Hostile Environment

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According to Judge Susan Webber Wright, President Clinton's alleged behavior toward Paula Jones, even if "boorish and offensive, " did not constitute sexual harassment because he had taken "no" for an answer. Democrats and feminists argue that President Clinton's alleged lies in the Jones case were 'just about sex" and therefore insignificant.In a passionate defense of the rights of sexually harassed women, Gwendolyn Mink warns that Judge Wright and the president's supporters have undermined our sexual harassment laws. Hostile Environment is her provocative account of the harm being done to these laws and her warning that the laws themselves are worthless if, as in the current political climate, few women dare to use them.Mink provides a lucid analysis of sexual harassment as a legal concept and corrects many common misapprehensions. She also develops a stringent critique of feminist responses to allegations that the president lied in the Jones case. Throughout the book, she emphasizes the significance of power in sexual harassment. "Power is always the harasser's aphrodisiac, " Mink argues. "Harassers may use power to coerce sex, or they may use sex to exert power.... The sex in sexual harassment is never 'just about sex' but always about power."Sometimes scathing, always astute, Hostile Environment is also a highly personal book. Mink describes her own experience of sexual harassment as a graduate student -- the violation and fear, then the betrayal when faculty and fellow students sought to discredit and dismiss her account.First-hand knowledge of the injuries caused by sexual harassment and its aftermath has left Mink with an abiding interest in this volatile issue andwith a desire to safeguard the rights of sexually harassed women -- especially the most economically vulnerable among them.