RECONCEPTUALIZING SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Sexual harassment has become one of the most dynamic and misunderstood areas of law, as the doctrine has evolved and continues to evolve in order to meet the needs of a changing national workforce. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act proscribes supervisors from conditioning employm ent benefits on sexual favors, or quid pro quo harassment. The statute also prohibits employers from allowing supervisors and coworkers to e ngage in sex-based conduct that is so severe or pervasive as to compri se a hostile or abusive working environment, or hostile work environme nt harassment. In this Article, Professor Schultz argues that courts a nd commentators have subscribed to an overly narrow conception of host ile work environments, one which centers on sexual abuse. According to this ''sexual desire-dominance'' paradigm, harassment typically invol ves a male supervisor's unwelcome sexual advances toward a less powerf ul female subordinate. For many women, however workplace harassment is gender-based, not sexual in content or design. Professor Schultz demo nstrates how the prevailing paradigm has led courts to restrict the la w's protection by emphasizing sexual advances and other sexually orien ted conduct while neglecting equally debilitating, nonsexual forms of gender-based mistreatment. She argues that this narrow focus has resul ted from a failure to comprehend the full significance of structural w orkplace inequalities in creating women's disadvantage. Professor Schu ltz then proposes an alternative account of hostile work environment h arassment, one which emphasizes its role in perpetuating job segregati on by sex and preserving the masculine identification of favored lines of work. According to this ''competence-centered'' account, some male workers harass women, not to satisfy sexual needs, but to protect the masculine composition of their work and the status that accompanies i t. Professor Schultz's new account of hostile work environment harassm ent also provides a basis for bringing some same-sex harassment under the reach of Title VII, while reducing the risk of encouraging compani es to prohibit benign forms of sexual expression in the workplace.