A GENERATION OF BOORS? POLL,

As the #MeToo era brings ever more men down, millennial males appear to be outliers in what they consider appropriate behaviour in the workplace.

In a challenge to some of the narrative around the phenomenon that has seen a new awareness of sexual assault and on-the-job harassment, a new poll has found younger men are, in many cases, twice as likely as the rest of the population to believe it’s acceptable to give a colleague an uninvited shoulder rub, make sexual gestures at work, comment on a co-worker’s body or display, swap or read materials some might consider “sexually suggestive.” Thirteen per cent said it’s acceptable to read a pornographic magazine at their desk during lunch breaks.

Millennial males (those aged 18 to 34) were also almost evenly divided on the notion that “all these new rules about conduct are killing the human element at work,” a view that puts them at odds with females of their generation (almost two-thirds of women that age disagree).

“Some of the deepest divisions in Canadian society on this issue of workplace sexual harassment are between men and women of the millennial generation,” the Angus Reid Institute said.

The oldest group of men (55 and older) surveyed — men of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s generation, and whose peers have been caught up in a stunning wave of sexual-harassment scandals — were more in line with women’s views about what is acceptable in the workplace.

A third of millennial men said it was acceptable to express sexual interest in a co-worker compared to 12 per cent of older men; one in four said it was reasonable to make a comment about a colleague’s body. One in four approved of using “sexualized language” in a conversation at work, while only two per cent of older men agreed.

The #MeToo conversation “has held up one segment of society as the blanket bogeyman in this," specifically, "baby boomer males,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of Angus Reid Institute.

“I think our data in terms of what people are thinking and what their own mindsets are does run counter to that.”

The findings, sociologists said, hint at the culture of pornography millennial men have grown up with as well as a desire to be seen as “properly masculine.”

“I think the desire to be seen as strong, to be seen as a rainmaker may actually be confused with behaving in a sexually inappropriate way,” said Judith Taylor, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.

“The question for young men is, how do they prove they are a reliable team play without offending women peers, and male peers for that matter, and without violating workplace policy,” Taylor said.

Overall, the survey of 2,004 Canadians exposes more generational than gender divides in attitudes around sexual harassment in the workplace.

“Be it male columnists decrying an apparent lack of due process when it comes to allegations of sexual harassment, or female commentators dismissing the feeble excuses of admitted abusers, the current public narrative may lead Canadians to think that gender alone is a massive, dividing driver of opinion,” Angus Reid said. “That’s not necessarily the case.”

Overall, half of all women surveyed said they had experienced harassing behaviour in their working lives.

Among women who were willing to answer the question, more than half (52) per cent said they have been sexually harassed at work at some point in their lives, with older women — likely by virtue of being in the workforce longer — more likely to report harassment. Harassment was defined as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours and other verbal (non-touching) conduct of a sexual nature.”

More than one in four women (28 per cent) willing to answer questions about sexual harassment said they have experienced non-consensual sexual touching — technically, sexual assault. Older women were more likely to say they have been assaulted (37 per cent), but one in five women aged 18 to 24 also reported experiencing assault.

Younger men, though certainly not the majority, were more likely than their much older peers to support boorish behaviour. They were also more likely than men of older generations to agree that, “some people have definitely behaved like jerks but they shouldn’t lose their jobs or reputations for it.”

The online survey was conducted Jan. 25 to Jan. 30 among a randomized sample of 2,004 Canadian adults. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.