Case:
Sexual harassment law was originally drafted in order to protect women from sexual pressure and unwanted attention from men, including what was called a “hostile work environment.” When men continually make lewd comments, tell off-color jokes, and the like, the create a situation that women—according to the original thinking on this issue—find very uncomfortable. The assumption was that such behavior would make women uncomfortable but not men. Underlying this was an assumption that women were more vulnerable than men.

However, in recent years a number of complaints have been brought forth by men against other men—cases where men have felt sexually harassed by other men, even though everyone involved was heterosexual. (Harassment against individuals because they are gay or lesbian is not covered by this law.) At a car dealership in Colorado, for example, the sales managers typically referred to salesmen as “little girls” and “whores,” and they would often denigrate the salesmen by asking them questions such as, “Do you still use tampons?” It was not uncommon for the managers to grope at the genitals of the male salespersons, primarily in order to make them feel uncomfortable. In that case, ten salesmen filed a joint suit against the car dealership, eventually winning a $500,000 settlement and the promise that the dealership would implement sexual harassment training.. The Supreme Court eventually ruled on this issue in a case involving Joseph Oncale, a man who worked on an offshore oil rig who had suffered similar kinds of sexual treatment at the hands of his co-workers on the oil rig. The Supreme Court found that the harassment was so severe as to have a significant impact on his work experience. Furthermore, the Court found that only men were exposed to this harassment. Thus Oncale could be said to have suffered because of his gender.

A key requirement here is that the harassment had to occur because of the individual’s sex—hence, one sex had to be treated differently than the other. This had a paradoxical implication: if the same despicable behavior were directed toward men and women alike, it would not count as sexual harassment, since the harassed is not being singled out because of his sex. In fact several lower court decisions upheld this line of reasoning, dismissing suits against offensive bosses because they were shown to be offensive to all, not just me or not just women.

Question: Should sexual harassment law cover same sex- heterosexual sexual harassment? Why or why not? What implications does your answer have for our understanding of the concept of sexual harassment?