FEMINISM AND LEGISLATIVE REDRESS - SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN SWEDEN AND THE UNITED-STATES

This article provides an historic al overview of the politicization of sexual harassment and legidative remedy in the United States and Swed en. While the American State formally recognizes the existence of sexu al harassment: and has taken steps against it, the Swedish State has b een reluctant to provide legal remedy. This difference can be attribut ed to Sweden's centralized State and the strength of labor, which had the organizational capacity to effectively dismiss issues pertaining t o women's sexual inequality. By contrast American women benefitted fro m an autonomous feminist movement and a decentralized state that prove d more permeable to feminist demands. Sweden's lack of legislative rec ognition of sexual harassment provides of the most compelling challeng es to the conventional characterization of the Swedish State as interv entionist, innovative and egalitarian. While Sweden prides itself on t he adoption of its most recently revised Equal Opportunities Act (1994 ), intended to promote equal rights for women with respect to employme nt, it has failed to mitigate effectively a central condition at work which is highly disadvantageous to women, sexual harassment.