Sexual Harassment, Law, and Social Change: A View from the Ground

As a political concept, sexual harassment is thoroughly steeped in law. It represents the translation of women’s problems into a legal claim, a relatively new right that arguably furthers women’s equality. Developed through the steady accretion of individual lawsuits (Marshall 1998), the legal definitions and rules are designed to protect women from sexually harassing behaviors, but those legal rules also gave rise to a set of policies and procedures that do not necessarily vindicate women’s rights (Edelman, Uggen, and Erlanger 1999; Bisom-Rapp 1999; Grossman 2003).