Why Do People Perpetrate Sexual Harassment in Public Space? A Systematic Scoping Review

Abstract

Despite the growing scholarly interest in sexual harassment in public space over the past decades, there is still no systematic overview of explanations for why perpetrators engage in it. Such an overview would be valuable for improving the effectiveness of prevention strategies. Hence, this review was guided by the following questions: (1) What explanations are provided in the literature for why people engage in sexual harassment in public space, and (2) have these explanations been studied empirically? 12 databases were searched for relevant studies across disciplines. Of the 4,300 studies identified, 29 met the inclusion criteria. A thematic analysis was conducted to categorize the explanations according to the social ecological framework. We identified 10 themes across four levels: (1) individual – personality traits, psychosocial capacities, and behavioral tendencies; (2) relationship – communicative motivations, peer dynamics, and family dynamics; (3) community – socio-spatial environment and structural inequalities; (4) societal – social norms and structural inequalities. We demonstrate that the literature most notably provides empirically substantiated explanations at the first two levels. Community- and societal-level factors, and their interplay with individual- and relationship-level factors, require more thorough empirical scrutiny. Our findings, moreover, suggest that: (a) efforts to reduce sexual harassment in public space should rather focus on peer groups than (potentially) perpetrating individuals; (b) such efforts should focus on addressing group dynamics, perpetrators’ psychosocial capacities, and the social and gender norms that shape their worldviews, besides continuing to raise awareness of what sexual harassment is and how it is experienced by targets.