far and beyon and sexual harassment

8/18/2019 Far and Beyon and Sexual Harassment

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Unity Dow’s Far and Beyon’ and Sexual Harassment

How Literature Informs the Power of Feminist Jurisprudence in Legal and Non-Legal Contexts

Catharine A. MacKinnon is the legal scholar who pioneered the feminist theories

underlying sexual harassment law in the United States, where law first recognized sexual

harassment as an affront to human dignity. In Directions in Sexual Harassment Law, her writing

coupled with other scholars’ summations of her previous works demonstrates that she has long

held sexism responsible for sexual harassment’s presence as a social ail that disproportionately

affects women. Patriarchies, by their very name, function to bolster the privilege and power of

men within a society by reducing all non-males to an inferior status. Patriarchies justify

sexualized behavior in contexts that are not explicitly sexual as a result of biology, in which men

are drawn to the innate, “promiscuous” temperament of women, or in which certain men suffer a

personal “tic” that drives them towards sexual behavior (Siegel 17; MacKinnon 673). In which

case, patriarchal societies such as the United States have historically considered instances of

sexual harassment to be “personal matters” that occur privately between two people (Webb 6).

MacKinnon insisted that patriarchies sustain themselves through social constructs, which serve

to imprison women into positions of lower standing in the relationships they have with their male

counterparts (qtd. in Siegel 9). And so, while patriarchal societies cloak sexual harassment under

the guise that inappropriate behavior occurs as the unfortunate, albeit probable, result of raging

hormones, MacKinnon made sexual harassment accountable as one of the social constructs that

oppresses an entire category of people to serve the aims of patriarchy (qtd. in Siegel 9).

The shared experiences of women who lived through periods in which law offered them

no protection from sexual harassment offer a wealth of empirical data from which one can better

understand how sexual harassment operates as a tool to marginalize. In the absence of that


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information, samples from literature that directly address the subject also provide ample

evidence through which to glean useful analysis. Works of literature are useful in that they

provide accounts of insightful events that can be repeatedly investigated because the renditions

of those events are fixed. Literary works are also a rich resource because they can describe

something in very realistic ways even if the stories told are fictional. They also show how the

events that they describe look from a multitude of perspectives if the author writes multiple

viewpoints.

A suitable candidate for the analysis of sexual harassment is Unity Dow’s Far and

Beyon’, which depicts inequality between genders as it occurs in family politics, education, and

the workplace in Botswana near the turn of the millennium. Mosa is the daughter of the story’s

main family, and she is a young woman who recently reentered the local high school after

aborting a pregnancy. Her experiences offer a rich source of information from which one can

study how sex functions within patriarchal societies as an agent of the subjugation and

dehumanization of women.

MacKinnon explains that sex becomes the tradable commodity within the social

constructs that subjugate women, because men use the subservience of women to exploit sex in

exchange for their “material survival” in the world (qtd. in Siegel 9). Unsurprisingly, MacKinnon

offers prostitution and marriage as examples of social constructs that “institutionalize” such an

“interlocked,” and uneven power dynamic between men and women (qtd. in Siegel 9). In

practice, these social paradigms achieve the aim of subduing women by schematically

dehumanizing them-a process that renders them incapable of determining their own positions of

value within society. Marriage in particular serves as a useful custom for understanding how

social constructs are dehumanizing to women, and because the gender roles that are so


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thoroughly dictated within marriage have transcended to informing gender roles within work-

related settings, an analysis of marriage’s debasement of women similarly informs an analysis of

the way in which sexual harassment functions to oppress women within professional contexts

(qtd. in Siegel 10).

Mosa gains keen insight to the way that marriage forces behavioral roles on men and

women. She experiences first-hand the trauma that sexual harassment causes women, and her

travails with the Kasigo Law Office open her eyes to the ways in which sexual harassment limits

women at every level of their experiences, including the very place where the laws that permit

sexual harassment are developed. From these trials Mosa emerges defiantly. She is determined to

circumvent a world that refuses to dignify her suffering, and she rises as a forceful catalyst for

social change. This essay therefore explores the ways that shrewd analysis from several noted

legal scholars like MacKinnon, juxtaposed against an examination of Dow’s work, provides not

just a framework through which to examine how feminist jurisprudence1 confronts the tyranny of

sexual harassment, but also a complex one such that accomplishments in legal reform can be

appreciated from a variety of vantage points.

Again, MacKinnon shows that unequal power relationships between men and women in

any patriarchal context has afforded sexually explicit behavior to occur in a way such that the sex

functions as a tool by one party to control the other, physically, psychologically, and

economically, and hence sex becomes a commodity that women exchange with men for

protection and subsistence (qtd. in Siegel 9). An analysis of the social value of marriage in a

patriarchal society helps explain the ways that sex functions as a discriminatory agent against

1.

Feminist jurisprudence refers to a social practice and legal theory that recognize and denounce the ways

in which law treats human beings differently on the basis of gender. See Andrea Dworkin’s “What Feminist

Jurisprudence Means to Me” for a more in-depth discussion.


