This is bullshit. Don’t be a creep. Period, end of story. Hire and promote fairly. You won’t have a problem.
nine times more likely to be hesitant to travel with a junior woman for work than a junior man, and six times more likely to be hesitant to have a work dinner with a junior woman than a junior man.
This is, unfortunately, a rational response to the current climate.
Yup, it's still rational in that respect too; this sucks and the way to fix it seems to be at the organizational level. Make it not one on one meetings, and make it "public" record (transparent), and make the support systems for reporting abuse in either direction act on that public record.
Yes! It is rational to have a fear response to the prospect of being held accountable. Because we have not had a culture of accountability, many men are not confident in their ability NOT to behave in a harmful manner, even if they do not intend to harm. That feeling of discomfort is from finally having to think about these things. I hope more men embrace that discomfort instead of resent it.
That kind of generalization is exactly what can torpedo your career. Try putting those thoughts about the fairer sex in a memo or blog post and see what response you get.
But then I live in Asia, things might be different than in America/Europe.
Fun fact: The word for 'woman' in my country is derived from '婦' - 女 (“woman”) + 帚 (“broom”), so even calling them that way is kinda male chauvinist already.
The problem is the extreme power imbalance, where any woman you interact with can snap her fingers and destroy your life/career.
Let me put it this way: It's incredibly rare that a bear attacks a human. But pretty much everyone will still avoid a bear if they can. This has nothing to do with "don't piss off the bear and you'll be fine" and everything to do with "if that bear does decide to attack you, you are completely defenseless".
When it comes to that, it seems to be that the statistics show that real sexual harassment happens more often then the scenario you are describing. How would you handle this, so it is reduced or eliminated?
This was the original power imbalance, and it can't be forgotten.
Generally a pendulum swings many time before finding equilibrium, I think we're just in that process right now.
Don't mistake my comment as calling woman liars or defending sexual misconduct on men's part. I'm simply analyzing the rational for men not wanting to be alone with women in the work place.
What would be the motivation of a woman to falsify accusations of someone mentoring her? How often does this actually happen? Wouldn't accusing someone also jeopardize her career prospect? Etc.
I fully understand the response of men not wanting to be alone with women in the workplace, but I can't agree that it's rationale, reasonable and justified. We're all human, and unreasonable feelings of fears and worries is something we all suffer from. That said, the current feelings seem mostly irrational to me, and appear to be put forward by fear mongers.
I am very much in agreement that all are innocent until proven guilty, that the public opinion shouldn't be used as a court of law, and that due process must be followed and respected. That said, I'm still happily mentoring women, and respectfully engaging them at work, and I won't let myself fall prey to these irrational fears.
Sorry, can you actually name a human being who had his "life/career" destroyed by a metaphorical snap of the finger? I mean, good grief, you have to dig like crazy to even find evidence of a false accusation.
I mean, sure, it happens, in the same sense that sure, you might get hit by a truck. Where does this outrageous paranoia come from? The horrifying thing is that you aren't alone -- half this topic is men posting about how terrible shrews are lurking in the bushes about to steal their careers. And... there are no shrews to be seen.
A simple misunderstanding of a truly collegial touch, an off the cuff remark, a glance, a gesture - all completely normal otherwise and often spontaneous - and you can find yourself on the defensive.
And given social media and the virality of outrage (see Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, or go Google Johnny Depp and Amber Heard for an example of how he said she said testimony is reported as "Big if true") it's clear that the paranoia stems from the disproportionate reputational damage in the court of public opinion, not the accusation itself.
Which is accurately reflected in the headline as "discomfort" - having to highly self-regulate your words and actions is, by definition, uncomfortable.
Not that it can't and shouldn't be done. But to follow your analogy of getting hit by a truck then mentoring women is like playing a never-ending round of Frogger.
So yeah, the game is endless. You'll never escape the possibility of jumping in front of the truck and getting squashed flat.
Don't jump in front of the truck.
I'm now very careful with my interactions with women at work. No 1:1 meetings, all conversation must be strictly work related, no walking the same direction, avoid eye contact as much as possible, etc. It's a total minefield and you need to minimize how much you walk through it, especially if you have a great job.
Just an accusation can result in huge legal bills, a loss of reputation and other consequences. https://veterinarybusinessadvisors.com/guilty-until-proven-i...
Here’s an example of how delicate this stuff can be: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-colleague-threaten...
If you are a manager or executive, it’s a real risk that you’ll get dragged through the mud by a false accusation. In a world we’re he-said she-said is biased towards “believing women,” it would be prudent to avoid close professional relationships with women. Literally decades later it can come back to bite you. Remember that while the man may “hire and promote fairly,” not all people necessarily act honestly and “fairly” can be very subjective. Just an accusation can torpedo a career.
Acting like “it’s bullshit” is to ignore the litigious society in which we operate.
Now, I don't know the statistics, I think we need some to know if we're being absurd and irrationally afraid or not.
Similarly, we also need to remember the flip side, many of these interactions used too and still are real risks to women as they can get harassed and abused as well. Again, statistics might help.
Either statistic is hard to find though, because ground truth is difficult and most cases don't necessarily get recorded or even mentioned.
Hopefully, we slowly figure all this out and how to balance it all.
Maybe some specific examples would help. Somebody came in to ask for advice about whether they should be more aggressive in some work situation. I thought about it and remember some advice that a colleague had applied effectively. The advice was widely praised. I said the same advice word-by-word, but after saying it, realized that this advice only works when said by a woman to another woman (the advice itself was something about being empowered as a woman). It sounded a bit awkward / patronizing when coming from me. This person then later complained to another person that I gave a sexist suggestion. Nothing happened of it, but it was really uncomfortable and had they spread it on social media in a bad light, that would have hurt my reputation.
In another case, a subordinate and I were already at slightly adversarial terms (a bit of loss in trust, but nothing too serious at that time). I could tell they were attentively looking to find what I was saying to be erroneous. I had to be particularly careful in those meetings, and had to constantly respond to accusations like "why did you agree with [male]'s idea when I had proposed the same idea a month ago and you rejected it" (when it was obviously a more complex situation and the context for the proposed idea were different). But had I been a bit more casual in our meetings, I am pretty sure she would have found something to complain about loudly.
Basically, "don't be a creep" is not enough and oversimplifies things. You can not be a creep, yet still get into a bad situation if someone else interprets you as a creep, especially in a situation where the relationship is not a strong trusted one. You often have to meet and advise people who don't know your intentions, and an awkward mis-step can be problematic. That's just the unfortunate reality.