FAREWELL TO THE WORLD where men can treat the workplace like a frat house or a pornography shoot. Since Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual misconduct in early October, similar allegations have been made about nearly 100 other powerful people. They all are names you probably recognize, in fields including media, technology, hospitality, politics, and entertainment. It’s a watershed moment for workplace equality and safety; 87% of Americans now favor zero tolerance of sexual harassment.
Not only is this better for women, but it’s better for most men. A workplace culture in which sexual harassment is rampant is often one that also shames men who refuse to participate. These men-who-don’t-fit, like the mistreated women, face choices about whether and how to intervene without endangering their careers.
Still, it’s unnerving for many men to see the numbers of those toppled by accusations grow ever higher. The recent summary dismissals of high-powered executives and celebrities have triggered worries that any man might be accused and ruined. Half of men (49%) say the recent furor has made them think again about their own behavior around women. Men wonder whether yesterday’s sophomoric idiocy is today’s career wrecker.
This is not a fight between men and women, however. One of the journalists to break the Weinstein story was Ronan Farrow, son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen. Yes, that Woody Allen—the one who married his longtime girlfriend’s daughter and is alleged to have sexually abused another daughter. “Sexual assault was an issue that had touched my family,” said Farrow, who noted that this experience was instrumental in driving his reporting.
To repeat: This is not a fight between men and women. It’s a fight over whether a small subgroup of predatory men should be allowed to interfere with people’s ability to show up and do what they signed up for: work.
Several changes in the past decade have brought us to this startling moment. Some were technological: The internet enables women to go public with accusations, bypassing the gatekeepers who traditionally buried their stories. Other changes were cultural: A centuries-old stereotype—the Vengeful Lying Slut—was drained of its power by feminists who coined the term “slut shaming” and reverse-shamed those who did it. Just as important, women have made enough inroads into positions of power in the press, corporations, Congress, and Hollywood that they no longer have to play along with the boys’ club; instead they can, say, lead the charge to force Al Franken’s resignation or break the story on Harvey Weinstein.
The result of all these changes is what social scientists call a norms cascade: a series of long-term trends that produce a sudden shift in social mores. There’s no going back. The work environment now is much different from what it was a year ago. To put things plainly, if you sexually harass or assault a colleague, employee, boss, or business contact today, your job will be at risk.
As commonplace as these dismissals have come to seem, we know that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of the harassment culture. In “You Can’t Change What You Can’t See: Interrupting Racial & Gender Bias in the Legal Profession,” a forthcoming study of lawyers conducted by the Center for WorkLife Law (which Joan directs) for the American Bar Association, researchers found sexual harassment to be pervasive. Eighty-two percent of women and 74% of men reported hearing sexist comments at work. Twenty-eight percent of women and 8% of men reported unwanted sexual or romantic attention or touching at work. Seven percent of women and less than 1% of men reported being bribed or threatened with workplace consequences if they did not engage in sexual behavior. Fourteen percent of women and 5% of men said that they had lost work opportunities because of sexual harassment, which was also associated with delays in promotions, reduced access to high-profile assignments and sponsorship, bias against parents, and higher intent to leave. The three most acute types of harassment (excluding sexist remarks) were associated with reductions in income, demotions, loss of clients and office space, and removal from important committees.
These patterns hold true beyond the legal profession. According to a recent study by researchers at Oklahoma State University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Maine, women who were sexually harassed were 6.5 times as likely to change jobs as women who weren’t. “I quit, and I didn’t have a job. That’s it. I’m outta here. I’ll eat rice and live in the dark if I have to,” remarked one woman in the study.
Low-wage women, who often live paycheck to paycheck, and women who are working in the U.S. illegally are the most vulnerable. A survey of nearly 500 Chicago hotel housekeepers revealed that 49% had encountered a guest who had exposed himself. Janitors who work the graveyard shift and farmworkers have had trouble defending themselves against predatory supervisors. And restaurant workers experience it from three directions. A 2014 report aptly titled “The Glass Floor,” which shares the findings of a survey of 688 restaurant workers from 39 states, reveals that nearly 80% of the female workers had been harassed by colleagues. Nearly 80% had been harassed by customers, and 67% had been harassed by managers—52% of them on a weekly basis. Workers found customer harassment especially vexing because they were loath to lose crucial income from tips. Small wonder that almost 37% of sexual harassment complaints filed by women with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2011 came from the restaurant industry.
