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Sexual Harassment,
Psychology and Feminism
#MeToo, Victim Politics
and Predators in
Neoliberal Times

Lisa Lazard
Sexual Harassment, Psychology and Feminism
 Lisa Lazard

Sexual Harassment,
Psychology
and Feminism
#MeToo, Victim Politics and Predators in
Neoliberal Times
Lisa Lazard
School of Psychology
Open University
Milton Keynes, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-55254-1 ISBN 978-3-030-55255-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55255-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan

This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgments

There are many people that I owe a debt of gratitude to for their incred-
ibly generous support of this project. First and foremost, I would like to
thank Rose Capdevila for her encouragement and friendship over the last
20 years. This book began in a conversation that Rose and I had about
6 years ago. We were discussing the fact that no one really seemed to
talk about sexual harassment anymore and why the issue had lost rele-
vance. The visibility of the issue now still seems extraordinary to me
given that conversation happened in the not so distant past. I am grateful
for Stephanie Taylor’s support during the writing of this book and her
insightful comments on earlier draft chapters. I would also like to thank
Sarah Crafter, Lauren McCallister, Kate Milnes, Brigette Rickett, Martin
Tolley and the Open University’s CuSP research group, for their incisive
comments on chapter drafts. I am particularly grateful to Sarah Wakelin,
Jess Wakelin and Lauren Wright for reading the last draft over so care-
fully. I also would like to thank Calen and Mark Wakelin for allowing this
task to take over their household for a week. It is impossible to express
my love and gratitude for my partner Richard, who has provided me with
immeasurable support in this process. I am also especially grateful to my
family but particularly Cleo and Dexter who tolerated my distraction with
kindness and understanding. This book is dedicated to Cleo, Dexter, Aria,
Vicky and Chay, with love. This book is also dedicated to Marcia Worrell,
a brilliant academic and a wonderful friend.

v
 Contents

1 Introduction—#MeToo and Feminisms 1

2 Workplace Harassment, Hollywood’s Casting Couch

and Neoliberalism 17

3 Women, Sexual Harassment and Victim Politics 43

4 The Sexual Harassment of Hollywood Men 69

5 Sexual Harassment and Sexual Predators in Neoliberal

Times 95

6 Conclusion—Sexual Harassment and Speaking Rights 119

Index 127

vii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction—#MeToo and Feminisms

Abstract In this chapter, Lazard offers a brief history of how sexual

harassment has been understood in feminism scholarship and activism
since the emergence of the term in the 1970s. The chapter explores
how feminist theorisation has drawn attention to how cultural scripts
for heterosexuality has prescribed gendered sexual subjectivities in which
women are positioned as sexually passive and constrained in relation
to men. The chapter explores recent shifts to understanding women as
empowered sexual subjects which have gained prominence with the ascen-
dency of postfeminism and neoliberal feminist ideas in popular culture.
This chapter sets the scene for a broader explanation of how postfemi-
nism and neoliberal feminism has shaped contemporary understandings
of sexual harassment and resistance to it.

Keywords Sexual harassment · Postfeminism · Neoliberal feminism ·

Heterosexuality

If you have ever been sexually harassed or assaulted write me too in reply
to this tweet. Me too…if all the women who have been sexually harassed
or assaulted write ‘me too.’ as a status, we might give people a sense of
the magnitude of the problem. (@AlyssaMilano, 15 October 2017)

© The Author(s) 2020 1

L. Lazard, Sexual Harassment, Psychology and Feminism,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55255-8_1
2 L. LAZARD

This tweet was the springboard for the meteoric rise of the #MeToo
hashtag activism against sexual harassment and violence in 2017. Actress
Alyssa Milano posted the tweet in amidst growing public condemna-
tion of film producer Harvey Weinstein, whose long history of sexual
violence against women was exposed by The New York Times on the 5th
of October 2017 (Kantor & Twohey, 2017). The call to use #MeToo
originated from the Me Too movement founded by Tarana Burke in
2006.1 Within 24 hours of its posting, the #MeToo hashtag had been
used in 12 million Facebook posts and shared nearly a million times on
Twitter (Boyle, 2019). Numerous celebrities came forward to tell their
experiences of sexual harassment in what became a public speak-out.
Many of those named as perpetrators during this speak-out were held
to account in the media. What followed was an unprecedented number
of public apologies by those accused. This is not to say the issue of
speaking out was treated entirely sympathetically. There were concerns
that #MeToo, particularly in relation to the naming of perpetrators, had
gone too far, that it had become a witch hunt (Fileborn & Phillips, 2019).
However, the backlash did not seem to deter the overwhelmingly positive
response towards #MeToo in much public discussion and reporting (e.g.
De Benedictis et al., 2019).
The supportive response to #MeToo could not be further from how
the issue of sexual harassment has been treated in the not so distant
past. Prior to #MeToo, relatively few people disclosed their experiences
either formally or informally (e.g. Fitzgerald & Cortina, 2018). Indeed,
women’s reluctance to define their experiences as sexual harassment
and seek amelioration had been extensively documented, particularly
in feminist psychological research in the 1990s (Gutek & Koss, 1996;
Herbert, 1994; Lazard, 2018; Thomas & Kitzinger, 1997). This research
occurred against a backdrop of a wider pattern of routine disbelief and
hostility towards those who had experienced sexual violence (Anderson &
Doherty, 2008; Gregory & Lees, 1999). Characterising this pattern is the
way in which victims have been held to account for their own conduct—
did they precipitate the harassment? Are they making a false accusation?
Are they being oversensitive? (e.g. Hinze, 2004; Lazard, 2017). The
tendency for the significance of sexual harassment to be downplayed
or dismissed has a long history and has often paved the way for the
sympathetic treatment of perpetrators (Mann, 2018).
 1 INTRODUCTION—#METOO AND FEMINISMS 3

