"People Are Too Quick to Take Offense": The Effects of Legal Information and Beliefs on Definitions of Sexual Harassment

Using data from a nationwide study of sexual harassment in the United States' federal workplace, this article investigates how legal understanding, opinions about the regulation of sexual harassment, and social status affect whether people define uninvited sexual jokes or remarks as harassment. The results indicate that how people define sexual harassment is directly related to the extent to which they view sexual harassment rules as ambiguous and threatening to workplace norms. Moreover, results show that while women generally define sexual harassment more broadly than men, they actually resist defining sexual jokes or remarks as harassment. Finally, knowledge of the workplace sexual harassment policy moderates the effect of beliefs on definitions of sexual harassment. These findings suggest a complexity in the way people reconcile their knowledge of the law with their personal views about power and social interaction in the workplace.     

职场性骚扰与女性劳动者权益的法律保障

近年来,职场性骚扰日益成为一个严重的社会问题,不仅直接损害了女性的身心健康,而且从根本上威胁到了女性劳动者的人权.职场性骚扰是两性不平等的产物,它的存在反过来又强化了这种不平等.我国目前在处理职场性骚扰案件方面还存在诸多不足,应该以明确性骚扰概念为起点,建立完善的性骚扰处理机制,以有效应对职场性骚扰的不良影响,确实保护女性劳动者权益.     

The Paradox of Complaining: Law, Humor, and Harassment in the Everyday Work World

This article addresses the question of women's seeming rejection of sexual harassment law by refusing to apply the label "sexual harassment" in the face of incidents that would easily qualify as such. Building on the work of Bumiller (1988) and the tradition of sociolegal studies focusing on understanding the power of the law in its everyday context (e.g., Merry 1979; Engel 1987; Sarat and Kearns 1993), this analysis explores the "tactical milieu" in which both hostile work environment sexual harassment and tactics for its resistance are produced. Using in-depth interviews with both women and men, the author explores the ways a particular form of hostile work environment harassment–dubbed "chain yanking"–poaches on the realm of ambiguous humor to effect male group solidarity and women's disempowerment. A common countertactic–"not taking it personal"– is analyzed for its simultaneous power as resistance and unwitting collaboration. The contradictory effects of this tactic-countertactic pairing on the naming and claiming of the harm of sexual harassment are examined, as well as the implications this has for combating sexual harassment in the workplace.     

美国性骚扰法律制度及其借鉴意义

性骚扰是不受欢迎的带有性色彩的言行,是一种非法的性歧视。依美国判例,性骚扰不必源于性的目的,其内容不必是直接的表示;同时,性骚扰行为者在主观上应当是有过错的,受害者在主观上须为不欢迎骚扰行为。构成可诉的性骚扰行为其损害后果须达到严重的程度。依美国最新判例,同性之间也可以构成性骚扰;雇主对员工中的上级职员的性骚扰行为承担民事责任。美国的性骚扰法律制度对我国的立法具有一定的借鉴意义,如公法上的规定并不排除私法的适用,性骚扰的含义应当包含性别歧视,雇主责任应当在立法上得以确立,立法者应当在道德规范和法律规范中寻找平衡点。     

论个人隐私权的行政法保护

从隐私权的私权属性出发,应该确立以私权为核心的隐私权行政法保护理念;行政权力公共利益属性决定了隐私权行政法保护离不开行政公开制度建构;在平衡政府权力与个人权利的关系中,制定个人隐私权保护法,为隐私权行政法保护提供直接法律依据。     

Reinstatement of the sexual harasser: the conflict between federal labor law and Title VII

Greater numbers of employers are adopting and vigorously enforcing policies prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace. Discipline, including possible termination of employment, often is prescribed for the violation of such policies. When employees are represented by a union and covered by a collective bargaining agreement, final decisions relating to discipline often are made by arbitrators pursuant to the agreement's grievance and arbitration procedure. For a variety of reasons, arbitrators may decide that a lesser form of discipline than that imposed by the employer is warranted for acts of sexual harassment. Such arbitration awards present a substantial conflict between two compelling public policies--the public policy favoring the private resolution of workplace disputes and the public policy against sexual harassment. This article will address the several federal courts of appeals' decisions that have attempted to resolve this conflict.     

