Thanks for the link to the article on Lemondrop. I'm not advocating that women accept harassment. I'm not suggesting that you should quit before you find another job. I am not saying that Human Resources departments are incapable of managing sexual harassment investigations (although many of them are incapable of anything other than eating donuts).

Here is what I'm saying.

* You are responsible for your own career.

As feminists, we often want to fix the system from within. I've been there, and fixing the system from within can be overrated. Thank goodness for those trailblazers and fighters who sue the shit out of companies. Those women make work better for us.

Unfortunately, many of us don't have the means to hire a lawyer and fight a long and brutal legal fight that we'll most likely lose. In this age of social media and external marketplace pressures, I suggest that there is no bigger employee advocate than you. It's important to protect your own interests and act accordingly.

I'm not advocating running away from a fight. I'm an advocate for brushing the dirt of your shitty company off your shoulders.

Respectfully,

Laurie Ruettimann - Punk Rock HR

Laurie, thanks for your clarification. I work in a heavily male-dominated field (~87% men), and I think that dealing with sexual harassment effectively while still preserving your career mean taking this environment into account. I actually have been advised by many people not to speak up about these issues until I'm further along in my career. This doesn't particularly sit well with me, but I do think that there are, career-wise, better and worse ways of dealing with things.

I think this begins by acknowledging that there are very clear-cut cases of harassment and some that are murkier. Especially when women are a minority it's important to recognize this b/c you are much more likely to garner support in the former case. This isn't to say that one should ignore the latter cases, just handle them differently. In my field the murkier cases often go along the line of a colleague repeatedly asking someone out even after being rejected or making "romantic" gestures at work. From what I've seen many male coworkers will pass this off as misguided demonstrations of affection without recognizing that it can really impact a woman's performance or generally create an uncomfortable work environment. While the feminist in me says that no one should have to accept harassment related to their gender, the pragmatist says that expending a lot of effort to have the person in question reprimanded can be devastating career-wise b/c it leads to ostracization. It's far more effective to find a sympathetic person, preferably male, and have him discuss the behavior with the offender in question (assuming he does not respond to directly asking him to stop). Only if this fails does it, in my opinion, demonstrate a complete disregard for the feelings of the woman in question and so warrant more official action. I know that it shouldn't require the second step, but especially when dealing with workplace issues I think "should" can be a dangerous notion.

So I guess I'm agreeing that generally speaking it is important to be pragmatic. While it would be wonderful to have institutions that quickly and effectively deal with such situations, they are often very reluctant to do so. The overall effect on your personal career (b/c people's perceptions do matter) and on the work environment can be much more positive if you consider the reactions of others...regardless of how infuriating it might be to have do so.

I couldn't agree more.

As a newly divorced woman, blessed with two wonderful children in elementary school and burdened with the crushing debt that their father left us, I re-entered the work force at a level considerably lower than when I had left. During my first two weeks of work, one of the project managers that I had to deal with started making obscene phone calls to me at my desk. I hung up on him and froze him out when he tried to make chit chat in the halls or the cafeteria, thinking that would solve the problem, but it only caused him to show up at my office, make all sorts of demands, call me incompetent, and threaten to have me fired.

In talking to the other women in my office, I realized that they all encouraged his behavior and, at least, one of the women I worked with had actually dated him. So I talked to my boss about it and asked him to get someone to speak to the man and explain to him that if he did not leave me alone, I would launch a formal complaint. My boss asked me to lodge the complaint, but I knew that once I did that, I would have to quit because all of the men I worked with would be afraid to work with me. My boss told me that I needed to lodge the complaint to protect all of the other women I worked with. You can imagine how I felt about that request. In the end, my manager arranged an informal counseling session for the man, he was reassigned so that I no longer had to work with him, and that was the last problem I had with him.

As far as I can tell, it was the last problem that any of us had with him, and I still think that the way that I handled it was the right way to handle it. After working there for a while, I learned that many of the men that we worked with thought the man's behavior was objectionable simply because of age differences, while others paid him grudging respect because they couldn't believe how often his behavior succeeded. They didn't think it should succeed, and yet they seemed to live vicariously through him. Had I lodged a formal complaint, there would have been proceedings and rumors, he would have been a martyr, I would have been ostracized, and I think I would have accomplished less - both in terms of stopping his behavior and in terms of advancing my career. I realize that I was lucky, though, because, in a lot of places, the only thing I could have done was leave.

Some of us are fighters, and I thank God that some of us are, but some of us just have to do what we have to do to take care of ourselves and our families and sometimes it is as simple as that.

Umm, not all of us have that option. Especially in this economy. Yes, it's nice to say "just up and quit" - but what if you can't find another job? Are you doomed to put up with a groping, sex-obsessed wacko for the rest of your career? Or are you going to have a patchy work history because you keep quitting jobs due to groping, sex-obsessed wackos? And what do you say in a job interview when they ask you why you quit? (and what kind of reference can you expect from the groping, sex-obsessed wacko in question?)

No, not all of us have the resources for a protracted legal battle - but isn't it HR's job to make such legal battles unnecessary by making sure everyone in the workplace behaves like a rational adult? (and I don't mean "adult" in the sense of "adult entertainment", either) I don't think HR departments should abdicate their responsibility quite so easily and just blithely advise women to quit because they can't afford a legal battle. HR people should do their job, just like engineers, cashiers, programmers, marketers, and CEO's should do their respective jobs. Part of the work responsibilities of HR people is to keep the workplace free of sexual harassment and other forms of annoyance. If an HR person is capable of nothing but eating donuts, I'm sure that in this job market, there are 100 unemployed HR people who are happy to take his/her place.

Oh, and I do think that one should go for informal measures before resorting to formal complaints. It's always a good idea to see if matters can be resolved peacefully before escalating. But the escalation option should exist. At the very least, it should exist as a threat. You may not have to resort to it, ever, but it should be there. Otherwise, the peaceful option won't exist either - the men in question will just be able to do whatever they want.