sexual harassment

Pregnancy Discrimination and the Motherhood Pay Gap: We Need a #MomsToo Movement

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We have heard a lot in recent months about sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace, thanks to the #MeToo movement. But one form of gender discrimination we don’t hear a lot about is the deeply ingrained antimotherhood bias that takes a heavy toll on women’s pay and careers. Antimotherhood bias includes bias and discrimination against pregnant women, as reported by Natalie Kitroeff and Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times, who share a range of painful stories of women being fired or demoted for being pregnant. It also includes bias and discrimination against women once they have children, which is often casual, open, and unapologetic, according to Katherine Goldstein of the New York Times, even though this discriminations is illegal. This systemic bias is found in large corporations, such as Merck and Walmart, government organizations, and small businesses. Claire Cain Miller writes that antimother bias may account for most of the stubborn gender pay gap. Miller, Goldstein, Kitroeff, and Silver-Greenberg note these recent findings:

  • Research regularly shows that mothers are routinely viewed as less competent and committed to their jobs, even by other women, despite evidence to the contrary. This bias can result in women being bypassed for promotions, high visibility assignments, and bonuses when they have a child.
  • A study published in the American Journal of Sociology found that in instances where job candidates were equal in every other way, being a mother reduced the chance that a candidate would be offered the job by 37 percentage points. The recommended salary for mothers who were offered the job was $11,000 less on average than for childless female candidates. This hiring bias does not affect fathers at all. In fact, fathers tend to make more money than their childless male counterparts.
  • Couples today tend to have similar incomes at the beginning of their careers until their first child is born. Immediately after the first birth, the pay gap between spouses doubles, entirely driven by a drop in the mother’s pay, while men’s wages keep rising.
  • When women have their first child between the ages of 25 and 35, their pay never recovers, relative to that of their husbands. This is less true if the first child is born before 25 or after 35 because the woman’s career either has not yet gotten started before 25 or is already established by the time she is in her late 30s.
  • Each child chops 4 percent off a woman’s hourly wage, according to a study conducted in 2014 by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the pay gap grows larger for each additional child born.
  • Even in families in which both parents work full time, women spend almost double the time on housework and childcare. This often means that women work fewer hours, are paid proportionately less, and become less likely to get promotions or raises.
Why don’t women speak out about being passed over for promotions, visible assignments, and raises because of motherhood? Goldstein suggests that women may feel they have more to lose by speaking out. Women who are trying to have both a career and a family are pushing against negative judgment from both employers and society. They may internalize this judgment and feel guilty—and they have families to support and cannot risk being laid off or further penalized. Many lawsuits are working their way through the courts, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has had more complaints filed in recent times than ever before about discrimination against working mothers, but we still don’t hear much about this issue. What will it take to bring about change? Miller points out that more women running for political office may mean that this issue gets addressed. For example, Senator Tammy Duckworth recently became the first United States senator to give birth while in office, and she subsequently fought for changes in accommodations and practices, such as availability of a lactation room, to support mothers in the Senate. Research has also shown some other policy changes that can help women who are mothers:
  • Programs to help women reenter the workforce
  • Flexibility in when and where work gets done
  • Subsidized childcare
  • Time off for men after children are born so they can spend more time on childcare
Women may need to share their stories in a #MomsToo movement. What are your stories?   Photo courtesy of Ran Allen (CC BY 2.0)]]>

Trouble for Women in “Manly” Jobs: Sexual Harassment and Discrimination

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Women have always wanted access to blue-collar jobs but have not always been able to get it. As Susan Chira, writing for the New York Times, notes, blue-collar jobs generally pay higher wages and have been a pathway to the middle class. Women have wanted those higher-paying jobs for the same reasons that men want them—they have families to support, often as single parents. Chira reminds us that women only got access to higher-paying jobs after 1964, when Title VII of the Civil Rights Act forced open certain industries previously closed to women, including work in factories, shipyards, mines, and construction sites. Unfortunately, the sexual harassment that women encountered when they entered these fields still endures today. In a different article, Chira reports that sexual harassment remains endemic in many blue-collar professions because it was woven into the manufacturing sector as it evolved during the industrial revolution. For example, as women came from farms into the textile mills, “men reserved the highest-status, highest-paying jobs” for themselves. Chira explains that sexual harassment reflects male hostility to women who try to take “men’s jobs” because of this original sense of entitlement. Because society continues to see some jobs as for men only, many blue-collar professions remain male dominated, and studies show that “sexual harassment is more regular and severe in traditionally male occupations.” The sexual harassment that women still endure remains dangerous. For example:

