Confronting Sexual Harrassment

Examining the relationship between law and social change in the context of employees' problems with sexual harassment, this book elaborates a framework for studying the role of law in everyday acts of resistance. Following the stages of a dispute, it then examines the way that people use frames to make sense of their experiences.

Examining the relationship between law and social change in the context of employees' everyday problems with sexual harassment, this volume elaborates a framework for studying the role of law in everyday acts of resistance - what the author calls the legal consciousness of injustice. The framework situates the analysis in the context of a specific social problem and its related legal domain. It de-centres the law by accounting for the way that social movements, counter-movements, policy makers and powerful institutions frame the debate surrounding the social problem. Drawing on frame analysis developed in social movement studies, this aspect of the approach specifically incorporates other schema and shows how law supports both oppositional and dominant interpretations of experience. Following the stages of a dispute, the framework then examines the way that people use frames to make sense of their experiences.

The legal consciousness of injustice: a theoretical framework
The legal environment of sexual harassment: law, policies, and the women who use them
Equality, sex and productivity: the competitive framing environment of sexual harassment
The meaning of equality: perceiving the harm of sexual harassment
'I guess that was sexual harassment': naming sexual harassment
Idle rights: employee complaints and management responses
Sexual harassment, law and social change: a view from the ground
Appendix A: interview schedule
Appendix B: questionnaire
Appendix C: measures for gender consciousness
References
Index.