Soraya Chemaly doesn’t understand the calls for a more lax attitude around sexual remarks in the workplace.
What exactly is the point of Katie Roiphe’s “In Favor of Dirty Jokes and Risque Remarks” anyway? That women should “lighten up?” That no “strong professional” women are cowed by off-color jokes? This kind of dismissal, trivialization, and denial of the problem is itself a type of harassment. It’s why pieces like Katie Roiphe’s, which concludes that “perhaps we should be worrying about different dorms of hostility in our workplaces” end up in the New York Times Op Ed section, but stories like Melinda Hennenberger’s “Sexual Harassment Deserves a Place Among ‘The Real Issues” four days earlier in the Washington Post revealing the common and ubiquitous experiences of women end up the “Style” section.
Stories about harassment are often targeted at female readers unless they are about powerful people, then they’re “Political” and A section fodder. Why is it that stories about the rate of harassment, the validity of claims, women’s experiences, and the economic and political effects of harassment show up consistently in “women’s” sections or those with high female viewer/readership? Is that because they’re not “real” and “serious” until individual and powerful men are involved? In dealing with harassment women make all kinds of adjustments every day, on the street and in the workplace. And men don’t know about most of them. Why? Because we don’t tell them. It’s a “Women’s issue” but a “men’s problem.”
The world remains a fairly different place for men and women. It is still a male-constructed space, even the workplace where women have been making gains. Which is not to overstate the issue: the number and percentage of women in leadership positions dropped last year for the first time and is now a whopping 17%. And, that’s the real point; sex-based harassment isn’t about having a sense of humor or not being a “tender creature.” It’s about power and culture.
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Harassment is about who defines what is funny and what is appropriate. And, in the instance of Katie Roiphe’s article, how mainstream media uses information to shape culture. She misses the point, to all of our detriment, on several fronts.
Firstly, sex based harassment at work is not an academic exercise, like Ms. Roiphe’s article suggests. Yes, our Puritan country “loves the language of sexual harassment” but at one point our country also loved to burn witches, something that also allowed people to be “enlightened and sexually conservative, modern [for the time] and judgmental, sensitive and disapproving, voyeuristic and correct all at the same time.” For most women, experiencing sex-based harassment at work it has real, economic ramifications.
Take my friend, D, who recently started a new job at a tech firm. On her first day, her new boss said he knew he’d hire her because she had “nice breasts,” although I think he actually said “tits.” He then, during the course of her first week, reviewed the fuckability of her female peers. Laugh a minute, that guy. She’s quietly seeking a new job. This is a woman with whom I regularly trade stories about human cannibalism and extreme survival and discuss how to weaponize children’s toys for fun. According to Ms. Roiphe, she’s humorless and delicate. She also has to stay in this job until she find a new one. Strange thing that … having to earn a living. When she gets her new job will she have to explain that she left the last one because she’s an “anodyne drone” who cowers in her cubby because she felt “terrorized” by some misguided compliments and jokes? Her claim that sexist environments do not derail “smart, professional” women is cavalier and wrong. Women routinely inhibit their behavior, alter their routines, worry about going into the workplace and are forced to make decisions that fundamentally compromise their rights. This is considered “natural” and the “price” of being a woman. It’s a matter of male privilege that men don’t even have to spend mental energy thinking about these things.
Second, unlike Ms. Roiphe’s cavalier statements to the opposite, nothing about what constitutes harassment is clear, even after years of trying, and this is a pivotal issue. I actually agree with her that most gender-based harassment cannot be legislated. That’s because there is a difference between what is legal and what is acceptable and she makes no such distinctions. This difference, between the legal and the acceptable is very important. It is largely to blame for the ambiguity of defining harassment. It’s why recognizing women’s stories of harassment as real and legitimate is vital. Because there is a gaping divide in what women experience and what men understand about their experiences. Gender harassment covers a broad spectrum of behavior ranging from street harassment to off-color and illegal workplace actions. The vast majority of sexual harassment cases are male on female. Men who harass women, whether consciously or unconsciously, don’t know when they’re crossing the line because they don’t know where it is. Men stare at a woman, make a sexual jokes, pay women compliments, smile broadly while opening doors all the time. When is one ok and the other not? I’ve got to believe that most men don’t want to harass women. But, too many women don’t say anything, drop their eyes and quietly go away. Because, when they do say something they know they will face ridicule, detailed scrutiny and real economic consequences. News coverage of the issue recently hasn’t done much to change the fact that a pervasive slut-shaming/blame the victim approach still rules the day. To date several women have come forward with claims against Herman Cain and his fundraising is going up. That’s culture. Not legality. Not humorlessness. Not weakness.
