Unintended Consequences of Sexual Harassment Scandals
mobile.nytimes.com
mobile.nytimes.com
Donglegate really hit home that if you get the wrong people on Twitter mad, they will make life hell for you[1]. You might agree that a dongle joke is inappropriate, but the entire backlash on all sides was massively overblown and led to 3 people being fired.
If you make the wrong statement to the wrong person at the wrong time, you might be on the wrong end of an outrage mob. This doesn't even include the messy optics of a man and woman meeting at odd hours in private settings for mentoring meetings. If a nosy third-party decides to speak up on someone else's behalf all of the above still applies, even if its all above board and neither party has an issue.
Better to just keep all meetings with people you don't know or don't trust entirely professional and kept within the workplace.
[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/pycon-2013-sexis...
This article is talking about men avoiding being alone with women, to avoid the suspicion of third parties. Not really related to harassment.
It would make sense if the concern was false accusations. They don't come out and say that. Maybe because that would be transparently sexist. Any colleague can accuse you of anything that happens in private. Furthermore, in these high profile cases, it's not a matter of one disturbed woman pointing the finger and ruining an innocent man's life. It's multiple accusers coming forward, showing a pattern of behavior over decades, at great risk to their careers. Are we really going to argue that the pendulum has swung too far?
Side note: the article is curiously anachronistic, talking about "the opposite sex", as if everyone were straight. Also, when you think about it, the root problem is still sexism, this time a stereotype about men (the idea that a man can't have a professional relationship with a woman).
Right, exactly. That can be a problem in addition to the larger problem of the actual harassment.
And, the harassment has been such a problem for so long (pretty much forever) that it makes sense to me that a) people are trying different ways of working in order to address it, and b) that those ways have unintended consequences.
It's not reasonable to expect anyone to accept increased risk for zero increased upside.
And rightly or wrongly, this is what harrassment and assault allegations present.
Sadly, the article, like many others on this topic, doesn't suggest much in the way of solutions or even a path towards a solution, so here's my suggestion -- chaperoning. Or maybe a virtual version, with video cams everywhere, a la the UK.
I know, it sounds like I'm planning a middle-school dance.