How have we got from a place where victims are subject to routine
social censure to one which appears more socially supportive of those
harassed? How is sexual harassment made sense of and understood? What
implications do such understandings have for perpetrators and victims?
These questions guide the analysis of sexual harassment presented in this
book. Situated within a feminist psychological framework, my aim is to
explore particular shifts in the cultural landscape which are relevant to
how sexual harassment has become constituted, and how this has shaped
the way in which victims and perpetrators come to be understood. To
set the scene for this book, I will briefly contextualise the more recent
resistance to sexual harassment within the trajectory for activism and theo-
risation around the phenomenon. In doing so, I will explicate the feminist
theoretical influences that shape the arguments in this book. At this point,
I would like to add a caveat—the contexts I attend to refer largely to
the US, from which #MeToo arose, and the UK, the place from which
I write. As such, I make no claims that the shifts I discuss are global,
complete or mark firm breaks from patterns of understanding that have
been dominant. This book aims to articulate predominant understand-
ings around sexual harassment that have been particularly relevant in the
global North.

Workplace Sexual Harassment,

Sexual Violence and Heterosexuality
In this book, the exploration of sexual harassment starts with how it
is primarily understood as something that men do, most commonly to
women and, to a lesser extent, other men. This book is also concerned
with how the context of work has been central in getting the issue on the
public agenda. This is not to say that my analyses presumes that sexual
harassment only occurs in the workplace. Rather, I start from the posi-
tion that the recognition of workplace sexual harassment as a gendered
phenomenon has been a key frame within which developments in femi-
nist theorisation and activism have largely taken place. In this section, I
will discuss key developments in the trajectory of sexual harassment as a
social problem which shape the direction of this book.
#MeToo emerged out of celebrity women’s shared experiences of
being subjected to the Hollywood casting couch—a euphemism for quid
pro quo harassment in which sexual activity is made a condition of
job security, benefits or reasonable treatment (MacKinnon, 1979). This
4 L. LAZARD

context for the emergence of #MeToo shares similarities with how sexual
harassment became a key concern within the history of feminist activism.
While the coining of the term has been attributed to several different
sources, there is consensus that it appears to have entered popular vernac-
ular in the 1970s, arising from the work undertaken by the Working
Women’s United Institute (WWUI). The WWUI formed at Cornell
University, had worked on behalf of Carmita Wood—an administrator
at Cornell who had been subjected to sexual harassment by a faculty
member. The WWUI galvanised a critical response to Wood’s treatment
by supporting her during an appeal. This provided the impetus for the
development of a research and publicity hub around workplace sexual
harassment by the WWUI which eventually became a national support
centre for victims of sexual harassment in New York. It was a WWUI
survey which has been credited with first using the term sexual harass-
ment in 1975 in formal documentation (Benson & Thompson, 1982). In
the same year, the term found its way into mainstream media, with The
New York Times publishing an article entitled ‘Women begin to speak out
against sexual harassment at work’ (Nemy, 1975). The UK lagged behind
the US in the use of the term in popular discourse by several years. Wise
and Stanley (1987) suggested that there was “no mention of any such
animal as ‘sexual harassment’ in the English press, certainly none that we
could find, before the reporting of American sexual harassment cases and
the review of feminist and feminist-influenced books on the subject at the
end of 1979” (p. 30).
Activism around sexual harassment was shaped by the shifting aims
of women’s organised activism across the 1960s and 1970s. In the UK,
the Women’s Liberation Movement had initially focused on economic
and legal equality which included rights around sexual choices. For
example, equal pay, shared childcare and access to contraception were
the primary aims of gender parity agendas at this point (Warner, 2001).
These concerns provided the backdrop for the contextualisation of sexual
harassment as a workplace issue. The phenomenon became constituted as
an economic harm which supported women’s subjugation under patri-
archy. The 1970s also saw an expansion of feminist agendas around
sexual violence, from the politics of rape, to a continuum of sexual
violence that spanned across everyday to exceptional circumstances. In
line with this broadening of focus, definitions of sexual harassment
have included wide-ranging behaviours such as leering, ogling, wolf
whistling, catcalling, touching, sexual bribery, sexism and heterosexism
to name but a few (Fitzgerald et al., 1988; Thomas & Kitzinger, 1997).
 1 INTRODUCTION—#METOO AND FEMINISMS 5

These behaviours were referred to by Wise and Stanley (1987) as ‘the

dripping tap’ to denote how sexually harassing practices were often a
continuous and mundane pattern in women’s lives. These practices were
connected to pervasive sexisms that demarcated and set unequal rights
and freedoms of men and women which ultimately constrained women’s
participation in social life, particularly in the workplace.
In theorising the broadening of attention to a range of instantiations
of sexual violence, Kelly’s (1988) groundbreaking research drew attention
to the relationship between normative heterosexuality and sexual violence
through the notion of continuum. The continuum of sexual violence
brought together typical heterosexual practices with sexual offences
including, for example, sexual harassment, child sex abuse, domestic
violence and rape. The purpose of this was to articulate the link between
varied acts of sexual and gendered violence and “more commonplace
interactions between men and women/girls” (Kelly, 1988, p. 51). Kelly’s
argument drew on Rich’s (1980) classic essay Compulsory Heterosexuality
and Lesbian Existence which has undoubtedly influenced much femi-
nist work on connections between normative heterosexuality and sexual
violence. Rich (1980) presented an explanation of heterosexuality as a
political institution akin to, and underpinning, other institutions such as
marriage, motherhood and the nuclear family, which act in the service of
male dominance of women. The presumed and undisputed naturalness of
heterosexuality renders it compulsory which, Rich (1980) argued, consol-
idates male power over women and creates divisions between women
by, for example, othering lesbian women as deviant, pathological and by
making their experiences invisible.
In her essay, Rich drew on MacKinnon’s (1979) highly influential book
the Sexual Harassment of Working Women to highlight how compulsory
heterosexuality intersects with other institutions which, in Mackinnon’s
work, included economics. Mackinnon (1979) pointed to the long history
in which women were reliant on sexual exchange for material survival—
“prostitution and marriage as well as sexual harassment in different ways
institutionalize this arrangement” (p. 175). During the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, many women were excluded from access to
education and training (Shields, 1975) which served to act as a barrier
to many forms of employment and to segregate women into low paid
and socially devalued jobs. According to MacKinnon (1979), middle-
class and upper-class women were excluded from the workplace often
through recourse to the possibility of victimisation by “sexual predators”
6 L. LAZARD