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As a nation, as a culture, we decided years ago that race-based harassment was both illegal and unacceptable. We have not done the same for gender-based harassment. When Herman Cain says he believes he did nothing inappropriate, he’s partially right. For example, it is appropriate in our culture for women’s bodies to be considered public property and that men feel free to ubiquitously comment on them—87% of women report experiencing persistent and aggressive street harassment, for example. When Herman Cain does that in an office, maybe it’s illegal, but it is clearly not unacceptable given street life. There is a difference between sexual harassment in the workplace, which is illegal and sexual harassment on the street or the airwaves that includes sexist language and actions, which should be unacceptable.
I’d like to think that I’m not a frail, humorless, shrinking violet because I’d like rape pages to go away or because I’d like men like Herman Cain to know what is “appropriate” in the workplace by the time my daughters go to work. At the very least, when they do, I really hope Katie Roiphe is not in charge of HR.
About Soraya Chemaly
It’s nice that you get to discuss cannibalism and ways to weaponize toys with your colleague.
I wonder if anyone else would find THOSE topics offensive? But then, they wouldn’t be displaying “male privilege,” so I guess that wouldn’t matter. Remember the radfem motto: “It’s okay when WE do it.”
Some people obviously would find those topics offensive, both men and women. But this article is about conversations and conduct in the workplace, not the content of a presumably private conversation with a friend. It’s a question of context and audience.
Instead of responding to an articulate argument with a thoughtful rebuttal, you seized upon a minor detail and made a tenuous connection to “radical feminism.” Well done.
(PS, what’s “radical” about the position that sexual jokes aren’t appropriate in the workplace? I thought everyone that wasn’t an advertising executive from the 1960s was on board with that idea?)
The point, since you apparently missed it, is that the author is setting herself up as the arbiter of what types of conversations are “acceptable” in the workplace–according to HER standards, which apparently are supposed to trump everyone else’s. Why? Because she’s a woman, of course!
This is the problem with speech codes and catering to the most easily offended person in the room.
Huh, weird. I didn’t notice the author claiming the sole right to determine what is or is not appropriate based on the whims of her femininity. I thought she was appealing to a sort of egalitarian ethos, the idea that an environment that favours one person over another based on a quality so arbitrary as gender is both fundamentally unfair and morally suspect.
So I read the article again, keeping both eyes peeled for those sneaky feminist rhetorical tricks that you must have found with your superior reading skills. But after the second pass, I was left to face the fact that it still just seems like a clear and cogent argument to me. One supported by theory, statistics, anecdotes and current events.
Look, I’m a man. I’ve worked in offices with cultures of harassment and those without. I don’t see how telling a woman she has nice tits is any more appropriate that putting on a Punjabi accent as asking the Indian guy if he brought curry for lunch. Nor do I see either action as necessary for a “fun” work environment for all the white males in the office.
Then again, I’ve read a few of your comments around this site, and I realize this is probably just a dead end. It appears that your M.O. is simply to expose the insidious radical feminists that are lurking around every corner, just waiting for the chance to take away your inalienable right to tell a female employee that she is eminently fuckable. I wish you luck in your noble work.
Awesome, Derek.
That’s OK, Derek. You go ahead and follow whatever rules the women cook up for you. Maybe they’ll pat your head and give you a cookie!
Fortunately for men, there are other options… like not caring if the office feminists are satisfied that their conditions are being followed.
What if a woman ISN’T an “office feminist,” but still finds it rude and inappropriate when a male co-worker tells her she has nice tits?
Or does finding that inappropriate make her a feminist by default?
“What if a woman ISN’T an “office feminist,” but still finds it rude and inappropriate when a male co-worker tells her she has nice tits?”
I find it rude and inappropriate, I hate feminism and I am a man. However, I don’t think that the government should define what is rude and inappropriate. In fact I don’t even think a company should care. In a business only one thing should matter and this is RESULTS.