  • A woman on a repair crew was deliberately stranded on top of a two-hundred-foot wind turbine by her male coworkers after enduring months of lewd taunts.
  • Men dropped tools on female coworkers or deliberately turned on electrical power when women began working on power lines.
  • One gold miner, Hanna Hurst, described her harassment at work as rougher than any she endured serving in the military in Iraq.
  • Women in construction are blacklisted and become unemployable if they report sexual harassment.
In May, 2018, Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times reported that two high-ranking women in the northern Virginia Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department filed federal civil rights charges. When they opposed a long pattern of sexual discrimination and harassment in the department, one was denied jobs and a promotion and the other was asked to leave the department. Tavernise reports that “women have sued [this] department six times for sex discrimination since 2005, and in most of those cases either settled or won.” But nothing changed because of a lack of support for change from senior leadership, so the two senior women decided to take their case to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at the federal level, so “they can’t ignore us anymore.” Chira writes that, not surprisingly, an analysis of employment from 2000 to 2016 shows female representation in blue-collar industries has shrunk by as much as 10 percent. Tavernise reports that the percentage of female firefighters has dropped from 5.3 percent in 2007 to 3.5 percent in 2017. Tavernise quotes Marc Bendick, an economic researcher who conducted a national study of female firefighters, as saying, “It wasn’t that the women couldn’t do the jobs, or didn’t want the jobs. It was what the departments were doing to them” that pushed them out of the profession. What will finally bring change? Chira cites several scholars who argue that only a fundamental reconstruction of organizations to be less hierarchical and a reexamination of pay scales for men’s and women’s work will result in lasting change. Some small successes among firefighters in Kansas City, Missouri, and female miners in Wyoming occurred when the jobs were redefined away from the traditional hyperbolic masculine image to a more collaborative one, giving hope that we will figure this out one day, if the will is there to do so.   Photo courtesy of Eric Kilby (CC BY-SA 2.0)]]>

Good News! MBA Programs Focus on Sexual Harassment Prevention for Future Leaders

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The #MeToo era continues to have a positive impact on our culture, including on the training of future corporate leaders in MBA programs. Katie Johnston of the Boston Globe writes that “As the #MeToo movement continues to reveal how ingrained sexual harassment is in corporate culture, business schools have started taking steps to teach future leaders how to deal with, and eradicate, such behavior.” Johnston cites a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Business as saying, “People are waking up in business schools and realizing we’ve had a blind spot.” Johnston writes that while MBA programs had begun putting more focus on ethics and values after recent corporate scandals, such as the one at Wells Fargo last year, it was not until the Weinstein scandal that business schools began to add sexual harassment to the curriculum. In fact, in some cases the MBA students themselves took matters into their own hands before programs got the message. At MIT, the MBA students organized their own improvisation workshops about how to deal with sexual harassment. MIT now acknowledges that leadership must include being able to address both systemic and behavioral changes to eradicate sexual harassment. David Gelles and Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times quote Leanne Meyer of Carnegie Mellon as stating, “up until now, business leaders were largely responsible for delivering products. Now, shareholders are looking to corporate leaders to” take a stand on moral and social justice issues. MBA programs have started training leaders to do just that. Johnston, Gelles, and Miller describe some of the changes business schools are incorporating into their programs and curriculums:

  • New courses at MIT Sloan are dedicated to advancing equity and inclusion in the workplace.
  • A new ethics course at Stanford teaches how to create a workplace environment where people are comfortable reporting sexual misconduct.
  • Several schools are adding case studies, such as one on harassment at Uber.
  • Some students are forming male ally groups to support gender equity.
  • More courses show how leaders can create a workplace culture where sexual harassment isn’t tolerated.
  • At the Northeastern School of Business, a curriculum overhaul currently underway will weave issues facing working women into the fabric of its coursework.
  • Stanford Business School students study psychological research showing that people are more willing to challenge authority if at least one other person joins them.
Gelles and Miller note that the Forté Foundation is working with a number of business schools to help more women advance into leadership roles. More than two dozen schools have started groups based on the Forté model, including a group called the Manbassadors “for men committed to gender equity in business.” One male participant in the Manbassador program at Dartmouth explained that the goal is “making sure that as men we’re very aware of some of the privileges we’re afforded simply because of gender.” I don’t know about you, but I feel hopeful that because of these changes corporate cultures may really change one day to become equitable, inclusive, and safe places for women to work. The next generation of leaders appear to be taking the gender blinders off. Hopefully the corporate cultures they create will be equitable and inclusive for all currently disadvantaged groups.   Photo courtesy of Paul Lowry (CC BY 2.0)]]>