The stories finally becoming public further highlight how sexual harassment subverts women’s careers: Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino found acting jobs harder to get after they rebuffed the voracious Weinstein. After Gretchen Carlson complained of a hostile work environment, she was assigned fewer hard-hitting interviews on Fox & Friends and, according to her legal complaint, was cut from her weekly appearances on the highly rated “Culture Warrior” segment of The O’Reilly Factor. Because word got out that Ninth Circuit judge Alex Kozinski sexually harassed clerks, many women did not apply for a clerkship at that court, which positions young lawyers to get clerkships at the U.S. Supreme Court—the biggest plum in the legal basket. When the ambitious congressional staffer Lauren Greene complained of sexual harassment by her boss, Representative Blake Farenthold, her career in politics evaporated. Today she works as a part-time assistant to a home builder.
A point often overlooked is that some sexual harassment victims are men. Men filed nearly 17% of sexual harassment complaints with the EEOC in 2016. Some men are harassed by women, but many are harassed by other men, some straight, some gay. A roustabout on an oil platform was harassed by coworkers on his eight-man crew, the U.S. Supreme Court found in 1998; the coworkers were offended by what they perceived as his insufficient machismo. Recently the Metropolitan Opera suspended longtime conductor James Levine after several men accused him of masturbation-heavy abuse that took place from the late 1960s to the 1980s, when his victims were 16 to 20 years old.
Such behavior is no longer seen as a “tsking” matter. Historically, it has been hard to win a sexual harassment suit, but rapidly shifting public perceptions may change that. Seventy-eight percent of women say they are more likely to speak out now if they are treated unfairly because of their gender. About the same percentage of men (77%) say they are now more likely to speak out if they see a woman being treated unfairly. It’s a new day for a simple reason: Women are being believed.
The strongest indicator that we’re experiencing a norms cascade came when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stood up for the women—four of them at the time—who had come forward with revelations about senatorial candidate Roy Moore.
“I believe the women,” McConnell said.
The statement stands in stark contrast to Anita Hill’s treatment in 1991, when she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Clarence Thomas, then a nominee to the Supreme Court, had sexually harassed her. Senators subjected her to a humiliating inquisition, watched by a rapt national television audience. Another former employee was waiting in the wings to describe how Thomas had sexually harassed her, too. But she was never called to testify. Instead, Hill withstood the all-male committee’s bullying alone. After the hearings, opposition to Hill made her life at the University of Oklahoma so difficult that she left her tenured position—an object lesson on the risks facing anyone who dared to raise a charge of sexual harassment.
A recent poll by NPR dramatizes the sudden shift: 66% of Americans think that women who reported sexual harassment were generally ignored five years ago. Only 26% think that women are ignored today. When did we begin believing the women? What changed? And what are the implications for men?
We can trace the disbelief of—or at best, disregard for—women to the old stereotype we mentioned earlier, the one that holds women to be fundamentally irrational, vengeful, deceitful, and rampantly sexual.
An ancient version of this stereotype appears in Genesis, in which Eve commits the first sin and then drags Adam and the rest of humanity down with her for all time. Through the ages in Judeo-Christian tradition, authors expounded upon feminine evil. Among the most vivid prose stylists were two German friars, who in 1486 produced the classic book of witch lore The Malleus Maleficarum (or The Hammer of Witches). “What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted with fair colours!” they wrote. More to the point for us, perhaps, is their claim that a woman “is a liar by nature.”
Although by the 19th century more-positive images of women arose, the stereotype of the Vengeful Lying Slut was too useful to die. It was imposed on entire classes of women, notably African-American women, as scholars have amply documented, and on working-class women pressured into sex by bosses. It was used to ostracize and humiliate high schoolers who found themselves suddenly disparaged as “easy.” Whenever men, and sometimes boys, exploited women—or often girls—the stereotype of the Vengeful Lying Slut supplied the words to justify their behavior: She wanted it/asked for it/had it coming.
The stereotype alas persists. It underlies men’s fears that they, too, will be brought down by false allegations. Some men have become so frightened that they now refuse to meet (or to eat with) a female colleague alone. When Roy Moore was accused of sexual assault, his campaign said he was the victim of a “witch hunt.” That response is a telling and time-honored way of discrediting victims.
