9to5

Sexual harassment was first coined by a radical feminist activist Lin Farley,[11] when she encountered and learned about Carmita Woods case. Woods was a female administrative assistant at Cornell’s Laboratory of Nuclear Studies where she was constantly sexually harassed by her superior. One example of many included her supervisor putting his hands on Woods bottom at an office party. With this Farley was able to come to a conclusion that there was an experience that she, her coworkers, and her students shared. It was sexual harassment.[12]

The 9to5 movement was able to go one step further and focused on the harassment aspect rather then the sexual of sexual harassment. They understood that it was about having power over another person rather then sexual pleasure.[13] There are two types of sexual harassment that will better help understand this relationship, hostile work environment and "quid pro quo". Hostile work environment is when an individual is harassed by ether a coworker, a non worker, or a boss over a period of time.[14] Quid pro quo (this for that) is where an individual of a higher power relationship asks for sexual favors in exchange for a better job position or threatens of termination.[15] Also likely candidates of sexual harassments also happen to be in lower organizational level. (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board 1981 Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace: Is It a Problem? Washington, D.C.: Office of Merit Systems Review and Studies.) When gander and power interact in the work environment sexual harassments then functions as a way to increase the harassers power attribute.[16] In on study done by Boradksy interviewing a subpopulation of harassed workers for state workmen's compensation that he aggressors didn't seem to care of sexual desires or even an extended contact.[17]

This unequal power relationship can be further seen when we look at the history of the legal system and sexual harassments cases. As law are a legal and structural system greed upon by the ones in power who else has and can have power. Laws are a social system and legality is about the people and how they are shaped and shape the system through their group and individual beliefs and actions.[18] Put in different way system effects how people think and feel, but people also make the system happen, so it is circular relationship between the two.[19] Simply put Law is one of the aspects of our social system that shape the way we think.[20] Social systems are able to define social relationships, what people can and can not, and who can and cant, do to way that they are organized.[19] Power is relationship, as the ability of a person or institution to exercise their will over other people and other institution.[21] So as a social system, law defines the amount of power held by an individual and institutions through their relationship with one another.

In the initial history of America, women only had legal and social power through their family and if married through their husbands, meaning that as individual they had no legal say in their social relationship to others.[22] It was during the Civil Rights Movement, in 1964 the amendment to prohibit sex discriminations in the work place was added to Tittle VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed. It was a ploy at first by the republic senators who thought that adding the sex discriminations amendment would make the Tittle VII to lose votes and not be passed.[23] In 1978, the first marital rape case was presented in court, the Oregon v. Rideout trial. Before which martial rape was not considered a legal case because the previous legal understanding was that after marriage, the women had forfeited herself to her husband that she was not able to take it back.[24] It is important to note that simply calling attention to the gender of the victims can function as a way to imply and undermine, especially women's, competence, reliability, and even humanity. While in the other hand while identifying the perpetrations sexuality's, in this case means, specifically the heterosexuality of a man, is an identity that is corresponds and a necessary for who they are.[15] The legal system is an important aspect of power and The 9to5 movement understood that women should be protected systematically and able to retaliate systematically. This insures longevity of the victims protection and the 9to5 movement is also able to consequently fight the unequal power distribution of the victims.[25]

Then there is a power relationship is further emphasized when race of the victims is considered. Sociological intersectional perspective developed by Kimberlee Crenshaw, an American Civil Rights Advocate, who understood that women of color who had multiple identities that all combine to cause exclusion and subordination while also facing a deeper form of structural and political constraint.[26][27] An important case that is representative of the intersectional perspective is the case focused on my Crenshaw and the 9to5 movement, Anita Hill v. Clarence Thomas.[25] Crenshaw makes the distinction of feminism movement focusing on women and not seeing race as a factor and antiracist movement focusing on the struggles of black men. Black women are not able to be understood in the public eye as there is no narrative that fit them and understood by the majority. Most importantly black women are not able to be categorized or seen as black women under law. Instead they are seen as a black individual through the antiracist laws or as a women in the antiharassment laws, and never as both. So when Anita Hill's story of her experience of workplace sexual harassments came out, the majority and the law were not able to understand her as a black women. So when Thomas makes the point that she is using the anti-black man narrative, Anita Hill was see as a women, and more specifically categorized as a white women.[27]

Sexual harassments has always been about power. and the reinforcement of power, the 9to5 movement understood that.[13][11] Ellan Bravo one of the authors of The 9to5 Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment lead a sexual harassment training with different corporations. One of the exercise she employed was doing roll reversal, the men would play the roll of a female workers and Bravo would play the roll of the male boss.[28] Through this exercise Bravo would show that the men knew they were making their female coworkers uncomfortable and were simply exercising their power.[15] Thus for the 9to5 movement to be able to combat sexual harassment it meant to gain support and power.