This study explores cross-sex friendships within the professional workplace and examined the impact of the workplace environment and heightened awareness of sexual harassment on cross-sex friendship formation. Results from interviews with 41 professionals suggest the existence of obstacles to developing cross-sex friendships at work. Specifically, these professionals worried that their cross-sex friends would misinterpret their friendliness as romantic or sexual interest, that their co-workers would misinterpret their friendliness to a cross-sex friend, and that their humor and conversational topics might be perceived by a cross-sex friend as sexual harassment. Barriers to cross-sex friendship at work were labeled the ‘glass partition,’ and the potential impact of this glass partition on women's and men's careers is discussed.
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