outside the home. Working-class and poor women entered into precarious
employment contexts in which they were often denied job security or the
possibility for advancement enjoyed by their male counterparts. A picture
emerged in which women were dependent on economic subsistence from
men who held higher ranking employment positions (e.g. Baker, 2008;
Lambertz, 1985). For Mackinnon (1979), sexual harassment perpetuates
practices which keep women in sexual service to men. The woman who
resisted unwanted sexual attention on the job also risked other punish-
ments including, as Mackinnon (1979) notes, being subject to pejorative
uses of the term ‘lesbian’. Building on this, Rich argues that requirements
that women sexually market themselves to men required lesbian women
workers not only to hide their sexual identification, but actively align
themselves with social requirements for doing heterosexual femininity “in
terms of dressing and playing the feminine, deferential role required of
‘real’ women” (Rich, 2003, p. 21). This early scholarship pointed to how
the experience of sexual harassment is not straightforward or monolithic
but is inevitably shaped by intersectional power relations that become
relevant in instances of harassment. Indeed, the notion of compulsory
heterosexuality has been used to draw attention to how sexual harass-
ment does not simply support a gender hierarchy of male dominance and
female subordination but works as a mechanism to police the boundaries
of normative gender. As Butler (1990) argued “the sexual harassment of
gay people may well take place not in the service of shoring up gender
hierarchy, but in promoting gender normativity” (p. xiii).
Critical theoretical engagements with heterosexuality became the focus
of a body of empirical work in feminist psychology which has attended
to how heterosexuality shapes subjectivity and practice. In particular,
Wendy Hollway’s insights in her early work (1984, 1989) on gender rela-
tions and sexuality has been influential in feminist scholarship in these
areas. Hollway argued that three dominant discourses provided a cultural
resource for organising heterosexual relationships: (1) the male sex drive
discourse—that men are naturally compelled to seek sex with women;
(2) the have/hold discourse—that women aim to secure a committed
relationship with a man in which sex becomes exchanged for relational
exclusivity, commitment and security; and, (3) the permissive discourse—
in the wake of women’s activism around sexual liberation, women are
assumed to be equal sexual subjects and have sexual needs like men do. In
her analysis, Hollway explored how the male sex drive discourse and the
have/hold discourse work together in highly gendered ways in which men
 1 INTRODUCTION—#METOO AND FEMINISMS 7

are positioned as always ready for sex and women’s bodies activate this
readiness. Women, on the other hand, are set the task of managing men’s
desire for sex. The permissive discourse, with its roots in the 1960s sexual
revolution, would appear to unsettle the male sex drive and have/hold
discourses. However, as Gavey (2018) notes, the permissive discourse did
not appear to destabilise normative patterns of heterosexuality described
in the former two discourses—sexual and gender inequalities continued to
play out behind the traction gained by the turn to sexual permissiveness.
The ways in which such dominant discourses of heterosexuality prescribe
certain gendered sexual subjectivities have been widely influential in work
seeking to understand the cultural conditions enabling sexual violence.
For example, Gavey (2018) argues that the heterosexual dynamic of sexu-
ally passive or constrained women and agentic men authorises sexual
encounters which are not always easily distinguishable from rape. This
creates room for ambiguity around whether an experience was rape or
“just sex”. For Gavey (2018) such normative heterosexual dynamics can
thus function as a support within the “cultural scaffolding” enabling
sexual violence. In this book, I argue that these insights around the rela-
tionship between normative heterosexuality and sexual violence are crucial
for understanding how sexual harassment relational dynamics are consti-
tuted. Throughout this book, I draw attention to how discourses of sexual
harassment are produced in and through frames of normative heterosexu-
ality. I argue that these discourses have and continue to profoundly shape
how we make sense of the victimisation of women and men.

Shifting Landscapes
To say that sexual victimisation arises from the assumed sexual passivity
of women in relation to men is, and never was, the whole story. Women’s
sexual agency has not been completely absent in understandings of sexual
violence. There is, of course, a long history of characterisation of the
sexual agentic woman as deviant (e.g. ‘slag’, ‘slut’), which has worked to
prop up a sexual double standard that has been used to justify the sexual
harassment and assault of women (e.g. Attwood, 2007; Mendes, 2015).
Feminine sexuality has been predominantly constructed as passive and
acquiescent but, at the same time, provocative and dangerous, constrained
only by the social requirements of feminine sexuality (Gavey, 2018).
Within this context, the man who forces sexual activity on women can,
8 L. LAZARD

