... and ain't I a woman?: Harassment is never OK
Two recent cases involving sexual harassment in the workplace had very different outcomes. In Italy, a compensation claim by a woman alleging that sexual harassment forced her to leave her job was dismissed by a judge.
She said that her boss persisted in kissing, hugging and groping her to the point where she took extended sick leave, then resigned. The company refused to pay her severance pay.
The judge ruled that there had clearly been "a romantic relationship, at least on the part of the accused man, if not of the object of his desire".
Feminists in Italy see this judgment as giving the go-ahead for men to harass women in the workplace, as long as they are "in love" with the woman being harassed. The woman's lawyer said that the court had set "a dangerous precedent for future cases of sexual harassment. In future, a molester will be able to get away with anything as long as he claims to be in love.
"We have now reached a situation where women not only have to be very careful about what they wear, they also have to worry about the feelings or supposed feelings of those who force their attentions on them."
In Australia, a woman was awarded $15,000 compensation when she was forced to leave her job within six months due to unwanted sexual harassment from her employer. Although she made her objections to his attentions clear only at the time she resigned, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner accepted that the 17-year-old employee was in an unequal power relationship with her 51-year-old male employer, who, as a doctor, commanded community respect.
While it appears that the judicial system in Australia takes cases of sexual harassment more seriously than the court in Italy, this form of harassment is not diminishing.
The overall proportion of complaints lodged under the Sex Discrimination Act declined in the 1997-98 period (86% were made by women), but sexual harassment remains the single greatest cause of complaint. Most complaints (80%) lodged with the commission were in relation to employment.
Women have the formal right to work in a range of areas previously deemed unsuitable before the gains of the feminist movement in the 1960s and '70s, but many barriers to women's full participation in the work force, in both traditional and non-traditional areas, still exist.
Sexual harassment is one of these barriers. Whether it is physical harassment or the presence of nude centrefolds on office or workshop walls, women are subject to stereotyping as sex objects rather than equals.
Laws against sexual harassment are vital, but in themselves will not solve the problem of sexism on the job.
In Italy, where the laws are clearly inadequate, the lawyer for the victim of harassment recognises the inherent sexism of the judicial system. The law is still "a masculine instrument ... We have to change the culture within which the law operates, and then we have to change the law itself", she said.
In Australia, the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1984, one of the pieces of legislation won by the mass mobilisation of women in the late 1960s and '70s.
Like all of the gains won by the women's movement, it needs to be constantly defended, from attack by the conservative Howard government. Already affirmative action legislation has been reviewed and watered down.
Any threat to the already limited powers of the Sex Discrimination Act must be vigorously fought if it is "reviewed" in the same manner.
By Margaret Allum