Priggish, Pitiless, and Punitive or Proud, Passionate, and Purposeful? Dichotomies, Sexual Harassment, and 'Victim-Feminism'

Australia's version of the popular genre of the "victim-feminism" debate played out via a case of sexual harassment in a university college, in which two young women alleged that they had been sexually harassed by the master [chief executive officer] of their college. This event became much more than a matter of parochial interest when one of Australia's best-known novelists decided to write a book about it. The book generated enormous media attention, though this was often very polarized and not very useful in furthering our understanding of sexual harassment. However, there was some interesting debate in the wake of the book that did manage to transcend the dichotomy of "power" versus "powerlessness." La version australienne du debat populaire du « feminisme de victimisation » s'est deroulee par le biais d'un cas de harcelement sexuel dans un college universitaire, dans lequel deux jeunes femmes ont allegue avoir ete harcelees sexuellement par le maitre [p. d.g.] de leur college. Cet evenement a eu une portee qui deborde largement son lieu d'origine lorsque l'une des romancieres les plus connues en Australie a decide d'ecrire un livre a ce sujet. Le livre a ete tresmediatise, bien que les reportages aient ete souvent tres polarises et sans grande utilite pour approfondir notre comprehension du harcelement sexuel. Il y a eu, neanmoins, dans la foulee de la publication du livre, un debat interessant qui a reussi a transcender la dichotomie du « pouvoir » face a « l'impuissance ».