and has been, understood as a romantic hero—freeing the woman of her

social constraints and giving her what she ‘really wants’. Women have
also been bequeathed within dominant sexual violence discourses with the
role of actively setting the limits on sex by gatekeeping it and resisting it
forcefully when necessary (Lazard, 2018).
In more recent times, certainly over the last 30 years, women’s sexual
agency and empowerment has gained extraordinary visibility and has
become increasingly situated within the parameters of social acceptability
around sex. Within this cultural milieu, women are invited to embrace
the promise of unlimited freedoms afforded by contemporary times by
embodying sexiness and doing sex to please themselves (Gill, 2008).
Indeed, a body of work has noted that women’s bodies have become
‘super sexualised’ within mainstream media and society more generally
(Gill, 2008; Whitehead & Kurz, 2009). For example, clothes, images
and activities that had once been regulated to the sex industry became
mainstreamed as Porno Chic (e.g. Harvey & Gill, 2011). Of course,
the sexualisation and objectification of women has long been implicated
in sexual harassment and violence and has been tied to the reduction
of women to bodily passivity. As Segal (1992) has argued, objectifica-
tion produces women as “passive, perpetually desiring bodies—or bits of
bodies—eternally available for servicing men” (p. 2). However, the steady
rise in discourses around women’s sexual empowerment, with women
invited to engage with sexiness on their own terms, appears to move away
from any straightforward notion of women as a passive object of the male
gaze (Gill, 2008).
Alongside the elevation of women’s empowerment, feminism has
become popular, undeniably visible and mediated through celebrity and
commercialisation. While examples are abundant, Rivers (2017) places
Beyoncé as a frontrunner in this trend with her incorporation of the
words of Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, ‘We
should all be feminists’, in her 2013 track, ‘***Flawless’. On the face of
it, engagement with feminist politics appears to be a taken-for-granted
feature of contemporary life. The mainstreaming of feminism and the
presumed liberation of women appears to stand in contradiction to
notions of everyday sexual victimisation and the continued inequalities
that underpin it. Indeed, over the last 30 years, we have witnessed periods
of relative quiet on the topics of sexual harassment and sexism which
 1 INTRODUCTION—#METOO AND FEMINISMS 9

certainly gave the impression that these issues no longer warranted exten-
sive public attention (e.g. Gill, 2011). This, of course, is not to say that
discussions of sexual violence have been completely absent. However, as
Gill (2016) notes, feminist activism, particularly that related to sexual
victimisation, has received relatively limited coverage in the press.
Such shifts have been connected to wider cultural rationalities which
shape gendered subjectivity. More specifically, and particularly relevant
to this book, are those concerned with postfeminism, neoliberalism and
neoliberal feminism. While postfeminism is a contestable term, Gill’s
hugely influential work refers to it as a cultural sensibility that makes sense
of empirical patterns in the contemporary landscape. These include:

the notion that femininity is increasingly figured as a bodily property;

a shift from objectification to subjectification in the ways that (some)
women are represented; an emphasis on self-surveillance, monitoring and
disciplining; a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment; the domi-
nance of the make-over paradigm; a resurgence of ideas of natural sexual
difference; the marked re-sexualisation of women’s bodies; and an emphasis
upon consumerism and the commodification of difference. (Gill, 2011,
p. 4)

Postfeminism as a sensibility also includes the muting of critical vocab-

ularies for articulating structural inequalities and cultural influence (Gill,
2016). Crucially, postfeminism has been implicated in the undoing or
undermining of feminist politics. More specifically, postfeminist argu-
ments take feminism into account only to cast it out. As McRobbie
(2004) cogently argues:

Post-feminism positively draws on and invokes feminism as that which can

be taken into account, to suggest that equality has been achieved, in order
to install a whole repertoire of new meanings which emphasise that it is
no longer needed, it is a spent force. (p. 255)

That feminism is predominant in popular culture has raised questions

about the continued relevance of postfeminism as an analytic. There seems
now to be little reticence in framing social issues as feminist ones which,
as Keller and Ringrose (2015) suggest, complicates the idea that femi-
nism has done its work and is no longer needed. This certainly points to
complexities in the current feminist moment. Banet-Weiser (2018) argues
that while feminist work can and is done through popular media, popular
feminism often remains ambivalent to wider feminist politics. Feminisms
10 L. LAZARD

which become popular are often marked by disengagement with the

structural inequalities that prop up unequitable gendered arrangements
(Gill, 2016). In considering the pervasiveness of popular feminism, Gill
(2016) persuasively argues for the continued relevance of postfeminism
for making sense of the uneven visibility of particular feminist politics.
Many feminisms which become prominent take a highly individualised
approach to gender inequality, encouraging women to work on them-
selves in order to develop the confidence to succeed (e.g. Gill & Orgad,
2016). Other strands of popular feminism are seen to embrace feminism,
but without any burden to take a political position on social issues or
offering challenge to the status quo. These themes across some variants
of popular feminism, Gill (2016) argues, are perfect in keeping up with
postfeminism. Postfeminism as a sensibility can provide a means through
which to make sense of how multiple, complex and contradictory under-
standings of feminist politics coexist as they become embedded within
social issues.
Research has drawn attention to how postfeminism resonates and over-
laps with neoliberal ideas (Brice & Andrews, 2019; Gill, 2008, 2016;
O’Neill, 2018). Neoliberalism is understood as political and economic
rationality that centres on privatising public assets, capitalising corporate
profits and the rolling back of state welfare provision. It has also given
rise to a form of governance in which, individuals are called upon to live
as if their lives were an enterprise. In line with the principles of enter-
prise, people’s lives become shaped by ideas around ambition, success
and calculation (Scharff, 2016). Neoliberalism can thus be understood as
a “mobile, calculated technology for governing subjects as self-managing,
autonomous and enterprising” (Gill & Scharff, 2011, p. 5). As Rose
(1999) points out, within neoliberal cultures, individuals are “obliged
to be free” (p. 153). In making “free” choices, individuals are also
obliged to take full responsibility for the state of their lives. Embedded
within individualism, the freely choosing neoliberal subject bears strong
resemblance to postfeminist ideals of empowerment, self-reinvention and
entrepreneurship.
Scholarship has pointed to the ways in which neoliberalism colonises
feminism (Fraser, 2009), producing what has been referred to more
recently as neoliberal feminism (Rottenberg, 2018, 2019). In contrast
to the postfeminist disavowal of the need for feminist politics, neoliberal
feminism affirms its continued relevance by acknowledging gender dispar-
ities in working cultures. For example, while the gender pay gap, glass
ceilings and sexual harassment are acknowledged to be significant barriers
 1 INTRODUCTION—#METOO AND FEMINISMS 11

