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“Does She Think She’s Working in a Factory?” Gender, Sexuality, and Class in the White-Collar Office in the U.S.

This paper explores how gender and social class affected white-collar women’s attitudes towards workplace romance and sexuality from the late nineteenth century through the 1980s. Throughout this period, women who were especially concerned about their class identity policed their and their co-workers’ interactions with men to ensure the office was sexually modest and sufficiently dignified.  During this period, too, professionally ambitious women were particularly sensitive to the possible negative implications of their relationships with the men for whom or with whom they worked. This century-long continuity is the result of the lasting suspicion that women would use their sexual wiles to get ahead.  Moreover, throughout this century, sex provided ammunition for those who argued that women were unsuited for business—whether because they needed protection from lecherous men or because men needed protection from ambitious women who would use sex to advance. The connections between gender, class, and sexuality also affected women’s experience of exploitative or unwanted sexual behaviors.  Women’s concern with their social status and upholding sexual propriety limited their ability to respond to unwanted sexual aggression and could make it difficult for other women to support those who found themselves on the receiving end of unwelcome advances.