If you have ever watched Entourage, Ari Gold is extremely rude and inappropriate. His behavior to his male assistant is beyond hostile but I don’t think we should be trying to outlaw the behavior of people like Ari Gold.
BTW, the modern advertising industry is EVEN worse than what you see on Mad Men. Especially in terms of sexually risque comments. And in advertising there are more women than in IT despite the fact that in advertising the environment is extremely hostile to prudish people. So I don’t think rude, inappropriate, sexually risque comments are things that repulse women from a field. If anything from my observations its the opposite. The most sexual workplaces: bars, clubs, advertising, entertainment industry tend to attract lots of women. Whereas the most asexual places….like IT…attract few women. DHH made exactly his point.
@ assman
“I find it rude and inappropriate, I hate feminism and I am a man. However, I don’t think that the government should define what is rude and inappropriate. In fact I don’t even think a company should care. In a business only one thing should matter and this is RESULTS. ”
People who are subjected to a hostile work environment may have their performance drop. Stopping sexual harassment makes sense from a business standpoint. Makes you wonder why some companies might tolerate it.
“It’s a matter of male privilege that men don’t even have to spend mental energy thinking about these things”
And its a matter of female privilege that you never have to worry about being accused of sexual harassment and you don’t have to censor yourself to fit in at the workplace.
“I thought she was appealing to a sort of egalitarian ethos, the idea that an environment that favours one person over another based on a quality so arbitrary as gender is both fundamentally unfair and morally suspect.”
Ugh. Ewwww. I thought she was just constructing more rules. I have enough rules to deal with at work. I don’t need more. I NEED LESS. As for favoring a sex…its pretty obvious based purely on empirical evidence that modern workplaces favor women not men.
The “nice tits” isn’t something I would be comfortable with but I thought Lori Day’s blow job joke was funny. In my office we say all kinds of things that would be considered sexual harassment or contributing to a hostile work environment. Thank God the women I work with are young and easygoing. I don’t like the fact though that either me or the people I work with could be accused of sexual harassment if we happen to say the wrong thing to the wrong person.
“Stories about harassment are often targeted at female readers unless they are about powerful people, then they’re “Political” and A section fodder. Why is it that stories about the rate of harassment, the validity of claims, women’s experiences, and the economic and political effects of harassment show up consistently in “women’s” sections or those with high female viewer/readership?”
This is a huge problem. I also blog for Huffington and often have to lobby the editors not to automatically place my posts on HuffPo Women. I write about a lot of things–parenting, education, advocacy for boys and men, for girls and women, gender, pop culture, media, etc. I notice that whenever I write about anything related to difficulties faced by females, it gets put onto Women unless I manage to convince them otherwise, such as I did for a piece on the sexualization of girls, which went on Impact, because it’s not just a women’s issue, and that was the g-d *theme* of the whole piece! Men and fathers need to be a part of it too, and this is less likely with placement on a page called “Women” which has a few genuinely interested male readers, and a larger number of male trolls who lie in wait for these types of articles so they can attack them.
Soraya, I think that unfortunately, what you are writing about, which I also write about sometimes, falls into this weird paradox. It’s like the more you talk about it, the more people (especially some men, but some women also) are tired of hearing about it, and it’s like you can keep talking about it and nothing changes, or you can let yourself be silenced by those who want to silence you, and then nothing changes! Somehow, we have to elevate the conversation into more media spaces that attract intelligent, educated men and women who want a serious dialogue and are able to refrain from knee-jerk attacks on each other. I think GMP does a good job for the readers and commenters who share a common set of values and an understanding of its mission.
Almost every woman I know has experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. The numbers are staggering. But as the whole Herman Cain debacle is illustrating, there are still a lot of folks out there who don’t get it in any of a dozen different ways. I try to remain hopeful, and I see signs of improvement, and I try to focus on that, because it can really get depressing otherwise. Thanks for writing.
Thanks so much for reading and replying Lori. It sounds like have had very similar experiences with our writing. I’ve done several posts (in Women’s Section) about street and sexual harassment. In each instance when I was researching or talking to people I was struck by the face that women don’t talk about it because they’re so accustomed to having to deal with it. A lot of men I talk to often say that it cannot be so common not because they don’t believe the stats or the women, but because it seems so ridiculous. Thank you for writing, too!