to women’s success in the workplace, the solutions neoliberal feminism

posits are those in keeping with individualism. Women are invited to solve
such barriers by, for example, working on their own self-confidence and
self-esteem (Gill & Orgad, 2016). Through this self-work, the neoliberal
feminist subject is one who is incited to exercise resilience in the face of
workplace gender-based challenges; she is one who takes responsibility
for her own well-being as well as the degree of success or failure that
she makes of her life. Rottenberg (2018, 2019), in her timely analysis
of neoliberal feminism, draws attention to its operation in contempo-
rary culture. This is exemplified by its presence in bestselling books such
as Sheryl Sandberg’s (2013) feminist manifesto Lean In: Women, Work,
and the Will to Lead and, more recently, Ivanka Trump’s (2017) Women
Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success (Rottenberg, 2018, 2019). For
example, in Ivanka Trump’s book, Rottenberg (2019) argues that while
there is an argument made for structural changes to support women to
work, including affordable childcare and paid maternity leave, much of
the advice provided for success revolves around women making invest-
ments in themselves. This includes, for example, the necessity of good
planning to realise goals, developing a personal mission statement as well
as fostering one’s own networking and negotiating skills. Rottenberg
(2018) argues that through self-investment activities:

The self becomes…indistinguishable from a business, where one calcu-

lates one’s assets, one’s losses and what is more or less valuable in order
to decide where more capital investment — in the form of developing
entrepreneurial skills, resources or capacities — is necessary. (p. 1077)

Neoliberal feminism’s call for individual self-improvement effectively

displaces the need to address the structural undergirdings of gender
inequality. In this sense, neoliberal feminism provides a version of femi-
nist politics that is relatively unchallenging to existing gendered power
relationships that continue to frame working lives.
In this book, I examine how neoliberal, feminist and postfeminist
discourses have variously shaped understandings of sexual harassment and
social responses to it. In doing so, I explore how gendered notions of
agency have become constituted in representations of sexual harassment
dynamics. While gender is a key analytic in the arguments presented,
this book is also concerned with how contemporary constructions of
the phenomenon are intersectionally shaped, particularly by race and
class (e.g. Crenshaw, 1991; Phipps, 2020). The theoretical arguments
advanced in this book are supplemented by an exploration of themes and
12 L. LAZARD

discourses running through media reporting related to the 2017 speak-

out against sexual harassment (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Parker, 2005). This
is intended to support my examination of shared cultural patterns around
sexual harassment and how these patterns shape how this phenomenon
becomes recognised as a problem, who gets to speak about it, and who is
heard.

Outline of Chapters
The following five chapters address key themes arising from feminist and
psychological scholarship on sexual harassment. Chapter 2 is concerned
with sexual harassment in the context of work. While the workplace has
been featured in psychological research on this topic, it has not always
been extensively theorised. Drawing on research from psychology, organ-
isational studies and feminism, I explore how new modes and ideals of
work and workers have shaped how sexual harassment is understood and
dealt with. Within these new workplace frames, I examine how neolib-
eral feminism has become relevant to contemporary resistances to sexual
harassment on the job. Chapter 3 moves to a discussion of how post-
feminist, feminist and neoliberal discourses have shaped the trajectory of
victim politics in relation to sexual harassment. Specifically, this chapter
focuses on how notions of agency and passivity become relevant to
understanding victims and victim resistance. While Chapters 2 and 3 are
primarily concerned with the sexual harassment of women, Chapter 4
examines the sexual harassment of men. In Chapter 4, I explore the
circumstances in which men are accorded or denied speaking rights as
victims, in order to articulate the relationship between sexual harassment,
normative heterosexuality and masculinities. I attend to how postfemi-
nist and inclusive discourses mediate understandings of men as victims in
the #MeToo media coverage. Chapter 5, the final substantive chapter of
this book, explores the construction of perpetrators of sexual harassment.
It focuses on the new predominance of the sexual predator discourse
for making sense of sexual harassment and how this discourse supports
both the heterosexualisation of sexual harassment and carceral agendas
of neoliberalism. I conclude, in Chapter 6, by drawing together the key
themes across the book which are particularly relevant for making sense
of resistance to sexual harassment in contemporary culture.
 1 INTRODUCTION—#METOO AND FEMINISMS 13

Note
1. Milano’s use of Me Too was subject to criticism for the fact that she did not
initially acknowledge Tarana Burke’s “Me Too” activist work. Burke’s work
was centred around gaining support and recognition for women of colour
who had experienced sexual violence. This issue is explored in Chapter 3.

