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How Women Cope with Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment may have become so commonplace for women that they have built up resistance to harassing behavior they consider merely “bothersome,” suggests a new study.
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Is sexual harassment so widespread that women have developed an immunity of sorts? Isis Settles, psychology professor at Michigan State University, said: “‘When women view sexual harassment as bothersome, it doesn’t seem to be associated with distress. In some ways this suggests that sexual harassment is such a widespread problem that women have figured out ways to deal with it so it doesn’t interfere with their psychological well-being.’ For the study the researchers examined surveys of more than 6,000 women and men serving in all five branches of the U.S. military.”

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