公共场所隐私权的悖论

"公共场所隐私权"是个悖论式的问题。实践中,西方国家已经承认了公共场所隐私权的合法性。隐私权保护重心从"场所"到"人"的转变,以及由此产生的"合理隐私预期"是公共场所隐私权的法律依据,然而,"合理隐私预期"至今仍然缺乏明确的标准和法理依据,这根源于对"公共场所"之"公共性"的误解。"公共场所"大都是公、私混合的"社会场所"。这不仅决定了"公共场所隐私权"的正当性,也决定了对公共场所隐私权进行保护必须突破僵化的公私法分立格局。     

私权平等与身份限制——再审视“公众人物”的人格权

人格权是私人享有的权利,而私人权利又可分为公权利和私权利两个方面。"公众人物"的人格权主要涉及私法与其私权利的一面。"公众人物"的人格权与一般人的人格权并无不同,现有的限制理论均有缺憾。故我们仅需界定人格权本身而无需对其主体进行分类。不必建立"公众人物"法律概念,在人格平等的私法理念下各类主体不应被区别对待。     

Sexual harassment in higher education: a victim's remedies and a private university's liability

Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem in education. With victims of harassment pursuing administrative and judicial redress, an awareness of and a program for response to the sexual harassment issue are good risk management strategies for a private university and its staff, employees, and students. This article examines, first, the two types of sexual harassment recognized by law; second, the situations in which harassment in the educational context may occur; and, third, avenues of recourse for the victim of sexual harassment and the responsibility and liability of the private university when the harassment is reported or discovered. It is designed to inform and educate the faculty and administrators of private universities about the legal implications of their response to notice of sexual harassment.     

公权力、私权利与法律保留——从“山西煤改”事件切入

“山西煤改”事件表明，公权力与私权利的边界如果放任政府文件自行调整，公民权利易受到肆意侵犯；但交由法律完全保留则会压制地方政府应对治理危机的能力。对此，在中国的现实与制度语境下，一方面可适当通过立法主体与规则位阶的下移来弥合政府治理与权利保障之间的紧张；另一方面，也是更为重要的一面，就是通过对法律保留事项与方式的选择，以实体上的抽象保留和程序上的具体保留来规范公权力对私权利边界的调整，搭建一个刚性而又不失灵活的法治平台，以便不同的立法（广义）主体和规则发挥各自的优势，最终实现公共利益与公民权利的双赢。     

An overview of the literature on antecedents,perceptions and behavioural consequences of sexual harassment

Abstract

The detrimental effects of sexual harassment have been documented in the literature over the past 35 years, and recognized as a serious problem for all working women. In this paper, we review the existing research surrounding the phenomenon of sexual harassment, focusing upon the factors that may facilitate its occurrence. We also provide an overview of the differences in perceptions of what constitutes sexual harassment according to gender, organisational power and context. The negative impact of sexual harassment on its victims is also reviewed. Finally, the relatively new research on victims' responses to sexual harassment experiences and the link between this work and the stress and coping literature is recognized. Several suggestions are made for future research, policy making and treatment avenues.     

Closing the Gaps: Plaintiffs in Pivotal Sexual Harassment Cases

When he wrote Debtors in Court almost 30 years ago, Herbert Jacob laid the foundation for the legal mobilization research that has flourished in recent years. In arguing that litigants were political actors, Jacob showed that their social identities and Communications networks influenced their decisions to use the power of the law to vindicate their interests. This paper builds on Jacob's original insights to analyze the origins of the claim for sexual harassment as a Title VII violation. By focusing on the women who filed those claims, the paper examines the interaction of class, gender, and race that created social distance between the women and their harassers and employers. This distance made informal resolution of their disputes impossible, requiring the intervention of third parties. In addition, their Communications networks led them to attorneys able to generate and expand the new claim for sexual harassment. This analysis of a particular moment in legal history reveals the potential political significance of private litigation.     

Injustice Frames, Legality, and the Everyday Construction of Sexual Harassment

This paper examines the frames that women use to understand their experience with sexual harassment. While legal frames do provide crucial guidance to women evaluating the behavior of their colleagues and supervisors, working women deployed a number of other interpretive frames when deciding whether they had been harmed by such behavior. Some of those frames emerge from feminist messages about discrimination and male abuse of power in the workplace; some emerge from management ideology that emphasizes efficiency and productivity; and some emerge from the criticism of sexual harassment policies as an unnecessary limitation on women's sexual freedom. But feeling a sense of harm does not automatically translate into the use of the label sexual harassment . Rather, women also employed an objective standard that compared their experience to some threshold of harassing behaviors. Only when the behaviors met this standard of offensiveness and were perceived as harmful did women consider their experiences sexual harassment.     

公共空间运用大规模监控的法理逻辑及限度——基于个人信息有序共享之视角

为应对现代化进程中的社会风险,安抚公众对风险的恐慌情绪,公共空间大规模监控随之诞生,并迅速在现实社会和网络空间中全面运用。公共治理不能取安全保障而舍隐私保护,公共空间大规模监控的运用并非以牺牲隐私权为代价,而是在保障安全法益的同时兼顾隐私法益的保护。在此"既保障安全,又保护隐私"的法理念下,公共空间大规模监控的运用体现了风险治理从个人本位走向社会本位的转变趋势,并促进了个人信息保护从自主支配到有序共享的逻辑转换。为寻求安全保障与隐私保护之间的平衡路径,在公共空间合理运用大规模监控措施,就必须加强信息收集、存储、使用的阶段性控制,建立个人信息合理使用制度,实现个人信息的有序共享。     

Ordinary Folk and Cottaging: Law, Morality, and Public Sex

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced a new statutory offence of 'sexual activity in a public lavatory' into English law. Although written as a gender-neutral offence, the statute was formulated and enacted on the basis of concerns about male homosexual sexual activity in public lavatories ('cottaging'). This paper examines the justifications for, and implications of, the legislation. It considers the main arguments made in support of the offence and situates these within established moral, legal, and social debates about homosexuality. The paper considers the relationship between conceptions of public and private morality in relation to the legal regulation of homosexual sex. It goes on to explore the complex nature of regulating public sex in relation to sexual practices which often maintain high degrees of privacy. The final part of the paper argues that the legislation is largely in contradiction with the realities of police work and contemporary law enforcement.     