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Another random document with
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themselves, who are hastening to get out of it—are so intolerable,
that hardly any amount of pay will ever be thought a full recompense
for the sacrifices which a person grown up to man’s estate, and
properly qualified in other respects, would be called upon to make,
were he required to mess in the cock-pit. In the event, therefore, of
such union of offices, the gentleman in whom they are joined ought
to bear a regular commission, mess with the commissioned officers,
and walk the weather side of the deck; perhaps also he might
advantageously wear a suitable uniform. At all events, he ought to
possess a distinct rank, and be considered as essentially a part of
the ship’s complement as the surgeon, purser, or any other officer in
the civil department of the fleet.
People unacquainted with the nature of naval discipline may smile,
perhaps, at some of the privileges glanced at above, as essential to
the right exercise of power. But long experience has shewn that the
distinctions in question are the recognised symbols or indexes of due
subordination and general good order. They unquestionably
contribute, indirectly, to the maintenance of that prompt and effective
obedience, and respect to constituted authority, which, combined
with self-respect, go so far to form the sinews of naval strength. If,
therefore, it be of real utility to have the schoolmaster’s work as well
executed as that of the other officers, it surely follows that he ought
to be placed in a situation to command, not merely the dogged
attention of the midshipmen, but in one which will insure the official
reverence of the boys, together with a proportionate degree of
consideration from those whom they command. If these minute
particulars in balancing the scales of discipline be not duly attended
to, the respect of the pupils will dwindle into familiarity, and the
schoolmaster, if he be not a strong-minded person, may end by
losing his own self-confidence. All lessons then become a farce, and
the teacher either relapses into a useless appendage to the ship, or,
if forcibly sustained by the stern authority of the captain, he is apt to
degenerate into a mere pedagogue.
It may safely be laid down as a pretty general principle, that to
render any man of much use, he must be placed permanently in a
station, which of itself, and by the ordinary workings of the
established order of things, will insure attention both from superiors
and inferiors. Without this adjustment, there can be no good service
performed any where—on land or at sea.
It is sometimes not sufficiently recollected, that schooling on board
ship differs materially from what it is on shore; for it not only treats of
very different matters, but has other objects in view, both immediate
and remote. Before a young person actually engages in a
profession, the great purpose of a school appears to consist in mere
training—that is to say, in carrying his faculties through a course of
preparatory discipline, without any more specific object than mental
exercise. But when the youth is once fairly embarked in the pursuit
which is to furnish employment for his life, an immediate modification
takes place. The system which it is necessary to follow at sea is then
placed in distinct contrast to that previously observed.
On shore, education and business are two separate things, one of
which does not begin till the other ends; while, on board ship, the two
always go hand in hand. As the lessons of the teacher may be put in
practice immediately, the utility of theoretical knowledge is exhibited
on the spot; and thus a gradually increasing impulse is given to the
whole course of study. A boy who learns from his master what the
word Latitude means, and what is the method of obtaining it,
instantly runs upon deck, takes a quadrant in his hand, observes the
sun’s meridional altitude, and is filled with amaze and delight on
discovering: within what small limits he has been able to determine
the ship’s place relatively to the equator. Next day he sets to work
with increased eagerness to conquer the more difficult problem of
finding the Longitude, which he has immediate opportunities of
bringing to the test of actual experiment. The theory of Gunnery,
likewise, when studied by itself, is frequently found to be intricate,
and often far from satisfactory; but, when all its results can be
brought to the test of experiment, the aspect which this very
important pursuit assumes is totally different. How few officers, for
instance, understand correctly the meaning of the elementary term
Point Blank, or have any useful conception of the mathematical
principles which it involves! How often do we hear people gravely
assuming that the shot rises between the gun and the point-blank
mark! The laws which regulate the action of fluids directed against
plane surfaces are by no means easily explained when grappled with
alone; but, when brought to bear on the use of the rudder, or the trim
of the sails, there is hardly a boy afloat who fails to appreciate the
value of true science over what is called ‘rule of thumb;’ or rather,
who may not soon be taught to feel the mighty advantage of uniting
the two, so as to make theory and practice mutually assist each
other.
Nearly the same thing may be said of almost every other branch of
knowledge: with languages, for instance—I mean more particularly
the modern languages—French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian,
most of which are made to tell generally as soon as acquired. The
Mathematics in all their wonderful branches, and Science in almost
every department, furnish ample objects to fill up the leisure hours of
an officer. Geography, history, and the law of nations, come into
professional play at every turn. A young man, therefore, of any
capacity or industry, is nearly sure of rendering himself useful in a
short time, be his particular pursuits what they may, provided only
that his zeal is duly encouraged by the captain, and seconded by the
ready assistance of a properly qualified preceptor whom he has
been taught to respect. It must never be forgotten, however, that
along with all this knowledge of a professional, literary, or scientific
nature, there ought to be mixed up instructions of a still more
important description, upon which the formation of a young man’s
character will mainly depend, whether we view him merely as an
officer, or in his wider capacity as a member of the civil community.
Every one acquainted with the difficult task of bringing boys safely
through the intricate labyrinth of temptations which must be
encountered in the early stages of a sea life, will acknowledge, that
the superintendent of a young man’s habits has little or no chance of
success, unless he can secure the confidence of his pupil. I very
much fear, however, that there can be little hope of establishing such
a relation between them, unless the preceptor be truly the superior,
not only in station but in attainments, and unless it be his peculiar
study to acquire this ascendency over his pupil’s mind, in order to
the better regulation of his manners. I use the word manners in its
largest sense; and it is clear that, unless the schoolmaster have
leisure to keep these objects constantly in view, he cannot hope to
gain the proper degree of influence over any boy’s mind. As chaplain
of the ship, however, his religious duties, so far from interfering with
the objects alluded to, would blend admirably with all of them, and
furnish the best means, and, if it were needed, the best excuse, for a
judicious and parental sort of interference. To expect that any such
interference of the schoolmaster, under the present system, can be
efficacious, is, I much fear, a complete delusion; and this furnishes a
