Sexual Harassment: A Feminist Phrase That Transformed the Workplace - Literature Review

Luyao Liu

Professor Cantor

English 201 Section J4

February.22.2016

Lit review 1

Citation:

Constance, Backhouse. "Sexual Harassment: A Feminist Phrase That Transformed the Workplace." Canadian Journal of Women & the Law. 24.6(2012): 275-300

Summary:

The article is a first-person biography from a co-author of the first book exploring sexual harassment in Canada. It is recalled memories from the author who narrate increasing number of and different forms of sexual harassment in the workplace. More importantly, it analyzes events attempting to exterminate workplace sexual harassment by the efforts of early feminist. It briefly explained what wrote in Constance Backhouse and Leah Cohen’s The Secret Oppression: Sexual Harassment of Working Woman and its influential impact on people’s consciousness toward meaning of workplace sexual harassment to women. Furthermore, the article extends to wider contexts that varied with increasing topic on sexual harassment, like its proper name, timing and sexual revolution, which have worsened the issue to different degrees.

Author:

Constance Barbara Backhouse is a famed University Professor and University Research Chair at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa and is also the President of the American Society of Legal History. She is a legal scholar and historian that focus on gender and race discrimination. She has written numerous academic publications and books about feminist and race related legal rights.

Key Terms and Concepts:

Verbal sexual harassment – verbal expressions made by harassers whose overtures come with subtle hints or crude suggestive comments.

Physical sexual harassment – pinching, grabbing, hugging, patting, leering, brushing against, and touching. Some are even outright sexual assault and rape

Intersectionality: workplace harassment can be related to race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual identity, class, disability, and other forms of discriminations

Coerced sexual activity – forced sexual interactions with others

Quotes and interpretations:

“However, we were buoyed by the strength of the feminist movement, the sheer number of women who were willing to disclose their experiences with sexual harassment, and our sense that this was one way we could turn our personal misfortunes into positive change. There was an infectious excitement in the women’s movement that made almost everything seem possible”(279).

For women who experienced harassment in the workplace, it is understandable that they are too embarrassed to mention and even describe about the depressed experience. Most women would keep the experience as a secret to themselves as they are afraid of being judged by the shameful past. However, to help female to escape from the shadow of sexual harassment radically, their voices are better to be heard by the public but anonymously. The feminist’s movement of gathering different experiences of sexual harassment at work is undoubtedly necessary to rescue women at potential risks and comfort those unfortunate women.