The #MeToo and Time’s Up movements show that women can no longer be silenced by threats of slut shaming. When a manager at Google told one of the female engineers who worked there, “It’s taking all my self-control not to grab your ass right now,” she tweeted it out to the world. In the first 24 hours after actress Alyssa Milano suggested that victims of harassment reply “me too” to a tweet in October, 12 million women made #MeToo posts on Facebook. Instead of distancing themselves from those challenging sexual harassment, as might have happened in the past, actors and actresses wore black to the 2018 Golden Globes to signal their solidarity.
Translating outrage into action, however, requires moving beyond hashtags toward new norms of workplace conduct. It’s a precarious moment, and a lot could go wrong. Just think what might have happened if the Washington Post, with admirable rigor, had not uncovered the truth when a woman approached it with a dramatic but false accusation against Roy Moore. Her purpose? To snooker the Post into publishing a bogus story and to thereby cast doubt on all mainstream media reporting the claims against Moore. But so far so good, with early signs that workplaces are indeed changing.
In the past companies often quietly paid to settle sexual harassment complaints against high-powered miscreants and tried to limit the damage through nondisclosure agreements. Incidents at Fox gave rise to at least seven settlements (some against Fox, some against individuals at Fox). Weinstein reportedly paid out eight. Despite getting large payouts, the plaintiffs were the ones who were forced to leave their companies, and many suffered career interruptions.
Quiet settlements are now becoming harder to justify. The unceremonious firings and forced resignations of famous men demonstrate that companies are moving away from that strategy. Settlements will likely continue in some circumstances, such as a first offense involving mild or ambiguous behavior or a situation that is consensual but violates company standards. But long strings of settlements in egregious cases will increasingly be seen as a breach of the directors’ duty to the company. Boards of directors have never tolerated financial fraud and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and they are likely to adopt the same standards for harassment—firing without severance pay.
It’s important to recognize that most of the firings have occurred at companies with sophisticated legal and HR departments, on the advice of counsel and with the involvement of senior management or the board or both. We should not assume that they are disclosing all the evidence they have. Companies have a strong motive not to release such evidence, lest the former employee use it as ammunition in a defamation or wrongful discharge suit. That’s what companies do when they sack someone for cause, and that’s what they are doing here.
Some worry that people will be fired too quickly and without due process. One point that’s often overlooked: Due process isn’t required of private employers, only public ones. What people are trying to insist on, quite properly, are fair procedures that uncover the truth. Companies should follow the same procedures they use when an employee has been accused of any type of serious misconduct. Typically, the employee is placed on leave while an investigation is performed. In most cases, although not all, that’s what has been happening with sexual harassment cases.
Credibility assessments are, of course, important. Women are human beings, and sometimes human beings—male and female—lie. That’s why we need to apply the standard methods we always use to assess credibility. Those methods are flawed, but they are all we have; if they will do for every other context, they will do for sexual harassment, too.
As we enter this new era, here’s a comforting thought from someone who has spent his life thinking about how to ferret out the truth, the prominent evidence scholar Roger Park (a colleague of Joan’s). His observation about sexual harassment is this: “Men have a motive to do it and lie, whereas women don’t have a motivation to lie, considering what an ordeal it is.” Making even true allegations of sexual harassment has historically been a poor career move.
That provides some assurance that reports of harassment are truthful. So do large numbers of people with similar stories. At least 42 women have come forward with allegations against Weinstein, and at least 10 against Ken Friedman, the New York restaurateur. At least a dozen people have made accusations against Kevin Spacey. Those numbers lend credibility to the allegations.
Employers who want to set up processes for handling harassment can begin with the standard sexual harassment policies. The Society for Human Resources has one; others are free online. Organizational training should spell out what’s acceptable, which will vary from company to company. Some companies may want to add detail in light of recent events. Surprising as it sounds, some people seem to need a heads-up that porn, kissing, back rubs, and nudity are not appropriate at work.
How can this be? Here’s a clue. At a dinner Judge Kozinski held with law clerks, he steered the conversation to the “voluptuous” breasts of a topless woman in a film, according to someone present. When one woman at the dinner reacted negatively, Kozinski responded that, well, he was a man.
Some men have an urgent need to preserve sexual harassment as a prerogative because, they feel, their manliness is at stake. But theirs is just one definition of manliness—a toxic and outdated one. It’s time to move on.
