[In the following review, Russell contends that Sexual Harassment of Working Women provides valuable insight into the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.]

Sexual Harassment of Working Women is the first scholarly analysis of a pervasive and pernicious problem that has existed ever since women entered the paid workforce, but that has only recently begun to be named, talked about, and challenged in the courts.

MacKinnon began her work on this issue in 1974. At that time “no court had held that sexual harassment was sex discrimination; several had held that it was not” (p. xi). MacKinnon, a practicing attorney and a political scientist, developed the argument published here: sexual harassment in the workplace does in fact constitute unlawful sex discrimination within the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the past few years, some courts have concurred with her analysis.

MacKinnon argues that there are two distinct concepts of discrimination, which she calls the “difference” approach and the “inequality” approach. The former focuses on whether different treatment of the sexes is “arbitrary” and thus illegal, or “rational” and therefore not unlawful. It is this latter approach, MacKinnon points out, that has been favored in scholarly thinking and has dominated legal doctrine. The “inequality” approach, in contrast, recognizes that the sexes are socially unequal, and would prohibit all practices that subordinate women to men. Since “sexual harassment is seen to disadvantage women as a gender” (p. 6), it is against the law. MacKinnon argues that sexual harassment constitutes sex discrimination according to both these approaches; nevertheless, she strongly favors the “inequality” approach, and offers many criticisms of the “differences” approach. Such discussion is intended, along with a brief appendix, “to help readers professionally involved in this area of the law use the now favorable precedents” (p. xi).

MacKinnon had hoped to address this book to anyone interested in the subject matter, whether or not legally trained. Unfortunately she is only partially successful in achieving this goal. However, in addition to her discussion of the legal issues, which seemed unnecessarily repetitious to this nonlegally trained reviewer, several chapters include material of considerable interest to students of sexual assault. MacKinnon argues convincingly that sexual harassment has kept women subordinated to men, “by using her sexual position to coerce her economically” (p. 7). Because of the economic power wielded by employers, direct physical force is often not necessary, the woman's consent being what is coerced, rather than a specific sexual act (p. 164). MacKinnon concludes from this that “economic power is to sexual harassment as physical force is to rape” (pp. 217-18).

The law has long recognized that force need not be used in order to consider children to have been sexually violated, e.g., laws relating to child molestation, statutory rape, and incest. However, neither sexual abuse law nor traditional thought recognizes that adults, too, can be particularly vulnerable to sexual violation, specifically by people who have power and authority over them, such as employers, doctors, therapists, ministers, teachers. The concept of sexual harassment in the workplace directly confronts the sexual abuse commonly inflicted by “authority figures”—in this case, employers.

The chapter on “Women's Work” offers a useful, well-documented summary of the current situation, discussing income inequalities, “horizontal segregation” (the fact that “most women perform the jobs they do because of their gender” [p. 9]), and “vertical stratification” (the fact that women predominate in the low-ranking positions).

MacKinnon's book should contribute greatly to women's struggle against sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as contributing to sociologists' understanding of this urgent but long-neglected problem.