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women. Unity Dow’s character Mosa witnesses the customs associated with marriage in her

community, and it opens her eyes to the way that marriage enthralls women into a position of

helplessness and inferiority to men. The idea that marriage could exist for any purpose other than

to reinforce unequal power relationships is squarely denied in the text, a point Dow makes

indisputable when Mosa’s inquiry over whether marriage pertains to “love,” “respect,”

“friendship,” and “companionship” is met with silence (147). In fact, Dow informs the reader

that love is considered a threat to the “relationship between two families” brought together by

Mimi and Tshepo, because Tshepo is instructed not to allow love to “jeopardize” his marriage

(147).

A closer look at the wedding she attends between her cousin Mimi and her friend Tshepo

shows what patriarchal societies expect marriage to be and also how marriage acts as a venue for

subjugation. In particular, there is ample evidence that suggests that marriage can function as a

practice that dehumanizes women by reducing them to an objectified state. The Botswanan

community of Far and Beyon’ describes marriage as a man’s acquisition of a water gourd, in

which the water gourd is the wife. The metaphor that the community uses to explain marriage is

in no way subtle: the marriage between Mimi and Tshepo is literally “announced” as Tshepo

finding a “gourd [that] goes by the name Mimi” in which Tshepo wants “to take the water gourd

for himself; to make Mimi his wife” (Dow 149). The dehumanization inherent in the metaphor is

blatant. Mimi is reduced to the physical object that is a water gourd. She is simply a discovered

object, which shows that the community evaluates brides as a nonliving thing that have no free

will, opinions, or rights in the process of becoming married.

The physical integrity of the water gourd is assessed as a part of the gourd’s worth to the

groom, an appraisal that is symbolic of the sexual purity of the potential wife. “Cracks” in the


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gourd signify children she has had outside of marriage to the groom, and the number of cracks a

water gourd has affects the dower price of the bride (Dow 149). This specific part of the

metaphoric objectification further insists upon the dehumanization of women because it shows

that to this community, women’s only value is in their sexual wholeness and reproductive worth.

The metaphor diminishes women to being only a part of a human being’s whole.

The use of a water gourd as the chosen metaphor shapes this reality. Brides are not

compared water gourds arbitrarily. Rather, the comparison directly labels what the purpose of

marriage is-for a man to acquire an object that helps him carry other things. Hollowed gourds

can carry water, and women can be the vessels that carry new life through pregnancy. The

announcement of Tshepo discovering a water gourd who will be a wife suggests that the

Botswanan society of Far and Beyon’ is offering a verbal declaration that marriage is for a man

and not for a woman, and that the purpose of marriage is for a man to have a family. This is why

the issue of cracks is an important one in the marriage tradition-cracks indicate that the water

gourd (or woman), is no longer new but used, therefore rendering her less valuable.

Marriage also serves to confine Mimi to the boundaries of her own home, which provides

another symbolic example of the ways in which the marriage is subduing her. The advice

delivered to both Mimi and Tshepo indicates to each their spheres of domain and how they

should behave. While it is clear that Mimi’s domain is within the confines of the home because

she is commanded to “make sure the home fires do not burn out,” Tshepo is instructed that he is

free to “go chopping in a neighboring field” and seek “warm food someplace else” in the event

his own wife cannot provide it at home (Dow 154). These points of guidance show that in

addition to her ability to help Tshepo have a family, one of Mimi’s sole functions as a wife is to

make the home a comfortable and inviting place for her husband. Her obligation to tend to the


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fire at home and never let it burn out is symbolic of society’s expectation that the duties of

marriage will keep her within the boundaries of her house.

Even when Mimi will be tempted to flee and cry out because of stress and trouble, her

relatives insist that she “holds on to the house pillar for support and comfort” (Dow 154).

Therefore, the home effectively becomes like a prison cell, with the voices and watchful eyes of

the community acting as the prison guards. Her confinement to the home serves in furtherance to

the claim that marriage traps her into a position of inferiority to her husband. Her spatial

limitation is dehumanizing in that it renders her incapable of pursuing education or a profession.

Her detention forces her to comply with the gender-based expectation that she will be a mother

to Tshepo’s children and the housekeeper to their home, because all other opportunities are

denied her. Her incarceration also bolsters the claim that such dehumanization is objectifying.

The community detains women within their homes in the way that one might lock up a valuable

within a vault or place something precious on a shelf for safe keeping.

Mosa overhears a ritual in which relatives inform Mimi that Tshepo will now be both her

husband and her father. Mimi is not told that she would be both Tshepo’s wife and mother. This

directly shows how the community expects that wives will be completely dependent on their

husbands for survival because wives are reduced to a childlike status as daughters to their

spouses. The fact that Tshepo is not expected to feel the same way about Mimi indicates that the

standard is uneven such that only Mimi is made less powerful in the relationship. Children are

reliant on their parents for everything, so this advice on how the relationship between a man and

a woman should function forces Mimi into the very same position of subordination to Tshepo

that MacKinnon describes. Parents are fully in charge of children until the offspring become

adults. Tshepo is appointed Mimi’s father within the relationship of marriage when the two are


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already adults, which means that he will take the role as her father for as long as they are

married. This is an important part of what Mosa learns about marriage, because it shows not just

how powerless Mimi becomes as a wife, but how powerful Tshepo becomes as her husband, a

dynamic that only serves to further Mimi’s dehumanized state.

