The Reasonable Woman

Is sexual harassment understood differently by men and women? If so (as seems likely), whose understanding should set the standard for court decisions? These questions, which lawyers have argued about for almost a decade, reached the general public with the Senate testimony of Anita Hill. But the ensuing debate—between partisans of a universal common sense and those who see perceptions of sexual harassment as gender-differentiated has thus far produced more heat than light. Although the deb...