It may have been an auspicious alignment of the stars and planets, or perhaps one of those inscrutable moments where the apparently discrete categories of life and art bleed into one. Whatever the cause, the screening of consecutive Ally McBeal episodes focusing on sexual harassment in the Cage and Fish legal corporation over the last two weeks neatly coincided with a national campaign by Malaysian women's organisations calling for legislation on sexual harassment.

I must celebrate such serendipity because it gives me the chance to expurgate any residual ill-feelings I have harboured towards the overpaid writers, producers, cast and crew of the above-mentioned programme, whilst making a timely statement about some of the complex issues surrounding sexual harassment that Malaysians face today.

Recently, Ally's firm was hit by a sexual harassment suit. Elaine, Ally's support staff, complained that the male partners' fixation upon the appearance of the mail delivery woman was creating a hostile working environment and thus, was grounds for sexual harassment. The usual problems of evidentiary requirements and witnesses were easily overcome by Elaine's lawyer screening highlights from the footage of four security cameras (as you do).

Of course, being the insidious anti-feminist, glorified bitch-fight that the show is, Elaine did not take a case against the firm rather she demanded that the mail deliverer, either modify her dressing (she was clad in all of a white T-shirt and jeans, would you believe) or be terminated. If no action was taken the staff would stage a walk-out.

In one clean sweep, the script writers managed to reinscribe the myth that sexual harassment is contingent upon what a woman wears, and undo the years of advocacy that feminists have undertaken to repudiate this (ph)allacy (sorry, I can't resist a bad pun).

Furthermore, the old stalwart of feminist discourse - "the personal is political" - was also swiftly thrown out the window when Ally calls Elaine's bluff by convincing her that she is nothing more than a sad and desperate attention seeker. Ally constructs Elaine as a vulnerable female twit, a try-hard cheerleader who couldn't make the team and has spent the rest of her life on the bench trying to incite the masses through disingenuous crusades.

This depoliticised and decontextualised analysis is, of course, swallowed by Elaine, albeit reluctantly, and next thing you know, everyone is at the bar after work back-slapping and listening to the good ol' hits sung by that blonde balladeer with an ingratiating manner who really needs to get with the times.

As if that wasn't enough to churn the stomach, in this week's episode, the mail deliverer takes a harassment case, not against the partners whose lecherous looks are documented on camera, but against Elaine et al - the women who threatened legal action in the previous episode.

She claimed that the looks from the women "seemed mean" and yada, yada, yada. created a hostile working environment, of course. Having pitted women against women as an underhanded means by which to expose the faultlines in feminist argument, the programme then goes on to present the workplace as a highly sexualised but ultimately innocuous environment: the senior partner touches Georgia's throat in a somewhat unorthodox act which he finds sexually arousing; the counsel for the plaintiff's studied looks are misinterpreted as a same-sex advance by Georgia; the narration of a dirty joke becomes the site for a gladiatorial contest for laughs between Ally and her housemate.

In a work environment where sex is common currency we are asked to believe that the crude lumbering mechanism called the law cannot cope with the rich complexity of heterosexual, homosexual and even homosocial relations in the 21st century.

This point is driven home when the senior partner reinstates the mail deliverer with her job (she loses her case on the grounds of a technicality discovered by the competent but still sexy Ally), and apologises for seeing her as nothing more than a sex object. Upon hearing this Ally lays a gentle kiss on the senior partner's cheek, a gesture intended to indicate how moved she was by his magnanimity and humility, and designed to signal to the viewer that these are precisely the simple but sublime gestures that would be threatened by the tyranny of feminist doctrine in the workplace.

The underlying assumption in all of this is that the lawyers, partners and employees of Cage and Fish Legal Corporation operate in a hip and happening, non-hierarchical work environment. If in doubt on the issue of sexual harassment, women are best advised to firstly consult Oprah to see whether they suffer from any residual and unresolved neuroses that could explain away or neutralise their sense of outrage.

They should then speak directly to the alleged aggressor who will no doubt be bowled over by their eloquence and the length of their mini-skirt, and after explaining that it was all just a joke, he will proceed to correct the aberrant behaviour that the women found so disconcerting.

So what relevance has Ally McBeal's nave brand of sexual libertarianism upon the landscape of human resources management, industrial relations and women's empowerment in Malaysia ?

After all, isn't the backlash that we see in America a product of a very specific history of feminist intervention and the highly publicised inquiries into abuses of power and sexual harassment evinced in such cases as the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas lawsuit.

Unfortunately, the nuances of the debate in the US are rarely elaborated or studied in Malaysia. Instead, male and female members of management in corporations and small businesses, and even in government throughout the country are far too quick to conjure up the spectre of "US-style harassment hysteria" and "victim panic".

The issues are complex, we are constantly told, and legislation is not the way to deal with the problem. Besides, the more you inform workers of these problems, the more likely they are to report problems. And in a country where the aggressive cutting back of wages is euphemistically termed a "competitive edge" we wouldn't want a small issue like gender violence to scare away our multinational friends

The Malaysian workplace, unlike that of celluloid fantasy, is unapologetically hierarchical and unforgivably male-dominated. Granted that sex and sexuality are amorphous, hydra-like entities that lie at the heart of most forms of social communication. Nevertheless, there are structural inequities that inscribe and perpetuate the subordinate position of women in the workforce.

Sexual harassment is shaped by the distribution of social, political, economic, and legal power. The recognition of sexual harassment as an insidious presence in the workplace amounts to a recognition that sex and sexuality are not confined to the private" realm of the home. A great deal of what we understand about sexuality is produced and perpetuated in so-called "public"' spaces such as the factory floor, the newsroom, the office etc.

Ally may have us believe that women are autonomous agents who strike individual contracts with their employers and negotiate their own sexual liberty with as much ease as they select cosmetic products off the supermarket shelf. However, the illusion of choice under capitalism translates into an illusion of equal bargaining power in the workplace. There is no such thing as free and liberated sex, for sex in and of itself is a product of the bigotry, passion, violence, and joy that mark human experience.

Legislation cannot control sexual desire nor should it seek to. However, it can moderate to some extent the systemic social ills that masquerade as harmless sex drive. It can provide a non-negotiable bottom-line, beyond which all harassment and violence will not be tolerated. It can institute an independent avenue of redress for complainants. And it can begin the process by which we analyse power in the workplace and openly acknowledge the role of gender and sexuality in workplace relations.

The nation-wide signature campaign on sexual harassment is running until June 28th. The petition calls for legislation on sexual harassment to reinforce the current non-compulsory Code on the Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. The signatures collected will be presented with a memorandum to the Minister of Human Resources. If you would like to sign a petition please telephone All Women's Action Society of Malaysia (03) 757-0221 or email awam@po.jaring.my or contact the Women's Crisis Centre in Penang on (04) 228 0342.

Sangeetha Chandra-Shekeran is an intern at the United Nations Development Programme. She is also assisting with research on sexual harassment.