"Sexual Harassment" **

I had the misfortune of being forced to attend a "sexual harassment training" session at work today. This was no 20-minute video that we could mock, sleep through, and immediately forget-- this was a three-hour tour (a three-hour tour) through the quagmire of sexual harassmet law and hypothetical scenarios. My overall rating is two thumbs down, for having to waste time sitting down instead of working, but my capsule review is more conflicted-- in the true spirit of the law.

First of all, I must give credit to the fact that someone is concerned enough to go beyond the 20-minute video and devote time/resources to genuinely raise awareness. So, huzzahs to my employer, with the caveat that 1 or 2 hours would have been sufficient since I would rather have been working.

Compliments must also be given to the lawyer actually presenting the training session for his explanation of the history of sexual harassment law and his interpretation of historical cases during the evolution of the law. This was a very nice touch, and made the group think critically about each change and possible scenarios.

He provided a number of examples for us to go over (individually and as a group) to illustrate certain points regarding the syntax of the law and to provide us with an opportunity to interpret the law. This is a good idea-- active participation as opposed to passive video-watching-- however, he sent a number of somewhat mixed signals.

His printed materials (hypothetical scenarios) were blandly sexist, with one notable exception. All of the scenarios involved women "feeling harassed" either because of bawdy jokes or come-ons by male co-workers/supervisors, except for one which involved a man feeling harassed by a group of women regularly sharing intimate sexual details with each other. He noted that most people find it hard to believe that a man would be offended by women talking about sex, and that this example was one of the more divisive ones. So, good for including a role-reversal example, but the image of a group of women constantly talking about sex doesn't sit well in my mind.

To move along, the only statistics he provided (a graph breaking down the types of sexual harassment claims) were from 1988, and the title of the graph was along the lines of "Survey of Working Women." I did not ask whether the statistics were representative of the population as a whole, or if they just included women, but I find it hard to believe that no other surveys have been conducted within the last 20 years.

I don't want to get too specific, but the general feeling was that women are still the ones who claim sexual harassment. I'm sure that, statistically, women are the majority of people who file sexual harassment claims. But the fact that his presentation (and even his casual language) was somewhat dated does not really help us as a society. Perpetuating the "he said, she said" stereotype will not change anyone's attitudes towards gender roles or even sexual harassment.

Now, my general take on sexual harassment is that it as a law is seriously abused. I don't think that people shouldn't speak up about situations that make them uncomfortable, I just think that a lot of personal responsibility is shirked in favor of expensive and trying lawsuits. If people could just behave like adults and either discuss or avoid situations that are counterproductive, then we could avoid wasting time and energy on "office politics." Not that avoidance is the best policy, but perhaps it can be applied in conjunction with discussion.

I personally have never worked in a Dilbert-style office, but my work environments have been quite active and stressful over the years, and have included diverse groups of people, with the added factor of active (physical) customer service to temper interactions between co-workers. And all jobs have had a large amount of consensual sexual harassment to break the stresses of the job. There are exceptions to every rule, but those of us who can act like adults and intuit those who can also act like adults with similar types of humor regularly harass each other on the job (in my experience*). The question then becomes a matter of assessing your co-workers and realizing when to say certain things and when to censor yourself, which was the crux of the sexual harassment training. (Everyone in my immediate work environment noted that "we need to be properly trained in how to sexually harass someone.") However, a lot of office politics is the result of juvenile personality clashes that can likewise be avoided via reasonable discussion, which is where abuse of the legal system comes into play.

More to the point, our conservative cultural feeling towards sex and our litigious nature aggravates the situation. Perhaps if we were a little less afraid of sex, we would not be so quick to point the finger-- or to sympathize with those pointing the finger.

Those of us in sexual harassment training this afternoon did not leave with any definite answers, which made it harder to justify missing the rest of the workday, but were definitely given a number of things to think over. Yet, the feeling we took away was one of defeat. The law is vague and has been interpreted to so many ends that any casual comment could be construed as offensive, but the subtle reminders of men harassing women made it hard to believe that anything will change, even with appropriate training.

*My work environments have consistently been of a female majority.