian-American women in man-
agement. Sexual harassment training programs for employees
are followed by significant reductions in white women in man-
agement. While these results are broadly consistent with pre-
dictions, if program effects are moderated by women in
management, as we predict, the noninteracted effects tell only
part of the story.

To assess how harassment program effects are moderated by
women managers, we interact program variables with binary
variables representing the second, third, and fourth quartiles of
total women in management. The first quartile has observations
with 0 to 6.7% women managers; the second, 6.7 to 16.7%; the
third, 16.7 to 37.5%; and the fourth, 37.5 to 100%.
In Fig. 4, we report the point estimates for changes in the

share of white and minority women in management following the
introduction of sexual harassment grievance procedures in
workplaces at different quartiles of women in management. We
show noninteracted program coefficients for workplaces in the
first quartile of total women managers. For those in the other
quartiles, we report the linear combinations of the program co-
efficients and the program × quartile interaction coefficients (as
described in SI Appendix).
For white women, effects of sexual harassment grievance pro-

cedures are negative and marginally significant (P < 0.10) among
workplaces in the fourth quartile of women managers. This is
consistent with the group threat thesis. For all three groups of
minority women, grievance procedures show significant negative
effects in workplaces with few women managers—those in the first
quartile. These negative effects decline as women in management
rise. For black and Hispanic women, the negative effects disappear
after the first quartile, and, for Hispanic women, the effect turns
positive in the fourth quartile. For Asian-American women, nega-
tive effects persist through the third quartile.
Management allies, then, appear to help minority women.

Where men dominate, grievance procedures make matters worse
for all three minority groups. However, where women hold more
management jobs (the fourth quartile begins at 37.5%), negative
effects disappear for black and Asian-American women, and
positive effects appear for Hispanic women.
In Fig. 5, we present the estimates of changes following the

creation of sexual harassment training programs for managers,
by each quartile of total women in management. For white
women, manager training shows positive effects in workplaces
with few women in management that decline in the higher
quartiles. Positive effects are significant among workplaces in the
first two quartiles of total women managers (P < 0.05). This
lends support to our predictions that 1) manager training will
reduce harassment but, 2) at high levels of women in manage-
ment, harassment programs catalyze group threat.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1971 1976 1981 1986 1991 1996 2001

P
er

ce
nt

 b
la

ck
, H

is
pa

ni
c,

 a
nd

 A
si

an
-A

m
er

ic
an

 w
om

en
 

P
er

ce
nt

 w
hi

te
 w

om
en

White women Black women Hispanic women Asian-American women

Fig. 2. Average percent of women managers, by race and ethnicity, among
the 805 sampled workplaces. Data come from the EEOC’s annual workforce
census, the EEO1 survey. The figure is based on employer years included in
the analysis. See Fig. 1 note for inclusion criteria.

−0.10

−0.05

0.00

0.05

0.10

Grievance procedure Manager training Employee training

Workplace sexual harassment programs

E
st

im
at

ed
 c

ha
ng

e 
in

 s
ha

re
 o

f g
ro

up
 in

 m
an

ag
em

en
t

White women Black women Hispanic women Asian−American women

Fig. 3. Estimated changes in the share of white and minority women in
management following the adoption of sexual harassment grievance pro-
cedures, manager training, and employee training. Values on the vertical
axis represent change in the log odds of the group in management. Ninety-
five percent confidence intervals are shown.

Dobbin and Kalev PNAS | June 18, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 25 | 12257

SO
C
IA
L
SC

IE
N
C
ES

D
o
w

n
lo

a
d
e
d
 a

t 
C

a
rn

e
g
ie

 M
e
llo

n
 U

n
iv

e
rs

ity
 o

n
 A

p
ri
l 5

, 
2
0
2
1
 

https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental


For black, Hispanic, and Asian-American women, training
shows significant positive effects only in workplaces in the fourth
quartile of women in management. This finding is consistent with
our prediction that, for groups of women least likely to activate
group threat, according to the intersectionality literature, man-
ager training is most effective in organizations with large con-
tingents of women managers, because women are less likely to
respond negatively to training than men.
We consider an alternative mechanism—that manager train-

ing signals that employers favor equality and thereby increases
manager commitment to hiring and promoting women (34). If
that were the main mechanism, we would expect manager di-
versity training to show the same effect as harassment training. It
does not (see “diversity training” in full models in SI Appendix).
It might be that we do not observe positive effects for white

