Development and validation of contextual measures of sexual harassment perceptions, experiences, and coping for women employees in Ethiopian hospitality workplaces

Consequences of exposure to sexual harassment among women working in hospitality workplaces in Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia: a structural equation model

INTRODUCTION

Sexual harassment is undoubtedly widespread, and many countries have enacted laws to punish and prevent it as insulting behavior. However, its impacts on the job, psyche, and physical health, especially reproductive health, are still severe and noticeable. Thus, this study aimed to examine the impacts of sexual harassment on the job, psychology, physical health, and reproductive health of women in the hospitality industry.

METHODS

Institution-based cross-sectional survey was conducted between October 1 and November 30, 2021. Data were collected among 689 women who experienced sexual harassment in the hospitality industry. In selecting the participants, two-stage cluster sampling techniques were used. The data collection was carried out in two complementary ways. The model of structural equations examines the relationship between the experience of sexual harassment and coping with consequences. The associations were confirmed via AMOS 23.

RESULTS

Sexual harassment positively predicted job outcomes and negatively predicted physical health. In contrast, coping with sexual harassment positively predicts health at work and in the body and is negatively associated with health in reproduction. Physical health fully mediated the link between sexual harassment (β = 0.017, t = 0.85, p = 0.022) and reproductive health outcomes and partially mediated (β = -0.021, t = -1.235, p = 0.017) between sexual harassment coping and physical health. The interaction between sexual harassment experiences and work experiences also strengthens the negative relationship between sexual harassment experiences and physical health.

CONCLUSIONS

The impact of sexual harassment on women's reproductive health was investigated in this study. It expands awareness of the effects of sexual harassment exposure, how to survive it, and how to establish effective preventative strategies, particularly in the hospitality industry. Effective prevention depends on preventing psychological and physical health, ultimately improving reproductive health. Thus, safe workplace initiatives and reproductive health care services are needed. Hospitality organizations should also devise a strategy for providing a supportive environment that can significantly improve women's health.

Supporting women's research in predominantly undergraduate institutions: Experiences with a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award

This paper describes the Gender Equity Project (GEP) at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY), funded by the U. S. NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award (ITA) program. ADVANCE supports system-level strategies to promote gender equity in the social and natural sciences, but has supported very few teaching-intensive institutions. Hunter College is a teaching-intensive institution in which research productivity among faculty is highly valued and counts toward tenure and promotion. We created the GEP to address the particular challenges that faculty, especially White women and faculty of color, face in maintaining research programs and advancing in their careers at teaching-intensive institutions. During the course of the ADVANCE award, its centerpiece was the Sponsorship Program, a multifaceted paid mentorship/sponsorship program that paired each participant with a successful scholar in her discipline. It offered extensive professional development opportunities, including interactive workshops and internal grants to support research. The GEP helped change key policies and practices by ensuring that all faculty were treated fairly in areas like provision of research start-up funds and access to guidance on how to prepare for tenure and promotion. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that participation in the Sponsorship Program boosted research productivity and advanced the careers of many of the women who participated; the Program was highly rated by all participants. Some of the policy and practice changes that the GEP helped bring about were sustained at Hunter beyond the award period and some were adopted and disseminated by the central office of CUNY. However, we were not able to sustain the relatively expensive (but cost-effective) Sponsorship Program. We share the lessons we learned, including that creating a diverse, successful social and natural scientific workforce requires sustained support of female faculty employed at teaching-intensive colleges. We acknowledge the difficulties of sustaining gains, and offer ideas about how to make the case for gender equity when women seem to be doing "well enough." We underscore the imperative of building support for women's research in teaching-intensive institutions, where most women scientists are employed, and well over 90% of all college students-a disproportionate percentage of whom are female, minoritized, or both-are educated.