The advice that Mimi should tolerate a physically abusive and unfaithful husband

provides a strong example. Tshepo is present when elders tell Mimi that she is not to “overreact”

when Tshepo is violent and adulterous, which Mosa believes will essentially give him “clear

license” to do so (Dow 148). This expectation of allowance and stoicism forces Mimi to yield to

an objectified state. If Mimi does not react to violence and maltreatment, she is shutting down

the human part of her being. Physical objects cannot feel physical or emotional pain, nor can

they respond. And, because Tshepo is now Mimi’s father, he essentially owns her, thus

transforming her physical objectification analogous to property that Tshepo can treat however he

likes.

It is also important to recognize that marriage does not simply confine Mimi within the

boundaries of her home. She is also taught to bear all of the problems within her marriage and

family life in silence. The advice that Mimi ought not to “expose her house to the eyes of the

public,” suggests that she is to experience her suffering privately (154). Her orders to bear her

emotions privately shows not only that her house is to act as her detainment cell, but that her

body and her mind ought to serve as a prison for her emotions. In essence, she is taught to shut

her humanity down. Her relatives literally coach her that only bad wives go “around shouting

their problems to the entire world” which directly highlights that she ought to embrace the

underlying principles of sexism that leave her silent and unfeeling as a legitimate piece of her

identity (Dow 154). What is more, the fact that she receives this education from her own female


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family members demonstrates unavoidably that the tradition of women internalizing sexist views

is a long standing one that is passed down through the generations.

The objectification manifest in spousal relationships is a critical piece in conceptualizing

MacKinnon’s claim that marriage traps women in positions of inferiority and dependence on

men. The various forms of objectification render wives lacking in self-actualization and

independence, and that leaves them powerless to men’s use of their bodies. Thus, it is apparent

that the reason why sex is used as the venue through which to control women in professional

settings is because the practice has been powerfully applied in other social constructs, in which

marriage stands as a prime example.

MacKinnon explains that patriarchal societies model professional roles for men and

women based on the social roles of men and women in marriage. She specifically cites that just

like in marriage, jobs for women in the labor force have been modeled after how women can take

care of the men who are at work (qtd. in Siegel 10). Therefore, the prevalence of sexual

harassment in the workplace is unsurprising for two reasons. One, in settings where there is no

legal mandate forbidding such behavior, sexual harassment serves to perpetuate this

institutionalization of subjugating women to a lower status than men that MacKinnon describes.

Two, sexual harassment achieves that aim by reducing a woman’s value to her physical, sexual

worth. To survive and to make any negotiations on behalf of herself, a woman uses her body in

sexual ways as the bargaining tool, because the social order around her insists she is worth

nothing else.

Feminist scholar Lin Farley explains that in professional contexts, sexual harassment

“functions to keep women down” into those low standing positions that MacKinnon says society


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considers female and that usually exist for the purposes of serving male superiors (qtd. in Siegel

20). The relationship between Mosa and one of her teachers in Far and Beyon’ provides a clear

example of how this has worked in an educational setting.2 Not long after her return to Bana-Ba-

Phefo High School, Mosa is subjected to the sexual advances of Mr. Merake (also called

“Bones”) while she is in the office supply room at school. As Unity Dow describes it, Mosa

“found herself wedged between Mr Merake and a photocopier” (Dow 89). While physically

intimidating her, Mr. Merake goes on to imply he wants a sexual relationship with Mosa.

The unequal power relationship between Mosa and Mr. Merake is clear even without

details of the event in the copy room. Students are inferior to teachers-they are dependent upon

teachers for academic guidance and leadership, and students need productive relationships with

teachers and other academic superiors to make educational progress. The tense and aggressive

scene between Mosa and Mr. Merake in the copy room simply portrays the ways in which Mr.

Merake abuses the authority that he already has over her. Mr. Merake made an implicit request

for sexual activity with Mosa, an offer she found completely “uninvited and unwanted” (Dow

89). Unfortunately, she felt that there was no way to refuse his approach without suffering

considerable consequences, as she considered a flat refusal to a teacher “suicidal” (Dow 89).

Clearly, then, Bones is in a situation to utilize the leverage he has as her superior to illicit activity

from her he otherwise might not be able to induce.

2. American law treats sexual harassment as an illegal form of discrimination as it occurs within specific

settings. Law first began to investigate sexual harassment as a form of discrimination within employment under Title

VII of the United States Constitution, and extending that consideration to educational settings soon followed under

Title IX (Webb 6). As the foundational reasons justifying this type of harassment as a crime originated in the

employment context but also directly applies to education, the discussion in this essay is derived from historical and

scholarly commentary on Title VII.


