In 2018, the Australian philosopher Kate Manne coined the word “himpathy” to describe what she called “the inappropriate and disproportionate sympathy powerful men often enjoy in cases of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, homicide and other misogynistic behavior”.
This happened to former US President Donald Trump who was found liable for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll in 2023. Carroll faced abuse from online trolls, she received death threats and was driven from her home.
What makes somebody more likely to feel himpathetic, either to somebody facing accusations in the public eye, or in their own workplace?
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to a human behaviour expert whose research seeks to understand what makes some people more inclined to support perpetrators of sexual misconduct than the victims.
Samantha Dodson is an assistant professor of organisational behaviour and human resources at the University of Calgary in Canada. She first started researching the ways people react to accusations of sexual misconduct around the time of the #MeToo movement, as women came forward with accusations of sexual harassment in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein case.
Dodson and her colleagues wanted to understand why some people are predisposed to express sympathy towards male perpetrators of sexual misconduct, or himpathy. Over a series of five studies, both analysing public comments on X related to the #MeToo movement and through lab-based psychology experiments. Her team used moral foundations theory to build a profile of the kinds of people more likely to be himpathetic.
Moral foundations theory argues that there are innate moral concerns that everybody holds to different levels. These concerns include respect for authority, loyalty, staying pure, being fair and being caring toward other people.
Don’t rock the boat
What we found is that when people strongly value things like loyalty, respect for authority and purity, they’re more likely to feel sympathy toward the man accused of sexual misconduct and feel anger toward the women who made that allegation.
Dodson says people who hold these moral values very strongly are more likely to see allegations as a threat to the stability of a company, or institution. And, as a result, they’re also less likely to believe a victim.
It also leads to people being more likely to seek punishment for the women who made the accusations and less likely to seek punishment for the men who have been accused.
Overall, Dodson found the vast majority of people in their studies were “not himpathetic” and it’s just a small subset of people who react this way.
The challenge is if those people are in positions of authority, or … if you have one person that you work with who’s himpathetic and you’re a victim you might experience some iciness from them or ostracism.
Their work also looks at how managers can better deal with accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace as a result of their findings.
Listen to Samantha Dodson talk about her research and the recommendations from it on The Conversation Weekly podcast, which also features an introduction from Eleni Vlahiotis, business and economy editor at The Conversation in Canada.
A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Sound design was by Michelle Macklem, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer.
Newsclips in this episode from ABC News, PBS News Hour and NBC News.
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Samantha Dodson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
