From me too to what now: advancing scholarship on sex harassment issue 1: a persistent problem

• Pages: 1-4
• Published date: 23 December 2019
• Date: 23 December 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-02-2020-296
• Author: Margaret S. Stockdale,Myrtle P. Bell,Faye Crosby,Jennifer Berdahl
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity,equality,inclusion

Guest editorial

From me too to what now: advancing scholarship on sex harassment issue 1:

a persistent problem

As a social problem, sex harassment is pervasive and persistent. Throughout the world and

over millennia, powerful people –usually adult men –have imposed their will, their sexual

will, on less powerful people –most often women and girls. No matter what the blend of

forces impelling the perpetrators, the effects on victims can be devastating. And, of course,

what we today see as a social problem was not so labeled in the past.

If you consider how long the problem has plagued societies, you might marvel at how

rapidly the narrative has changed. It wasonly in 1965 that sex discrimination became illegal

in the USA (Civil Rights Act of 1964). By the mid-1970s, the term “sexual harassment”was

used by women at Cornell University at a speak-out against sexual exploitation in the work

place (see Baker, 2007) and then by legal scholar, Catherine McKinnon (1979). More

importantly, before the end of the 1970s, case law established that sexual harassment was a

form of sex discrimination and therefore illegal and punishable by law (Meritor Savings

Bank v. Vinson, 1986). A subsequent shift in labels from “sexual harassment”to “sex

harassment”and “sex-based harassment”has called attentionto the fact that the domination

of women and the policingof masculinity rather than sexualdesire are the primary drivers of

harassment( Berdahl,2007). Scholars and activistshave combined forces to help society move

down the path of social change.

Along the bumpy road of change came Anita Hill. Reluctantly the shy law professor from

the University of Oklahoma described to the watching world how she had been sexually

harassed by Clarence Thomas, then nominee to the Supreme Court. The American nation

exploded into debate. Thomas was handily confirmed. The year was 1991. In total, 15 years

after the Thomas hearings, Tarana Burke coined the term “Me Too.”As part of her recovery

from different incidents of sexual abuse, Burke wanted to let other victims know that they

were not alone. Solidarity was key.

Then on October 15, 2017, activist and star of film and television, Alyssa Milano tweeted:

“If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’as a reply to this tweet.”

The volcano was live. Lava beds of tweets began to flow with violent and sporadic periodic

eruptions ever since.

In countries outside the USA, change has also occurred (Bell et al., 2002; Park, 2017).

A term that sounds just like “sexual harassment”was imported into the Japanese language

right after the Thomas-Hill hearings and soon became part of the lexicon. By the 1990s, even

the French, fabled for their obsession with romance, determined that sexual harassment was

not romantic, and their Parliament made sexual harassment illegal.

While the attention of the general public has waxed and waned as issues burst into

the media spotlight and then dimmed out, the attention of scholars to sex-based harassment

has been more or less constant since the 1980s. Over 6,000 scholarly articles and books show

the words “sexual harassment”or “sex harassment”in the title (Google Scholar searches,

2018). Edited volumes are in no short supply. Nor are authored books.

Our edited volume contributes to the scholarship. In this first of two issues, we present a

blend theoretical, historical and meta-narratives as well as empirical research that build on

the understanding the dynamics of sexual harassment. Some of our contributors have

helped to shape the very field of scholarship in the social sciences while others come newly

to the area. Two of the pieces involve experimental manipulations. Two mine field data for

insights; two others call our attention to what the Me Too movements have potentially

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 39 No. 1, 2020

pp. 1-4

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-02-2020-296

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Guest editorial