Sexual Harassment on the Job
How to avoid the working woman’s nightmare
Backhouse and Cohen
1980 (originally published in Canada in 1978)
This was still in active circulation as of this writing.
When this was published, there wasn’t much talk on sexual harassment. It was mostly treated as a joke. I remember several dudes back in the 1980s constantly saying “we need more sexual harassment around here.” (Hilarious.) There weren’t a lot of protections or policies in place. It’s still a decade before Anita Hill’s testimony.
The advice is lukewarm. Since there was no mechanism to report or enforce policies, anyone that complained was probably fired or harassed until they quit. This book does talk about the range of behaviors, but without the legal definitions, laws or policies, women didn’t have a lot of options. The general advice amounts to: saying that you have a boyfriend/husband, avoiding being alone, and ignoring the overtures.
Given the general state of affairs for women in the United States these days, you might make an argument that these books might eventually be relevant again.
Don’t mind me, I am a cranky old lady who is sick of idiotic old white men from Washington, D.C. and other places.
Mary
Awful Library Books 