Minds, Hearts, and Bodies, Not Data Points: A Response to Harris, McDonald, and Sparks’s “Sexual Harassment in the Military: Individual Experiences, Demographics, and Organizational Contexts”

• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X18767090
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Connie A. Buscha
• Subject Matter: Commentaries

Commentary

Minds, Hearts, and

Bodies, Not Data Points:

A Response to Harris,

McDonald, and Sparks’s

“Sexual Harassment in

the Military: Individual

Experiences, Demographics,

and Organizational

Contexts”

Connie A. Buscha

1

Abstract

Harris, McDonald, and Sparks’s recent quantitative research article, Sexual Harass-

ment in the Military: Individual Experiences, Demographics, and Organizational Contexts,

does not deliver its title’s promises. In 2018, social science research investigating,

describing, and, ultimately, impacting human lives has advanced beyond overly

simplistic figures of data points on x- and y-axes and rhetorical findings. Therefore,

this response challenges numerous aspects of Harris, McDonald, and Sparks’s arti-

cle. It identifies pragmatism as a valuable theoretical perspective from which to

investigate the phenomenon of sexual harassment in the military. It further asserts

that a qualitative methodology best provides rich, nuanced, and descriptive data

from which researchers and scholars can identify measures to mitigate negative

experiences for all service members regardless of gender.

1

Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Connie A. Buscha (formerly Connie A. Brownson), Texas State University, Evans Liberal Arts, Room 139,

San Marcos, TX 78666, USA.

Email: cb60716@txstate.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2019, Vol. 45(3) 561-571

ªThe Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X18767090

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