Virtually all women and most men are now aligned against that toxic brand of masculinity. No one is asking men to stop being men or for people to stop being sexual beings. What’s happened is that a small group of men are being required to abandon the stereotype that “real men” need to be unrelentingly sexual without regard to context or consent.
The not-unreasonable assumption is that work relationships should be about work. Some organizations have no-dating policies for that reason. If yours doesn’t, remember that you must not take a relationship with a colleague in a romantic or sexual direction if doing so is unwelcome. Whether you can ask a colleague out is the source of much anxiety, especially in all-consuming work environments where people date coworkers because they spend so much time on the job that there’s little opportunity to meet anyone else.
The only way to safely tell what someone else wants is to ask that person. Some men seem to have trouble discerning whether a woman is interested; Charlie Rose and Glenn Thrush said that they thought their feelings were reciprocated when women who received their overtures say they were not. This is not an unsolvable problem. If she’s a work colleague and you’d like her to be something more, here’s what to do: Imagine telling a woman who’s been your friend forever that you’d like to take the relationship in a different direction. Ask in a way that gives her a chance to say that she prefers to remain a friend. No harm, no foul. What if your work colleague says no when she really means yes? Well, then, she’s got to live with that. Let her. Let her change her mind if she wants to.
We all know that deals and crucial networking happen over lunch, dinner, and drinks. Socializing in this manner is fine. But if you do socialize with work colleagues, you need to realize that you can’t behave inappropriately. Roy Price resigned from his job as head of Amazon Studios after Isa Hackett, an Amazon producer, publicly accused him of repeatedly propositioning her in a cab on the way to a work party, telling her, “You’ll love my dick,” and later at the gathering whispering “anal sex” loudly in her ear in the presence of others. Hollywood commentator Nellie Andreeva noted that in a post-Weinstein world Price’s behavior would have hurt Amazon’s ability to attract female showrunners and actors. He would have been “completely ostracized,” an anonymous source told Andreeva.
You can still compliment your colleagues. But there’s a big difference between “I like that dress” and “You look hot in that dress.” What if she really does look hot? Remember, she signed up to be your colleague, not your girlfriend. Treat her like a colleague unless by mutual consent, you change your relationship.
Don’t let the pendulum swing too far the other way and bizarrely avoid women completely. That’s unnecessary, unfair, and illegal: It deprives women of opportunities simply because they are women. You cannot refuse to have closed-door meetings with women unless you refuse to have closed-door meetings with men. Otherwise women will be denied access to all the sensitive information that’s shared only behind closed doors, and that’s a violation of federal law.
Moving forward, male allies will continue to play an important role in fighting harassment: If you see something, say something. It does take courage, but you can use a light touch. If you’re standing around with a bunch of guys and a female colleague walks by, only to have someone say, “Wow, she’s hot,” you can say simply: “I don’t think of her that way. I think of her as a colleague, and that’s the way I suspect she’d like to be thought of.”
Clear takeaways emerge for women, too. If a coworker tries to take a work relationship in a sexual direction, tell him clearly if that’s unwelcome. If you face sexual joking that’s making you uncomfortable, say, “This is making me uncomfortable” and expect it to stop. If you want to shame or jolly someone out of misbehavior while preserving your business relationships, consult Joan’s What Works for Women at Work. Here’s an approach that worked for one woman whose colleague proposed an affair: “I know your wife. She’s my friend. You’re married. There is just no way I would ever consider that. So let’s not go there again.”
But it’s our final piece of advice that signals the tectonic shift: If you are being sexually harassed, report it. We’re not sure if we would have advised that, in such a blanket and unnuanced way, even a year ago.
What we’re seeing today is not the end of sex, or of seduction, or of la différence. What we’re seeing is the demise of a work culture where women must submit to being treated, insistently and incessantly, as sexual opportunities. Most people, when they go to work, want to work. And now they can.
Originally published in January 2018. Reprint BG1801
Our research began with a simple question: If 98% of organizations in the United States have a sexual harassment policy, why does sexual harassment continue to be such a persistent and devastating problem in the American workplace? As evidenced by recent headlines regarding ongoing sexual harassment in the National Park Service, Uber, and Fox News, it seems clear that sexual harassment policies have not stopped the problem they were designed to address.
Two bodies of research provided us with a possible direction as we explored the relationship between sexual harassment policies and outcomes. First, scholars convincingly argue that sexual harassment is embedded in organizational culture. In other words, sexual harassment serves an important cultural function for some organizations. And as any executive who has tried to lead cultural change knows, organizational culture can be immutable.
