Foucault, Politics and Organizations: (Re)-Constructing Sexual Harassment Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 8 No.

1 January 2001 Joanna Brewis* disseminating knowledge Those involved in disseminating knowledge on sexual harassment appear to see themselves as building upon these events by exploring the dynamics of sexual harassment in the organization and generating recommendations for its removal. Their commentary on harassment seems to be intended to raise public consciousness so as to bring about a better, more egalitarian, organizational future. The discussion here challenges the programmatic ideals of harassment knowledge by arguing that the effects of this knowledge may serve to contribute to the conditions of (re)production of sexual harassment. If we accept the relationship that Foucault posits between power, discourse/knowledge and subjectivity, then it is possible to argue that the particular way sexual harassment is spoken, written and thought about within harassment knowledge may (re)produce the subject positions of harasser and recipient. Foucault's conceptualization of the proper function of intellectual work. It is Foucault's (1980, 1982) specific contention that we are subject to, and made subject by, discourse here defined as ideas, images, systems and practices which support a particular way of understanding the world because of our belief in an a priori truth of human existence, accessible through rational enquiry. Foucault sees this belief in what he conceptualizes as a non-existent, transcendental truth as problematic, because for him it leaves us no room to experiment with other ways of being, doing and thinking. Hence he argues that the role of the intellectual should not be to `uncover' `truth' but, on the contrary, to challenge claims to truth, so as to undermine our supposition that discourse/knowledge is, or ever can be, enduringly true. For Foucault, this approach to intellectual work encourages those who are exposed to it to consider, and perhaps to adopt, alternative ways of being, doing and thinking, different from those which they have believed in as `quintessentially human'.

This article aims to provide this kind of subversive account of harassment knowledge to position it as no more and no less than a historical artefact, rather than some kind of enduring truth about modern organizational life. This examination of harassment knowledge is intended to highlight what may result as a consequence of us settling ourselves unwittingly into the subject positions that such knowledges generate. That is to say, the article catalogues the possible implications of what Foucault calls the power effects of this particular knowledge, in order to encourage the kind of critical awareness which he sees as central in exploring the possibilities of our own relationship to self; a consideration of what we believe we are and what we might be able to become, which Foucault refers to as the `critical ontology of self' (Foucault 1986, p. 50). This argument of Foucault's, that existing discourses/knowledges are products of human intellectual endeavour rather than accurate and ahistorical accounts of human existence, is especially significant when we consider a related argument of his, also referred to above. This

is that we think of ourselves and relate to others in particular ways because we understand ourselves through the various discourses/ knowledges that centre on the human condition conventional wisdom about sex (Foucault 1979) Within harassment knowledge, sexual harassment is, therefore, depicted as `bad' sex because it is seen to represent an abuse of power rather than advances made on the basis of mutual attraction (e.g. MacKinnon 1979; Renick 1980; work on sex and power suggests that we are mistaken to assume that there is some form of `good' sex that we should strive towards. He rather argues that this belief is, in itself, a power effect of contemporary discourse on sex. The second characteristic of harassment knowledge discussed here is the claim that harassment is a gendered phenomenon. Organizations, so many harassment commentators claim, are vertically segregated male power at work deriving from male power in the wider society. Thus harassing behaviours are initiated by men and directed at women (e.g. Fain and Anderton 1987; Stringer et al. 1990). Sexual harassment is usually depicted in harassment knowledge as a phenomenon that has existed throughout time, but one that has only recently come to public attention: Women have been sexually harassed on the job for as long as they have been in the workplace. Yet it has only been within the past few years that the public and professional community have identified sexual harassment as a serious problem. (Malovich and Stake 1990, p. 63) Using Foucault in this regard, however, means taking issue with the idea that sexual harassment has been `discovered' because there would be a concomitant rejection of the notion that a set of inherently dysfunctional sexual behaviours (sexual harassment, sexual abuse, rape, and so on) exists that we humans can somehow transcend to achieve a healthy form of sex.

For Foucault, the belief that there is something within humans called sex is a contingent `truth' constituted by contemporary discourse on sex. He argues that this discourse produces a persuasive image of the human individual as in possession of certain sexual desires, capacities and responsibilities but that this is an image only, as opposed to being an accurate portrayal of humanity per se. Foucault therefore questions at which point these discrete elements, functions, conducts, etc. become something known as `sex'. Consequently, our belief in something which we call sex can be seen, from a Foucauldian perspective, to represent only the subjectifying power effects of contemporary discourse on sex and its component knowledges, such as that about sexual harassment. Consequently, it is possible to suggest that harassment knowledge and its ilk have not achieved some fundamental insight into human behaviour at work but, rather, that they represent a historically specific way of understanding sexual interaction which passes itself off as truth (Foucault 1979). In sum, then, what Foucault argues is that what we know of ourselves as human beings is generated exclusively by discourse. From this standpoint, contemporary discourse on sex (and therefore knowledges such as sexual harassment knowledge) act to invest us with certain understandings regarding sex. We are compelled to signify, to act out these understandings as though they were our `essence', our `inner truth' (Butler 1990) and therefore come to

