Richmond West

Hostility Toward the Unattractive Richmond West

Hostility toward the Unattractive: Challenging Current "Sexual Harassment" Law. Though Catharine MacKinnon and her allies were well-intentioned, not only when they exposed quid pro quo sexual harassment, but also when they formulated the "hostile environment" clause, that clause is too broad, creating terrible social consequences which were not foreseen, punishing those with "socially unattractive identities;" interjecting Michel Foucault into the discussion helps us see some of the problems in ways MacKinnon does not. Richmond West encourages greater philosophical clarity and precision on these issues, to shift the grounds of this discourse in ways that would be pragmatic and beneficial. Too many other factors, like race, sexual orientation, "socially unattractive identities," such as shyness, awkwardness, and obesity, disabilities, and so forth, are ignored in these cases. West proposes philosophical changes in this discourse, replacing the scare term "harassment" with several more specific categories. He challenges MacKinnon's dualistic conceptions of gender and power, and traces the ways power within "sexual harassment" discourse has expanded beyond its original parameters.