Second, organizational cultures are embedded in a larger national culture in which men have traditionally been granted privileges over women. It does not take a deep analysis to recognize this truth. Women are typically paid less, regardless of education, qualifications, or years of service. There are more CEOs named John leading big companies than there are female CEOs. The male-centric nature of our national culture is so pervasive that even many women are male-centered, aligning themselves with men and masculinity to tap into male privilege while attempting (usually unsuccessfully) to avoid the disadvantaged space that women occupy in the workplace.
All of this means that both men and women can react to sexual harassment by blaming other women for “making trouble” or “putting up with bad behavior,” or by suggesting that the sexually harassed women should quit, without considering that perhaps the perpetrators instead of their targets should leave the organization. These attitudes have real consequences. Consider: In the Fox News harassment case, the alleged perpetrators received larger settlements than the targets. Cultures of sexual harassment are thus legitimized by drawing on the larger cultural imperative that privileges men over women.
Into this fraught cultural morass enters a well-intentioned document: the sexual harassment policy. To see how employees interpreted these policies, my colleague Marlo Goldstein Hode and I gave 24 employees of a large government organization a copy of the organization’s sexual harassment policy, asking them to read it and then tell us about the policy. We asked them to talk about the policy in groups, and then we interviewed them individually.
We found that the actual words of the sexual harassment policy bore little resemblance to the employees’ interpretations of the policy. Although the policy clearly focused on behaviors of sexual harassment, the participants almost universally claimed that the policy focused on perceptions of behaviors. Moreover, although the policy itself made clear that harassing behaviors were harassment regardless of either the gender or sexual orientation of the perpetrator or target, the employees focused almost exclusively on male-female heterosexual harassment. This shift is subtle but significant. For the participants, the policy was perceived as threatening, because any behavior could be sexual harassment if an irrational (typically female) employee perceived it as such. In this somewhat paranoid scenario, a simple touch on the arm or a nonsexual comment on appearance (“I like your hairstyle”) could subject “innocent” employees (usually heterosexual males) to persecution as stipulated by the policy. As a result, the organization’s sexual harassment policy was perceived as both highly irrational and as targeting heterosexual male employees. The employees shifted the meaning of the policy such that female targets of sexual harassment were framed as the perpetrators and male perpetrators were framed as innocent victims.
To accomplish this shift in meaning, the employees drew on assumptions of women being irrational and highly emotional and on assumptions of men being rational and competent. Through this intertwining of organizational policy, organizational culture, and national culture, the employees inverted the meaning of the sexual harassment policy, making it an ineffective tool in the fight against predatory sexual behavior in the workplace.
How can organizations combat the reinterpretation of sexual harassment policies? This question takes on urgency when we recognize that sexual harassment policies are table stakes in successfully managing the damaging behavior.
Remember that sexual harassment policies are not just legal documents. They are also culturally important, meaning-making documents that should play a role in defining, preventing, and stopping sexual harassment in an organization. The findings from our study suggest very specific language that may be useful in sexual harassment policies:
Include culturally appropriate, emotion-laden language in sexual harassment policies. Our findings suggest that if you don’t add this language, organizational members will include their own. For example, adding language such as “Sexual harassment is a form of predatory sexual behavior in which a person targets other employees” frames the behavior such that alternative interpretations may be more difficult to make. Using terms such as “predatory” instead of “perpetrator” and “target” instead of “victim” can shape how organizational members interpret the policy. Although policies tend to be stripped of emotions, it is essential for policy creators to recognize that policy creation is one of the most emotion-laden activities that organizational leaders are asked to accomplish. Because sexual harassment is such an emotionally laden topic, the creation of sexual harassment policies becomes even more emotionally challenging.
Sexual harassment policies should include bystander interventions as a required response to predatory sexual behavior. Most policies place responsibility for reporting harassment exclusively on the target, which puts them in a vulnerable position. If they report the behavior, then they are likely to be viewed with suspicion by their colleagues, often becoming socially isolated from their coworkers. On the other hand, if they do not report the sexual harassment, then it is likely to continue unabated, creating harm for the targeted employee, and wider organizational ills, too. Mandating bystander intervention can relieve the target of their sole responsibility for reporting and stopping predatory sexual behavior, and rightly puts the responsibility of creating a healthier organizational culture on all members of the organization.
