ABSTRACT
Apart from its legal significance, sexual harassment is an example of a powerful oppositional frame that has transformed the way that women think about their working lives. Women have been dealing with sexual demands from supervisors and colleagues since they entered the workforce (Farley 1978). Such attention was supposed to be flattering, and if it ever got to be too much to handle, women would simply quit and move on to the next job. Through efforts described in the previous chapter, the women’s movement reframed sexual behavior at work, characterizing it as an obstacle to women’s enjoyment of equal opportunity in employment and education and naming it sexual harassment. Now, by virtue of highly-publicized lawsuits and scandals, that oppositional name is widely circulated and available to millions of working women.
