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Sexual Harassment: ‘Illegal or Just Sleazy?’

Last year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tried and failed to advance an omnibus women’s rights agenda called the Women’s Equality Act. The ten-point bill — covering pay equity, workplace and housing discrimination, reproductive rights, and sexual harassment — passed in the State Assembly but failed in the Republican-led State Senate due to a provision that would codify the abortion rights decided in Roe v. Wade into state law. A coalition of women’s groups is “relaunching” the act in 2014, WNYC reports, with the hopes a new online campaign will encourage New Yorkers to lobby their Senators to vote for it.

The campaign includes this video, which calls attention to a handful of loopholes the bill would make illegal — as opposed to merely sleazy — including one that says sexual harassment is only illegal in workplaces with more than four employees. (Because otherwise it’s like a last-woman-and-man-on-earth thing?) Over 60 percent of New York State employers have fewer than four employees. Hey, the video stars the actors from that Manic Pixie Prostitute video!

Sexual Harassment: ‘Illegal or Just Sleazy?’