Sexual harassment is complicated. If it were a simple problem involving just two people, we would have resolved the issue decades ago. But sexual harassment is a complicated, entrenched problem. Systems theory tells us that solutions need to match the complexity of the problem. Writing a policy is complicated, as our study showed. But it’s also just a start. No policy, no matter how well crafted, will prevent sexual harassment on its own, nor will it change a culture of sexual harassment. A policy is a first step that needs to be followed by persistent training, a willingness to listen to targets, and a readiness to fire employees who prey sexually on other employees—regardless of how important the predator may be in the organization.
Originally published in May 2017. Reprint H03ONZ
If your business is serious about eliminating the risk of sexual harassment—and it should be—you need to approach the problem comprehensively. This means recognizing that sexual harassment is part of a continuum of interconnected behaviors that range from gender bias to incivility to legally actionable assault. All these kinds of misconduct should be addressed collectively, because sexual harassment is far more likely in organizations that experience offenses on the “less severe” end of the spectrum than in those that don’t.
There’s no one-size-fits-all program for eliminating inappropriate gender-related behaviors; the best programs specifically address the characteristics of each workplace’s culture. The vital first step, then, is to get an accurate picture of yours. How? Ask your employees directly. Do they see disparities in career opportunities? Are colleagues or supervisors rude to each other? Is there inappropriate sexual conduct? Do employees feel uncomfortable or unsafe at work?
The best way to find all this out is with a carefully designed employee survey. In this article we’ll offer some key principles for fashioning one, along with a model survey that you can adapt (which incorporates some of the recommendations the EEOC made for surveys in its 2017 proposed enforcement guidance on harassment). Our advice is based on insights we developed while working with major business organizations and conducting several hundred gender-focused workshops and moderated conversations around the United States.
Though we think a workplace climate survey can be immensely valuable, we caution that managers and leaders should proceed only if they’re fully committed to thoroughly and quickly addressing inappropriate behavior in their organizations. Once the surveys are undertaken, they’ll create expectations of remedial action. They might also attract unwanted publicity or be used against the company in future litigation. Those risks, however, are substantially outweighed by the opportunity to develop a work environment that’s free of sexual misconduct, gender bias, and incivility.
Inform your employees that you’re undertaking an effort to understand how fair, courteous, and safe their workplace is. The goal is to encourage engaged and completely candid answers to the survey. For that reason, it should be anonymous and administered by a third party, not your HR department. Employees won’t have faith that their answers are confidential if the survey is conducted in-house, and if you don’t offer true anonymity, their responses are less likely to be honest.
It’s crucial for employees to believe that management considers an unbiased and harassment-free workplace a priority and is sincere in its commitment to that objective. That will happen only if senior management openly endorses the initiative, communicates the importance of supporting it to the entire management team, and periodically speaks to all employees about it.
Employees also need to believe that the end result will be better policies for everyone. This last point can’t be emphasized too strongly. If the steps you take to combat inappropriate gender-related behaviors are seen solely as efforts to “protect” women because of their vulnerability, the initiative will backfire.
The first organization-wide letter to employees might begin with a statement like this:
We are gathering information on a confidential basis to better understand our business’s workplace climate. Our goal is to ensure that all employees receive equal opportunities, respect, and resources in a workplace that is free of incivility and does not tolerate inappropriate sexual conduct.
The survey that you’ll receive shortly is the first step toward achieving that objective.
We have hired a third-party administrator to conduct the survey on a strictly anonymous basis. Your answers and identity will be carefully protected from disclosure.
The administrator will contact you separately and detail its procedures for preserving anonymity.
The survey you’ll receive is divided into four parts: gender bias, incivility, inappropriate sexual conduct, and overall workplace climate. All four areas are important, so please be as candid as possible in giving your views.
Employees should also be told that only the third-party administrator will see the raw survey results and that it will provide an analysis of those results to management. Once management receives that report, employees should be advised of the nature of and timetable for next steps.
We suggest that you emphasize that because the survey is anonymous, your organization cannot investigate or remedy specific claims raised by respondents—unless the incidents are separately reported in accordance with existing company procedures. Urge your employees to use those procedures if appropriate.
Whether you start with the assessment that we provide in this article or create your own questions, you should tailor your survey to your organization’s culture and climate. Keep in mind the following:
Avoid questions that could be used—or thought to be used—to identify participants, such as those about title, age, tenure with the company, responsibilities, and workplace location.
