When I interviewed a German employee in the Human Resources department of a US – German corporation about workplace policies against sexual harassment, she said that her company did not have one: “Sexual harassment is a cultural problem in the United States, but we don't have that here … We are in Germany, and the Americans are in America.” She expressed a belief shared by many in Germany and Europe: Europeans do not have a problem with “sexual harassment” – it's an American problem. Are Americans simply more puritanical and litigious than Europeans, who are more relaxed and sophisticated in sexual matters, as they would like to think? Have feminists gone too far in the United States, or are employers in Europe fifteen years behind?

The European perspective is surprisingly similar to the accounts found in some mainstream US news magazines, which have blamed feminists for exaggerating an insignificant problem and for bringing political and then sexual correctness to campuses and workplaces in the United States. Yet, no one today will dismiss the potential political significance of allegations of sexual harassment. In 1998, the Supreme Court called President Bill Clinton into court over allegations of sexual harassment made by a former public employee. Clinton explains in his autobiography that when he considered hunting down Osama Bin Laden, advisors suggested it could be interpreted as deflection from the Paula Jones lawsuit and the Monica Lewinsky affair (Clinton 2004: 799).