"Who Protects and Serves Me?": A Case Study of African American Women In One U.S. Law Enforcement Agency

In this article Texeria studies the harassment of women in the law enforcement profession, and by association reflects on all women who join the ranks of a traditionally male profession. It details several black women's stories of how they have been sexually harrassed in their workplace, and how they handled it.

I was very disheartened reading this. This article portrays not just sexual harassment, but rape, as a common occurence for women in men's jobs. I still want to believe that the fact that these were all from a single agency leaves room for the possibility that it is an isolated set of incidents and these kinds of practices don't permeate throughout our police forces. I guess I would need to find out if further studies have been done that corroborate or reject this one, until then I'll remain optimistic.

Boundary Lines: labeling Sexual Harrassment in Restaurants

My initial draw to Giuffre's research was the fact that in High School I actually waited tables, and so I felt like I might have an idea of what the research would say. As it turned out, I did have some of the same experiences as their interviewees, however I never viewed the information through their Giuffre's perspective. He points out that waitpeople are subjected to sexual harrassment every day by their customer's, and this is perceived, but tolerated due to the institutionalized nature of their position. This was what I expected.

What I didn't expect was the analysis that examined the idea that many waitpeople are subjected to the exact same harrassment by their fellow waiters and waitresses, but they don't classify these experiences as harrassment. I found it very interesting, looking back, that this was actually my experience too. I tolerated the tables of forty-something women making suggestive comments because it was a part of the job, but I never even considered "friendly" comments from some of the waitresses to be offensive. It's an interesting perspective to take on now.