What Can We Take From This?

There is, of course, plenty that men and women agree on these days, according to our survey—the merits of chivalry, the creepiness of a boss asking a woman to dress "sexy," and, broadly speaking, what is acceptable sexual behavior and what isn't. But when it comes to how men and women perceive one another's actions and intentions—when we get into issues of frequency and degree—things get weird. It gets weird when we talk about sexual harassment—not because men and women define it differently (we don't), but because women say they witness and experience it all the time and men tend to say they only hear about it. It gets weird when we bring up sexual violence—not because we can't agree on what it means (we can), but because women think it's happening far more frequently than men do. Pop culture's depictions of women, presumptions of innocence, presumptions of truth: Our survey shows that these gaps in perception between women and men persist—and may, in some cases, explain the current tensions between the sexes.

Published in the April 2015 issues of Esquire and Cosmopolitan.

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