Not only does it help prevent things from happening that could be a problem later, it helps prevent even accusations of such, if it's well known that the person involved holds to this rule and expects others to hold them to it as well. Say what you will about Pence, love him or hate him, nobody is accusing him of sexual misconduct - and that's the point of the rule.
It doesn't prevent abuse by a close family member though.
The only way to treat this as gospel is to never be present with another woman alone.
That the tech industry is so inept with opposite gender interactions that they have adopted tactics from religious zealot evangelicals is APALLING.
Treat people as humans. Regardless of gender or sexuality.
Sex is one of the most essentially human things. "Professional" behaviour excludes sex.
So "treat people as humans" is decisively not clear advice for cases like this.
Humans are not automata, and I don't aspire to be one, not even for "just" 8 hours a day.
We're not having orgies in the street. In modern society you are expected to treat humans in the vast majority of situations without "sex" being relevant to the topic of discussion, whether it's on the street, in the grocery store, on the tram, or in the library.
Acting like this is not clear feels like an exercise in pedantic loophole seeking to justify sexual harassment. ("How are people even supposed to meet each other if I'm not allowed to <blank> to women in <blank>?")
First of all, the "VAST MAJORITY" of human interactions are irrelevant (cashier, bank clerk, passing people on the street). Given how much time you spend with coworkers, they'd qualify as friends, or acquaintances at least.
Also, there's a large gap between "professional behaviour" and "orgies in the street" or "sexual harassment". For example, I don't mind talking about menstruation or condoms with friends (who I'm not having sex with, nor have/would I ever try) but I don't think those would be appropriate topics for most workplace situations.
The amount of sex related conversation in my friend group is, from my perspective, normal but entirely inappropriate for work. Even my female barber talks about her sex life during haircuts.
At work I keep my sarcasm set to near zero, avoid politics, religion, and sex, and generally keep a narrow focus. Work is an artificial environment, but my coworkers don't get to choose me. It is on me to behave in a way that is beyond reproach.
Yes, I have conversation with friends that are not work-appropriate.
And I also have conversations with coworkers that are casual and work-appropriate. Yet they can be friendly and reference current events (which are inherently political), religion (e.g. acknowledging ramadan fasting), sexuality (gender of partner), or the existence of sex (parenting). OK that last one is a stretch.
But still, you can do all this without needing to firewall your entire personality.
I might find the intentions dubious, but I can't argue with the results.
In practice that's likely quite difficult.
You can leave the door to the office open at all times. Or use a glass wall or door so people can see in, but maybe not overhear.
Honestly, my suggestion would be to be open about your own experiences and the impact they've had on you. (Not necessarily abuse, but just offhand comments like 'oh, it's silly but I can't stand yelling because my dad yelled a lot' or 'I don't drink because my family's had issues with it', etc.) Be open and clear that a.) you don't judge people for being 'weird' and b.) you accept things other people need even if you don't need them.
Don't be overly emotional about it. Just accept their human needs in the same way you would if a coworker had a disability. Oh, that person needs more space between us? Alright. Not any different than a hard of hearing coworker who needs me to speak up a bit, or a visually impaired coworker who uses zoom on their computer.
My saying, "Hey, I have a bit of anxiety so I'm going to gather myself for a moment; do you think you could step back and give me some space and we could try to pitch this conversation a bit quieter?" shouldn't be much different than my needing a stepstool. I'm short. It happens.
If you treat the people around you as individuals, then people understand they can ask you for what they need.
I'd imagine that many people would disagree with this. Dwelling on people's supposed 'weirdness' is not a healthy attitude (least of all when the 'weirdness' is our own) and would not be seen as "open" or "accepting" by many, but more of a signal of entitlement. If you think that the other person would benefit from something, just behave accordingly without dwelling on it, and people will hopefully realize that they can ask you for these things with no fuss.
Being the sole woman in a company of men when means your superiors are men, your peers are men, and the only recourse you may have if any of them act inappropriately towards you is to report it to another man.
