ABSTRACT
Scholars have long considered the relationship between law and its social context. The range of reactions to sexual harassment is the result of differing perceptions of both the social problem of sexual harassment and its solutions in law. The topic of sexual harassment was slowly gaining status as a social problem and a legal issue in the USA when interest in the issue exploded during the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. Sexual harassment law is an especially interesting law to examine because of the worldwide dominance of early United States legal conceptualizations of sexual harassment, making it amenable to comparisons of similar law within different social context. Feminists fought to protect the rights of women at work by advocating that sexual harassment be seen as a social problem with a legal solution in sex discrimination law. This chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
