This chapter presents an overview for understanding sexual harassment in terms of three distinct theoretical orientations: utility theory, evolutionary theory, and sexual scripting theory. The proposed model focuses on how men consider the potential value and likelihood of successfully approaching a woman for sex. Further, the model assumes that men will engage in strategies designed to enhance the likelihood component. The strategies they use can be understood in terms of evolutionary pressures that have operated on males with regard to maximizing the likelihood of reproduction. The problem that men and women face is that the strategies encouraged by evolutionary pressures are in conflict with the socially constructed scripts people use to engage in sex-based interactions in the modern world and thus create the subjective experience of sexual harassment in women. Finally, the chapter asserts that better solutions to sexual harassment will result when the causes of sexual harassment are better understood.
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Front Matter
