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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

Have you ever been through sexual harassment training? Did you feel like it was helpful?

I've been through several and found that no one really takes it seriously. If the things they tell you in sexual harassment training are new to you, you probably aren't going to learn your lesson. Problem employees aren't going to change their behavior. Enforcement of standards is much more critical.

Sexual harassment training is a CYA move by companies.

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I think it's helpful if you come from a different culture where some of those things would be considered acceptable.

Can you give a concrete example of this? I'm having a hard time imagining it.

If someone is constantly touching my shoulder and I'm not sure what it means, how should I react? Should I say something directly to the person? Should I tell my manager? If it is my manager, who could I talk to? If I complain about something that my boss is doing and it turns out to be an innocent misunderstanding, will it affect my performance review? What things are in place in the organisation to ensure that I won't be targeted for complaining about something? What happens if a really senior executive or something does something inappropriate? Does the organisation have enough power to deal with the situation? What should I do about things that only indirectly affect me? For example, my neighbour has a picture of their scantily clad boyfriend on their desk. It makes me uncomfortable. Should I ignore it? Should I say something? Is the fact that nobody has done anything about it before an indication that this is OK as far as the company policy is concerned? If I notice that a group of people are harassing someone else, how should I respond? What if it's always been this way and is part of the current culture? Should I ignore it? What if the seemingly harassed individual doesn't object?

I literally could go on for an hour or so. If your sexual harassment training doesn't answer questions like this, then I highly recommend that you be proactive and get the training fixed. If you think the answers to these questions are obvious, then I think you will be surprised that a lot of people will have different opinions. What's important is know what opinion your company has!

Edit: I should point out, having worked in several different countries before, that these kinds of questions are very culturally charged.

Repeatedly asking a woman out. I recall a friend upsetting a love interest because he didn't repeatedly ask her out, as was customary where she was from. She didn't think he was serious because he wasn't trying hard enough.

Not ok here, but different in other places.

In which country is it customary to repeatedly ask someone out?

It used to be quite common everywhere. The idea that you should immediately give up after a single "no" is very modern even in the west, and by no means is it an idea all women are on board with.

For example. George Clooney had to ask his wife out three times before she said yes. I believe Melinda Gates said no to Bill Gates the first time he asked her out (and of course, he was her boss). In Russian culture it's common for women to say no to a man even if she likes him, because making him work for it is thought to increase the eventual strength of the relationship (you don't value what you get for free, essentially). In fact a friend of mine is married to a Russian woman and she's said in the past she said yes to him too easily and regretted not rejecting him before - but he's told her, if she'd done that, he'd have immediately given up because he was quite burned out on dating at the time. So she sort of accepts it but has small regrets.

Just search on Google and you can find many examples of cases where men asked women out several times and are now married.

Never mix up feminists with women, they aren't the same. I've met plenty of women who wish men would chase them, but it's too risky for men to do that these days.

You’re talking about something different. Or at least mixing examples. I’m quite aware that there are many examples of men not giving up the first time, but parent comment seemed to suggest that in their culture, the woman is expected to say no, despite their positive interest, and the man is expecting to receive a no, and is then expected to try more, as though this scenario is the norm and not the exception.

Are there a lot of people asking intentionally daft questions in this thread?

"Gee willikers Wally, shouldn't we fire people for missing the highly informative HR-mandated 'be polite' video?"

No?

"Really? Gee, Willikers, why not?"

Anyway. These things have been a complete joke for a long time:

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tv-funhouse-se...

If you're referring to `adamrezich`, then I can second that I had the same question. I'm probably daft, but not intentionally so.

My wife works for a financial firm. Her European counterparts kiss each other goodbye. That's a no-no at an American workplace. The sexual harassment training I received actually discouraged us from even hugging. No contact except for handshakes. I personally don't mind that since I find it awkward to hug people outside of close friends and family.

I went through sexual harassment training, and it was helpful because in two later situations where I had to manage situations related to sexual harassment, I knew what to do.

We have separate curricula: one for all employees telling them "don't do it", and a second for managers telling them how to handle reported incidents and other things they may observe.

> Problem employees aren't going to change their behavior. Enforcement of standards is much more critical.

That's not the goal. If people don't know that slapping their colleagues' butt when drunk is wrong, online training is not going to help there.

Training is there so that when it comes time to arbitrate, they can point and say "Aha, we see you took the training, passed the quiz and you still did it, you can't claim you didn't know, you're gone buddy! buhbye" and they kick him out.

> Sexual harassment training is a CYA move by companies.

That is the right answer!

>Sexual harassment training is a CYA move by companies.

And so it should be abolished? I don't get your logic here. Shouldn't we be on the side of better training and more penalties for both employees and companies?

Perhaps you are comparing standard policy instruction with remedial instruction. I assume your statement "I've been through several" is only referring to the former.

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