Sexual Harassment Law in the United States,the United Kingdom and the European Union: Discriminatory Wrongs and Dignitary Harms

This article considers the way in which sexual harassment law in the United States and the United Kingdom has been formulated within the framework of sex discrimination law, and explores the theoretical and practical difficulties in treating sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination. In contrast, in continental Europe, the problem of harassment at work, including harassment of women, has been conceptualized as an issue of human dignity. But ‘dignity’ also has weaknesses as a tool for conceptualizing sexual harassment, and can hide the way in which sexual harassment is indeed often a form of discrimination against women, rather than an individualized harm. Finally, the article will examine the new legal definition of harassment in the UK, which outlaws both harassment on grounds of sex, but also sexual harassment, abandoning the discrimination framework in favour of a dignitary harm.