Abstract:  This paper investigates the relationship between feminists within the state and activists outside by exploring the role of state offices for women in the process of addressing sexual harassment in the workplace as a social, political and legal issue. The German Ministry of Women first took an initiative to bring sexual harassment on the political agenda in 1987, when the minister commissioned a nation wide research study, just after the 1986 European Parliament passed a recommendation on sexual harassment. Policy changes regarding sexual harassment in the workplace first took place on the city and communal levels in the early 1990s. In 1994 the German parliament adopted an amendment adding a right of action in respect of sexual harassment to the Second Equality Law on Women and Men in the workplace.

Based on 60 interviews with equality officers and women's advocates, feminist lawyers and (political) activists this study explores the ways in which feminists within the state have been shaped gender politics.  I argue that these offices for women have played a central role in the formulation and implementation of institutional measures against sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual harassment is a key example to analyze
how women's advocates within the state were able to mobilize different feminist actors outside and inside the state.  By organizing conferences and meetings on sexual harassment, the offices helped to create and maintain networks between the autonomous women's movement, specifically the movement against violence against women and women within labor unions and political parties.  In order to address sexual harassment in the specific German institutional setting of union-employer relations and legal tradition of workplace regulations this bridging effort was essential in bringing sexual harassment on the political agenda.  Further implications for other policy areas are discussed.