Working Women United (WWU) (later known as the Working Women United Institute) is a women's rights organisation based in the United States which was formed in Ithaca, New York in 1975, to combat sexual harassment of women in the workplace. In the beginning of the organization's activism, their definition for sexual harassment was "the treatment of women workers as sexual objects," but the organization did not specify which behaviors constituted such harassment. Carmita Wood The founding of the group was inspired by the case of Carmita Wood, who quit her job at Cornell University due to sexual harassment and became one of the first women in the US to sue her employer on such grounds. In 1975, Carmita Wood quit her position at Cornell University due to harassment from her supervisor, Boyce McDaniel, and the university's refusal to approve her request for a transfer. Wood was McDaniel's administrative assistant who was a nuclear physicist working on the Manhattan Project prior to joining the team at Cornell. McDaniel constantly made sexual gestures and remarks causing Wood to develop extreme anxiety that led to severe neck pains and numbness in the shoulders and arms. Wood was constantly in close proximity with McDaniel and endured this harassment until she quit her job at Cornell. One specific harassment happened at a Christmas party where McDaniel forcibly touched her and kissed her repeatedly. Before she resigned, Wood requested to be switched to another job, but her request was denied. Her physical and emotional symptoms started to subside when McDaniel went on leave, but when he came back, Wood immediately left. In June 1974, Wood resigned. Subsequently, Wood filed for unemployment benefits from the university. Cornell refused to approve the benefits, stating Wood had quit for "personal reasons." Working Women United was formed to publicize Wood's case and held a "Speak Out" to give voice to other women's experience of sexual harassment at work. Cornell instructor Lin Farley, a key organizer in Working Women United, used the phrase "sexual harassment" at a hearing, and The New York Times reported on the hearing and the phrase used, helping to introduce the concept and phrase "sexual harassment" into the national lexicon. Carmita Wood eventually lost her appeal while Boyce McDaniel continued his career. McDaniel was even elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 1981, years after Wood filed her complaint. While Wood's case did not end with