Can Law Address Intersectional Sexual Harassment? The Case of Claimants with Personality Disorders

Karen O’Connell
Additional contact information
Karen O’Connell: Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia

Laws, 2019, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: Sexual harassment across multiple grounds, including race, disability, sexuality and age, remains an entrenched problem that is poorly dealt with in law. Prevalence rates for intersectional sexual harassment are higher for certain groups, while legal redress is low. This paper examines case law on sexual harassment in Australia where there are intersectional factors and asks whether the “intersectionality” section inserted into the federal Sex Discrimination Act in 2011 has impacted legal practice and decision-making. In particular, it considers the situation of sexual harassment claimants with behavioural and personality traits that are considered “disordered” and the specifically gendered disability stereotypes that shape their treatment in law. Recent cases in Australia dealing with the sexual harassment of people with personality disorders show that intersectionality provisions of sexual harassment laws may in fact be used to undermine a legal claim by a person with disability rather than strengthen it. This article argues that an intersectional legal feminist perspective on harassment is needed for the law to work.

Keywords: sexual harassment law; intersectionality; disability; personality disorder (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/8/4/34/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/8/4/34/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:8:y:2019:i:4:p:34-:d:294655

Access Statistics for this article

Laws is currently edited by Ms. Heather Liang

More articles in Laws from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().