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This specific type of maltreatment is called “quid pro quo” harassment in American legal

terms, and it refers to the way that victims of sexual harassment are forced into exchanging sex

for some other necessity that the harasser has the power to withhold (Webb 8-9). When Mosa is

fretting over whether or not to deny Mr. Merake, she is worrying about this exact issue. She is

wondering painfully about the things that are at stake in her rejection, and she names beatings

and poor exam scores as examples (Dow 89). She refers to a refusal of his requests as “suicidal”

because of the damage he could cause her academic career if she denies him (Dow 89). The

authority he has over her as her teacher endows him with the ability to make the school year

“miserable” for Mosa, and his ability to prevent her from succeeding academically shows quite

clearly what a difficult predicament Mosa is in: with either choice, she is risking something

integral to her life (Dow 89). If she sells her body she will feel as if she had degraded herself,

and if she honors the sanctity of her physical being she will lose everything she has worked so

hard to achieve as a student. “Quid pro quo” refers to Mr. Merake coercing sexual availability

from Mosa in exchange for her academic survival-he is forcing a trade of “this for that” (Webb

8).

Farley’s description of sexual harassment implies that somehow Mr. Merake abuses

Mosa for the purposes of keeping her in a subordinated state. His behavior towards her threatens

to have that effect because he is holding hostage the opportunity for Mosa to have a healthy and

positive educational experience that is based solely on the merits of her academic achievements.

Mosa desperately wants to graduate from Bana-Ba-Phefo, and that goal is threatened by Mr.

Merake’s debauchery. The physical aggression in the copy room is brief, but the fear that it will

occur repeatedly and with potentially increased violence (lest there be dire consequences that

threaten her education), causes Mosa lasting distress. And, as if this fear were not enough to


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tolerate, the initiation of sex in the relationship between Mosa and Mr. Merake is, in and of itself,

a distraction from Mosa’s studies. Therefore, sexual harassment serves as an obstacle to keep

Mosa from thriving academically, and thus “functions to keep [her] down” in the position of a

student who cannot move on in life (qtd. in Siegel 20). That Mosa would have to consider the use

her body as a negotiating chip to finish her education is another example of how patriarchal

societies leverage sex from women as a way of forcing their subordination to men.

From a surface level perspective, it might seem like what happens between Mosa and Mr.

Merake is born from an unfortunate penchant of Mr. Merake’s, of which Mosa is simply an

unlucky target. For decades, this is exactly how the American courts that first investigated sexual

harassment understood similar testimonies. Siegel explains that because the harassment

perpetrated against women in these instances took on a sexual form, the harassment was

immediately presumed an issue of “desire,” which reduced sexual harassment to isolated

occurrences of men acting on impulses of lust (Siegel 17). In the American case of Corne vs.

Bausch and Lomb, Inc. (1975), for instance, the court considered the behavior of the accused,

who is very much like Mr. Merake, to be “peculiar,” but not necessarily suggestive of a larger

systematic problem that disproportionately affects women (Webb 6).

At the time of Corne vs. Bausche and Lomb, Inc. (1975), eleven years had transpired

since the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is the piece of Title VII in the United

States Constitution that makes class-based discrimination an illegal form of persecution in

employment settings. As of the mid 1970s, courts had yet to recognize that sexual harassment

can operate as a mode of wide reaching discrimination (Webb 5). In Corne vs. Bausche and

Lomb, Inc., two women filed Title VII violation claims against their employer after they resigned

from their jobs because they were frequently harassed by their supervisor, but the court


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determined that his behavior was nothing other than a “proclivity” for which the company could

not be held liable (Webb 6). It was not until the next year that an American court (Williams vs.

Saxbe (1976)) recognized that sexual harassment is discriminatory because it often punishes

women in ways that it does not hurt men who are “similarly situated” (Webb 6).

The ongoing relationship between Mosa and Mr. Merake in Far and Beyon’ provides

additional examples of the ways in which lawless settings complicate life for women. That Mr.

Merake’s depraved behavior denies Mosa the ability to have a free, safe educational experience

is apparent. His corruption directly mirrors Farley’s description of sexual harassment operating

as a tool to “keep women down” (qtd. in Siegel 20). His harassment also functions in a second

way that Farley describes-Bones uses harassment as a method to push Mosa “out” and exclude

her from school; when Farley uses the word “out,” she means that sexual harassment is used as a

tool to exclude women from positions that typically have only been occupied by men (qtd. in

Siegel 20).

When traditional methods of power are denied men as an option for subjugating women,

those men will use sex as a way of excluding and invalidating women in professional spheres

(Siegel 21). The example of the relationship between Mosa and Mr. Merake illustrates exactly

how that happens. Take, for instance, what occurs when Mosa defies Mr. Merake’s advances.

She makes excuses and avoids his presence whenever possible, but she is ultimately made to

suffer unbearable degradation in front of her entire class as a part of his rebuke. In the classroom,

shortly after the incident in the copy room, Mr. Merake openly “mortified” Mosa over the issue

of her abortion and removal from Bana-Ba-Phefo High School.


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Because this type of sexual harassment is often nonphysical and indirect in nature, its

validity as a method of sexual harassment has been contested. Siegel asserts, however, that the

different nature of this form does not detriment its potency (22). The purpose of these indirect

forms of harassment is to summon the memory of or a vivid depiction of physical, sexual

domination reminiscent of more blatant forms of provocation. The intention of these insults is to

incite strong feelings of discomfort and rejection, and the sexual nature of the harassment is

psychological.

