The Sanitized Workplace

The Sanitized Workplace

Dr . Schulz uses historical and sociological analysis to demonstrate the the law 's focus on on minimizing unwanted sexual conduct has , in fact provided added incentive and legitmacy for a mangerial project for supressing sexuality in the workplace . For the sake of preventing possible sexual harassment , a considerable number of employers are prohibiting benign forms of sexual conduct . All without minding the larger structure of sex segragtion and the inequality in which geniune sexual harassment occurs

For example , employers have started to impose stringent disciplinary measures that

cost many people their employement or reputations and putting the employee 's ability to form his own work culture at risk Employers are also imposing bans on romantic relations between employees . this has the negative effect of reducing intimacy and solidarity among workers both on the sexual and nonsexual leve

Schultz research suggests that employers sometimes resort to using sexual harassment charges as a pretext for punishing employees for discriminations as well as other less than legitimate reasons . Also , in practice employees are more apt to accuse coworkers of a different race sexual orientation or social class who threatens or offends them of sexual harassment

The article argues that workplace sexuality , contrary to popular belief , is not always discriminatory or disruptive to the work environment , provided that the sexual conduct takes place in the larger organizational context . Sociological reseach suggests that women who work well integreted , egalitarian settings are also participants in pleasurable sexual interactions . The data suggests that this is because their numbers give them the clout to shape the sexual norms to their own liking . In other words , the opposite tact should be taken . Rather that encourage employers to desexualize , they should be encouraged to desegregate

To this end , the Article proposes the creation of incentives to do so For example , the law should make sexual harassment easier to prove in a segregated and unequal work setting . At the same time is shoul dbe harder to prove in a fully integrated and egalitarian setting . Legal entities and reformers should abandon the orthodox definition of harassment as unwanted sexual conduct in favor of a broader focus on discriminatory conduct in general . After all , the emphasis on sexual conduct being harmful gives the law a bias that meshes well with the classical organizational view of sexuality as unrpoductive and provides incentive for managers to extend the reach of the long arm of the law within their organizations . At the same time , allowing managers to base their actions on a feminist-inspired body of law has allowed them the ability to implement overzealous sexual harassment policies

To summarize , the acticle accounts for the development of sexual harassment law and the difference it makes depends on how the law interacts with the larger institutional and cultural forces that include it in shaping everyday life . In the end , the article argument can be summarize thus `those who seek to halt sanitization must ofer a new vision in which sexuality can coexist with , and evne...