women among workplaces in the fourth quartile because there is
no room for white women to grow. However, few workplaces in
the fourth quartile have reached the limit—0.37% of observa-
tions have 100% women managers. Thus, in Fig. 5, we find the
predicted positive effects in the fourth quartile for the three
minority groups. In any event, the noninteracted coefficient for
the fourth quartile should pick up any limits on further growth,
and the interaction should pick up the unique effect of women in
management in the presence of manager training (full results
reported in SI Appendix). Note that linear interactions between
total women managers and all three harassment programs pro-
duced significant negative coefficients for white women (SI
Appendix).
Manager training shows the greatest promise of the three pro-

grams we examine. In the average workplace in the first quartile of
total women managers, manager training is followed by an esti-
mated 16% increase in white women in management. For black,
Hispanic, and Asian-American women in workplaces in the fourth
quartile of women managers (more than 37.5%), manager training
is followed an estimated 14 to 16% increase in each group.
Sexual harassment training for employees, which typically re-

lies on forbidden-behavior curriculum, shows none of the posi-
tive effects that training for managers shows. This is consistent
with research finding that, while such training can improve
knowledge about harassment, it can exacerbate gender role
hostility and propensity to harass among men. In Fig. 3, without

quartile interactions, we saw a negative effect of employee
training on white women in management. In Fig. 5, we see that
employee training is followed by reductions in white women
managers in workplaces where women hold the most manage-
ment jobs. Employee sexual harassment training in workplaces
with more women managers appears to trigger backlash against
white women.
Can manager training improve the effects of grievance pro-

cedures? We tested this possibility by interacting grievance
procedure with manager training and found no effect. Nor did
we find an effect when interacting grievance procedure with
employee training (SI Appendix). It does not appear that either
kind of training improves grievance procedure effects.

Conclusion
Sexual harassment remains a cancer on the workplace despite
the widespread adoption of grievance procedures, manager
training, and employee training. Figuring out whether these
programs actually reduce harassment, and whether they can be
tweaked to work better, should be a priority. To that end, we build
on a long tradition of research in psychology and sociology that has,
as yet, had little impact on employer practice. We ask, in particular,
whether harassment programs make workplaces more hospitable to
women, increasing their numbers in management.
Previous studies suggest that grievance procedures may backfire,

that manager training may help, and that employee training is un-
likely to do much. First, surveys show that people who file griev-
ances frequently face retaliation and rarely see their harassers fired
or reassigned. We find that new grievance procedures are not fol-
lowed by increases in white women in management, and are fol-
lowed by reductions in black, Hispanic, and Asian-American
women. Second, field research on the type of training that best
approximates manager training—bystander intervention training—
suggests that it increases the intention to intervene, confidence
about intervening, and actual intervention. We find that new
manager training programs are followed by increases in white, black,
Hispanic, and Asian-American women in management. Third, field
and laboratory studies of training for employees, typically with
forbidden-behavior curriculum, show some positive effects on men’s
knowledge about harassment, but also some adverse effects—
increasing victim blaming and likelihood of harassing. We find that

−0.2

−0.1

0.0

0.1

0.2

1st quartile 2nd quartile 3rd quartile 4th quartile

Workplaces by percent total women in management, quartiles

E
st

im
at

ed
 c

ha
ng

e 
in

 s
ha

re
 o

f g
ro

up
 in

 m
an

ag
em

en
t

White women Black women Hispanic women Asian−American women

Fig. 4. Estimated changes in the share of white and minority women in
management following the adoption of sexual harassment grievance pro-
cedures, for workplaces in the first, second, third, and fourth quartiles of
total women in management. Values on the vertical axis represent change in
the log odds of the group in management. Ninety-five percent confidence
intervals are shown.

−0.1

0.0

0.1

0.2

1st quartile 2nd quartile 3rd quartile 4th quartile

Workplaces by percent total women in management, quartiles

E
st

im
at

ed
 c

ha
ng

e 
in

 s
ha

re
 o

f g
ro

up
 in

 m
an

ag
em

en
t

White women Black women Hispanic women Asian−American women

Fig. 5. Estimated changes in the share of white and minority women in
management following the adoption of sexual harassment training for
managers, for workplaces in the first, second, third, and fourth quartiles of
total women in management. Values on the vertical axis represent change in
the log odds of the group in management. Ninety-five percent confidence
intervals are shown.