This form of harassment is often used when the harasser does not have the same

opportunity to exert power over the harassed and that is what Mr. Merake does. He resorts to a

less direct method of bullying to enforce his authority over Mosa because he is not able to

procure direct sexual contact with her. His cruelty is a fairly normal part of the classroom

experience. But this moment’s level of brutality is severe. There is no mistaking that on this

particular occasion Mr. Merake is trying to wound and shame Mosa publicly. Mr. Merake’s

intent to humiliate Mosa is obvious in Dow’s choice of words; she explains that Mr. Merake

taunts Mosa with a tone of voice that “dripped with meanness” (91). This specific incident is

unique because Mr. Merake is not just taunting Mosa, he is bringing up the incident of her

abortion to remind her that her sexual self is constantly available for public speculation. The

level of malice that he chooses to employ also operates to show Mosa that she will be punished

for her audacity in refusing him, which directly reflects that this type of harassment serves to

conjure up uncomfortable memories that are sexual in nature.

It is not obvious, but Mosa has, in fact, claimed a role that is typically employed only by

males. Her rejection of Mr. Merake’s advances is infuriating to Mr. Merake because she denied

him her body. But, he also seeks to punish her because she had the wherewithal to deny him in


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the first place. His labeling of her as an “arrogant slut” after she rejects him offers conclusive

proof (Dow 92). Such a phrase illustrates that Mr. Merake sees Mosa not as a full human being

but simply a sexual entity that exists for the purposes of his exploitation. It also suggests that in

his mind, her defiance is outrageous because she is inferior to him and therefore not entitled to

any kind of self-determination. His tormenting proves effective as a tool to push Mosa out, as

Mosa leaves the classroom, “determined not to cry” in front of him and her class (Dow 91).

Farley’s description of the ways in which sexual harassment operates to oppress women

is quite clear. Sexual harassment can obviously operate to oppress and exclude women within

professional settings. American law considers exclusionary practices that are based on emotional

discomfort and that are reminiscent of physical sexual harassment to be type of oppression that

creates a “hostile environment” (Webb 8). Mosa has undeniably defied traditional gender roles in

her determination decide her own fate, and Mr. Merake tries to punish her in kind by making her

feel as though she does not belong in the place she wants to be the most. The legal recognition of

harassment based on a “hostile environment” is important (Webb 8). The example of the

relationship between Mr. Merake and Mosa shows the extent to which he can exert abuse and

without such measure, women like Mosa have no option for recourse.

Patriarchal societies do not often root out sexual harassment as a legitimate social woe

because women are regularly held complicit in their involvement in the incidents of persecution.

Siegel explains, for instance, that sexual harassment was not considered a form of class-based

discrimination because the way that society thought about the underlying issues. Siegel says, for

instance, that sexual harassment is not about “desire;” it is about “power” (Siegel 17). In the case

of Corne vs. Bausche and Lomb, Inc., the behavior of the supervisor was thought to be born out

of lust and lack of self-control, but in actuality, he was asserting control over the two women


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(Webb 5-6). In the example of Mosa and Mr. Merake from Far and Beyon’, there is little

evidence to suggest that Mr. Merake pursues Mosa because of physical attraction. To the

contrary, everything Dow presents in the text indicates that he preys upon Mosa if for no other

reason than because he can. Mr. Merake assaults dozens of other female students.

Along similar lines, Catharine A. MacKinnon cited this reasoning of classifying sexual

aggression as an oddity to be a continuation of the long standing tradition of evaluating sexual

behavior as a “moral foible” and not as a tool for discrimination (674). She argues that the

former is problematic because “sexual abuse…is often attributed to the moral character of the

actors rather than to their relative positions of inequality” and therefore disregards the fact that

many who perpetrate sexual offenses do so because the authority they have over their targets

makes the behavior possible (MacKinnon 676).

It is clearly inferable from MacKinnon’s discussion that this common evaluation of

sexual harassment as a morality issue opens a grave problem for the harassed, because the

morality of the victim is suddenly a valid factor in determining if the behavior is acceptable

because the harassed person deserves it. If Mr. Merake has the power to determine that his own

sexual behavior is permissible, he also has the power to determine if Mosa deserves the treatment

he gives her. Mr. Merake believes that Mosa has no right to deny her body to him because he

thinks of her as “damaged goods” (Dow 92). He ponders how she “could possibly think she was

too good for him” in light of her abortion, a description which offers ample proof that he finds

her lack of moral standing to be justification for his lechery (Dow 92).

Mr. Merake’s view on the subject is reflective of how the same issue of standards

functions within American law. In an effort to promote justice and fair experiences for all


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persons, the United States legal system often relies on what a “reasonable creature” can be

expected to do or tolerate in a given situation (Kamir 566). However, as legal scholar Orit Kamir

points out in her essay “Dignity, Respect, and Equality in Israel’s Sexual Harassment Law,” the

viewpoint of a “reasonable creature” within a society like that of Far and Beyon’ is a man’s

viewpoint, which is not universal to the experiences of all people (566). Mosa, after all, is a

reasonable person, but she does not consider yielding to the sexual advances of an educational

superior to be reasonable in the slightest. In her mind, reciprocating his approach with resistance

is the only reasonable thing to do. She felt that the abortion, which was the very thing that Mr.