strong reason for uniting in one person the kindred duties of chaplain
and teacher. It shews, at the same time, how inefficient any such
union must be, unless care be taken to secure fitting persons to fill a
joint office of such delicacy.
There is still another, and by no means an unimportant benefit,
which might arise to the naval service from this improvement: I mean
its effect on the higher classes of officers. If there be nothing more
shocking than a disreputable clergyman in a mess-room, so, on the
other hand, I conceive there can be nothing more useful, in many
very material respects, than the constant companionship of a right-
minded and well-educated person of this description. I say nothing of
the obvious and salutary influence which his presence never fails to
exercise over the manners of men, already too much disposed to
laxity in their habits; but it may be well to consider, likewise, the great
additional benefits which may arise to the officers from their
possessing the means of instructing themselves in the different
branches of knowledge, with which a chaplain, regularly qualified to
teach, would be able to impart.
Except on board ship, and at sea, few of the senior officers of the
Navy, in war time, have the opportunity, and still fewer the means, of
improving their acquaintance with those pursuits, of which, in the
earlier periods of their service, they may have gained a smattering. I
allude to the classics, to modern languages, and the belles lettres
generally, to the higher branches of mathematics, and to many of
those sciences formerly deemed abstruse, but which have lately
become popular; such as chemistry, geology, and natural history in
all its departments.
 The time is not remote when it was held by high naval authorities,
that all or any of these refinements, instead of being useful to an
officer, actually stood in his way; and, as far as they went, interfered
with the due execution of his duty. Nor can it, or ought it, to be
denied, that the principle of extra instruction is very apt to be carried
too far, and the refining system overdone. Nor must it ever be
forgotten in these discussions, that the service—that is to say, the
hard, regular, seamanlike round of official duties, in all seasons, and
under all circumstances, ought always to be the primary objects of
an officer’s thoughts, before which every thing else is not only to
bend, but, if need be, must break. And it is chiefly on the principle of
rendering an officer only the more fit for such technical routine, that
any of the pursuits alluded to can ever be considered as having
legitimate claims on his attention. If such studies become so
engrossing as to detach his thoughts from his sterner duty; to make
him a scholar instead of a seaman, a dandy instead of a
disciplinarian; or if he allow himself to attend to these extraneous
matters with any other view than to his improvement as a strictly
professional man, he will, of course, find them, one and all,
prejudicial, and not be encouraged. Under proper regulation,
however, there seems little or no danger of any thing of this
description proving injurious to an officer’s character, as a useful,
hard-working servant of the public.
It was formerly thought, that high-born, high-bred, and even well-
educated men, were less fitted to make good officers for the ordinary
course of professional work, than persons who had sprung from a
lower origin, or whose education was limited to the mere
technicalities of the profession, and who were without taste and
without manners—men of the Hawser Trunion school, in short. But
the copious experience of the late arduous war seems to have
shewn, both in the army and in the navy, that the contrary is the true
state of the case. And certainly, as far as my own observation and
inquiries have gone, I have found reason to believe that those
officers who are the best informed and the best bred, and who
possess most of the true spirit of gentlemen, are not only the safest
to trust in command over others, but are always the readiest to yield
that prompt and cheerful obedience to their superiors, which is the
mainspring of good order. Such men respect themselves so justly,
and value their own true dignity of character so much, and are at all
times so sensitively alive to the humiliation of incurring reproach, that
they are extremely cautious how they expose themselves to merited
censure. From the early and constant exercise of genuine
politeness, they become habitually considerate of the feelings of
others; and thus, by the combined action of these great principles of
manners, officers of this stamp contrive to get through much more
work, and generally do it much better, than persons of less
refinement. Moreover, they consider nothing beneath their closest
attention which falls within the limits of their duty; and, as a leading
part of this principle, they are the most patient as well as vigilant
superintendents of the labours of those placed under their authority,
of any men I have ever seen. It is not that they watch their inferiors
with a view to entrap and pounce upon them, but solely with the
public-spirited and generous object of keeping all parties right, in
order, by checking errors in the outset, before they have grown into
crimes, to prevent the hard necessity of punishment.
This is a pretty fair sketch of the method of acting observed by a
thorough-bred, gentlemanlike, well-instructed officer; and every one
who has been in command, and in protracted difficulties, or has
merely been employed in the ordinary course of service, will readily
admit that, with the assistance of such men, every department of his
duty has gone on better and more pleasantly than it could have
possibly done if the persons under his command had been of a
coarser stamp.
It is quite true that the full degree of refinement alluded to can
hardly ever be fully taught on board ship. But it may often be
approximated to good purpose. It is quite within our power, for
example, so to train up young men, that they shall gradually acquire
not only that sort of knowledge, but also those habits, which
experience has shewn to have the most direct tendency to enlarge
the understanding, and to chastise the taste. Precisely as this
amount of intelligence increases, so will the capacity of an officer to
do good service increase likewise; and it is absurd to suppose that
he will be less disposed to do his duty well, from knowing better how
to comply with its obligations.
Weak minds and perverse dispositions, under any system of
instruction or of discipline, will, of course, defeat these calculations;
and there will, therefore, always be many effeminate and idle
persons in a fleet, who, by mistaking mere acquirements for the
knowledge of how to turn them to useful account, deserve the title
they receive of ‘the King’s hard bargains.’ But, taking the average
run of officers in the Navy, it may safely be expected, that if, in other
respects, they are kept to their duty, and if they themselves have a
real interest in the service, the more information they can acquire
upon every subject worthy of a gentleman’s attention, the better will
they be fitted for the performance not only of those higher exploits
which all the world understand and admire, but even of those humble
and unseen professional avocations, which make up by far the
greater and the most important part of our daily duties.
If, then, we can furnish all ranks of our naval officers afloat with a
ready and agreeable means of filling up their time, of which most of
them have a good deal to spare, we may fairly hope that they will not
be slow to avail themselves of the opportunities placed within their
reach. In order, however, to render these measures of any extensive
utility, this plan of furnishing assistance must be carried a long way.