12258 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116 Dobbin and Kalev

D
o
w

n
lo

a
d
e
d
 a

t 
C

a
rn

e
g
ie

 M
e
llo

n
 U

n
iv

e
rs

ity
 o

n
 A

p
ri
l 5

, 
2
0
2
1
 

https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental
https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116


new employee training programs are followed by reductions in white
women in management.
Research also suggests that these programs will be more ef-

fective in workplaces with more women managers—women are
more likely to believe harassment complaints and less likely to
react negatively to training. We find that, for minority women,
women managers improve the effects of grievance procedures
and manager training. However, research also shows that, when
women’s gains in management threaten men’s dominance, group
threat can lead men to resist efforts to accommodate women.
White women are most likely to activate group threat, and not
only because of their numbers in management. Intersectionality
studies also show that dominance by white women more often
elicits backlash than dominance by minority women. We find
that, for white women, positive effects of manager training dis-
appear, and negative effects of grievance procedures and em-
ployee training appear, in workplaces with the most women
managers. In further analyses, we found that growth in women
managers up to about 12% improved harassment program ef-
fects for white women, but growth beyond that did not (see
decile analysis results and full discussion in SI Appendix) (26, 29).
Taken together, the findings indicate that the positive effects of

manager training are not counteracted by the negative effects of
grievance procedures or employee training, because the effects
appear in different sorts of workplaces. For all three groups of
minority women, in workplaces with more women managers,
manager training helps; in workplaces with fewer women managers,
grievance procedures hurt. For white women, in workplaces with
more women managers, grievance procedures and employee
training hurt; in workplaces with fewer women managers, manager
training helps. It appears that harassment programs have made
things worse for certain groups of women in certain workplaces,
and better for other groups of women in other workplaces.
The findings hold implications for employers, pointing to both

problematic and promising program features. They reinforce
victim surveys suggesting that grievance procedures incite re-
taliation and rarely satisfy victims. Even in workplaces with
manager training, which is generally effective, grievance procedures
do no good. How might employers improve complaint handling? On
surveying the research, the EEOC’s Select Taskforce on the Study of
Harassment in the Workplace recommended that employers offer

alternative complaint systems less likely to blow back on victims,
such as independent ombudspersons who can hear complaints
confidentially and talk through victims’ options (35, 36). Tech start-
ups have devised their own alternatives, including virtual ombuds-
persons and reporting systems. Online reporting may address a
common #MeToo and #WhyIDidn’tReport criticism—employer
confidentiality clauses prevent victims from learning that their ha-
rasser has done it before. Online, victims can report harassment
when they choose to but embargo reports until others complain
about the same harasser.
The findings point to the promise of harassment training that

treats trainees as allies rather than as potential perpetrators. Our
comparison of manager and employee training is key here.
Manager training, like bystander intervention training, gives
trainees the tools to recognize and address harassment. It has the
broadest positive effects. By contrast, employee training, which
most often uses legalistic forbidden-behavior curriculum, shows
null or adverse effects. Training is where the lion’s share of the
corporate antiharassment budget goes. Employers might do
better to offer bystander training to everyone. In studies on
college campuses and in the military, this approach has been
shown to increase the intention to intervene and self-reported
interventions among college students and enlisted men (13, 15).
Bystander training may offer the best hope for avoiding the
demonstrated adverse effects of forbidden-behavior training.
The analyses point to the promise of putting more women in

management, and many firms have replaced men felled by
#MeToo with women. However, men still dominate the middle
and upper echelons. As long as managers at the top come from
the middle, change may be slow. For now, employers might
consider research suggesting that male managers with the right
attitudes can, like women managers generally, improve program
effects. The US Armed Forces implemented a multipronged
strategy to fight sexual harassment and assault. Women who
reported that their unit leaders made an “honest and reasonable
effort to stop harassment” found both grievance handling and
harassment training to be more effective. Those women also
reported reductions in personal experiences of harassment and
in overall workplace harassment (37). That study, in a context
where virtually all leaders are men, suggests that leaders with the
right stuff can prevent harassment programs from backfiring.
Employers might select managers for promotion up the ranks, be
they men or women, who have proven records as allies to
harassment victims.
The findings don’t suggest a clear path to countering group

threat. Where women have made inroads in management, all
three programs appear to incite backlash against the group of
women whose dominance most threatens men: white women. In
workplaces in the top quartile of total women managers, back-
lash wipes out positive program effects or creates negative
effects. Again, management allies may be the key. Perhaps
selecting male managers who will believe harassment victims and
respond positively to training will help, because these may be the
very men who won’t react negatively to group threat. However,
we clearly need more research on group threat and how to
prevent it. Women in leadership could spark a virtuous cycle, in
which women leaders make harassment programs more effective,
and effective programs help employers to retain and promote
women. However, that virtuous cycle may never get underway in
the face of group threat.
The lessons we draw from the corporate world hold implications

for harassment programs in academia, which is second only to the
military in rates of harassment. A 2018 National Academies of
Sciences report on harassment suggests that the problems with
corporate sexual harassment grievance procedures and training are
mirrored in the academy (38). There, as in the corporate world,
women rarely file grievances, because they distrust procedures and
fear retaliation. There, as in the corporate world, training can

