Sexual Harassment & Sexual Consent

Citation

Cheng, C. (1999), "Sexual Harassment & Sexual Consent", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 223-226. https://doi.org/10.1108/jocm.1999.12.2.223.2

In the space available for this book review, I shall limit my comments to the seven chapters of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Consent that are important to organizational change, namely: criticism of dysfunctional outcomes of efforts to eliminate sexual harassment law; and consensual‐relationship ban policies at universities. The other sexology topics in this volume are not directly of concern to organizational change scholars.

The book is organized into six sections ‐‐ 19 editorials, essays, reviews, and an annotated bibliography on battered men. There are two separate introductory editorials by each co‐editor. The main sections are the theoretical, empirical, and review essays. Since the authors′ arguments are largely consistent amongst one another, I shall make the best use of the pages allocated and refer to them collectively.

This volume is the first of an annual series called “Sexuality and Culture”. Each volume is like an edited book or special issue in that a central theme is explored. However, the wide range of topics not on the central theme make cohesion difficult. A conclusion chapter might have been useful in integrating the wide conceptual terrain covered in this book.

The increased awareness of sexual harassment, which the authors of this book provocatively describe as “hysteria”, has undoubtedly changed organizations in the USA. The term “sexual correctness” is coined in this book. It is a variant of “political correctness”. Both sexual and political correctness attempt to eliminate hate speech and conflict between “identity groups” in organizations. According to the authors, “dysfunctional” consequences of organizational climates of fear of ridicule, discipline, or termination have resulted. I would suggest that these “dysfunctions” might very well be developmentally necessary. While not to minimize micro‐ and intrapsychic level suffering of the truly innocent, at the macro level, these “dysfunctions” may be “growing pains”. All too often leaders of organizations and societies are unwilling to pay the price of change for the greater good which may include the suffering of the innocent. For the authors, this means some alleged sexual harassers will have their due process rights violated because it is presumed that if a male professor is accused of sexual harassment, he, under sexual correctness, by virtue of his sex and his greater power is guilty. This also means those who have truly been victims may not have recourse.

Under sexual correctness, criticizing sexual harassment as a cause of action is taboo. This book therefore is taboo. The authors coin the term “sexual harassment industry” to disparage the motivations of those who are in the anti‐sexual harassment movement. Social movements founded in protest, like the anti‐sexual harassment movement, and, in the opinion of the authors, its backlash, the sexual equity movement, attract adherents who have felt threatened or even “victimized” by what they protest against. Academics in these movements, including some of the authors of the book under review, can and do often become more ideological than empirically rigorous.

Without a doubt the anti‐sexual harassment movement is larger and more influential than the sexual equity movement. Ideologues in the anti‐sexual harassment movement would not welcome, would even suppress, the authors′ comprehensive criticisms of sexual harassment law, research, universities, and plaintiffs. The authors′ methodological criticisms of sexual harassment research, especially of its often vague and overreaching definition, are reasonable. Since the legal definition of sexual harassment is in flux as case law is constantly changing, especially in cases of hostile working environment, or as one looks across different jurisdictions, it is unsurprising that researchers have difficulty measuring this phenomenon. One criticism not brought out in the book is that many researchers of sexual harassment have not demonstrated a working knowledge of the applicable law. Criticism of sexual harassment is incomplete without criticism of its law. The authors criticize sexual harassment research as over‐generalizing. This is readily discernible. It is unsurprising that non‐social scientists who do not understand social science methodology should do this, but abhorrent when someone who, by education and academic position, should know better nevertheless over‐generalizes. Some of this occurs in this book too.

Policies that ban consensual relationships, sexual or otherwise, are policies which employers, such as universities, use to ban consensual relationships in which at least one party is an employee. The underlying intent of these policies is to prevent one of the parties to the relationship from later alleging sexual harassment, and then sue the employer on the grounds that consent was not given. The authors dispute the “epidemic” of sexual harassment on campus and call this “hysteria”. While the authors′ methodological criticism of survey research that points to a large problem of campus sexual harassment seems reasonable, all that can be said is that the methods in many studies are poor, not, as the authors assert, a denial that there is a large problem.

Feminists who are in favor of these bans, assert that the faculty‐student relationship is “special”, different from other supervisor‐supervisee relationships, e.g. attorney‐client, physician‐patient, psychotherapist‐patient, clergy‐parishioner. “Consent” is impossible where there is an asymmetrical power relationship. The authors deny the specialness argument and criticize these policies for infantalizing students, who are (in most cases) legally adults. The authors object to characterizing all consensual relationships as pathological and only relationships between equal status individuals as non‐abusive. Proponents of the ban do not take into account that students can appeal against grades they do not like, and take revenge on faculty, particularly untenured ones, through teaching evaluations and complaints.

Another concern these policies attempt to negate is favoritism, favorable bias toward students in relationship, and unfavorable prejudice against those outside relationship. The authors point out that any possible favoritism in sexual relations does not differ from favoritism from friendship. If favoritism is the criterion, then friendships must also be banned.

It would have been more effective for the authors′ sexual equity movement to do its own rigorous empirical research than to fall into the same ideological trap of non‐research or inadequately researched opinions of those whom they criticized. I would encourage the editors of “Sexuality and Culture” in future volumes to solicit rigorous empirical research and curtail opinions. In the grand scheme of “identity politics”, with the reservations stated, I respect the editors and authors of Sexual Harassment & Sexual Consent for their courageous effort against the prevailing winds of sexual politics.

At the macro level, I wonder if this volume will be effective in social change ‐‐ not that the editors claim to do this ‐‐ or merely cancels out the arguments of “the other side”? In my afterword to a special issue on Gender Stories and Organizational Change (Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 8 No. 5, 1995), that Frank Barrett, Anne McKee and I co‐edited, I called for gender conflict resolution, rather than more volleys in endless battles of sexual politics. For gender conflict in organizations to be resolved there needs to be an intrapsychic and societal healing of old, deep, large, and multi‐generational festering wounds. Personal change is required before relationships can change. Rage is a necessary part of personal change. Rage is in this book. Rage is also in the larger literature of “the other side” the authors are angry at. Listening to the authors of this book is part of gender conflict resolution but let readers not stop on either side. Let them keep feeling their own feelings, instead of merely intellectualizing them, and let them continue learning, growing, and healing.