Both men and women are the targets of these acts of bullying. When men are the targets of workplace bullying, the bully is usually male. Targets are often seen by the bullies as uneducated or unskilled, though many of these targets have a college education. Interestingly, men who are targets are bullied longer at an average of 18 months, compared to women at 15 months. The reason for this is that women are more willing to take action and seek help.
Men are usually more tolerant of the bullying, and refuse to admit there is a problem.
Whereas, women are not embarrassed to take necessary action. The majority of the targets reported no history of being targeted at work prior to their current situation. In the majority of the bullying cases, neither the target nor the bully had the luxury of being part of a union, or protected class. The mistreatment endured by the target was not legally actionable with respect to a hostile work environment, because illegal discriminatory conduct could not be claimed. With this protected class status, these people could complain about Civil Rights violations, and would get to pursue litigation.