““In three studies, gender expert Jennifer Berdahl found that sexual harassment isn’t primarily motivated by sexual desire: Women who meet feminine standards of beauty don’t experience the most harassment. Instead, “it is motivated primarily by a desire to punish gender-role deviants and, therefore, is directed at women who violate feminine ideals.” Women who were “assertive, dominant, and independent” faced the most harassment, particularly in male-dominated organizations. Sexual harassment, she concludes, is mostly targeted toward “uppity women.””