Edit: respect boundaries and consistently remind that if they have a boundary they are free to enforce and you will respect that. Boundaries come in the form of more than “please don’t x”. They are also “I prefer x” or “can we y”.
The clearest and most effective way of doing this is to proactively establish and propose safe boundaries for the other person's benefit. This is the underlying dynamic behind many rules-of-thumb of ordinary courtesy and politeness (often wrongly dismissed as some sort of useless, obsolete 'traditionalism'). Not everyone is so assertive and comfortable with themselves that they should be expected to verbalize their boundaries to you, or even to understand them proactively.
Learning to be open and friendly, and developing a sense for when someone doesn't want to talk to me has been an important part of growing up. I try to identify signals that a person wants to end their interaction with me, and respect their wishes immediately and in a friendly way.
The quick rule-of-thumb is to be courteous and respectful but also establish very firm physical boundaries, even erring towards being less friendly as opposed to more. You also need to proactively signal that you will stop interacting with them at the slightest sign of their discomfort; keeping interactions short and to the point is an obvious way to do this, even though this outwardly looks "rude" and "unfriendly"!
For instance, those of us with developmentally-caused trauma often view every person as a threat, because we were abused by our caregivers. (In my case, my mother.) This is because we need our abusers to survive, so we're used to abuse being a necessary part of life and something that can happen at any time/during mundane interactions. We don't feel like anyone is safe. The only person my nervous system trusts is my baby sister. Trying to get me to recognize you as safe isn't going to work, because nobody is safe to me.
I realize that not everybody is a danger and my feelings are the result of my failing the parental lottery and not a commentary on every person I meet, which means it's my responsibility/job to retrain/calibrate my 'who is safe' sensors. It just takes practice and some patience sometimes.
People refusing to interact with me because they have different genitals than me isn't going to help, especially when most of my hobbies are male-dominated. It just conveys 'Ha, you're not a proper girl, so you don't deserve friends. Go learn to like clothes and boys if you want to hang out with people'.
Now, if you've been burned in the past by people using their mental illnesses to blame you for not understanding social cues, or had that used against you in the past, and you don't feel comfortable in mixed-sex interactions, that's fine, but that's a need of YOURS, not the women.
This makes plenty of sense, but then I'm not sure why you're expecting others to be physically friendly with you. Having a "friendly" interaction with someone generally presupposes some degree of physical quasi-intimacy that would seem to be quite incompatible with "not feeling like anyone is safe" to be around. This doesn't mean you can't be friendly in many other ways of course, but these interactions will nonetheless be quite different from what folks might otherwise expect.
There's a couple of reasons for this:
1.) If you're a young, small, female, people will be in your space whether you want them there or not. Keeping it "friendly" makes sure that it doesn't turn violent. (Note: This isn't just from men: My go to example of a person disrespecting my space was a woman in undergrad who, upon meeting me for the first time, picked me up because I was so small and 'cute' to her.) Luckily, I'm over 30 and an old hag now! 10/10 do recommend. V. helpful!
2.) As a female, I'm expected/allowed to offer comfort to people, and that includes physically, so I'll do things like hug my friends when they're sad if they like hugs because I still want to support them even if I have PTSD. Or I hug and take care of my little sister because I know touch is important for her mental health and I value that. I also occasionally offer childcare/ have nieces and nephews or am in gatherings with children, and they touch.
I generally let people, and people know that I/Aunt Mezzie needs some quiet sometimes.
I also have MS and malfunctioning nerves; I view them similarly. "Wow, my brain has a lesion and now I can't feel my feet what." and "Wow, I'm traumatized and now I can't relax around people I like what."
It's precisely when you're "young, small" etc. that this is not OK. These people are not being "friendly" to you, they should know better. And you're quite free to remove yourself physically from the interaction if they keep invading your boundaries.
> so I'll do things like hug my friends when they're sad
At least then you're initiating and thus controlling the interaction, with an acquaintance who's OK with it. It's not anything that you should be forced to do, but having one's boundaries be actively transgressed upon would likely be more stressful.