Equal Opportunities Work - Theories about Practice

this context "sexual" means related both to an individual's sex/gender and to
the sex act, as well as related to gender, and includes everything from sexually
offensive behavior and language to any number of insulting actions somehow
having to do with sex/gender and sexual affitiation. This accepted term is also
used in the present context, in awareness of its limitations.
Clearly, there are problems associated with using it. Not only may the word
"sexual" exacerbate communication about contexts where non-sexual acts fall
under the umbrella of a concept including the word sexual, but in addition this
may make working with sexual harassment more difficult, in that it is often a
matter of dealing with innuendo than with specifically sex-or-gender-related
acts. There is also a risk of temptation to oversexualize the problem in efforts
to be taken seriously.
The main issue at our workplaces is related not to sexual acts but to more or
less conscious sexually offensive behavior, often more of a verbal than a
physical nature. This also makes it difficult to rectify, since the change would
have to involve a basic attitude shift, perhaps not at the workplace so much as
in society as a whole.
Sexually offensive behavior, sometimes unconsciously performed and
sometimes not even perceived by the person at whom it is aimed, is an
expression of institutionalized attitudes and power relations. It is subtle but
highly effective, and makes it more difficult for the underrepresented sex to be
free and unencumbered at the workplace. In reality, sexually offensive
behavior undermines equality between the sexes and this, in my view, is what
should be accentuated when working to defeat sexual harassment.
5. Equal opportunities work and the law
Like much other legislation, the legal stipulations prohibiting sexual harassment
give rise to difficulties of interpretation when they are implemented. As do most
legal acts, it contains ambiguities which have to be clarified in concrete cases
when the law is to be applied. Praxis is what defines this kind of prohibition. Is
the fact that the law is based on a subjective criterion to be seen to mean that the
person against whom the offense has been committed also has to admit feeling
sexually harassed? The main rule applied in the administration of justice is that
every individual must take responsibility for his or her own actions. But that is
on the assumption that we act consciously and intentionally, and there are
exceptions to this rule, laws in relation to which we nray be held responsible
even for unintentional, unconscious actions. The ban on sexual harassment is
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