Feminism and Legislative Redress:

Abstract

This article provides an historical overview of the politicization of sexual harassment and legislative remedy in the United States and Sweden. While the American state formally recognizes the existence of sexual harassment and has taken steps against it, the Swedish state has been reluctant to provide legal remedy. This difference can be attributed to Sweden's centralized state and the strength of labor, which had the organizational capacity to effectively dismiss issues pertaining to women's sexual inequality. By contrast, American women benefitted from an autonomous feminist movement and a decentralized state that proved more permeable to feminist demands. Sweden's lack of legislative recognition of sexual harassment provides one of the most compelling challenges to the conventional characterization of the Swedish state as interventionist, innovative and egalitarian. While Sweden prides itself on the adoption of its most recently revised Equal Opportunities Act (1994), intended to promote equal rights for women with respect to employment, it has failed to mitigate effectively a central condition at work which is highly disadvantageous to women, sexual harassment.