Why Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Is So Difficult to Stop

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Susan Fowler, writing for the New York Times, notes that it is now abundantly clear that sexual harassment is pervasive in every industry. While getting rid of it will not be easy, we now know some facts that will help:

  • We have to stop the practice of forced arbitration as a condition of employment. Forced arbitration takes away our rights to sue in court and can legally bind us to keep silent about what has happened to us. A recent Supreme Court decision confirming that employers can continue this practice means that we need new federal legislation to make this change.
  • We need legislation at the state and federal levels to protect employees.
    • Some progress has been made at the state level in Washington state and California.
    • We need much more progress at the federal level, including new legislation to eliminate forced arbitration as a condition of employment.
Jodi Kantor of the New York Times notes that there exists “giant holes in the federal laws meant to protect women from harassment.” These can come in several different forms:
  • Existing law only covers workplaces with fifteen or more employees.
  • Federal statutes of limitations for filing a claim can be as short as 180 days.
  • Damages can be capped at $300,000.
Kantor goes on to explain that harassment has flourished partly because structures intended to address it or protect against it are missing or broken:
  • Weak laws fail to protect women.
  • Corporate policies and procedures protect the company but not the employees.
  • Secret settlements protect offenders and keep patterns of abuse out of the public eye.
  • Human resources departments focus on protecting organizations from legal liability rather than protecting employees.
  • No consensus exists on how to report a repeat offender who goes from job to job or to address more minor infractions with measures short of suspension or firing.
  • Low wage workers are now more willing to speak up about sexual harassment, but it’s not clear who they should tell.
Even some of the most powerful women in the United States have so far been unable to get protections for congressional staff. All twenty-two female members of the Senate—Republican and Democrat—have pushed for an overhaul of the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, which provides more protection for members of Congress who are accused of sexual harassment than it does for the victims. #MeToo and #TimesUp are important movements to keep the pressure on for change. We must support and vote for candidates in the upcoming elections, at the state and federal levels, who are committed to passing legislation to protect women. Support candidates who support women.   Photo courtesy of Phil Roeder (CC BY 2.0)]]>

The Women of Nike Force Change

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The women of Nike, the sportswear company, got tired of their complaints to human resources about sexual harassment and discrimination falling on deaf ears. The women experienced retribution for filing complaints, and several high-level women left the company, sharing that they left because of frustration with the toxic company culture that they could not influence. So the women of Nike took matters into their own hands—and the public saw another example of employees bringing about change that would not have happened otherwise. Julie Creswell, Kevin Draper, and Rachel Abrams, writing for the New York Times, report that after years of complaining to human resources and seeing no evidence of change or accountability for bad behavior within the company, a group of women decided to covertly survey their female peers, “inquiring whether they had been the victim of sexual harassment and gender discrimination.” Those who had a complaint or a story to tell completed a questionnaire, sharing shocking and frustrating anecdotes:

  • Explanations from several high-level women about why they had exited the company, including a pattern of watching men get promoted while equally or better qualified women were passed over.
  • A range of stories about demeaning behavior toward women, such as male superiors referring to women using a vulgar term for women’s genitals or being called a “stupid bitch” by a boss.
  • Stories of women being excluded from the inner circle of mostly male decision makers.
  • Examples of a culture belittling to women where male supervisors openly discussed their favorite strip clubs during work outings.
  • The story of a senior manager who mentioned a female employee’s breasts in an email to her.
  • The story of a manager who kept magazines on his desk with scantily clad women on the cover and bragged about his supply of condoms.
In most of the examples above, the women recounted going to human resources to file a complaint or ask for action to punish the offender. More often than not, human resource managers told these women that they were wrong or that corrective action would be taken—but it never was. In some cases after a complaint was filed, the offender was promoted and the woman complaining was laid off. Finally, when the package of completed questionnaires was put on the desk of the CEO by the women, things started to change. Several top male executives exited over the next few weeks, including the head of diversity and inclusion, and the exits are continuing. A major overhaul is taking place of the human resources processes and internal systems for reporting sexual harassment and discrimination. Nike is a huge company but huge companies can change quickly if the right kind of pressure is applied from within and made public. And clearly, without pressure change does not happen. Thanks to the women of Nike for taking the risk to tell their stories.   Photo courtesy of perzon seo (CC BY 2.0)]]>