A Multidimensional View of Legal Cynicism: Perceptions of the Police Among Anti‐harassment Teams in Egypt

In Egypt in 2012, several anti‐harassment groups were established to respond to an increase in sexual violence in public spaces and to the failure of the state to tackle the issue. Anti‐harassment groups organized patrol‐type intervention teams that operated during demonstrations or public celebrations to stop sexual assaults. This article examines how activists perceived the police in five anti‐harassment groups between 2012 and 2014, and the role these perceptions played in groups' decisions about cooperating with the police, and on‐the‐ground strategies of action. I argue for a multidimensional view of legal cynicism that conceptualizes legal cynicism as composed of three dimensions: legitimacy (a sense that law enforcement agencies are not entitled to be deferred to and obeyed), protection (a perception that the law fails to protect rights and provide public safety), and threat (a perception that the law represents a threat). This approach helps uncover the various meanings that legal cynicism takes for different actors in different contexts, and how actors justify their strategies of action based on their specific perceptions of the police's legitimacy, protective role, and threat.     

性骚扰民事诉讼特别规制研究

对于日益增多的性骚扰案件,研究如何在民事诉讼方面进行特别的规制是至关重要的.根据性骚扰案件的特点,从证据、审理和救济三大方面作出符合性骚扰案件特性的规定:(1)合理运用证据规则,实现证明责任的特殊配置,并且在取证方式的合法性问题上予以适当的放宽;(2)在性骚扰案件的审理期间要特别注重对诉讼参加人的隐私权进行严格的保密与保护;(3)确立惩罚性赔偿以及用人单位责任,切实保护性骚扰案件的受害者,法院还可以适当运用司法建议的方式来遏止和预防职场性骚扰行为的发生.     

Changing Perceptions of Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workforce, 1987–94

Recent criticisms of sexual harassment law and workplace training policies contend that they have "sanitized" the workplace through their stigmatization of sexual expression that does not amount to actual discrimination. This study assesses some of the empirical foundations for those normative arguments. Using data from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board's 1987 and 1994 surveys, we examine differences over time in federal workers' perceptions of what types of behavior constitute sexual harassment. The article draws on a sociolegal theory of the endogenous nature of law as well as research on perceptions of sexual harassment. We hypothesize that, because of increased attention to sexual harassment, and to the hostile environment theory specifically, by scholars, judges, and the news media, and related policy changes in workplace training programs, federal workers likely came to view a wider range of sexual conduct as constituting harassment during this time period. The results support our expectations. We also find that sexual harassment training in their agency increased workers' likelihood of viewing both hostile environment behavior and quid pro quo behavior as harassment.     

Creating Peer Sexual Harassment: Mobilizing Schools to Throw the Book at Themselves

This paper describes how peer-to-peer sexual harassment rapidly was transformed from an unremarkable reality of secondary school life into a serious social and legal problem. First, it shows how organizations and professionals served as an entry point for social change and legal mobilization. I argue that schools were quick to address peer sexual harassment because activists framed it as a moral and pedagogical issue that resonated with educators' deeply held professional values. Second, the paper shows how law and organizations developed endogenously. Without any legal mandate, schools created and institutionalized harassment policies. Courts then looked to these organizational practices to determine the content and scope of Title IX. In this way, schools literally "enacted" the law through their practices. This finding goes beyond previous work on endogeneity in that school policies influenced law at the level of doctrine, not simply at the level of meaning, enforcement, or application.     

Global social media vs local values: Private international law should protect local consumer rights by using the public policy exception?

This article focuses on the relationship between forum selection clauses, choice of law clauses and data protection and privacy protection. In particular, it discusses the question whether and why jurisdiction and choice of law clauses used in the terms of social media providers should not be enforced against social media users located in a different jurisdiction. The article distinguishes between the contractual, private law analysis and the application of public policy as part of the private international law analysis. The contract law analysis is centred on doctrines such as unconscionability, which in turn examines issue such as fairness and overwhelming bargaining power of one party. By contrast, the public policy analysis in private international law focuses on fundamental rights, legality of contractual clauses according to the local law of the forum and the interests of justice. It is argued here that both aspects (contractual and public policy doctrines) are paramount for achieving not only justice between the parties of a dispute but also ensuring good administration of justice in the public interest.