Friday, November 13, 2020

"Women are just as capable of sexual harassment as men"/ "The unintended consequences of #MeToo in the workplace"

Mar. 12, 2018 "Women are just as capable of sexual harassment as men": Today I found this article by Eileen Dooley in the Globe and Mail:

 Move over, men – women may be joining you soon in the Harassment Hall of Shame.

It seems to be open season on men these days. I can name a few recent examples of harassment or misconduct stories in the news, but seeing that new names hit the headlines each week, whomever I name will be very old news in short order as new offenders are outed.


Each time a famous or high-profile person is accused of harassment, it causes many of us to think back to a time in our careers when we may have felt violated, demeaned or otherwise treated inappropriately at work. And since we live in an inclusive world, figuratively and literally (think "peoplekind"), I am not referring to just women having these thoughts.

Men are reminiscing about how they have been treated by women, and guess what? They may be coming after the women who berated them, used sexual innuendos with them or outright physically harassed them.

As with women, it is not hard to find men who have experienced this. I talked to five men I know at random. Four of them had stories. One senior human resources leader I spoke with had a woman surprise him and take his picture. 

It was then pasted beside one of George Clooney, with the headline "Who is Hotter?" This poster was e-mailed to the entire department, and others who wished to play the game, along with electronic voting boxes for accuracy. He told me that it was kind of flattering, but also humiliating.

A second story involved actually slapping a new hire on the bum. Yes, this actually happened. In a mostly female work environment, each time the leader had a chance, she would tell the new hire it was a game to see how many bum-slap opportunities she and her colleagues could find. 

It made going up the stairs or bending over to get something out of the filing cabinet an X-rated experience. Ironically, he went on to become a supplier for a company that employed that leader, until recently when she made a quick exit – and quick exits are usually not voluntary.

That's right – women have proved to be just as capable of harassing men. And like women, for many reasons, men do not come forward. It is not because they would not be believed. 

Since the dawn of time, men are expected to either fight back or be more "manly." They're expected to suck it up, whether the harassment is from their boss or anyone else. Do not show weakness. And most importantly, do not talk about it or assemble your support group.

Talking about their experiences and coming together has helped to amplify the push for women to go public with their experiences. Strength does come in numbers, and people feel more empowered and supported when they know there is someone or some group they can count on. Just as women have found their voice, do not be surprised if men find their voice as well – and start shouting it from the rooftops.

When you are a man experiencing such humiliating and demeaning behaviour, what do you do?

To this day, there are women who use their sexuality – whether it's revealing clothing or innuendo – to get men to agree with them or even to get promoted. They feel the men enjoy the attention, and the women enjoy getting what they want. 

It may not be overtly grabbing someone's bum, but it is aimed at causing discomfort and awkwardness. It is harassment, and men should not put up with it any more than women should put up with the male variants.

The reality is that societal norms change, if slowly. What may have been seen at one time as innocent "workplace flirting" is clearly not okay now, and perhaps never really was so innocent at all. 

The reality is that it usually was only okay with one side , and never was okay with the other side. No one said anything, and no one wanted to rock the boat. 

Women are now quite rightly taking action. Men may prove to no longer be tolerating it either, especially since they are under the microscope for anything they say or do that may be interpreted as harassment – whether it happened last week or 20 years ago.
The indispensable 1923 tome Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, a fictionalized account of the life of the securities trader Jesse Livermore, refers to a chap who was not like the others. He never volunteered advice or bragged of his winnings. He listened attentively but did not seem keen to get tips. When he did get one, he always thanked the tipster very politely. If it went wrong, he never whined — so no one could tell whether he followed the lead or let it slide by.

When asked his view, he would say “You know, it’s a bull market,” as though he was giving you a priceless talisman wrapped in a million-dollar accident insurance policy. When one customer gave him a tip that had done very well, then recommended that he sell, he refused to. When the customer pressed and told him he had sold his own stake, he responded: “I hope you can repurchase your substantial concession, but it’s a bull market, you know.”

The point is, although you can try to chip away at the margins, it is tough to buck a trend. Cognizant as I am of the risk of naysaying society’s and the workplace’s biggest trend (indeed, its tsunami), the #MeToo movement, I see unintended consequences already pulling at its seams:

Hiring: In the same way that maternity leave legislation makes employers reluctant to hire women of child-bearing age, or the way minimum wage leads to increased unemployment among lower-income workers, the #MeToo movement has caused many employers to think about the risks of having women in the workplace.

The consequence is that women will have a more difficult time obtaining employment and promotions.

Mentoring: U.S. Vice President Mike Pence appeared a Philistinic lout when it became known that he refused to dine alone with any woman other than his wife. Some now view him as a prescient visionary. Mentoring not only means working together, it means working late together, travelling together, etc.

A recent Survey Monkey poll conducted by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In, found that 50 per cent of U.S. senior managers say they are afraid to do a common work activity with a woman, are 3.5 times more likely to have dinner with a junior male colleague than a woman colleague and five times more likely to travel with him. 

And because mentoring is not only formal but informal, women are now more apt to be excluded from dinners, drinks after work and other forms of socializing that could have helped develop their careers.

Teamwork: Many workplaces rely on camaraderie and teamwork. Dividing people based on gender and creating an environment of fear of allegations by women hampers team-building and is a serious blow to moving society to real — rather than formulaic (the type enforced by human rights tribunals) — equality.

Advocates: If an employee is to get ahead in a firm, he or she needs an advocate. But many men will be reluctant to develop such a relationship with a woman if they perceive any risk.

Honesty: A radical but vocal subsection of the #MeToo movement advocates that women making allegations of sexual predation must always be believed. The theory is that, given the historic social pressure to be silent, if a woman has the courage to come forward, she must be telling the truth.

Of course, men have no monopoly on being liars or even perjurers. Some women, confident they will be believed, might well make false accusations, whether to settle old scores, obtain compensation or in response to relationships that have soured. They need not even lie. When it comes to affairs of the heart, retrospective (particularly ancient) memory is notoriously unreliable and often self-serving and revisionistic.

Value: Historically, companies have ignored or compartmentalized improper behaviour from an employee’s skill or value to the company. That should have been unacceptable. But now those walls have become porous.

Most of the men toppled by the movement were well known to be predators yet not only survived but thrived. Just look at Bill Clinton, whose approval ratings exceeded any modern president at the end of his tenure, while Monica Lewinsky became a suicidal punchline.

Will we now see the reverse where minor historic harassment, deserving of only a warning and training, will end the prospects of some companies’ strongest contributors?

False allegations: “Due process” is the preserve of the court, not of human resources policies. However, too many companies, anxious to protect their brand from any allegations, now quickly throw the accused overboard without even the pretense of an inquiry. This not only incents false allegations but damages the trust employees have in their organizations and leads to successful lawsuits against the company.

Whatever one thinks of the politician former Ontario Conservative leader Patrick Brown (and I don’t think much) it is almost impossible to recover from even a false allegation of 
harassment. So, as in a bull market, you don’t fight the trend — but you should be very careful not to be swept aside by false currents.













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