Sexual Harassment: New Research on the Numbers

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The #MeToo Movement has surprising momentum and appears to be reshaping our national dialogue and workplace cultures—at last! It seems that every week we read about high profile men (and some women) getting fired for sexual harassment. Almost every organization I work with as a consultant reports firing or disciplining employees in a variety of roles and levels for sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has been in the news at various times in the past, including in 1991 when Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his Senate confirmation hearing. But we have not been able to grasp the seriousness of the problem as a society, “believe the women” bringing accusations, or undertake research that can help us understand the depth and breadth of the problem. Susan Chira of the New York Times cites Holly Kearl, author of an important new study, as explaining why we must take this problem seriously: “Sexual harassment is a human rights violation—whether it takes place on the sidewalk of a street or in an executive boardroom—because it can cause emotional harm and limit and change harassed persons’ lives.” I can personally attest to that. The #MeToo Movement has provided an outlet for women and men to share their stories and finally be heard. The scope of the problem fueling and sustaining the movement has finally been documented in Kearl’s study. This study asks about a broader range of behaviors in multiple locations, not just in the workplace, over a longer time span and provides a clearer picture of the pervasiveness of this problem than we have had to date. Previous studies had a narrower focus, such as only in the workplace, only about rape or assault, or only during a narrow band of age, and did not give the whole picture. Chira notes that this well-designed study asked a nationally representative sample of one thousand women and one thousand men about verbal harassment, sexual touching, cyber sexual harassment, being followed on the street, genital flashing, and sexual assault in public spaces, in workplaces, in schools, online, and in homes. The findings from this study highlight the extent of this problem:

  • Eighty-one percent of women and 43 percent of men said they had experienced sexual harassment or assault over their lifetimes.
  • Seventy-seven percent of women and 34 percent of men said they had encountered verbal sexual harassment.
  • Fifty-one percent of women and 17 percent of men reported unwelcome sexual touching.
  • Forty-one percent of women and 22 percent of men said they were sexually harassed online.
  • About a third of women and one in ten men reported being physically followed, while 30 percent of women and 12 percent of men experienced genital flashing.
  • Twenty-seven percent of women and 7 percent of men reported sexual assaults.
  • Few differences were found by race or ethnicity among women who reported harassment. Hispanic men reported the most sexual harassment and assault in every category the survey recorded for men.
  • People who reported having a disability were much more likely to experience sexual harassment and assault.
  • Lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men were more likely to experience sexual assault than straight women and men.
Thanks to studies like this one, we can finally have an informed dialogue about the need for strategies to address this problem and stop it from being swept under the rug again. Let’s keep the pressure on for change.   Photo courtesy of Giuseppe Milo (CC BY 2.0)]]>

Why Training and HR Fail to Stop Sexual Harassment: What Organizations and Individuals Can Do

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One of the patterns emerging in recent sexual harassment cases brought to light by the #MeToo movement is the failure of human resources (HR) departments in many organizations to respond to sexual harassment complaints from employees. In fact, we’ve heard example after example of HR enabling retaliation against accusers, protecting powerful men who are accused, or simply dismissing complaints with only cursory investigations or none at all. Noam Scheiber and Julie Creswell of the New York Times explain that although employees are told to report mistreatment to HR, HR is often not the right place to go. The authors explain that there are various inherent conflicts in HR’s role:

