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The Concept of Sexual Harassment

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Men After #MeToo

Abstract

This chapter of Men after #MeToo focuses on the challenge of having to define sexual harassment in a clear and understandable way. It points out that lack of agreement is a problem because it can be difficult to clarify what sexual harassment is and what sexual harassment is not. In addition, it argues that sexual harassment is a matter of individual perception because there is a great number of potential individual and situational variables that can influence the perception of harassment. The chapter also examines the different societal models that are frequently used to explain sexual harassment. Furthermore, the chapter discusses the nature of sexual harassment and women’s experiences of it through narratives from the Everyday Sexism Project (a website that exists to catalogue instances of sexism experienced on a day-to-day basis).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this book, I use the term street harassment to address sexual harassment taking place in public space. However, women’s experience of intrusive men in public space has also been named ‘public harassment’ (Gardner, 1995), ‘public sexual harassment’ (Thompson, 1994) and ‘everyday stranger harassment’ (Fairchild & Rudman, 2008).

  2. 2.

    Phyllis Schlafly (1924‒2016) was an American attorney, activist and author. She was best known for her conservative social and political views and her opposition to the women’s movement and the Equal Rights Amendment. She openly opposed feminism, gay rights and abortion.

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  1. Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Kenneth Reinicke

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Correspondence to Kenneth Reinicke .

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Reinicke, K. (2022). The Concept of Sexual Harassment. In: Men After #MeToo. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96911-0_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96911-0_2

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