by Anne Levy and Michele Paludi

About the authors: Anne Levy is an associate professor of law, public policy, and business at Michigan State University. Michele Paludi is an expert in academic and workplace sexual harassment, editor of Ivory Power: Sexual Harassment on Campus, and coauthor of Workplace Sexual Harassment, from which the following viewpoint is taken.

In some new theorizing about why men sexually harass women, Michele Paludi has focused not on men’s attitudes toward women but instead on men’s attitudes toward other men, competition, and power. Many of the men with whom Paludi has discussed sexual harassment often act out of extreme competitiveness and concern with ego, or out of fear of losing their positions of power. They don’t want to appear weak or less masculine in the eyes of...