MEDIA REPORTAGE OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT: THE (IN)CREDIBLE COMPLAINANT
Main Article Content
Abstract
Studies of court and conciliation decisions about credible complainants and legitimate sexual harassment. In determining what is reasonable and indeed in assessing whether behavior was sexual and unwelcome and resulted in humiliation, it is often the complainant’s identity, history and behaviour that are scrutinised and evaluated by conciliators and judicial officers. Youth can enhance credibility if the alleged harasser is older. Also, credible victims fight back, report immediately, are consistent in their evidence, are able to particularise and testify either in a non- aggressive and not too ‘smart’ manner or make an argumentative presentation coupled with confidence. Judicial commentary about the complainant’s relationships, dress and attitudes to sexuality is a chilling echo of Catharine MacKinnon’s 1979 observation that sexual harassment was often dismissed as “trivial, isolated, and ‘personal,’ or as universal ‘natural’ or ‘biological’ behaviours…
Article Details
Issue
Section
Articles
Authors retain the copyright and grant to the Journal the right to publish under license.
Authors retain the right to use their article (provided you acknowledge the published original in standard bibliographic citation form) in the following ways, as long as you do not sell it or give it away in ways that would conflict with our commercial business interests:
internal educational or other purposes of your own institution or company;
mounted on your own or your institutions website;
posted to free public servers of preprints and or article in your subject area;
or in whole or in part, as the basis for your own further publications or spoken presentations.