Harassment is not simply unwanted attention: agreed. However, this is not sexual harassment:
"A presenter had a title slide followed by a slide of bikini-clad women holding laptops, which he said was just to get people to pay attention."
"A presenter had a title slide followed by a slide of bikini-clad women holding laptops, which he said was just to get people to pay attention."
It's rarely attractive men in speedos holding the laptops. The lunch isn't being held at a strip club where men are dancing. It's all these small things that add up to an intolerable environment. It's like little pricks of a needle. It's not that any individual one is "that bad", but it's the bigger picture when society looks at you as a voodoo doll.
I whole-heartedly agree that repeated verbal and physical assault are totally unacceptable, and anyone around must take urgent action against it. But as said above please dont see harassment in everything, just because men find something funny, or because they show a girl on a slide, it is almost never meant to be offensive to anyone. It just isnt, and the poor guy hasnt even thought it could offent anyone. it is just a means of trying to avoid Death by Powerpoint.
And just in case anyone wonders. I do not mean to offend anyone :)
I think the difference is actually that men can laugh at that stuff because a) it's ironic in that those images are typically the other way around and b) that sort of objectification of the male body isn't reminding them that they're at greater risk for sexual harassment and assault. Because they aren't.
The problem is that those images and that humor, in public, about women, happens in the context of a world where women are more easily abused, assaulted and harassed, and men more easily get away with it. So context matters, and in this social context, that "humor" shouldn't be acceptable.
Should I have e-mailed the parent commenter instead of posting publicly how strongly I agreed...?
Furthermore, that sort of slide sends a clear message to the audience about who the speaker thinks they're speaking to. In this case, it says that the speaker thinks that his audience is composed of heterosexual males[1], which <sarcasm>I'm sure feels just great to any women who might also be in the audience.</sarcasm>
[1]: I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the author of those conference slides did not include them in an attempt to appeal to the audience's lesbian members. I am, of course, willing to be corrected on this point.
I was not there, and I do not know if it was done in the spirit of things--had the conference been in Miami in August, bathing suit clad models wouldn't be terribly out of context--but if pressed to decide whether the presenter acted criminally or in bad taste, I'll err on the bad taste side.
Having said that, and having been to many conferences, and having had large staffs, I can say that I've seen both offensive behavior and harassment proper. I'm not a lawyer, and I've never been an HR professional, but my experience dealing with both tells me this specific situation would not have escalated. Perhaps poor judgement (context considered), but certainly not harassment.
I've read somewhere that using the words "offensive" or "offended by" puts the emphasis on the person who has expressed concern about the situation. It focuses on the negative: "what can we do to be less offensive?".
The article I read suggested using terms like "unwelcoming" or "exclusive" instead--as it puts the focus on the community. This allows us to focus on the positive: "what can we do to become more welcoming?".
So rather than considering whether this is a question of harrassment or offensiveness I find it useful to think of actions being "welcoming" or "unwelcoming" toward members of our community.
It might be uncomfortable, but it is not (in and of itself) harassment. Distinguishing is important, even if you agree that both are a problem.