Abstract

In the deviance literature, sexual assaults at work have not been given the sustained attention that harm to property or violation of production guidelines has received. This omission suggests that sexual harassment is considered normative and that when women fail to accommodate this reality, it is the survivor rather than the perpetrator who is considered deviant. This article reports on 64 cases of attempted or completed rape in a sample of heterosexual and lesbian women workers in a wide range of occupations. Two atypical responses, quitting the job or filing a complaint as a result of a workplace sexual assault, highlight the process by which informal deviance defining occurs in everyday interactions at work.