Month: December 2017

Rosa Parks, #MeToo, and the Important Role of Protest in Our Democracy

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What do Rosa Parks, #MeToo, the Women’s March on Washington and the Pussyhat Project, Black Lives Matter, and Colin Kaepernick have in common? They all represent long-term protests against sexual assault or racial injustice—protests that are an essential part of our democracy. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC, a nonprofit civil rights organization) reminds us that unless we understand that social change occurs only when there is sustained protest, we can too easily become discouraged when change does not come quickly (see article by SPLC editors entitled “Rosa Parks, #MeToo, and the Nature of the Struggle”). In fact, Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore of the New York Times points out that protests during the twentieth century helped forge a more democratic country. Gilmore notes that unfortunately our textbooks do us a disservice when they “celebrate moments when single acts of civil disobedience, untainted by political organizations, seemed to change the course of history.” Single acts of courage almost never change the course of history. Don’t get me wrong; individual courage is important but only effective if it occurs in the context of movements and political organizations. This understanding can help us realize the importance of not giving up when change does not come quickly. The #MeToo movement and all the women, along with some men, coming forward to reveal experiences of sexual assault is amazing. The outpouring of stories is like raging waters released after a dam breaks. These waters are pushing against a dam created by social attitudes and a legal system that make it hard for perpetrators to be held accountable. There is a long history of protest and struggle for justice against sexual violence, going back to a national campaign against sexual assault of black women led by Rosa Parks a decade before she refused to give up her seat on the bus. In 1944 Parks led a campaign against the Alabama legal system when a grand jury refused to indict six men for the brutal gang rape of Mrs. Recy Taylor. While Parks and the NAACP were not successful in bringing the rapists to justice, the SPLC notes, “more than 70 years after Recy Taylor’s rape, a day of reckoning appears to have arrived for sexual predators in all fields,” reflected in the high-profile firings and the #MeToo movement. The Women’s March and Pussyhat Project are part of this reckoning. Ignited by the sexism and racism on display during the 2016 presidential race and the lack of accountability for Trump’s behavior reflected in his bragging about sexually assaulting women in the Access Hollywood tape, women and male allies continue to press for his accountability. However, the legal system continues to make justice difficult to attain with the use of nondisclosure agreements, arbitration requirements that favor employers, and vague legal standards for “severe and pervasive” sexual harassment. Nonetheless, we are making progress and must persist to stop sexual harassment. The SPLC notes that social change does not happen with one protest, one campaign, or one person. Gilmore points out that when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, it was not a spontaneous act. Parks was a trained activist and part of a movement protesting Jim Crow, a legal and social system of degradation. The lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, were not a spontaneous act but were part of the racial justice fight for quality education, voting rights, and economic opportunity. The Black Lives Matter movement is part of this long history of struggle for racial justice as is Colin Kaepernick’s anthem kneeling. #MeToo is also part of a long history of struggle for both gender equity and racial justice. Gilmore reminds us that successful protests cast old wrongs in a new light and achieve partial victories. We are in a moment when real and lasting change is possible, however incomplete. Don’t get tired or discouraged—stick together, march together, and keep the pressure on our institutions. Social change will come and our democracy will be stronger.   Photo by Mobilus In Mobili, CC BY-SA 2.0.    ]]>

What Men Can Do to Stop Sexual Harassment

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The recent explosion of sexual harassment accusations against high-profile men and the outpouring of painful sexual harassment experiences in #MeToo messages on Twitter from women (and some men) across the globe have, as reported by Nellie Bowles, shocked many men into reflecting on their own behavior. My own partner, a devoted feminist, began to question whether any of his actions might have recently caused discomfort for a woman friend. In our discussions he agreed with a recent observation by Charles M. Blow of the New York Times that he (Blow) has male privilege because he is over six feet tall, weighs more than 200 pounds, and never has to think about being sexually assaulted or harassed. This male privilege can make him and other men blind or oblivious to the impact of their actions on women, even when they think they are just being friendly. Blow also makes the point that, as a man, being a good listener and understanding women’s experiences intellectually does not equate to having the lived experience of physical vulnerability and multiple occurrences of sexual harassment that many women have. In another article, Blow challenges men to reexamine their cultural assumptions about toxic, privileged masculinity, starting with the obvious:

  • There is no sex without consent. Rape is not sex; it is rape.
  • Unwanted touching is not sexy; it’s assault.
  • Sexual advances in a work environment, particularly from those in a position of power, are highly inappropriate and possibly illegal.
  • In almost all environments, rubbing your penis against people, masturbating in front of them or showing your penis is wrong, humiliating, and possibly illegal.
  • If you become involved sexually with a minor, that is not a relationship or dating; it is exploitation of a minor and possibly statutory rape.
What can men do to stop sexual harassment and assault? Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times offer these suggestions:
  • Listen more to women and seek to understand their experiences.
  • Don’t be silent. Silence is the enemy. Speak out and stand up to other men.
  • Cut out “guy talk” in the workplace.
  • Think twice about hugging in the workplace. Shake hands instead.
  • Do not think that sexual harassment training is enough. Anti-harassment training is ineffective unless policies and procedures are changed to make it safe for women to report sexual harassment without fear of retaliation. Provide multiple reporting channels, follow up, and act on reports.
  • Do not comment on the appearance of female coworkers when not saying the same things to male coworkers.
  • Fire the men who sexually harass as well as the men and women who are complicit.
  • Have dialogue with family and friends and stop sexist remarks, jokes, and behavior when you see or hear them.
  • Be more careful about corporate offsite meetings or social events. Some leaders are limiting the availability of alcohol and holding social events in the day instead of at night.
  • Do not avoid mentoring or sponsoring women. Behave respectfully and check in with women about whether they feel harassed or uncomfortable.
Charles Blow adds:
  • Every man must become a feminist and work hard to elevate gender equality and to eliminate gender violence.
  • Every man must do the hard work of expanding his understanding, empathy, and experience to become an ally of all women.
  • Every man must advocate for cultural and policy changes that would make women’s lives better.
Blow believes that real change will have occurred when ordinary, powerless, invisible women and men can speak up and press charges against harassers without feeling fear of negative repercussions. He goes on to note that society has nourished the dangerous idea that unbridled male aggression “is prized,” that “boys will be boys,” and that men are not responsible for their actions because “horny men cannot control themselves.” This is all “a lie,” he says. Men can control themselves. Our culture has to stop nurturing hostile masculinity—or the courts will have to do it for us. Is your company reexamining its own thinking and practices more carefully? Let us know what efforts your organization is making to create a healthier workplace.   Photo by Kreg Steppe, CC BY-SA 2.0.  ]]>

Who Becomes a Sexual Harasser?

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There is something in the news almost every day about sexual harassment and sexual assault. These subjects have also come up in every social gathering I’ve been part of in recent weeks, whether the groups are all women or mixed gender groups of friends and colleagues. It is easy to grasp how powerful men like Bill O’Reilly of Fox News; Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer; and Bill Cosby, the entertainer, could get away with harassing and assaulting young women for decades by paying them millions of dollars to keep silent when they complained. It is also easy to understand the power that these men wielded over the careers of young women, power that may have fed a narcissistic predatory tendency (remember the Access Hollywood tape?). What is not as easy to understand is how some people can become sexual harassers or abusers when they are not rich and famous. How does this behavior begin and develop? First, let’s review the statistics reflecting how widespread this problem is. It is not just a few high-profile people (mostly men, but a few women) who are sexually harassing and assaulting others. Charles Blow of the New York Times recently reported these current statistics from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center:

  • One in five women will be raped at some point in their lives.
  • One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college.
  • Ninety-one percent of the victims of rape and sexual assault in the United States are female.
  • Eight percent of rapes occur while the victim is at work.
  • Rape is the most underreported crime; 63 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.
  • More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault.
  • The prevalence of false reporting is between 2 percent and 10 percent.
Blow also stated that a 2015 Cosmopolitan magazine survey of more than 2,234 female employees between eighteen and thirty-four found that roughly one in three said they had been sexually harassed at work. Seventy-one percent never reported the harassment, and of the 29 percent who did report it, only 15 percent felt the report was handled fairly. Who becomes a sexual harasser or predator? David Brooks of the New York Times offers a helpful framework, using the metaphor of “rooms,” for explaining how this evolution can occur.
  • Room #1: The room of love. Brooks explains that most men, when they are children, are raised to think about sex as “something special you do with the person you love.”
  • Room #2: The room of the prospector. Brooks explains that in adolescence “a strange thing happens,” and the room of love “drops from common culture” in societal messages about how boys should behave. Boys learn that “sex is a gold nugget” and that they should prospect for gold. If you are a straight man, then you’ll be on the prowl for women who can give you what you want—sex for pleasure. Hunting for sex at college parties or clubs becomes a transaction for which you can rack up conquests and victories. Too often, part of the hunt involves getting a young woman to drink a lot of alcohol to make her easier prey for sexual conquest and to be able to blame her later for being drunk. The sense of entitlement to sexual pleasure that young men learn in this process can stay with them after college when they move on to the workplace.
  • Room #3: The room of the predator. Brooks notes that a small percentage of men cross over from the prospector to the predator room and mix the pleasures of sex with the pleasures of power. Brooks goes on to state that the most extreme form of sexual harassment is “not just sex and it’s not just power; it’s a wicked mixture of the two. Harassers possess what psychologists call hostile masculinity; they apparently get pleasure from punishing the women who arouse them.” They take pleasure in frightening, intimidating, and overpowering women with their sexual behavior.
Brooks notes that predators do seem to start young, “often beginning their predatory behavior in college.” For this reason, the recent rollback of Obama-era guidelines by Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, for how colleges should be survivor-centered and hold predators accountable is a step backward. Campus sexual violence researchers Nicole Bedera and Miriam Gleckman-Krut in the New York Times report that the changes by DeVos will discourage survivors from coming forward and will ensure that more prospectors evolve into predators. The impact of sexual harassment and assault can be severe, including depression, PTSD, and suicidal thoughts. At the very least, it is a civil rights violation. Our institutions must stop enabling and protecting prospectors and perpetrators. We need to embrace and teach a definition of masculinity that includes accountability for respectful behavior toward girls and women.   Photo by J Stimp, CC BY 2.0.  ]]>

A New Way for Women to Support Each Other: Social Media

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Women have always found ways to help each other survive racism and sexism in the workplace by meeting informally outside of work for validation and support. This support might be in the form of listening to and understanding stories of mistreatment; sharing tips for how to deal with discrimination, salary negotiation, and work-life balance; or sharing the names of sexual predators to increase a woman’s ability to protect herself at work. Women across the decades and occupations have always benefited from this type of support in safe spaces such as living rooms and coffee shops. But the rise of the internet has opened important new forms of safe space. Julie Creswell and Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times explain that the internet has become a clearinghouse for complaints. The recent outpouring of sexual harassment complaints against high- profile individuals has heightened awareness of sexual harassment and opened a floodgate of untold stories as women discover that they are not alone in their experiences of inappropriate behavior. Long unvoiced or ignored, pent-up complaints of inappropriate behavior are pouring out into public and private online forums. It still remains unsafe for most individuals to lodge formal complaints with human resources (HR) departments whose primary interest is protecting powerful people and the legal interests of organizations. Individuals are still at risk of retaliation or of being ignored, but the large number of women (and men) coming forward makes it safer. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) notes that outrageous and unchecked behavior has been going on for so long that fewer than two in ten female harassment victims ever file a complaint for fear of retribution. Creswell and Hsu note that current public forums and invitation-only online support groups include the following:

  • Tech Ladies, an invitation-only Facebook group
  • #HelpASisterOut, a forum for advice on how to file a complaint or learn about a company’s culture
  • Blind, an app for anonymous chats about the workplace
  • BetterBrave, an online guide to resources for sexual harassment victims
  • SheWorx, an advocacy group for online entrepreneurs
Creswell and Hsu explain that social media platforms yield results for sexual harassment victims who are ignored by their HR departments. For example:
  • When Susan Fowler of Uber published her blog with accusations about sexual harassment by her supervisor that had been ignored by HR, she got action, including the firing of the company founder.
  • Two women at YouTube reported Andy Signore for sexual harassment to HR and nothing happened. When they went public on social media, he was swiftly terminated.
There is a downside, of course, to anonymous online allegations, which can spread quickly and damage reputations with no chance for the accused to defend themselves. We do need just and fair processes—for everyone. Women haven’t had them. We are now in a period of realignment where the pressure may be back on for organizations to take women’s complaints seriously and to put effective policies and procedures in place that protect women and work for everyone. We had good practices in place in the 1990s after Anita Hill brought the issue of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas out into the light of day, but then they were replaced by corporate lawyers with arbitration clauses in employment contracts and nondisclosure agreements that do not protect victims of harassment. It’s time to get back to protecting women and men from harassment.   Photo by Donna Cleveland, CC BY 2.0.]]>