What happened to your friend was wrong, those kinds of comments aren’t ok and I’m sure if her boss were to recieve them from a male superior he’d feel pretty damn uncomfortable himself. Did your friend ever consider talking to him about it? Maybe he feels free to talk like that because noone ever did. I can understand why she wouldn’t (hes her boss) but maybe being proactive is the right thing to do rather than just letting it go.
At any rate, the point of the article you were responding to, which you seem to have missed, is that the definition of sexual harassment has expanded far far beyond situations like the one mentioned above and is often restricted only to what women consider offensive. It hardly helps people like your friend when the harassment she faces is considered equivalent to being asked out to dinner by a coworker.
As for the world being a male constructed space, no, sorry, way off. The workplace has become a real option for most women, its still a requirement for men, not to mention the thousands of other examples of opression that men face on a daily basis. I’m sure you weren’t trying to, but when you make statements like “It’s a matter of male privilege that men don’t even have to spend mental energy thinking about these things,” you’re completely disregarding an entire half of gender equality. Please think about how you phrase your work in future and it might stand some chance of having a readership wider than your gender.
I think it’s much broader than that. I’m not going to try to argue the point of gender inequality for women being a real thing, in 2012, because I can tell it would be ignored. No, what’s really on the table here is the fact that many men (not all, generalizations are terrible from all sides) don’t see the problem with the comments that they make to some women. “Nice tits” is a very condescending, uncomfortable, and offensive thing to say to your coworker, or even a woman you met at the bar. Anywhere, really, it’s unnecessary and portrays the person you are speaking to as a sex object. The point that is being made here is that men (and women, sometimes) need to learn the line that dictates what is offensive. Commenting on someone’s body in a work atmosphere is offensive and ridiculous. However, many men don’t see a problem with it. But, if your female boss said that she hired you only because she, “could see through your pants and tell you had a huge d—” you would likely feel uncomfortable.
Right? Is is wrong to ask that those comments not be made?
Workplace harassment is definitely an issue which deserves more attention than it gets, although I have to agree that any serious attempt to legislate it would end in disaster due to the inability to define harassment in concrete terms.
I think the only real way to solve the problem is to make people more willing to consider and respect the feelings of others, but that also means that people need to be more willing to express those feelings. If people (men and women) don’t feel free to express their discomfort, it will be impossible to distinguish the assholes from people who are just a bit clueless. Raising awareness of the problem definitely seems like a good way of starting to make that happen.
The biggest problem I have with sexual harassment laws are that they are inconsistently applied. There is a reasonable man and reasonable woman standard. When you consider the issue of criminal intent, it doesn’t make sense to apply two standards. If a reasonable woman believes that a boss putting their hand on an employee’s shoulder is harassment, but a reasonable man wouldn’t, then if she put her hand on an employee’s shoulder she would have criminal intent. He wouldn’t. The only way that two standards would make sense is to take into consideration the sexes of both parties so that a reasonable woman would believe that a woman putting her hand on a male coworker’s shoulder would not be harassment, but a male coworker putting his hand on a female coworker’s shoulder would be and of course a reasonable man would believe that a woman putting her hand on a male coworker’s shoulder isn’t harassment, but a man doing the same to a woman is. If you wonder why most of the harassment claims are placed by women, have you considered that men making the same claims for the same actions would not be taken seriously?
One thing I don’t think you considered is non-aggressive different treatment, which I am guilty of in a sense. I work for a very progressive employer. It might be because most of the top level management and employees are women or because the customer base is overwhelmingly female and we go through sexual harassment awareness training each year, but we still have incidents of complaints. Most of the incidents either involve a “compliment” taken wrong or a single event like someone asking someone out
I’ve never heard of an instance at my job of continued harassment and that’s because the men there don’t want to harass the women and more importantly they talk. When women react poorly to a compliment or comment, they go on the hyper sensitive list. The men then tend to act extremely guarded around them. To an extent they miss out on potential friendships or future contacts.
