The Power of Storytelling: a Quest for a Public Discourse on Sexual Harassment

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Jenny Morgan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Reports

This article explores the possible reasons for the absence of a public discourse about sexual harassment in Australia, which can be contrasted with a relatively well-developed legal discourse. It also briefly compares the debate about sexual harassment in the United States and Australia that followed in the wake of controversial and very public sexual harassment cases in each country. It argues that the debate in the wake of the Clarence Hill-Anita Thomas hearings in the United States was much more productive than the debate in Australia after the publication of Helen Garner’s book, The First Stone. The discussion in Australia focused on whether the young women in the case had ‘over-reacted’ and whether there were generational differences in women’s reactions to sexual harassment. The more interesting (and I would argue, far more important) questions of what is sexual harassment is and what are its effects were ignored. This article goes on to explore one aspect of what sexual harassment is and does by examining what women actually do in response to sexual harassment through an analysis of some of the stories of targets of harassment as they appear in the law reports. In this way it tries to make some of the legal discourse about sexual harassment a part of the public discourse about the phenomenon.

scholarly journals The American Democratic Deficit in Assisted Reproductive Technology Innovation

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 130-170
Author(s):  
Myrisha S. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technology ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Technology Innovation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Technology ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom

In many areas of innovation, the United States is a leader, but this characterization does not apply to the United States' position in assisted reproductive technology innovation and clinical use. This article uses a political science concept, the idea of the “democratic deficit” to examine the lack of American public discourse on innovations in ART. In doing so, the article focuses on America's missing public consultation in health care innovation. This missing discourse is significant, as political and ethical considerations may impact regulatory decisions. Thus, to the extent that these considerations are influencing the decisions of federal agency employees, namely those who work within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the public is unable to participate in the decision-making process. This lack of a public discourse undermines the goals of the administrative state, which include democratic participation, transparency, and accountability.The United Kingdom, on the other hand, has had a markedly divergent experience with assisted reproductive technology innovation. Instead of ignoring the various ethical, social, and legal issues surrounding assisted reproductive technology innovation, the United Kingdom engaged in a five-strand public consultation on the topic of mitochondrial transfer, a form of assisted reproductive technology that uses genetic modification in order to prevent disease transmission. This article argues that after a multi-decade standstill in terms of the public discourse related to ethical issues associated with assisted reproductive technology and germline modification, it is time for the United States to institute a more democratic inquiry into the scientific, ethical, and social implications of new forms of assisted reproductive technology and ultimately, forthcoming medical innovations that involve genetic modification.

scholarly journals The Study’s Origins and Methodology

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
Daniela Bandelli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
International Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
United States Mexico

AbstractThis chapter discusses the origin, spirit, objectives and methodology of this study on the surrogacy international debate. The aim of this study is to explain the politics of signification on surrogacy carried out especially by the women’s movement, verifying how it is contributing to the public discourse and policies on the subject, how it is being organized, as well as dividing, and how the proposed instances fit into global discourses and are recontextualized on the basis of social specificities. These aims are pursued through three case studies in the United States, Mexico and Italy. The key concepts of the theoretical framework of the research will also be described in this chapter, such as: the women’s movement, diagnostic and prognostic frames.

Our Spirit Is Not Narrow Bigotry

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
Linda C. McClain
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
The Law ◽  
Natural Difference

This chapter studies how arguments about bigotry, conscience, and legislating morality featured in legislative debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, particularly the public accommodations provision (Title II). President Lyndon B. Johnson urged clergy to support the act and help the United States overcome bigotry. Religious leaders testified for and against the law. Lawmakers and witnesses supporting the law insisted that the nation’s conscience demanded that Congress pass a law to end bigotry and racial discrimination. Opponents referred to bigotry in multiple ways: they argued that segregation reflected natural difference and God’s plan, not bigotry; that people had a right to be bigoted; and that the act’s supporters were the real bigots. The chapter concludes with two Supreme Court cases upholding Title II relevant to later constitutional challenges to civil rights laws protecting LGBTQ persons: Heart of Atlanta v. United States and Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises.

Peculiar Rhetoric

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjørn F. Stillion Southard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
American Colonization Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Effort

The African colonization movement plays a peculiar role in the study of racial equality in the United States. For white colonizationists, the movement was positioned as a compromise between slavery and abolition. For free blacks, colonization offered the hope of freedom, but not within America’s borders. Bjørn F. Stillion Southard shows how politics and identity were negotiated in middle of the public discourse on race, slavery, and freedom in America. Operating from a position of relative power, white advocates argued that colonization was worthy of support from the federal government. Stillion Southard analyzes the speeches of Henry Clay, Elias B. Caldwell, and Abraham Lincoln as efforts to engage with colonization at the level of deliberation. Between Clay and Caldwell’s speeches at the founding of the American Colonization Society in 1816 and Lincoln’s final public effort to encourage colonization in 1862, Stillion Southard explores the speeches and writings of free blacks who grappled with colonization’s conditional promises of freedom. The book examines an array of discourses to explore the complex issues of identity facing free blacks who attempted to meaningfully engage in colonization efforts. From a peculiarly voiced Counter Memorial against the ACS, to the letters of wealthy black merchant Louis Sheridan negotiating for his passage to Liberia, to the civically-minded orations of Hilary Teage in Liberia, Peculiar Rhetoric brings into light the intricacies of blacks who attempted to meaningfully engage in colonization.

Aliens in the Academy: A Paradisciplinary Discourse

Prospects ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Bridget Roussell Cowlishaw
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Expertise ◽  
The Public ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Alien Abduction ◽  
Objective Reasoning

In the last decades of the 20th century, authors touting academic credentials made their way into the public discourse on alien abduction. In the process, these academics have manufactured a rhetorical space in which to speak from professional expertise while at the same time enacting rhetorical conventions of contemporary public discourse in the United States that limit the validity of expertise. The authors accomplish this by appealing to the contemporary American taste for democratic discourse. By democratic, I mean discourse that privileges knowledge derived from personal experience rather than from objective reasoning — a way of knowing that requires no credentials but the ability to render oneself a speaking subject.

scholarly journals The Law of the Public School System of the United States

1916 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 706
Author(s):  
Francis M. Burdick ◽  
Harvey Cortlandt Voorhees
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public School ◽  
School System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public School System ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Law
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