Don’t ask about marital or domestic status, sexual preference, children, or prior involvement in sexual misconduct investigations or proceedings. An inappropriate question in a job interview is equally inappropriate in a workplace climate survey.
Keep the survey on point. Resist the temptation to use it as an opportunity to ask employees more broadly about their experiences, expectations, and future plans.
Make the survey short and unambiguous. It should take no more than 10 minutes to finish. You may use true/false, multiple choice, or open-ended questions, but in our experience, the most useful approach is to incorporate a scale. Develop a series of statements that participants will be asked to indicate their degree of agreement with, using a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). With statements that are intended to examine the frequency of specific behaviors, use a scale of 1 (very frequently) to 4 (never).
A workplace climate survey needs no statistical evaluation beyond a simple tabulation. You’re just attempting to determine whether some of your employees believe there are gender-related problems in your work environment and what those problems are.
Bear in mind that the survey is not an end in itself; it’s a tool to identify whether you need new policies, practices, and procedures to eliminate inappropriate behavior and protect your employees against sexual harassment. Your results may indicate additional steps are necessary. You might need to assemble focus groups, conduct personal interviews, or host roundtable discussions. Since your goal is to ensure you have a welcoming, supportive, and productive workplace, the real work begins once you have a clear picture of your business’s actual climate. Here is a template you can use when constructing your survey:
Model Workplace Climate Survey
Complete the following survey about your experience at XYZ Company, without referring to experiences at any prior organizations. The value of this survey depends directly on getting an accurate view of our workplace culture, so please answer all questions as honestly as possible.
1. Which of the following describes your gender?
Male
Female
Prefer to self-describe (specify)
Prefer not to say
Gender Bias
2. I feel valued by the organization.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
3. I believe my opportunities for career success are negatively affected by my gender.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
4. The people I work with treat me with respect and appreciation.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
5. My views are encouraged and welcomed by my supervisors and senior leaders without regard to my gender.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
6. Career-enhancing assignments and opportunities are disproportionately given to men.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
Civility
7. My coworkers are courteous and friendly.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
8. I’m aware of unpleasant and negative gossip in the workplace.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
9. I’m aware of abusive, disrespectful, or hostile treatment of employees.
10. I’m aware of bullying behavior in the workplace.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
11. There are adverse consequences for senior leaders who are abusive, disrespectful, or hostile.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
12. I have been criticized for my personal communication style or appearance.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
13. All individuals are valued here.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
Inappropriate Sexual Conduct
14. I have experienced or witnessed unwanted physical conduct in the workplace or by coworkers away from the workplace.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
15. I have witnessed or heard of offensive or inappropriate sexual jokes, innuendoes, banter, or comments in our workplace.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
16. I have witnessed or heard of the electronic transmission of sexually explicit materials or comments by coworkers.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
17. I have received sexually inappropriate phone calls, text messages, or social media attention from a coworker.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
18. I have been asked or have witnessed inappropriate questions of a sexual nature.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
19. I have been the subject of conduct that I consider to be sexual harassment.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
20. Managers here tolerate or turn a blind eye to inappropriate sexual conduct.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
21. I feel unsafe at work because of inappropriate sexual conduct by some individuals.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
22. I’ve seen career opportunities be favorably allocated on the basis of existing or expected sexual interactions.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
23. I would be comfortable reporting inappropriate sexual conduct by a coworker.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
24. I would be comfortable reporting inappropriate sexual conduct by a supervisor.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
Overall Workplace Climate
25. My productivity has been affected by inappropriate gender-related behavior in the workplace.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
26. I have considered leaving my job because of inappropriate gender-related behavior in the workplace.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
27. Star performers are held to the same standards as other employees with respect to inappropriate gender-related behavior.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
28. I have experienced or witnessed inappropriate gender-related behavior by third parties (such as customers, vendors, and suppliers) associated with our organization.
(1) Very frequently
(2) Somewhat frequently
(3) Not at all frequently
(4) Never
29. The organization’s policies and processes with respect to prohibiting and reporting inappropriate gender-related behavior are easy to understand and follow.
