How did everyone get home from the last happy hour the team had? Who shared taxis? Do you remember who shared with who? I certainly didn't. I was pretty drunk and what does it matter anyway? Well, turns out that after one night one of the managers shared with a subordinate and made a totally inappropriate move on her. Turns out he has a habit of doing it. I had absolutely no idea.
The point is that it happens to women everywhere, also (and perhaps even mostly) in ordinary settings where other oblivious men think it couldn’t possibly transpire.
I mean, women get sexually harassed on trains. You've never ridden a train?
That's the take-away from this discussion.
Watching on Twitter, the #metoo hashtag scroll by with probably 80% of the women I know and respect joining in...yeah, I know it's prevalent but it's still shocking to see, not just prevalent, but nearly ubiquitous.
Back to your parties, odds are it's happening and you're simply not aware of it.
If you go to conferences about ‘boring’ things, there might not invite people like this.
What worries me
It's like what we're seeing in Hollywood where actresses have been talking about how most of the harassment immediately stopped once they had the career stature to fight back and were thus no longer safe targets.
As an overly-protective older brother to two sisters, I've been practically ready to raise fists at anyone who's treating women in a slimy way since I was a teenager. Unfortunately, this instinct has been an almost complete waste of energy - it never comes in handy.
I've concluded that the predators/creeps are very, very careful about how they go about it. They can sniff out guys who have a sense of propriety and they can play the part of a good guy unless they know they're absolutely in the clear.