Sexual Harassment in Medicine — #MeToo

Abstract

The news is filled with stories of celebrities who have engaged in egregious sexual misconduct. A recent poll suggested that more than half of U.S. women have experienced “unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances” at some point in their lives.¹ Because I led a study of workplace sexual harassment in medicine,² I was not surprised when reporters contacted me for comments on the recent disclosures. When a secretary filling in for my usual assistant relayed one reporter’s request, she told me she presumed the story was about my personal experience of sexual harassment. Disturbed, I leapt to correct her misapprehension: I was being sought out as a scholarly expert, not a victim. Then I wondered why it seemed so urgent to make that distinction.