Unseen: the sexual harassment of low-income women in America

• Pages: 5-16
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-08-2019-0232
• Date: 17 December 2019
• Published date: 17 December 2019
• Author: Louise Fitzgerald
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity,equality,inclusion

Unseen: the sexual harassment of

low-income women in America

Louise Fitzgerald

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the harassment of vulnerable women whose lives and

experiences remain largely unseen in the era of #MeToo.

Design/methodology/approach –The paper draws from the sparse empirical literature as well as the

more informal accounts provided by social justice organizations, investigative journalists and legal

commentary about four spheres that have largely remained invisible: women in low-income housing,

agricultural workers, janitorial workers and restaurant workers. It also reviews the surprising success stories

that some of these groups have achieved and invite us to ponder what we can learn from them.

Findings –Farm workers, sub-minimum wage restaurant workers, single mothers and janitorial workers are

several groups that were not highlighted by the current movement.

Social implications –Highlighting the experiences of those who remain largely hidden in and from

academic discourse and, more largely, the public eye enlarges the scope of knowledge and encourages further

scholarly inquiry.

Originality/value –Combining the perspectives of scholar and social justice activist illuminates the depth

and breadth of largely invisible classes of harassment victims and the potentially novel remedies they

have initiated.

Keywords Gender, Feminism, #MeToo movement

Paper type General review

Although sexual harassment has been documented since at least the Industrial Revolution

(Bularzik, 1978), it was only in the last quarter of the twentieth century that the issue

reached public awareness, first as a joke, then as an aberration, and finally as a social

problem. Even today, when powerful men have toppled before our eyes and #MeToo has

become a catchphrase, there are millions of women for whom these changes are irrelevant or

nonexistent. This paper is about them.

In the following pages, I explore the intersection of sex and power in the lives of some of

the women whom science, the movement and sometimes the law have forgotten:

farmworkers raped in the fields and packing sheds of the agricultural industry;

sub-minimum wage restaurant workers groped by the customers upon whose tips they

depend to survive; single mothers, threatened with eviction unless they have sex with their

landlords, and janitorial workers, harassed and assaulted by supervisors, contractors and

customers. These are by no means the only women who are, for all intents and purposes,

invisible in the literature on sexual harassment; there are others more invisible still,

including those in homeless shelters, female arrestees and inmates, childcare and domestic

service workers and those who provide various forms of home health care.

These womenare the lowest paid workers in the USA:according to the Women’sBureau of

the Department of Labor, agricultural workers average $352 a week and that counts only those

who work full time, whereas the minimum wage for restaurant workers is capped by federal

law at $2.13. Their jobs are tenuous, their skills fungible and institutional protections few or

nonexistent. These women may never tweet; never write an Op-Ed, or appear on a late-night

program;indeed, many will never thinkof themselves as part of the #MeToomovement at all.

Yet, theirstruggle reveals much aboutthe fundamental realities of harassment and resistance.

This paper explores what little is formally known about these women’s experiences; it

begins by reviewing the sparse empirical literature as well as the more informal accounts

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 39 No. 1, 2020

pp. 5-16

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-08-2019-0232

Received 29 August 2019

Revised 30 October 2019

Accepted 30 October 2019

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

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Sexual

harassment of

low-income

women