There was an older woman at work who used to try and get me to spend a week with her at her ranch in Puerto Rico. She would talk about wearing thongs on the beach. I wasn’t interested in her and she was a helpful coworker in all other respects. I’ve had female bosses describe their undergarments to each other in such detail that I’ve had to excuse myself. One woman brought in a “nudie” magazine once. Women’s porn tends to be rated R or PG-13 and of course I once refused to attend a work function at a bar because they sponsored a ladies night. I never go to bars that sponsor ladies nights regardless of the day. As a computer tech, I’ve even run across a nude picture of a female customer/employee a couple times (luckily they were young and attractive).
The point being that I’ve faced harassment probably on a more persistent basis than most of my female coworkers probably because I’ve never call them out on it. I’ve looked at the cost vs the benefit and determined that it wasn’t worth it. I decline the invitations, don’t pay attention to the off-color conversations and don’t look at the naked pictures of men if I can avoid it.
One funny thing did happen. There was an extremely attractive woman at work who would never talk to me. She asked me to look at her laptop while she watched. A picture of her and another woman in a compromising position popped up. I didn’t make a big deal of it and fixed her laptop. I’ve never told anyone at work what I saw. After that she would initiate conversation with me when I was in the area.
“As a computer tech, I’ve even run across a nude picture of a female customer/employee a couple times (luckily they were young and attractive).”
I don’t see how this is harassment unless she purposely put it in a place where she was making sure you saw it. Were I a tech and accidentally came across a picture of a man’s penis, I wouldn’t consider it harassment–I might feel awkward or a little weirded out if I’m not attracted to him–but it’s just what he had on his computer. Sometimes people need their computers fixed and forget to delete/hide certain folders. When I first started watching porn, being pretty technologically ignorant, I got a terrible virus and had to take my computer in. I got chastised by the clerk for looking at such sites.
@ Aya
Your arguing from a point of intent. I don’t really have a problem with that, but what if a guy syas that you have a nice set of tits. He could have meant it as a compliment. Most people would say that he should have known better and so it is harassment. Anyone should know that nude pictures are harassment and failing to remove them is negligent. One of the standards of criminal intent in my state is negligent, but I tend to not make a big deal of it.
When I can’t clean a virus or spyware, I’ll redo the operating system, which requires their files to be backed up. I’d rather they do it, but most of the time, they want me to do it. I’ll open random files to test the integrity of the backup prior to trashing the OS. They were all aware of this and agreed to it. It’s not like I’m snooping, but when I set the folder view to thumbnail, I’d rather not see some naked guy and yes, even seeing pictures of female coworkers and their significant others in the altogether is awkward. That’s why I don’t mention it.
@ Aya
“When I first started watching porn, being pretty technologically ignorant, I got a terrible virus and had to take my computer in. I got chastised by the clerk for looking at such sites.”
If you saved pornographic images and videos to your PC that’s one thing, but if he was looking through your cache or temporary folders, that’s something entirely different. I don’t expect users to know how to clean that out and it’s none of his business what you look at on-line. There really is no legitimate reason for a tech to look there. If you suspect something, clear it out.
I really hope this doesn’t come off as offensive, I just want to explain it from the way that I used to see it until you talked a bit about it. When entrusting someone to fix your computer, I saw it as akin to entrusting someone to do a gyno exam or bikini wax. You figure the person is gonna have access to see some weird and private shit–whether it’s porno or nudes folders, really bad emo poems, or that semester in college you fancied yourself a photographer. I would have figured–they’ve seen it all and they’re professionals whose job is to just fix this damn thing. It sounds like you’ve had some really bad luck with the stuff you’ve come across.
And about negligence–I can’t really argue with you on that, just explain the other side. When a man yells ‘nice tits’ to a woman, he’s doing something active. When he leaves/forgets about a picture of his penis in a folder on his computer, he’s doing something passive. Sure, it’s negligence, but isn’t there quite a difference? As for thinking ‘nice tits’ is intended as a compliment, it’s a learning curve thing. We’ve been talking about verbal harrassment for a long, long time now. Most jobs have had seminars on it for years and years and it’s been debated as long as I can remember and before. Not everyone is as knowledgeble about about the uses and abuses of the new technologies that have been popping up and changing constantly for just the past 15 years.