A chaplain-schoolmaster should be allowed even to the smallest
class of ships on board which, by any contrivance, the proper degree
of accommodation can be obtained. And if these ideas were followed
up in the admirable spirit with which some recent improvements
have been carried into effect in the Navy, for instance, in the
discipline, victualling, payment of wages, ratings, and other matters,
a very great boon would be conferred on the service.
It is not likely that the measure proposed would materially
augment the expenses of the Navy, if, indeed, it had that effect at all;
since both a chaplain and schoolmaster are expressly allowed to all
ships, from the first to the sixth class, inclusive. But, even supposing
the expense were to be augmented, there can be no doubt, I should
conceive, in the mind of any person who has reflected seriously on
these subjects, that the return for such outlay would be speedy and
certain. The religious, moral, and intellectual character of officers, on
whose good conduct so much depends, must, in every conceivable
state of things, be an object of material consequence to the country.
And it were really almost a libel on the nation, to imagine that they
would not cheerfully agree to the additional expenditure which might
be required, if the advantages be such as are stated. There can be
no truer economy, than expending money for the promotion of virtue
and sound knowledge amongst this class of public servants. For
their duties, it must be recollected, generally lie so far beyond the
reach of ordinary scrutiny, that almost the only security we have for
their good conduct rests on their own sense of honour. A dishonest
officer on a foreign station might often divert from its proper purpose,
by a single stroke of his pen, and without much danger of detection,
more of the public money than would furnish the Navy with chaplains
and schoolmasters for ten years.
It is to accomplish only one-half the great task of instruction merely
to fill a boy’s head with technical information—his principles and
habits ought to be likewise taken into our safe keeping. It is also
greatly to be desired, that, when the period arrives at which he is
expected to become, as it is called, his own master, he should find
no difficulty in continuing, from choice, those pursuits to which he
had previously applied himself on compulsion, or merely as a means
of promotion. And there seems to be no method more likely to
accomplish this desirable purpose, than affording the young
commissioned officer the companionship of an instructor, or, at all
events, of a person whose duty it should be, if required, not only to
continue, in the ward-room, the course of information commenced in
the cock-pit, but whose aim ought to be, so to modify these studies
as to adapt them to the altered circumstances of the pupil, and to win
his attention to their pursuit by rendering them agreeable and useful.
It is not pretended, by any means, that such a task is an easy one;
on the contrary, it will require not only considerable abilities, but high
attainments, and no inconsiderable degree of good taste, together
with a long apprenticeship of self-discipline, and an exclusive
application to these arduous duties, as the grand object and
business of the instructor’s life.
 There really appears, however, to be no situation but that of a
clergyman which offers any reasonable chance of these conditions
being fulfilled. And as the education of such a person is necessarily
expensive, and the double office which it is proposed he should fill,
one of great responsibility, labour, and difficulty, as well as one of
peculiar and irremediable discomfort and privation, without any of
those energetic excitements which stimulate every other class of
officers to exertion, the remuneration ought clearly to be very
considerable, otherwise no set of properly qualified men will engage
permanently in its pursuit.
A distinct class of officers, of this sacred character, although as yet
they do not exist, might be readily created. If the emoluments of the
chaplain of a man-of-war were respectable, the situation rendered as
agreeable, in point of comfort, as the nature of the elements will
admit of, and if the prospects of future provision be made certain, or
contingent only upon a right performance of duty, there cannot, I
think, be a doubt that, in a short time, there would be an ample and
steady supply of chaplains, as highly qualified, in point of
attainments, as the Admiralty might choose to fix on the scale.
If this important professional object were once fairly carried into
effect, we should probably soon discover an improvement in the
whole system of naval discipline, the best evidences of which would
be, the increased efficiency of the whole service, arising out of the
gradually ameliorated habits and higher intellectual cultivation, as
well as improved tastes and more rational happiness, of every class
of the officers, from the oldest captain down to the youngest first-
class boy, just untied from his mother’s apron-string.
In all that has been said, I have taken into view almost exclusively
the advantages which would accrue to the officers from the adoption
of this plan of uniform instruction. It is to them, individually as
gentlemen, and collectively as a body, upon the certainty of whose
hearty exertions the government can at all times depend, that the
country must ever look for that energetic momentum in our naval
strength, upon which the national power, in this department,
essentially rests. Surely, however, it is not too much to say, as a
matter of experience, that the influence of a resident clergyman on
board ship, wherever there is one, over the minds of the crew, is felt
to be quite as salutary, when properly exercised, as it is to the
labourers in any parish of the empire.
It signifies nothing to say that the structure of naval discipline is
widely different from the civil administration of the land; for the very
same principles, and, more or less, the very same motives to right or
wrong action, must always be in play in both cases. A judicious
chaplain, therefore, who shall have become acquainted by personal
experience with the habits, tastes, feelings, and pursuits of the
seamen, may undoubtedly contribute an important share to the
efficiency of the whole of our naval system. So far from interfering
with, or in any way checking the strict course of nautical affairs, I
conceive that the chaplain’s influence, rightly exercised, acting in
cordial understanding with the captain, and sanctioned by his
authority, might advance the best interests of the service by greatly
diminishing offences, and thus lessening the melancholy necessity of
punishments. Whenever this benevolent purpose can be effected, in
a greater or less degree, both those who obey and those who
command are sure to be better pleased with one another, and, it is
reasonable to suppose, far more desirous of co-operating heartily in
the accomplishment of the common purpose for which they are
brought together.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

LONDON:
J. MOYES, TOOK’S COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

FOOTNOTES:
 [2] I quote from a paper on the State of Education in the British
Navy, printed in the United Service Journal, Part XI. for October
1830. The performance and the promise of the very rising officer,
who wrote this article, help to furnish the fairest practical answer
to those who object to the early advancement of young men of
rank in the Navy.
 Transcriber’s Notes

pg 219 Changed: when on board passage vesssels

to: when on board passage vessels
pg 225 Changed: half of sound snoose
to: half of sound snooze
pg 308 Changed: as the captian can ameliorate the habits
to: as the captain can ameliorate the habits
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