Merake thought qualified her for a sexual relationship, was a reason that she would be spared

such advances. She thought that the abortion would act as “protection,” because culturally the

abortion made her “unclean,” a conclusion that shows how much two people can have

completely different viewpoints over the same thing (Dow 89). Mr. Merake believes her

“unclean” nature disqualifies her from being selective about sexual partners, whereas she

believes her “unclean” nature makes her undesirable (Dow 92; Dow 89).

Nonetheless, because Mosa and Mr. Merake live in a patriarchal society, it is Mr.

Merake’s perspective on the matter that would be considered legitimate. No matter how

ludicrous it seems, such a system that utilizes a “reasonable creature” standard “unfairly submits

the plaintiff, rather than the harasser, to the test of reasonableness” (Kamir 566). In other words,

it would hardly be suspicious that Mr. Merake was interested in an “unclean” girl (Dow 89).

Rather, the standard of reasonableness renders society suspicious of the victim. The community

of Far and Beyon’ would likely believe that Mosa invited Mr. Merake’s behavior because of the

abortion. The logic follows that where a woman is willing to have an abortion, she is likely

willing to engage in other questionable behaviors.


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Evidently, Mosa’s abortion both works to reduce her to “damaged goods” unworthy of

determining her own sexual availability and also works to indicate that she is sexually loose and

amoral, which (again) signifies the ways in which sexual harassment functions to dehumanize

women, because it renders them incapable of deciding who and what they are (Dow 92). In

reality, it does not matter whether or not Mosa had an abortion. Because sexual harassment is

about power, and not desire, the issue of whether or not Mosa has been pregnant in the past is

irrelevant; Mr. Merake establishes his power over several of his female students, so Mosa would

have been a target of his baseness simply because she is female.

All the same, in her essay “Who Says? Legal and Psychological Constructions of

Women’s Resistance to Sexual Harassment,” Louise F. Fitzgerald describes the lack of control

that Mosa has in determining how the world perceives her. She explains that women have

historically had to prove that instances of sexual harassment were unwelcome in order to justify

those moments as harassing (95). She points to arbitrary items like “speech or dress” that offer

what she calls “implied consent” of sexual activity to the harasser, and she explains how

problematic those items are because the implied consent granted by those items are often

superior to any verbal rejection a woman makes towards sexual advances (95). Mosa’s sexual

past arbitrarily offers indirect consent in the same way. Her sexual history leads Mr. Merake to

believe that she is sexually available all of the time, even though Mosa should have the right to

choose of her sexual encounters individually. Mr. Merake “expected her to surrender to his

advances,” especially because in his mind she was lucky that he was “willing to mess around

with an unclean girl” (Dow 92). This section from the text shows clearly that regardless of any

verbal mutterings from her that she did not want to be in Mr. Merake’s company, Mr. Merake

believed that she owed herself to him.


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It is no wonder that Kamir goes on to add in her essay that the “reasonable creature”

practice has no place in American law (566). Mr. Merake’s behavior should not be tolerated

because it is views such as his that dictate what is normal. Thus Kamir insists that “reasonable

creature” standards should be retired from American legal practices-they undermine one of the

very purposes of American sexual harassment law, which is to “expose [these] common attitudes

as patriarchal” and thus unrepresentative of a larger whole (566).

There are details from the scene between Mosa and Mr. Merake in the copy room that

reflect how much, just as it happens in marriage, that women internalize sexual harassment and

allow it to pass on overtime. A female faculty member named Ms. Bontsi walks in on Mosa and

Mr. Merake and half-heartedly breaks up their physical confrontation. Although her presence

prevents the situation from escalating, Dow makes it apparent that the woman feels powerless to

make any real difference in the way of stopping the harassment altogether; after all, Dow

explains that she “probably had to deal with similar encounters in her days as a student” and in

Ms. Bontsi’s mind, “being pressured into sex…was just one of the many hurdles of attaining

secondary education (90). This description of her thoughts shows that she finds the harassment

normal because it does not stand out as any more problematic than other challenges she faces in

life.

That patriarchies aim to sustain the power of men through social paradigms that hold

women captive in positions of lesser power is irrefutable. The wedding between Mimi and

Tshepo strongly confirms that marriage grants Tshepo authority and freedom while

simultaneously robbing Mimi of them. The entire tradition surrounding marriage serves to

dehumanize Mimi by objectifying her and reducing her worth to that which is sexual. Marriage

traps Mimi within the confines of her home, and her entire purpose in life becomes Tshepo and


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his wellbeing. She is even expected to sacrifice her emotional self in service to his happiness and

the stability of their marriage, which further portrays how marriage makes Mimi inferior because

the custom suppresses her humanity.

