ABSTRACT
The national response to sexual harassment is emblematic of the situation for American women in politics and for American women generally. Researchers such as the United States Merit Protection Board, hardly a conspiracy of flaming feminists, estimate that between one-half and four-fifths of women will experience sexual harassment at some point in their working lives. Although the failure to complain is often taken as evidence that the abusive conduct didn’t happen, available research suggests that only a quarter of all women experiencing harassment ever tell anyone and that less than five percent file formal charges. Part of that education needs to put sexual harassment in the context of broader issues of gender inequality. Sex at work is more interesting than other issues of subordination, but it should not monopolize our political agenda. Most abusers have figured out that notations in a personnel file should focus on incompetence, not sex.
