Interpretation and disputed accounts in sexual harassment cases: Steward v. Cleveland guest (Engineering) Ltd.

Feminist Legal Studies

Volumn 4, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 109-122

  Flynn, Leo ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 2042473920     PISSN: 09663622     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/BF02167605     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. [1994] I.R.L.R. 440.
2. See Carol Smart, Feminism and the Power of Law (London: Routledge, 1989), 4-25.
3. See, generally, Umberto Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
4. But cf. A Hospital v. A Worker, DEE 11/92, where, when considering the liability of a hospital for alleged sexual harassment by long-term psychiatric patients, the Irish Labour Court held that "it is doubtful that [the patients] could have the 'mens rea' required to discriminate against the complainant by sexually harassing her."
5. Vicky Schulz, "Telling Stories About Women and Work: The Judicial Interpretations of Sex Segregation in the Work-place in Tide VII Cases Involving the Lack of Interest Argument", Harvard Law Review 103 (1990), 1749, 1832.
6. See Case 43/75, Defrenne v. Sabena (No. 2), [1976] E.C.R. 455.
7. See Leo Flynn, "Privileged Perceptions in Sexual Harassment Law", Irish Law Times 12 (1994), 14.
8. See Susan Estrich, "Sex at Work", Stanford Law Review 43 (1991), 813, 828-29.
9. [1987] I.R.L.R. 397.
10. [1988] I.R.L.R. 144.
11. Nancy Ehrenreich, "Pluralist Myths and Powerless Men: The Ideology of Reasonableness in Sexual Harassment Law", Yale Law Journal 99 (1990), 1177, 1178.
12. Supra n.1.
13. Ibid., at 441.
14. Ibid.
15. [1986] I.R.L.R. 134.
16. Supra n.1, at 442.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid. The attribution of agency here to the individual female employee is important; there is no suggestion that the union had caused the change in workplace practice.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Supra n.15, at 138.
23. Supra n.1, at 443.
24. Supra n.1, at 443-4.
25. Supra n.1, at 444.
26. Ibid.
27. There is also the figure of Ms Steward's representative at the EAT, Ms. Gill, but she is framed outside the narrative created by Mummery J. apart from his reference to her 'care and skill', supra n.1, at 441. On the issue of the place of advocates/translators in judicial narrative, see Frans Viljoen, "Look Who's Talking. In the Courtroom, Too!", South African Legal Journal 102 (1992), 64.
28. Beverly Brown, "Debating pornography: The symbolic dimensions", Law and Critique 1 (1990), 131, 146-147.
29. For an overview on these debates, see Brown, Law and Critique ibid.;
30. Emily Jackson, "The problem with pornography: A critical survey of the current debate", Feminist Legal Studies 3 (1995), 49.
31. Robin West, "Pornography as a legal text", in Susan Gubar and Joan Hoff, For Adult Users Only; The Dilemma of Violent Pornography (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1989), 108, 108-109.
32. See Ludmilla Jordanova, "Linda Nochlin's lecture 'Women, Art, and Power'", in Norman Bryson, Micheal Ann Holly and Keith Moxey, eds., Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation (Polity Press: London, 1992), 54.
33. See Catharine R. Stimpson, "Nancy Reagan wears a hat: Feminism and its cultural consensus", in Elizabeth Meese and Alice Parker, eds., The Difference Within: Feminism and Critical Theory (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1989), 13.
34. See also Deborah Cheney, "Visual rape", Law and Critique 4 (1993), 189;
35. Susan Rubin Suleiman, "Pornography, transgression and the avant-garde: Bataille's Story of the Eye", in Nancy K. Miller, ed., The Poetics of Gender (Columbia University Press: New York, 1986).
36. Elaine Axten, "Snap Happy", Shebang 1 (1992), 8, 8.
37. Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964).
38. Catharine A. MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourse on Life and Law (Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1987), 147.
39. 47 Empl. Prac. Dec. 38, 316 at 53, 778 (E.D.N.Y. 1988).
40. Supra n.1, at 444. There is no reason given as to why this should happen. Certainly, in this case, the failure to do so did not constitute unlawful sex discrimination. Possibly Mummery J. has good labour practices in mind; or he may be contemplating the possibility of a successful unfair constructive dismissal action; or he may simply think that his proposed course of conduct is a more decent way to behave. True or not, it is not clear why this is the lesson which is "to be learnt from this case".
41. Robin West, "Taking preferences seriously", Tulane Law Review 64 (1990), 659.
42. Ibid., at 702.