Dr Ashlee Gore is a Lecturer in Criminology at Western Sydney University. Dr Gore's research explores gendered violence with a focus on violence against women and the social, cultural, and legal constructions of responsibility. 

In this Thought Leadership event Dr Gore will present her research into women’s perceptions and/or experiences of sexual harassment in the legal profession, and the role this plays in women’s pathways into/out of the legal profession. Sexual harassment of women is rife in the Australian Legal industry. Conservative research estimates suggest one in four women in the legal profession experience sexual harassment. This is rarely reported and is connected to the high attrition rate of women in the law (Law Council of Australia, 2020). This work is based on interviews with Australian women who are current, emerging, and former legal professionals. The women described a continuum of experiences ranging from ‘everyday’ intrusions to more overt harassment, to extreme experiences of sexual assault by them or others they have witnessed.

According to Dr Gore, the incident-based model for understanding sexual harassment in the workplace fails to capture the full spectrum of gendered and sexualised violations that women experience, and bear witness to, across their professional life course. Nor does it capture the compounding impacts of these experiences on the personal and professional development of young women. Dr Gore explores the need to move beyond incident-based approach to sexual harassment in the legal profession and to conceptualise the ‘continuum’ of sexual violence, gendered harassment, and 'violation' across personal, educational, and professional contexts, and the implications this has for the ‘Law’ as a site of justice for women.

Location Details: WSU Liverpool Campus Level 9, Room 1 or Online via Zoom.