Sexual Harassment in North Country

Sexual harassment can take on many forms. Sexual harassment in the workplace is illegal, but it still happens. The movie North Country, starring Charlize Theron, highlights the landmark case that brought legislation to sexual harassment in the workplace.

This film is based on the 1984 landmark sexual harassment class-action case Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. The fictional Josey Aimes, played by Theron, was “inspired by” the real-life story of Lois Jenson, a Minnesotan iron miner who faced horrible sexual harassment at her job. This movie is filled with abuse against women. Josey escaped from an abusive husband before going to work into the mines. While working in the mines, she refused to give into the demands of the men, which caused them to give her labels that were incorrect. Josey was also essentially harassed by everyone around her, including her own father, who seemed to be ashamed of her. Josey decided to leave her job at the mine and sue for harrasment. During the trial, the lawyers tried to blame the victim, once again, and say that Josey was promiscuous becuse she and her steady boyfriend had sex and became pregnant when Josey was 16. However, Josey became pregnant at 16 not by her boyfriend, but by her teacher raping her. Josey didn’t want to give up her baby and her boyfriend witnessed the rape before running off quickly, not knowing what to do. He eventually told the truth about the rape.

Eventually, the mining company lost the case and and is forced to pay the women money for what they suffered at the hands of the abuse against them. This landmark case, Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., also established  a sexual harassment in the workplace policy .

Violence Against Women: Harassment

Harassment against women happens everyday in many different ways. Women are subjected to cat calls while walking down the street and sexual harassment in the workplace among others. Feminist scholar, Jessica Valenti, highlights a new type of harassment that women are facing, especially blogging women. As well as the everyday harassment that women faced mentioned above, women are also subjected to an increased prevalence of extreme instances of stalking, death threats and hate speech while using the internet for various reasons. Valenti suggests that on some online forums, the mixture of anonymity and misogyny can make for a gang-rape mentality among the harassers against the women.

Jessica Valenti (in grey sweater)

Valenti had her own run-in with hate bloggers after being invited to attend a lunch meeting with Bill Clinton. As the event was coming to a close, the bloggers took a picture with Clinton which rapidly circulated through the internet. The abusive comments and harassment of Valenti followed just as rapidly. She was criticized for the way she was standing, likened to being an intern, a la Clinton’s famous sex scandal – it was suggested she add a green beret and a blue dress to complete the look, the way her body looked, her perceived whorishness, and how she couldn’t possibly be a feminist because she showed up to an event with her breasts hanging out. Please keep in mind that Valenti was not flaunting anything, but rather the opposite in that she was wearing a Gap crew-neck sweater.  Valenti says that this experience of “boobgate” has been, without a doubt, the most humiliating of her life. Hundreds of blogs and websites linked to the controversy about her and it was all over the internet. All of this caused because of a decision to merely take a picture with a political figure.

Valenti highlights the fact that once again, women are being blamed for the harassment they are facing. Another case of blaming the victim can be seen in the response of the female blogger who attacked Valenti on her own blog. She argued that Valenti asked for it with the way she was posing and that this is expected, and even acceptable behavior. Valenti cites a study by the University of Maryland that highlights the fact that when the gender of an online username appears female, they are 25 times more likely to experience harassment, and that female user-names averaged 163 threatening and/or sexually explicit messages a day. Unfortunately the promises of an early utopian internet society have been overlapped with the reality of the current internet, one in which the default user is a white-male. Sounds eerily familiar.