  • HR is charged with protecting the company from liability and therefore faces a conflict of interest when also expected to protect employees. In other words, HR’s main client is the company and the senior leaders.
  • Scheiber and Creswell note that “even if human resources officials conclude that the accused should be disciplined or fired, they typically have no independent authority to make it happen.”
  • HR personnel are subject to the same power dynamics as other employees if they recommend termination of a valuable employee and incur the wrath of a senior executive—their own job could be at risk.
Another issue the #MeToo movement is bringing to light is that sexual harassment prevention training does not prevent sexual harassment. Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times writes that research shows that corporate sexual harassment training, at best, only teaches people basic information. At worst, it can make people uncomfortable and reinforce gender stereotypes. Most often, the training is rejected as a waste of time because people view it as either legalistic or impractical because it does not teach people how to stop harassment when it occurs. In fact, most sexual harassment training exists because the Supreme Court mandated it in workplaces in 1998 so companies could avoid liability in sexual harassment lawsuits. Most organizations are just checking this box for their own protection and not for actual prevention of sexual harassment. Miller suggests that, to prevent harassment in all forms, “companies need to create a culture in which women are treated as equals and employees treat one another with respect.” Here are some ways to create this type of culture:
  • Offer bystander training to give everyone the skills to stop disrespectful behavior by coworkers.
  • Involve white men in delivering bystander training so discouraging sexual harassment is seen as important to white men as it is to women and minorities.
  • Promote more women. Miller notes that companies with more women in management have fewer sexual harassment incidents.
  • Pay and promote men and women equally.
  • Create gender-balanced teams, hiring panels, and performance review panels.
  • Give dozens of people in the organization responsibility for receiving complaints so people can talk to someone they feel comfortable with and are not limited to HR, where they may not feel safe.
  • Institute proportional consequences for harassers. Consequences should reflect the severity of the offense. Automatic firing is not the solution. Nip small offenses in the bud.
If you work in an organization without the supporting practices and structures described above, Marty Langelan shares these tested tactics for discouraging sexual harassment on the Ms. blog:
  1. Use an all-purpose statement such as “Stop harassing women. I don’t like it—no one likes it. Show some respect.”
  2. Name the behavior, and don’t smile when you say it.
  3. Use an interruption tactic, such as a time-out gesture, to cut off the behavior.
  4. Force the person to explain him- or herself. Langelan suggests asking questions such as “Why do you think it’s okay to ask me to give you a massage?”
  5. Organize consistent group action against a persistent harasser. Agree on what you will all say to him or her, and repeat that statement whenever the bad behavior occurs.
  6. Document the incident on the spot with your phone’s camera or a written record.
  7. Use short, direct statements to give the harasser feedback on why his or her behavior is inappropriate and what behavior would be better.
  8. Use basic self defense if you are physically attacked. Take an aikido class if you can.
  9. If you are a bystander, speak up.
  10. Recruit unexpected allies, including the bully’s buddies.
Langelan recommends using consistent, everyday interventions to redefine workplace cultures. If your organization is not doing enough to create a safe workplace culture, organize your colleagues to work together. You can make a difference, but not alone.   Image courtesy of T’ruah (CC BY 2.0)]]>

How We All Lose When Women Are Devalued

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A coaching client recently shared with me that while still a college student she was sexually assaulted by an important person at her school. When she told her guidance counselor about it, he advised her to say nothing to protect the reputation of the school. She said nothing. Now, many years later, and thanks to the #MeToo movement and some professional development work she’s engaged in, she has become aware that some of her physical and emotional problems are probably related to the buried trauma from her sexual assault. For the first time, she is starting to talk about what happened to her, which is so important for the healing process. Untreated trauma from sexual assault can cost victims their health, marriages, careers, and their lives if it is not addressed. As Sallie Krawcheck of the New York Times writes, it can seem like a seismic shift is taking place in our culture as the avalanche of sexual harassment and assault stories, previously unspoken, silenced, or disbelieved, come pouring out. While this outpouring is important, Krawcheck notes that sexual harassment is part of a larger problem in our culture: women are demeaned and devalued. The cost of demeaning and devaluing women is not only the high incidence of sexual harassment and a general culture of rape on our college campuses and elsewhere but a problem that’s costing all of us in other ways as well:

  • Women’s ideas are discounted and their talents ignored in all kinds of social, academic, and work settings. In a previous article, I wrote about Krawcheck’s direct experience with the ways that homogeneity on Wall Street resulted in the groupthink that crashed our economy in 2008 with the subprime lending debacle. Krawcheck was fired from a senior leadership position at Smith Barney for diverging from the groupthink of the financial industry and daring to be client focused. We all lost when the market crashed.
  • Krawcheck points out that, “despite research showing that companies with more diversity, and particularly with more women in leadership, offer higher returns on capital, lower risk and greater innovation than firms without such leadership, Wall Street has been, and is, predominantly male at the top,” as are most other sectors of our economy. Without diversity of perspectives and a broad range of skills, poor decisions get made that can have widespread impact on the lives of everyday people.
I agree with Krawcheck that the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are important, but that the current focus on sexual harassment is only one step on the change journey. Valuing girls and women means eliminating gender bias in our workplaces and institutions and creating safe, respectful and inclusive workplaces, schools, and social institutions.   Photo by Sam Valadi, CC BY 2.0.]]>

