The suit pitted a handful of female workers against their employer, Eveleth Mines in northern Minnesota, and hinged on both physical and psychological abuse that would have sent most people, men included, running for the exits. North Country is one of those films that strive to tell a hard, bitter story with as much uplift as possible to keep the viewers attention. The men at the mine don't want the handful of women the government has forced the company to employ working there, supposedly taking jobs from them and invading their rough and ready, male-dominated environment.
Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment. (http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sex.html) Title VII of the Civil Rights neither required nor prohibits affirmative action but the Equal Employment Opportunity helped women but some employees thought the company used a quota system, which would violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
There are two types of sexual harassment in the workplace, quid-pro-quo