When I was working at a certain point the general rule was to never be alone in an office with a women without a witness or the door open. This was after a number of accusations of harassment lodged against complete strangers who denied them but because they created an environment where it could have happened a settlement was reached.
I have no idea whether any of those accusations were true, it was a he said, she said thing and generally it is cheaper to reach a settlement than to fight these sort of things.
I realize that there has been and continues to be workplace harassment but I wonder if we have entered a world where every interaction can be questioned.
Right or wrong I ued to have meetings with men who worked for me where everybody was relaxed and communication was easy. It was seldom the same with women in the meeting. The problem with that sort of tension is it shows up in various other ways.
We haven't become a workplace full of robots, at least not yet, and men and women are not the same. Take hair cuts. Most of the time you don't notice them. Sometimes a man would get his hair cut short and you might mention it to him. Women who changed their hairstyle could want you to mention it or maybe not. It could be a touchy subject to bring up. Ignoring it could also be bad.
Maybe some things are just not harassment without more. If I said to a man in a new suit that he looked sharp today (I may be dating myself there) there was no sexual harassment considered. If I complement a woman on how she looks she may take it wrong or she might not.
The logical reaction is to avoid interacting with women, which of course makes them feel excluded. I used to think that clarifying the rules would work, but we seem to have clarified them to anything that make a person uncomfortable is wrong?
Men do bad things. Women also do bad things. It just feels like we have shifted the presumption of guilt.
I really don't know the answer, maybe in-person interaction is a no-no now.
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