Sunday, December 10, 2017

Culture still at heart of harassment claims

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 10 December 2017
Are we at a “cultural turning point” with the seeming constant eruptions of sexual harassment claims against media moguls, celebrity journalists and politicians? Not so fast.
It’s instructive to look at the last “cultural turning point” on sexual harassment 26 years ago. Don’t know what I am referring? The Anita Hill testimony during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominee, Clarence Thomas. And to get an idea of how cultural turning points can turn in unexpected directions, go find former VP Joe Biden’s, a liberal, questioning of Anita Hill.
What are the lasting “cultural” changes of the Anita Hill testimony? Early on it created an industry of corporate training. Then it was correctly aimed at changing behavior of men in the workplace by changing the workplace culture. That gave way to training that was aimed more at protecting the employer from lawsuits. I was, for a time, on a local level, part of that industry. I was sought out to give seminars on sexual harassment. I pointed out that they should take something away from the fact that they had invited a white male to do this for mostly white male audiences. I did my best to dash the usual kinds of defenses one can expect to hear in situations like that. My time as a sought-after presenter on sexual harassment was short-lived. I imagine that some in those audiences felt that if we have to listen to a “feminist” then we might as well get one in a skirt.
Ultimately I’d say the lasting legacy of our last cultural turn is a society — a society with more information available to them than 26 years ago — that is largely ignorant of what legally sexual harassment is (despite all that training) and a blissful blindness that “this stuff doesn’t happen anymore.”
One reason it doesn’t seem to happen anymore is because of employment contracts that prohibit making public such claims. Those employment contracts, related to arbitration, are in front of the Supreme Court this term. I’d argue those kinds of employment contracts are one of the lasting effects of our last cultural turn. Will the new turn lead the Supreme Court to limit the use of arbitration even in the face of unlawful behavior where it has been successfully used to keep these claims private (meaning out of court)?
What is the cultural turn that some think this moment is causing? Listening to women? More corporate training? Greater workplace equality? Holding men accountable for sexual harassment and assault? If polls can give us some window into that, “liberals” might respond that way, “conservatives” not as much. That sounds more like cultural war than cultural turning point. Recent polls suggest 71 percent of likely Republican voters do not believe Roy Moore’s accusers.
Research I cited during my short-lived stint in the sexual harassment corporate training industry still holds true. It’s not men per se that are the problem, it’s the culture of the workplace and some easy signals of potential problems are: 1) male dominated workplaces (especially when the workplace is 75 percent or more males); 2) females in disproportionately subordinate positions; 3) workplaces, regardless of composition, with no women in upper managerial positions or in ones only with authority over other women.
These are just signals, as much a result of workplace culture as the cause of it. And even in workplaces that do not fit these statistical profiles, if the culture includes an adherence to stereotypical roles (such as in meetings, women always serve as “secretary” or women serve men coffee or are associated with food, or the organization of parties, etc), these also contribute to an “enabling” culture for sexual harassment.
That was pretty much then, today we can add a lack of policies stating such behavior is potentially fireable and clear and understood channels for people to report sexual harassment (and other gender-based biases in the workplace).
It’s not enough to only pay attention to industries with celebrities with “known” victims like Gretchen Carlson or be shocked when our known “friends” like Matt Lauer are involved. The “turn” must also extend to industries full of people we don’t know, like the restaurant business. Journalist Tracie McMillan embedded herself in the industry and wrote a book about its rampant sexual harassment and sexual assault in 2012 (before the #MeToo movement and current media attention).
There are far more women working in kitchens and serving us food than there are women journalists, entertainers, and certainly elected officials.
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