>Please believe women when they report harassment in the workplace
This meme is often repeated in context of sexual harrassment (workplace or otherwise). How do you square that with the fact that women are as capable of laying and misleading as men are? How do you square that with "innocent until proven guilty" when accusation are leveled against another individual or company.
I should think that common sense would answer this question. You square it like this:
Let's say a person in your company tells you their boss is sexually harrassing them. You're on reasonably good terms with both the accuser and the accused.
Some responses you might make in this case:
- Deflect. Pretend you didn't hear it. Or, if pressed: "This isn't something I know anything about. You'd better take that up with them. Or maybe you could talk to HR?"
- Express skepticism: "Well, I don't know if you're lying or not. Sounds like a he-said she-said situation. Sorry."
- Express emotional support: "That sounds terrible! I'm sorry you're going through this, and I appreciate that it must be very hard for you to talk about this. How can I help?"
- Provide logistical support: "Let's get to the bottom of this."
- Express complete solidarity: "That bastard! We're going to nail them right to the wall for this. Right. To. The. Wall."
- Express complete solidarity for the accused: "How could you say this about them? They're a good person! They would never intentionally harass you. It must be a misunderstanding!"
Now: which responses might fall under the sentiment of "please believe women"? Which wouldn't? Which responses violate your ethical norms?
Seems to me, if you're purely caught up in the legalism of the situation, I'm guessing your response is going to be "skepticism," whether you want it to be or not.
I'm not sure what your argument is. Unless you are part of HR in your made-up hypothetical situation, it's not your job to intervene or seek retribution because you'll just screw it up and you'll make things worse. Personally, if you know both parties well you may very well find yourself skeptical of those claims ... or not - context matters.
All companies will have a process for handling harrassment claims and process for resolving them. Accusations should be directed to HR (or suitable designated party at the company). If the harrassment continues you may have to involve the legal system - that's what it's there for.
So, your answer in this case is: you do not get involved, period. Deflect, maybe some logistical support to direct them to HR, but nothing more?
They go to HR and a week later they're let go – no real explanation given. (Hey, it's at will employment here in CA.) Or, as happens at Uber, nothing happens, and your coworker continues to complain about harrassing behavior (if they're even talking to you at this point). What do you do now?
My point is: the real world is messy, and doesn't come with cut-and-dried definitions and solutions. Processes can help some, but true neutrality comes at a cost. Corrupt and sexist agencies in your company can continue to operate with aplomb. Your relationship will be damaged with coworkers who have had this happen to them – to say nothing of how it damages them when they have this happen and all of their coworkers look nervously away. It can poison your relationship to the company and all the good people that work there.
I read "please believe women" as an invitation to get involved in a constructive way, and I fervently disagree with you that you as a coworker can only make things worse. You can offer emotional support, so your coworker knows you're there for them. If you have pertinent information, you can offer it. You can hold your company's feet to the fire to make sure they're handling it appropriately. And of course – since I didn't specify the gender in the scenario – you can do the same whether the people involved are male, female, or anything in between.
No. Nobody argues sexual harrassment claims shouldn't be taken seriously. Nobody argues rape claims shouldn't be taken seriously. Nobody. That's not what OP argued. It's a common meme to argue that claims of sexual harrassment and sexual assult should be assumed to be true. That's insane. It upends our entire notion of Justice.
The required burden of proof can and should be much lower in the workplace.
Sure everyone is capable of lying but P(harassment occurred | report of harassment) is much greater than P(harassment did not occur | report of harassment).
>Sure everyone is capable of lying but P(harassment occurred | report of harassment) is much greater than P(harassment did not occur | report of harassment).
This sort of comment will get you banned here regardless of what you're commenting about. We've warned you about this before. If you don't want to be banned, it's time to post civilly and substantively or not at all.
It should go without saying, but this is independent of how wrong other commenters are. Someone else being wrong does not confer the right to drag the discussion down further.
Sure. Sexual harassment is worse than a false accusation, so yes, I'm going to err on the side of taking a harassment claim seriously. If the cost is a few people getting fired that might not have, fine.
Standards for the burden of proof in a court of law and in the workplace are and should be different.
> I bet if you are ever on the receiving end of a false accusation you will be singing a different tune.
I don't know, I could say the same about women and men who show up to work and just want to do their jobs without coworkers trying to grope them, make lewd comments, withhold promotions or offer interesting work only in exchange for sexual favors. That seems pretty unfair too and we hear about that happening far more often than we hear about people being unjustly accused.
I'm a rich white guy, if someone makes a false accusation against me and I have to leave a company, tough luck; I'll be OK.
Obviously I would prefer if people do not make false accusations, and a company should try in the event of any allegation to determine whether it has a factual basis. But if it's a he said she said situation I am going to side with the accuser.
The wild thing is that the situation you are describing happens literally weekly in tech - prominent women do shout about the unfairness of it all, about reporting harassment and having nothing happen, or being forced out of companies after reporting. Many women choose to leave.
>I'm a rich white guy, if someone makes a false accusation against me and I have to leave a company, tough luck; I'll be OK.
Ah. Isn't that perfect. It's great you're rich and your life could never be ruined by false accusations. Screw everyone else eh?
>But if it's a he said she said situation I am going to side with the accuser
That's insane.
>The wild thing is that the situation you are describing happens literally weekly in tech - prominent women do shout about the unfairness of it all, about reporting harassment and having nothing happen, or being forced out of companies after reporting. Many women choose to leave
You keep saying things like this but at some point you may want to back it up with some real numbers otherwise I'll just assume you're making things up.
Tech industry employs hundreds of thousands of people, and that's California alone. That number gets up into millions if you include the United States ... And your proof are anecdotes??? Random? No. Self-selected to confirm your bias? Yes! Jesus. You have no idea do you? You just feeeel you must be right.
Edit:
I want to add that I'm genuinely interested in knowing if a) there is a problem and b) the scope of the problem. Tech industry is one of the most progressive out there and tech hubs are based in very progressive regions - so what are we talking about here? All I see is people like you who not only have nothing to back up their claims with but also want to push for insane policies based on non-existent evidence ( policies which you admitted will never hurt you due to your wealth ).
According to a 2016 survey 60% of women in tech in SV reported an unwanted advance. Of those, 65% were from a superior (always inappropriate). One third of women reported feeling unsafe at the workplace. This is why I default to believing reports of harassment
Not exactly hard to find. We can quibble about the exact percentages and the methodology but the odds of the real percentage being close to 0 when ~50% of women reported an inappropriate advance from a superior are nil.
You're asking for a completely unreasonable standard to be upheld. If an employee said they got mugged and their laptop was missing, you wouldn't start asking if they were out late at night, were they drinking, "why did you put yourself in that situation," we'll replace your laptop the next time you lose it, etc, you'd say "that's awful" and replace their laptop.
This meme is often repeated in context of sexual harrassment (workplace or otherwise). How do you square that with the fact that women are as capable of laying and misleading as men are? How do you square that with "innocent until proven guilty" when accusation are leveled against another individual or company.