−0.2

−0.1

0.0

0.1

1st quartile 2nd quartile 3rd quartile 4th quartile

Workplaces by percent total women in management, quartiles

E
st

im
at

ed
 c

ha
ng

e 
in

 s
ha

re
 o

f g
ro

up
 in

 m
an

ag
em

en
t

White women Black women Hispanic women Asian−American women

Fig. 6. Estimated changes in the share of white and minority women in
management following the adoption of employee sexual harassment
training, for workplaces in the first, second, third, and fourth quartiles of
total women in management. Values on the vertical axis represent change in
the log odds of the group in management. Ninety-five percent confidence
intervals are shown.

Dobbin and Kalev PNAS | June 18, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 25 | 12259

SO
C
IA
L
SC

IE
N
C
ES

D
o
w

n
lo

a
d
e
d
 a

t 
C

a
rn

e
g
ie

 M
e
llo

n
 U

n
iv

e
rs

ity
 o

n
 A

p
ri
l 5

, 
2
0
2
1
 

https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1818477116/-/DCSupplemental


backfire, leading to backlash among men. While it may not be
surprising that the corporate world has not built sexual harassment
programs on the knowledge base that academia has produced, it is
surprising that academia itself has not done so.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank the National Science Foundation for
funding. We thank Bliss Cartwright and Ron Edwards of the EEOC for
making the EEO-1 data available through an Intergovernmental Personnel
Agreement. We thank Joshua Guetzkow, Carly Knight, and Daniel Schrage
for suggestions.

1. F. Dobbin, E. Kelly, How to stop harassment: The professional construction of legal

compliance in organizations. Am. J. Sociol. 112, 1203–1243 (2007).
2. A. M. O’Leary-Kelly, L. Bowes-Sperry, C. A. Bates, E. R. Lean, Sexual harassment at

work: A decade (plus) of progress. J. Manage. 35, 503–536 (2009).
3. H. Antecol, D. Cobb-Clark, Does sexual harassment training change attitudes? A view

from the federal level. Soc. Sci. Q. 84, 826–842 (2003).
4. C. D. Nye, B. J. Brummel, F. Drasgow, Too good to be true? Understanding change in

organizational outcomes. J. Manage. 36, 1555–1577 (2010).
5. US Merit Systems Protection Board, Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace: Is It

a Problem? (US Merit Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC, 1981).
6. US Merit Systems Protection Board, Sexual Harassment in the Federal Government:

An Update (US Merit Systems Protection Board, Washington, DC, 1988).
7. US Merit Systems Protection Board, Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace:

Trends, Progress, Continuing Challenges (US Merit Systems Protection Board, Wash-

ington, DC, 1995).
8. H. McLaughlin, C. Uggen, A. Blackstone, The economic and career effects of sexual

harassment on working women. Gend. Soc. 31, 333–358 (2017).
9. L. M. Cortina, J. L. Berdahl, “Sexual harrassment in organizations: A decade of re-

search in review” in The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Behavior, J. Barling, C. L.

Cooper, Eds. (Sage, Los Angeles, 2008), vol. 1, pp. 469–497.
10. L. D. Bastian, A. R. Lancaster, H. E. Reyst, 1995 Sexual Harrassment Survey (US De-

partment of Defense, Arlington, VA, 1996).
11. L. M. Cortina, V. J. Magley, Raising voice, risking retaliation: Events following interper-

sonal mistreatment in the workplace. J. Occup. Health Psychol. 8, 247–265 (2003).
12. A. Smith, Sexual Harassment Training Should Be Separate for Managers and Rank and

File (Society for Human Resource Management, 2017).
13. J. Katz, J. Moore, Bystander education training for campus sexual assault prevention:

An initial meta-analysis. Violence Vict. 28, 1054–1067 (2013).
14. A. C. Cares et al., Changing attitudes about being a bystander to violence: Translating

an in-person sexual violence prevention program to a new campus. Violence Against

Women 21, 165–187 (2015).
15. S. J. Potter, M. M. Moynihan, Bringing in the bystander in-person prevention program

to a U.S. military installation: Results from a pilot study. Mil. Med. 176, 870–875

(2011).
16. S. Bisom-Rapp, An ounce of prevention is a poor substitute for a pound of cure:

