Confronting Sexual Harassment: The Law and Politics of Everyday Life

Description

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. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Tables Acknowledgements 1 The Legal Consciousness of Injustice: A Theoretical Framework 2 The Legal Environment of Sexual Harassment: Law, Policies, and the Women Who Use Them 3 Equality, Sex, and Productivity: The Competitive Framing Environment of Sexual Harassment 4 The Meaning of Equality: Perceiving the Harm of Sexual Harassment 5 ‘I Guess That Was Sexual Harassment’: Naming Sexual Harassment 6 Idle Rights: Employee Complaints and Management Responses 7 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