Week 11: Calavita and Guiffre - Hegemony

"Blue Jeans, Rape and the 'De-Constitutive' Power of Law" - Kitty Calavita

This article circles around a rape case in Italy which was overturned because the victim was wearing blue jeans at the time of the attack; the argument was that the woman must have helped take the jeans off herself, making the intercourse consensual. Calavita argues that this indicates that the constitutive power of law is hegemonic and problematic, and that we must examine the effects of law in a more critical light.

I find it a little horrifying that in this day and age, a case like this can simply be overturned--although then again, we like to think that we're modern and progressive here in the West. It is heartening, however, to see that despite the hegemonic power of law and the legal system, they can still backfire, which ironically only helps to pave the way for resistance and change. Law is not inevitably constitutive, and if a court makes a decision that is out of sync with the realities of society, the entire legal system suffers as a result--which most definitely helps the normal people in society who are seeking change.


"Boundary Lines: Labeling Sexual Harassment in Restaurants" - Patti A. Giuffre and Christine L. Williams

This article was essentially a survey of how people label things as sexual harassment in the workplace. The authors interviewed several waitpeople, and found that there were four main reasons that a person labeled something as sexual harassment--if the harasser was of a higher position, if the harasser was of a different race/ethnicity, if the harasser was of a different sexual orientation, or if the harasser threatened or used violence. The authors then argue that this sort of view of sexual harassment is problematic.

This is a very limited study, seeing as the authors only interviewed a handful of people, but the results are intriguing all the same. It's a little worrying that the ideologies behind the labeling of sexual harassment actually favor harassers who are heterosexual white men. Then again, our entire society is structured this way--it's not exactly a surprise, but it's still worrying. There are plenty of statistics about how many rapes go unreported, but I also wonder how many instances of sexual harassment go unreported. And do those people not report them because they themselves are of a minority in terms of race, class, or sexuality? It's problematic because an ideology like this also reinforces "institutionalized" forms of sexual harassment, like the boss coming on to the waitress and so on.