ABSTRACT

Blanche has identified an aspect of sexual harassment that keeps human resource managers and defense lawyers up at night. The legal definitions of sexual harassment are confusing, obscure, and often based, it seems, on the emotional state of the victims, not to mention the harassers, rather than on any factor under the employer’s control. While the rules may be unclear to everyone affected, they are nevertheless powerful forces shaping interactions in the workplace. As shown in Chapter 2, employers have adopted elaborate policies and procedures in response to judicial opinions and EEOC regulations; they have designed training programs to implement those policies. But the crucial question is: what do these rules mean to their intended beneficiaries? Does the right to be protected from sexual harassment on the job mean anything to women who encounter harassing behaviors in their daily lives?