Confronting the developing jurisprudence of education and prevention in employ-

ment discrimination law. Berkeley J. Employ. Labor Law 22, 1–46 (2001).
17. V. J. Magley, L. F. Fitzgerald, J. Salisbury, F. Drasgow, M. J. Zickar, “Changing sexual

harassment within organizations via training interventions: Suggestions and empiri-

cal data” in The Fulfilling Workplace: The Organization’s Role in Achieving Individual

and Organizational Health, R. Burke, C. Cooper Eds. (Gower, Surrey, United Kingdom,

2013), pp. 225–246.
18. S. G. Bingham, L. L. Scherer, The unexpected effects of a sexual harassment educa-

tional program. J. Appl. Behav. Sci. 37, 125–153 (2001).

19. L. K. Kearney, A. B. Rochlen, E. B. King, Male gender role conflict, sexual harassment
tolerance, and the efficacy of a psychoeducative training program. Psychol. Men
Masc. 5, 72–82 (2004).

20. L. A. Robb, D. Doverspike, Self-reported proclivity to harass as a moderator of the
effectiveness of sexual harassment-prevention training. Psychol. Rep. 88, 85–88
(2001).

21. B. M. Walsh, T. J. Bauerle, V. J. Magley, Individual and contextual inhibitors of sexual
harassment training motivation. Hum. Resour. Dev. Q. 24, 215–237 (2013).

22. K. A. Lonsway, L. M. Cortina, V. J. Magley, Sexual harassment mythology: Definition,
conceptualization, and measurement. Sex Roles 58, 599–615 (2008).

23. P. McDonald Workplace sexual harassment 30 years on: A review of the literature. Int.
J. Manag. Rev. 14, 1–17 (2011).

24. J. Tinkler, S. Gremillion, K. Arthurs, Perceptions of legitimacy: The sex of the legal
messenger and reactions to sexual harassment training. Law Soc. Inq. 40, 152–174
(2015).

25. H. Blalock, Towards a Theory of Minority Group Relations (Wiley, New York, 1967).
26. R. M. Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation (Basic Books, New York, NY, 1977).
27. S. Welsh, Gender and sexual harassment. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 25, 169–190 (1999).
28. V. Roscigno, The Face of Discrimination: How Race and Gender Impact Work and

Home Lives (Rowman and Littlefield, New York, 2007).
29. L. E. Cohen, J. P. Broschak, H. A. Haveman, And then there were more? The effect of

organizational sex composition on the hiring and promoting of managers. Am. So-
ciol. Rev. 63, 711–727 (1998).

30. R. W. Livingston, A. S. Rosette, E. F. Washington, Can an agentic black woman get
ahead? The impact of race and interpersonal dominance on perceptions of female
leaders. Psychol. Sci. 23, 354–358 (2012).

31. C. L. Ridgeway, T. Kricheli-Katz, Intersecting cultural beliefs in social relations: Gen-
der, race, and class binds and freedoms. Gend. Soc. 27, 294–318 (2013).

32. A. Kalev, F. Dobbin, Workplace Sexual Harassment Survey, 1971-2002. Replication
Dataset. http://doi.org/10.3886/E109781V3. Deposited 15 May 2019.

33. C. Robinson, T. Taylor, D. Tomaskovic-Devey, C. Zimmer, M. W. Irvine, Studying race/
ethnic and sex segregation at the establishment-level: Methodological issues and
substantive opportunities using EEO-1 reports. Work Occup. 32, 5–38 (2005).

34. L. B. Edelman, Working Law: Courts, Corporations, and Symbolic Civil Rights (University
of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2016).

35. M. P. Rowe, M. Baker, Are you hearing enough employee concerns? Harv. Bus. Rev.
62, 127–138 (1984).

36. C. R. Feldblum, V. A. Lipnic; USEEO Commission, Select Task Force on the Study of
Harassment in the Workplace: Report of Co-Chairs Chai R. Feldblum & Victoria A.
Lipnic (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Washington, DC, 2016).

37. N. T. Buchanan, I. H. Settles, A. T. Hall, R. C. O’Connor, A review of organizational
strategies for reducing sexual harassment: Insights from the U. S. military. J. Soc. Is-
sues 70, 687–702 (2014).

38. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Sexual Harassment of
Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine (National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2018).

12260 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116 Dobbin and Kalev

D
o
w

n
lo

a
d
e
d
 a

t 
C

a
rn

e
g
ie

 M
e
llo

n
 U

n
iv

e
rs

ity
 o

n
 A

p
ri
l 5

, 
2
0
2
1
 

http://doi.org/10.3886/E109781V3
https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1818477116