Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination
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Book Overview
Sexual harassment of working women has been widely practiced and systematically ignored. Men's control over women's jobs has often made coerced sexual relations the price of women's material survival. Considered trivial or personal, or natural and inevitable, sexual harassment has become a social institution.
MacKinnon offers here the first major attempt to understand sexual harassment as a pervasive social problem and to present a legal argument that it is discrimination based on sex. Beginning with an analysis of victims' experiences, she then examines sex discrimination doctrine as a whole, both for its potential in prohibiting sexual harassment and for its limitations.
Two distinct approaches to sex discrimination are seen to animate the law: one based on an analysis of the differences between the sexes, the other upon women's social inequality. Arguing that sexual harassment at work is sex discrimination under both approaches, she criticizes the effectiveness of the law in reaching the real determinants of women's social status. She concludes that a recognition of sexual harassment as illegal would support women's economic equality and sexual self-determination at a point where the two are linked.
MacKinnon offers here the first major attempt to understand sexual harassment as a pervasive social problem and to present a legal argument that it is discrimination based on sex. Beginning with an analysis of victims' experiences, she then examines sex discrimination doctrine as a whole, both for its potential in prohibiting sexual harassment and for its limitations.
Two distinct approaches to sex discrimination are seen to animate the law: one based on an analysis of the differences between the sexes, the other upon women's social inequality. Arguing that sexual harassment at work is sex discrimination under both approaches, she criticizes the effectiveness of the law in reaching the real determinants of women's social status. She concludes that a recognition of sexual harassment as illegal would support women's economic equality and sexual self-determination at a point where the two are linked.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0300022999
ISBN13:9780300022995
Release Date:September 1979
Publisher:Yale University Press
Length:326 Pages
Weight:1.05 lbs.
Dimensions:0.9" x 5.5" x 8.2"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Ground breaking legal work by leading feminist legal scholar
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
This is the book that changed the law, folks. It is proof that feminist legal theory and philosophy has important practical implications. By a copy and send it to your favorite jurist today!
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