What Is Sexual Harassment From Capitol Hill to the Sorbonne [Paperback]

In France, a common notion is that the shared interests of graduate students and their professors could lead to intimate sexual relations, and that regulations curtailing those relationships would be both futile and counterproductive. By contrast, many universities and corporations in the United States prohibit sexual relationships across hierarchical lines and sometimes among coworkers, arguing that these liaisons should have no place in the workplace. In this age of globalization, how do cultural and legal nuances translate? And when they differ, how are their subtleties and complexities understood? In comparing how sexual harassmenta concept that first emerged in 1975has been defined differently in France and the United States, Abigail Saguy explores not only the social problem of sexual harassment but also the broader cultural concerns of cross-national differences and similarities.

Abigail C. Saguyis Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

An outstanding work. This book is at once an analysis of a disturbing social practice and a study in legal mobilization. Saguy gets inside the black box of culture by showing how a piece of legal culture gets produced, disseminated, and received. Paying close attention to the discursive possibilities in the legal texts, the work is grounded in the organizational settings through which representational struggles are waged, displaying how the laws came to be as they are. A rich and provocative account that will be the starting point for future discussions of sexual harassment. Susan Silbey, author ofThe Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life

In this pathbreaking comparative study, Saguy sheds light on a crucial aspect of the lives of many working women by analyzing the various frames through which sexual harassment is understood in two national contexts. While norms against sexual harassment are growing deeper roots in the lӏ