Sexual harassment in the professional setting of education provides another example of

the way in which patriarchal social practices serve to bolster the power of men by suppressing

women. Because professional roles for men and women are based on similar roles manifest in

marriage, sex functions in similar ways to objectify women and reduce their value. Mosa’s

experiences with sexual harassment exemplify this claim-Mr. Merake challenges Mosa’s human

worth by forcing her into a relationship that only acknowledges who she is through her body as a

sexual object. Her ability to navigate a professional realm for her own purposes is threatened by

Mr. Merake’s lechery. The way the world works in the patriarchal society they live in reinforces

the advantage that Mr. Merake has in exploiting Mosa’s body because his views are considered

universal and by contrast Mosa’s are considered unreasonable and therefore less believable.

Sexual harassment produces some of the same consequences as marriage. Mimi and

Mosa are both made helpless by their experiences to the extent that they are reduced to a sub-

human standard. Yet at the same time, both are held responsible for what happens to them. Mimi

is repeatedly told that she picked Tshepo, and so her marriage is a result of her own doing. Mr.

Merake considers Mosa to be sexually available because of her mere status as a woman. These

examples do not reveal blatant dehumanization and subjugation as unfortunate byproducts of

social practices from long ago. Far and Beyon’ was published within the past 25 years, which

makes the effect of the novel not just relevant by its potent writing but powerful because of its

relevancy to the 21st century. Practices that have been around for centuries still serve the same

purpose of strengthening male power by depriving women of it.


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Ultimately Mosa and some of her peers decide to take a public stand against the

discrimination they experience. It is rather remarkable that Mosa and her peers have the resolve

to expose injustice, because the misogyny intrinsic to the patriarchal values that dominate their

daily lives teaches them to internalize their feelings of low value and helplessness. If the

oppressed can be taught that the reasons begetting their dehumanization are justified, then the

system of oppression that dictates them as lesser can sustain. Take for instance Mimi’s marriage

to Tshepo, or the revealing nature of Ms. Bontsi’s thoughts about sexual harassment. Every

message that Mimi receives from the community that indicates she deserves fewer liberties than

her husband is coupled with the message that it is her responsibility to accept that fate willingly

and without objection. Ms. Bontsi, on the other hand, looks upon the scene between Mr. Merake

and Mosa “without any sign of surprise” which shows that she has internalized sexual

harassment as a normal part of her because she feels no portion of shock (Dow 90). In turn, her

lack of emotional registration teaches Mosa that women cannot necessarily be counted upon to

provide rescue and support.

There are countless other examples of situations that encourage the women of Far and

Beyon’ to believe that what they experience is typical and is not to be challenged. Sexist rhetoric

grows in power with age, as it generates expectation based on precedent. Mosa’s brother Stan

feels helpless of the way that society treats women through marriage, which exemplifies the

persuasive power of precedent. He firmly believes that the sexism fundamental to his

community’s view of marriage is valid or must be tolerated simply because, as he puts it, “people

have been doing things this way for centuries” and because “they are not just going to change

overnight” (Dow 156). If Stan feels that the repetitive nature of his community’s cultural


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practices makes those practices unstoppable, then it would not be unusual for Mosa to feel the

same way.

Thus Mosa’s sense of what is fair and what is not, and her inclination to label unequal

treatment as unjust, is noteworthy because she was trained to believe that her experiences are

valid. In response to everything they experience in school, Mosa and her friends plan a secret arts

exhibition that exposes the sexual abuse within the school to their entire community. In a

stunning display of dancing, painting, and poetry, the female students of Bana-Ba-Phefo High

School shed light on extraordinary injustice. They reveal the derogatory treatment of women for

the systemic nightmare that it is, and their choice to break the silence through art is strategic.

Kamir observes that the “United States experience with sexual harassment has

established that feminist jurisprudence can help the law respond to women’s experiences and

make a significant difference in terms of social reality” (563). Within the history of that law in

the United States, feminists took what little portion of legal leeway that existed within the

ambiguous language in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and used it as the leverage point through which

to assist the law in making that enormous cultural difference (Siegel 8). Sexual harassment is

now considered an illegal form of discrimination in employment and education, and both

employers and schools, in addition to the individual perpetrators, can be held liable for incidents

of sexual harassment. Since the time of Corne vs. Bausche and Lomb, Inc., women have been

able to prove how sexual harassment has an excessively discriminatory effect on women in all of

the ways that MacKinnon has described.

The world of Far and Beyon’ does not offer women any legal protection from sexual

harassment and other forms of discrimination that are based on sex, nor is there any legal


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window of opportunity through which feminist jurisprudence can gain purchase for establishing

a broader reaching revolution in gender politics. The leverage Mosa needs to exact the reform

her community needs to better treat its women is unavailable. While she is first prompted to visit

the Kasigo Law Office to inquire about redress for her experiences with sexual harassment at

school, Mosa quickly realizes that the very harassment she is hoping to bring to justice prevails

within the legal system as well. Her consternation and bitter weariness over the harassment’s

existence, “even within the cradle of justice,” provide ample of evidence of her despair (Dow

177). Mosa witnesses first- hand the way that the Botswana legal system treats women legal

professionals like her friend Julia (whom Mosa feels is “at some disadvantage” for being “young

and female”) and female plaintiffs (Dow 173). Dow demonstrates the justice system’s swift

ability to dismiss female legal professionals and their legal clients through a particularly vicious

male judge who tells the court that women “are just confused” about the real purpose of the law

(174). The same judge irrationally insists that all women are in on the same conspiratorial plot to

bring nuisance into his courtroom when he groups two unaffiliated female attorneys together and

squashes their protests by saying “don’t deny it” (Dow 175).

