Sex and the Office: A History of Gender, Power, and Desire

Sex and the Office: A History of Gender, Power, and Desire
ISBN-10
0300118996
ISBN-13
9780300118995
Series
Sex and the Office
Category
Social Science
Pages
375
Language
English
Published
2012-04-17
Publisher
Yale University Press
Author
Julie Berebitsky

Description

In this engaging book—the first to historicize our understanding of sexual harassment in the workplace—Julie Berebitsky explores how Americans' attitudes toward sexuality and gender in the office have changed since the 1860s, when women first took jobs as clerks in the U.S. Treasury office. Berebitsky recounts the actual experiences of female and male office workers; draws on archival sources ranging from the records of investigators looking for waste in government offices during World War II to the personal papers of Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown and Ms. magazine founder Gloria Steinem; and explores how popular sources—including cartoons, advertisements, advice guides, and a wide array of fictional accounts—have represented wanted and unwelcome romantic and sexual advances. This range of evidence and the study's long scope expose both notable transformations and startling continuities in the interplay of gender, power and desire at work.

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