understand certain sexual activities, such as soi-disant sexual harassment, as unacceptable. This is not to say that sexual harassment does not exist, that working men do not display sexualized behaviours which their female colleagues find unsettling. Rather, the suggestion is that it is valuable to examine the possible implications of the claim in harassment knowledge that these behaviours do exist, that in fact they are close to endemic in organizations such as MacKinnon's (1979) claim that 7 out of 10 working women have been harassed. Sexual harassment is categorized by harassment knowledge as a sexual misdemeanour because it is considered to represent an abuse of power. It is widely claimed that harassment is `not about sex, [but] about power _ it supports and perpetuates a system in which one class of persons is systematically disempowered' (Bratton, cited in Van Tol 1991, p. 160 also see MacKinnon 1979; Renick 1980; Gutek and Morasch 1982; Schneider 1982; Somers 1982; Tangri et al. 1982; Schover et al. 1983; Rubenstein 1991; Stockdale 1991; Yount 1991). Yount (1991), for example, argues that the men in the US coal mine that she studied used a particularly brutal form of harassment as a tool of control. This harassment included the stripping and greasing of its female targets. Such behaviour was seen to send a clear message to the women miners that the pit was a male environment in which they remained only on sufferance. According to harassment knowledge, then, harassment is `bad' sex, the intention of which is to derogate the recipient. Furthermore, it is claimed by sexual harassment knowledge that the abuse of power characteristic of harassment means that its recipients are often scared to complain. This harasser `immunity' is claimed to be greater in organizations where subordinates are dependent on their superiors' good will for favourable assessment, career progression, continued employment, and so on. Sex at the centre: harassment knowledge and the subject position of the harasser Sex, as we have seen, occupies a position of prime importance in harassment knowledge. Harassment, because it is characterized as sex-and-power, is considered by this knowledge to be intrinsically damaging. The most striking evidence of the problematization of sexual harassment within harassment knowledge is the emphasis on the negative consequences of the experience of harassment itself. Much of harassment knowledge, while acknowledging that harassment can have tangible economic results (losing one's job or being demoted), also emphasizes the psychological consequences of being a recipient of such behaviour. Research (for example, Frazier and Cohen 1992) into the specific consequences of sexual harassment for the individual reports that harassment causes anger, frustration, anxiety, stress and depression because (it is implied) of its sexually punitive character. Indeed, harassment knowledge is sometimes emphatic on the need not to uphold economic loss over mental hurt resulting from harassment (see, for example, Vinciguerra 1989). A key tenet of harassment knowledge, then, seems to be the problematization of sexual harassment as not only exploitative of but also peculiarly degrading to the women who experience it. Harassment knowledge appears to understand sexual harassment to cause particular distress, above and beyond the kind of problems caused by forms of workplace behaviour such as gender discrimination at interview, because it contravenes the female recipient's `right' to manage her own sex life. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater? The contribution of a Foucauldian reading of harassment knowledge The Foucauldian reading of sexual harassment knowledge presented

in this article attempts to identify the various ways in which the power effects of this knowledge might contribute to the conditions of (re)production of workplace harassment. However, Foucault simultaneously makes it clear that the choice of which power effects are to be resisted is ultimately up to the individual. For Foucault, because there is no separate and distinct realm where we can be free, the only possibility of liberation lies in the process of questioning what we `know' about ourselves, which we ourselves must undertake. We need at least to be sensitive to the different ways in which we could be, think and do, and to begin to make conscious choices about how we relate to ourselves. In so doing, we become aware of the `opportunity costs' of particular ways of seeing/`knowing' self; liberation here lies in a certain kind of curiosity about what else we can become. In sum, then, while Foucault does not paint any picture of a better future, this should not be taken to imply that his work is quietist it is, in fact, his very refusal to legislate for us which can be seen to impel a process of questioning on our part. Consequently, it is suggested here that we can employ Foucault to make a number of important suggestions about sexual harassment knowledge. These are as follows: 1. Workplace sexual harassment is an important issue for organizational analysis in the current climate, given the prevailing conceptualization of sex. However, it is also important to acknowledge that social problems are historically constituted according to the preoccupations of the period. Therefore the existence of a behavioural pattern dubbed sexual harassment should be recognized to be a product of its time and place in those texts which centre on this phenomenon. 2. The discussion here also points towards a need for harassment commentators to reflect on the conceptualization of power as currently presented by harassment knowledge. This kind of critique may reduce the human anxiety which compels continual monitoring of sexual activity to ensure that it is `good' (Brewis and Grey 1994). 3. Harassment knowledge should not unproblematically privilege women's experience over men's (Moore 1988; Hutcheon 1988). This is to commit the same error as does conventional (`malestream') organization analysis in its failure to acknowledge the differential experiences of women in the workplace, because it suggests that there is only one kind of `truth'. 4. This article also points to the need to address the heterosexism of harassment knowledge, so as to question the depiction of women as victims and also to undermine the possible production/perpetuation of the subject position of the necessarily active male initiator of sex. Such an opening up of an existing body of knowledge is argued here to conform to the Foucauldian intellectual project of disruption and subversion the better to encourage a spirit of constant questioning among those who are exposed to it. In conclusion, then, we should not employ a Foucauldian analysis without an awareness of its flaws. However, Foucault's insistence on the instability of ways of thinking (about) ourselves and others around us provides a useful critical insight into the knowledge which exists about sexual harassment.