In spite of the negative reinforcement that she receives, Mosa is not deterred from

wanting to make a difference. Rather, she learns from her attorney role models what feminist

scholar Andrea Dworkin preaches as an essential part to instigating just reform through feminist

jurisprudence-that those who are capable of fighting need to keep on fighting for the voiceless

(46). Dworkin asserts in her essay, “What Feminist Jurisprudence Means to Me” that “learning

how to confront male power” is the key to initiating any kind of sustainable change, and her

words are echoed in the guidance Mosa receives from Julia, who recognizes that quitting is not

an option (46). Julia asks passionately about her situation, “what choices do you think I have?”


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which shows that abandoning her profession is not something she would consider (Dow 177). By

rhetorically asking what other, non-existent options she has, Julia is validating that perseverance

is the only route for change.

Mosa clearly listens and learns from Julia, as she decides not to give up her fight for

justice in spite of crippling odds. In any case, the arts expose that Mosa plans shows that such

pre-law circumstances in which there is no room for legal change to flourish do not make

openings for feminist jurisprudence unavailable. The manifestation of feminist jurisprudence

must simply appear in a different form. In order for the law to do what Siegel says it can do and

interpose “in the social world it is describing” to correct sweeping social injustices, it must first

recognize that those prejudices exist (Siegel 2). Spreading awareness of injustice through

storytelling, which is an act of consciousness raising,3 thus becomes the key instrument in the

early stages of confronting systems of oppression, as it must predate the efforts of feminist

jurisprudence to initiate sweeping change through legislation.

Unity Dow clearly accomplishes feminist jurisprudence in Far and Beyon’ through the

act of consciousness raising. The exploration of the text considered from the angle of sexual

harassment issues in the United States the value of courage and perseverance. Mosa understands

this. She finds strength in a multitude of voices, a voice in the display of art, and the ability to

reclaim her humanity in the exhibition of resilience and nerve. Her experiences as a character

within a novel are reflective of a form within a form: what she is accomplishing as a character

within a story is a microcosmic version of what Unity Dow asserts in the impact of Far and

3. Consciousness raising is a way of describing how women have used awareness spreading as a tool for

shaping reality with a collective voice. This storytelling method has proved to be an imperative part of the success of

feminist jurisprudence in combatting social injustices like sexual harassment. See Chapter 1 of Introduction to

Feminist Legal Theory by Martha Chamallas for more discussion on consciousness raising.


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Beyon’- both women are critiquing the social structures that engender staggering tyranny through

the unconventional form of art.

The social structures fundamental to patriarchal societies serve to dehumanize women

through objectification. This essay demonstrates the ways in which sexual harassment operates

to make such objectification physical in nature. When dehumanization functions to reduce

women to physical objects, women become disenfranchised from the basic dignities afforded by

human rights. Physical objectification also renders them incapable of suffering criminal offenses,

and it renders them incapable of self-determination. Acts of consciousness raising are therefore

powerful implements because they stand in direct defiance of these discriminatory aims. Courage

is a quality that only a human being can experience and utilize. When employed, it gives a

person great power. For women to have courage and to show it validates not just their inalienable

right to humanity, but also their ability to subvert prejudice in effective ways. Courage enables

Mosa and her peers to expose sexual harassment as a patriarchal practice that dehumanizes

women. No matter how much patriarchal systems function to undermine the human value of

women, feminist jurisprudence will always exist to disrupt those efforts and reestablish equality

in turn.


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Works Cited

Chamallas, Martha. Introduction to Feminist Legal Theory. 3rd ed. New York: Wolters Kluwer

Law & Business, 2013. Print.

Dow, Unity. Far and Beyon’. North Melbourne: Spinifex, 2001. Print.

Dworkin, Andrea. “What Feminist Jurisprudence Means to Me.” Directions in Sexual

Harassment Law. Eds. Reva B. Siegel and Catharine A. MacKinnon. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2004. 43-46. Print.

Fitzgerald, Louise F. “So What? Legal and Psychological Constructions of Women’s Resistance

to Sexual Harassment.” Directions in Sexual Harassment Law. Eds. Reva B. Siegel and

Catharine A. MacKinnon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. 94-110. Print.

Kamir, Orit. “Dignity, Respect, and Equality in Israel’s Sexual Harassment Law.” Directions in

Sexual Harassment Law. Eds. Reva B. Siegel and Catharine A. MacKinnon. New Haven:

Yale University Press, 2004. 561-581. Print.

MacKinnon, Catharine A. Afterward. Directions in Sexual Harassment Law. By eds. Reva B.

Siegel and Catharine A. MacKinnon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. 672-704.

Print.

Siegel, Reva B. Introduction. Directions in Sexual Harassment Law. By eds. Reva B. Siegel and

Catharine A. MacKinnon. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. 1-39. Print.

Webb, Susan L. Step Forward . United States of America: MasterMedia Limited, 1991. Print.

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