Sexual Harassment Is Local and Global: Why It Persists and How to Stop It

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The outpouring since October 2017 of previously untold stories of sexual harassment and assault in the United States, known as the #MeToo movement, has been both shocking and exhilarating as brave women have been able to finally tell their painful stories and be heard and believed. With new revelations appearing in the US media daily about inappropriate behavior by both high- and low-profile men in the workplace, on college campuses, and in public spaces, it would be easy to miss the equally powerful stories coming out, often from surprising corners of the globe, about similar experiences. It would also be easy to get caught up in our outrage about these individual stories and to lose sight of the reason for this global phenomenon: patriarchal systems that are structurally set up against women. Here are some global examples: Indonesia—Tunggal Pawestri is among the women in Indonesia who are speaking out about the widespread daily sexual harassment endured by women, especially on roads, sidewalks, trains, and buses. Joe Cochrane, writing for the New York Times, explains that because Indonesia is a patriarchal society

  • It has no legal protections for victims of sexual harassment.
  • The topic of sexual harassment and assault is taboo, even in families when children are molested by close family friends.
Not surprisingly, incidents of sexual harassment go largely unreported, but women are starting to speak out on social media. Reading the stories of other women encourages women to share their own and discuss actions they can take together. Cochrane explains that the country’s sexual harassment problem stems from its patriarchal society in which men traditionally hold authority over women. Afghanistan—Maryam Mehtar is one of the brave women speaking out in Afghanistan, emboldened by the uprising of women in America and Europe against sexual harassment. Rod Nordland and Fatima Faizi write that women in Afghanistan tend to remain silent when faced with a problem seen as commonplace and unsolvable in their patriarchal society. The authors explain that
  • If women do speak out and identify their attacker, he might kill either the victim or her family members.
  • It might even be a family member who carries out an honor killing of the victim. Rape victims are sometimes killed by their own relatives who feel they have brought shame on their families.
  • Women who work outside the home are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault from coworkers and bosses as all women who work are considered whores.
Nonetheless, women in Afghanistan are starting to use social media to speak out, to establish NGOs to support women who have been harassed and assaulted, and to demand equality for women. Japan—Shiori Ito spoke out about being raped by a high-profile male television journalist when she was a young media intern. It took courage for her to share her story and name her attacker in a country whose institutions do not support victims. Motoko Rich of the New York Times explains that in Japan
  • Complaints of sexual harassment and assault rarely result in arrests or prosecutions.
  • Public education to discourage sexual assault is nonexistent.
  • Rape laws make no mention of consent.
Rich cites Tomoe Yatagawa, a lecturer in gender law at Waseda University as explaining that “prejudice against women is deep-rooted and severe, and people don’t consider the damage from sexual crimes seriously at all.” The author quotes Shiori Ito as saying that she knows she must be strong and continue to speak out if Japan’s patriarchal institutions are ever going to stop protecting men and start respecting women. Radical Islam in France—Henda Ayari, a French citizen of North African parentage, chose to publicly denounce the beliefs of her radical Salafi Muslim community in 2015 after the terrorist attack and bombing of the Bataclan concert hall. New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall writes that Ayari’s denunciation of the treatment of women in Salafism brought many threats and insults to her on social media. Then, in 2017, after “reading the accounts of women outing their sexual aggressors in the #MeToo campaign on social media after the Harvey Weinstein scandal,” Ayari decided to unburden herself of the secret she had been carrying about being raped in 2012 by a famous Swiss-born Muslim scholar in France by posting her story on social media. She received many messages from other Muslim women in France who have kept silent about sexual abuse and are struggling with patriarchal Salafist strictures that isolate women and require obedience to men. Speaking out and telling her story to demonstrate that women are not inferior, deserve to be respected, and do not have to wear a veil to be a good Muslim has given her a sense of purpose. She has founded a nonprofit to help women seek legal help and refuge. Sweden—When Cissi Wallin, vacationing in New York City with her family from Sweden in October 2017, read the story on Harvey Weinstein, she wondered, “What if people would believe me now?” Jenny Nordberg of the New York Times explains that Wallin had filed a rape complaint in Sweden in 2011 against a high-profile journalist, which was dismissed within a few weeks. Inspired by #MeToo, she decided to post the incident and the name of her attacker on social media. Soon more women came forward about this same man. Then stories of other high-profile individuals came pouring forth from tens of thousands of Swedish women about brutal sexual assaults in every profession. Nordberg notes that while Sweden prides itself on being best in class on gender equality, all the rules, regulations, and agencies devoted to gender equality have not changed basic cultural patriarchal assumptions about the supremacy of men and “traditional sexual norms” that leave women responsible for protecting themselves. Nordberg explains that men in Sweden use their professional power and influence to harass or abuse younger, often subordinate women, often at work, and, like everywhere else, seem to consider it their right to do so. Clearly there is more work to do in Sweden, and everywhere else. Susan Faludi of the New York Times notes that outrage and removal of a few men will not result in women’s equality. If we do not stay focused on changing public attitudes about gender roles and on changing the economic and legal structures that perpetuate the gender pay gap, deny access to family planning, and silence women’s complaints about sexual abuse, we will never have true gender equality or workplaces free of harassment. Faludi explains that the #MeToo movement is important, but it will not change anything if we do not also follow the lead of Alabama’s black women voters and turn out for elections, encourage the ongoing Women’s March on Washington, and support the stunning number of female candidates seeking office in the coming elections. #MeToo is the next step in a long journey, but it is not the end of the road.   Photo by Josh Estey, CC BY 2.0.]]>