And one question. What if someone wants to save inappropriate files (your significant other sent you some gorgeous but naughty pics that you can’t bring yourself to delete), but doesn’t have a hard drive, USB disk, CD drive, or access to/knowledge about online storage (or can’t use it because the computer is broken)?
@ Aya
“It sounds like you’ve had some really bad luck with the stuff you’ve come across.”
I’ve been in IT for about 25 years. It’s just volume. You fix enough and you’ll run across weird things.
“I would have figured–they’ve seen it all and they’re professionals whose job is to just fix this damn thing.”
Techs are usually professionals who have seen it all if they’ve been in the industry long enough in the same sense as a doctor. A doctor though can anticipate seeing it all. A tech can only anticipate eventually seeing it all. You’re caught a little more off guard. The professionalism standards are also a bit different. You might be surprised, but in my 25 years, I’ve never been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. I’ve seen tax forms, bank statement, etc. as well as naughty pictures. Unless you’re confident in the integrity of the person who’s repairing your PC, PLEASE PROTECT YOURSELF. I’ve never even copied a person’s music library.
My workplace is dominated by women and has a predominately female customer base, about 2 to 1. I’ve seen about the same amount of straight male porn as I’ve seen penises or female coworkers/customers. I could do without seeing the men, but I think the biggest issue I have with seeing the female coworkers is that I almost feel that I violated them. It’s awkward because I really feel bad. I know it’s probably some internalized societal programming, but it’s hard to disassociate myself from. In the case of the one woman, who knows I saw her picture, it completely changed the dynamic of the relationship.
I tend to spend a minute or two saying hi and chatting with people when I enter a department to fix something. She’s gorgeous and I’m sure she gets propositioned a lot. I don’t blame her for thinking I’m hitting on her when I say hi and make small talk, but she’s way out of my league anyway so I didn’t see the use even if I wanted to. Now when I come into her area she strikes up a conversation with me and I try my best to avoid her. Unfortunately, I’m not as practiced with deflecting unwanted attention as she is and when she’s around that picture pops right back into my head. It’s not so much the pictures, it’s who the pictures are of.
I really hope you return to the thread. I can clone a drive in minutes allowing me to crack it at my leisure at a later time if I was so inclined. Please protect yourself. Not everyone is going to respect your data.
@ Aya
“And one question. What if someone wants to save inappropriate files (your significant other sent you some gorgeous but naughty pics that you can’t bring yourself to delete), but doesn’t have a hard drive, USB disk, CD drive, or access to/knowledge about online storage (or can’t use it because the computer is broken)?”
That’s a tough one. People usually ask me to back things up even if they have an external source. They’re more confident that the backup would be done right. I felt really bad for a woman whose family had a photography business and copied shortcuts to her files instead of the actual files. She restored her computer to factory settings and lost her files. She was told it would cost a couple thousand dollars with no guaranty of success and came to me out of desperation. I ran some forensic software and did get them back for her. She bought me lunch.
If you’re only concerned about hiding them, you can change the file extension so your programs won’t recognize them. Switch them back when you want to view them. You can also compress the file and uncompress it to use it. You can embed it in a couple directory levels down and add 4 innocent pictures to the top folder to hide the naughty images from a preview. Don’t run any picture manager software. Some software packages will scan and add pictures automatically. If the picture manager program is associated with a particular file extension, if someone clicks a file with that extension, it will launch your picture manager program and display all your images. If you need them to back it up and want them to test the integrity of the backup, make sure that the view is not set to thumbnail so that they don’t get a preview picture and tell them which files to test. You might want to find out what the company’s policy is on confidentiality as well.
“One funny thing did happen. There was an extremely attractive woman at work who would never talk to me. She asked me to look at her laptop while she watched. A picture of her and another woman in a compromising position popped up. I didn’t make a big deal of it and fixed her laptop. I’ve never told anyone at work what I saw. After that she would initiate conversation with me when I was in the area.”
I forgot to mention that when it happened, she apologized profusely. I told her not to worry about it and closed the image. Didn’t mean to leave the impression that she was an ass.
“Ladies, If You Can’t Take a Joke, Get a New Job.” WTF? — The Good Men Project I was recommended this blog by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my problem. You’re amazing! Thanks! your article about “Ladies, If You Can’t Take a Joke, Get a New Job.” WTF? — The Good Men Project Best Regards Cindy Rolf