SOURCE: Russell, Diana E. H. Review of Sexual Harassment of Working Women, by Catharine A. MacKinnon. Contemporary Sociology 10, no. 2 (March 1981): 321-22.

In the following review, Russell contends that Sexual Harassment of Working Women provides valuable insight into the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Sexual Harassment of Working Women is the first scholarly analysis of a pervasive and pernicious problem that has existed ever since women entered the paid workforce, but that has only recently begun to be named, talked about, and challenged in the courts.

MacKinnon began her work on this issue in 1974. At that time “no court had held that sexual harassment was sex discrimination; several had held that it was not” (p. xi). MacKinnon, a practicing attorney and a political scientist, developed the argument published here: sexual harassment in the workplace does in fact constitute unlawful sex discrimination within the meaning of the Equal...