Priggish, Pitiless, and Punitive or Proud, Passionate, and Purposeful? Dichotomies, Sexual Harassment, and "Victim-Feminism"

Abstract

Australia's version of the popular genre of the "victim-feminism" debate played out via a case of sexual harassment in a university college, in which two young women alleged that they had been sexually harassed by the master [chief executive officer] of their college. This event became much more than a matter of parochial interest when one of Australia's best-known novelists decided to write a book about it. The book generated enormous media attention, though this was often very polarized and not very useful in furthering our understanding of sexual harassment. However, there was some interesting debate in the wake of the book that did manage to transcend the dichotomy of "power" versus "pow..