Sexual Harassment as a Gendered Expression of Power

Harassment of Working Women, Catharine MacKinnon notes that men’s victimization of women “is sufficiently pervasive in American society as to be nearly invisible” (1979:1). Since the publication of her book, sexual harassment has become increasingly visible, and variants of MacKinnon’s broad sociocultural explanation have gained broad acceptance (Schultz 2001; MacKinnon 2002; Tangri, Burt, and Johnson 1982; Welsh 1999). In reaction to evidence that at least some male and adolescent workers are targets of sexual harassment (Kalof et al. 2001; Talbot 2002; Thacker 1996), critics have begun to challenge feminist views of sexual harassment as an act committed by powerful adult males against “powerless females” (Patai 1998:170) as founded on “unexamined notions of male ‘power’ and predatoriness” (Patai 1998:59; see also Francke 1997; Schultz 1998:95). Nevertheless, a systematic examination of the theory’s basic propositions about gender and power has yet to emerge in the social science literature. No empirical study of sexual harassment has appeared in the prominent general interest sociology journals American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, or Social Forces (Sever 1996). In light of the impressive body of sociological theory around the phenomenon, a burgeoning research literature in the top specialty journals, and the strong public interest it has generated, this void is surprising. The neglect of sexual harassment in mainstream sociology also forestalls research that could have broad implications. In this paper we Sexual Harassment as a Gendered Expression of Power