Invisible Victims of Sexual Harassment: Hotel and Blue-Collar Workers

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The tidal wave of public accusations and firings of high-profile men for sexual harassment and assault, known as the #MeToo movement, has swept across several sectors and industries in recent weeks, including technology, entertainment, finance, and government. But not everyone who experiences sexual harassment and assault as an employee feels included in the #MeToo movement. Hotel and blue-collar workers are often invisible victims of sexual harassment for whom participating in the #MeToo movement either is too dangerous or does not help them. Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times explains that hotel workers, especially housekeepers and janitors, are particularly vulnerable to being sexually harassed because they work alone. While some states and several cities have passed laws to protect hotel workers, hotels tend to put the needs and experiences of guests, especially VIPs, before those of employees. Consequently, workers do not trust management to do anything about their complaints and fear being fired as troublemakers if they do report harassment. Immigrant workers are especially vulnerable because of limited job opportunities. A union survey of hotel workers in Chicago found that 58 percent of them had been sexually harassed by a guest, so this is no small problem. Difficulties for blue-collar workers were recently revealed in an exposé of sexual harassment at Ford Motor Company written by Susan Chira and Catrin Einhorn of the New York Times. The most interesting point about the situation at Ford is that sexual harassment is not a new problem there. Women at Ford filed and won a lawsuit for $22 million in the 1990s for sexual harassment and assault in two Chicago plants. The women endured being groped or rubbed against, male colleagues masturbating in front of them, and offers from supervisors for better assignments in exchange for sex—with retribution if they refused. A number of these Ford women worked with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the 1990s to sue the company and won a settlement, but twenty-five years later, at these same two plants, women are subjected to many of the same abuses. Chira and Einhorn report that when the women complained in the 1990s, they were, “mocked, dismissed, threatened and ostracized.” Many of the men whom they filed complaints against kept their jobs after the settlement, while the women were asked to leave. New sexual harassment lawsuits have been filed with a recent settlement by Ford for $10 million, but, in spite of lots of sexual harassment training, the culture of the organization has never changed. The story of sexual harassment at Ford shows the challenges of transforming an organization’s culture. After the lawsuit of the 1990s, the company did not act aggressively enough to root out the problem. Instead, they

  • Delayed firing those accused.
  • Let sexual harassment training wane.
  • Failed to stop retaliation.
  • Failed to staff an antiharassment hotline. They published the number but calls were not returned.
  • Instituted policies that required witnesses to prove a claim of harassment.
Chira and Einhorn note that while senior leaders at Ford currently make pronouncements about not tolerating sexual harassment as a company, employees say, “They don’t even go on the floor, so they don’t know what goes on.” Blue-collar women at Ford now feel that not only does the #MeToo movement not help them, even lawsuits do not work to improve their work environment. It’s easy to understand how they may feel invisible. We must work together to make their situation visible, amplify their voices, and put pressure on all companies to change their cultures to be safe for workers. As the story of the Ford women demonstrates, lawsuits and training are clearly not enough.   Photo by Diego Torres Silvestre, CC BY 2.0.      ]]>