n's Liberation Movement, and others - a growing number of middle-class women moved into the job market, making it more difficult for the poor to find work (p. 271).
Trattner glosses over the fact that many, perhaps even the majority, of the unemployed poor in America are women. Nevertheless, other writers acknowledge that the greatly increased numbers of women of all classes entering the work force over the last few decades have had far more impact than merely taking away jobs from others. The presence of women in fields previously dominated by men has created some uniquely modern problems, as well as bringing to the forefront problems previously left undiscussed. One of the latter such problems is sexual harassment.
On October 11, 1991, the Senate Judiciary Committee was forced to make public its hearings on the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Thomas had been accused by a former employee, law professor Anita Hill, of repeated sexual harassment while both worked together at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The initial hearings, as well as Hill's accusations, were held behind closed doors, but public outrage brought them into the open. The hearings placed the term "sexual harassment" into the general vernacular and strongly divided public opinion on the issue.
The conflicting testimony of both witnesses highlighted one of the most significant problems in cases of sexual harassment, since the hearings became her word against his. Although courts had heard cases in which employees accused supervisors of making unwanted sexual advances and even of threatening to withhold job benefits unless the employee agreed to provide sexual favors, the concept was new to the general public.
The Senate hearings inflamed the public on both sides of the issue. George A. Kendall (1992) referred to her as "the unspeakable Ms. Hill" (p. 77); his sentiments were shared by ma...