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Employment Discrimination or Sexual Violence? Defining Sexual Harassment in American and French Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
Abstract
In this article I examine how and why the term “sexual harassment” has been defined very differently in American and French law. Drawing on political and legal history, I argue that feminists mobilized in both countries to create sexual harassment law, but encountered dissimilar political, legal, and cultural constraints and resources. Having adapted to these distinct opportunities and constraints, feminists and other social actors produced sexual harassment laws that varied by body of law, definition of harm, scope, and remedy. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for studies of culture, gender and the state, globalization, and public policy.
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Footnotes
Funding for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Sociology at Princeton University, a pre-dissertation fellowship from the Council for European Studies (Columbia University), the Woodrow Wilson Society, and the French government. Support has also been provided by the following: Princeton University-based research grants: the program in French Studies, the Center of International Studies, the Compton Fund, the Council on Regional Studies, and the Center of Domestic and Comparative Policy Studies. Earlier versions of this were presented at the Princeton University Sociology Graduate Student Dissertation Support Group, the Woodrow Wilson Society, the “Junta” on Organizations, Institutions, and Economic Sociology (JOIE) in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University, at the Crime/Law/Deviance Reading Group at Columbia University, a Robert Wood Johnson Health Scholars Program workshop at Yale University, and at the Departments of Sociology of UCLA, University of Massachusetts, and University of Minnesota. I benefited greatly from comments made by participants, especially Bo Burt, Lynn Chancer, David Greenburg, Dirk Hartog, Kieran Healy, Jason Kaufman, Stan Katz, Erin Kelly, Kenneth Mack, Ted Marmor, Francesca Polletta, Bill Roy, Becky Pettit, Ari Shapiro, Mark Suchman, Mark Thomas, and Bruce Western. Michèle Lamont, Paul DiMaggio, and Viviana Zelizer commented on several drafts and provided extremely valuable feedback. Paul DiMaggio and Frank Dobbin commented on an oral presentation that drew from this work, which helped me think more clearly about the project, thus strengthening this piece. I am thankful for the valuable legal guidance I received from my friends Jerrob Duffy and Alyssa Qualls, and from Liz Evans and Radu Popa at the NYU Law Library. I have learned a great deal in discussions over the years from my fellow scholars of cross-national approaches to sexual harassment, Mia Cahill and Kathrina Zippel. I owe many thanks to Susan Silbey, Vicki Schultz, and three anonymous reviewers for the Law and Society Review for helpful comments. Finally, I am greatly indebted to the Association Contre les Violences Faites aux Femmes au Travail (AVFT) for the use of their extensive legal archives and for the guidance several members, especially Catherine LeMagueresse and Marie-Victoire Louis, provided. I take full responsibility for all errors.
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