(1) Strongly disagree
(2) Disagree
(3) Slightly disagree
(4) Neither agree nor disagree, or have no opinion
(5) Slightly agree
(6) Agree
(7) Strongly agree
Originally published in January 2018. Reprint BG1801
In early November 1991, a month after Anita Hill’s testimony about being sexually harassed by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, my mother invited me to dinner. After a long and pleasant meal, she told me that Hill’s stories were all too familiar. When my mother was in graduate school, her mentor groped her. She left school the next day and didn’t complete her PhD for 30 years.
Back in the 1990s, Hill wasn’t believed when she bravely came forward. Instead she was vilified by the Senate Judiciary Committee as a woman scorned, as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty,” as a now-contrite David Brock put it in his article smearing Hill. That response set the tone: Over the next 25 years, whenever a woman stood up to publicly accuse men like Bill Cosby or Bill Clinton of sexual assault, she usually ended up being the one on trial in the court of public opinion, charged with a lack of credibility.
But outside this public narrative, something started to shift: Women like my mother began to speak privately about their painful experiences. Mothers told their children, wives told their husbands, women told their friends, daughters told their parents. And they were believed.
Social scientists who study movements often speak of the three elements of revolution. First come the structural preconditions—long-term institutional changes that slowly build pressure, sometimes without even being noticed. In this case, those 25 years of simmering private conversations paved the way for today’s widespread backlash against harassment. The second element of a revolution is precipitants—pivotal events that cause change to rapidly accelerate. One precipitant here was the 2016 release of the Access Hollywood videotape of Donald Trump bragging about kissing and groping women. After his election to the U.S. presidency despite this evidence, many women were both incredulous and furious.
Finally, there are trigger events that ignite a major explosion. In this case it was the rapid succession of revelations about Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Harvey Weinstein. In what seemed like a first, the women’s tales of abuse were not doubted—they were believed. And so #MeToo began, a reckoning so public that the women who spoke out were named Time magazine’s people of the year in 2017.
We are in a new moment. For many of us, particularly men, it is scary and uncomfortable. Men are feeling vulnerable and afraid of false accusations (or perhaps true ones). They fear that things they did a long time ago will be reevaluated under new rules. They tell me they’re walking on eggshells. Because of this, many men are staying silent rather than taking part in the conversation. And yet inaction isn’t necessarily the right approach; there are important things men can do and say to support the women in their lives.
My experience studying masculinity and working with companies on sexual harassment has led me to focus on how men can take action to address this problem in the workplace. To do so effectively, we must come to terms with four questions: Why do men harass women? Don’t they know it’s wrong? How do they get away with it? And finally, what can we do about it?
This one’s easy. Men do it because they feel they can. It’s hardly the case that men are so overcome by lust that they cannot restrain themselves, as some people have suggested. No, it’s often about being in a position of power and feeling entitled to have access to women. These male harassers are emboldened to act by their privilege and authority and by the fact that their targets are in a weaker and more vulnerable position.
Nearly all of us know that grabbing a woman by her genitals, patting her butt, making lewd comments, or forcing her to engage in sexual activity is wrong. This is not some blurry line we have to negotiate. We know. “They let you do it” is the most telling quote from that Access Hollywood tape. Trump is saying, in effect, You see what a big celebrity I am? Look what I can get away with.
Some men, however, may not realize that the occasional shoulder massage, calling women “sweetie” or “honey,” or making suggestive comments is also wrong. Men who are older tend to fall into this category. It’s startling to remember that a mere two generations ago, white-collar workplaces looked like a lot like Don Draper’s world on Mad Men. The offices with the windows and doors were occupied by men; the women were gathered in the secretarial pool in the center of the office, a sort of crude corral. Sexual access to them was considered a perk.
This might be why men in their sixties who are accused of behaving badly 30 years ago sometimes seem bewildered. They may feel they are being judged by contemporary standards for things they did under what they perceive as different rules. This is reflected in the data: According to a recent analysis by The Economist, “younger respondents were more likely to think that a behavior crossed the line than their older peers were.”
This does not absolve younger guys of their own bad behavior, nor is it reason to forgive the older men being accused. Still, it’s important to talk more about these generational issues and how they color our thinking about the way we treat women.
Complicit assent. Think again about the Access Hollywood tape. What might have happened had Billy Bush, the show’s host at the time, responded with, Donald, that’s disgusting—not to mention illegal! Or if the other guys on the bus had said, That’s gross. What if Harvey Weinstein’s brother, Bob, had grabbed him by the shoulders and yelled, Harvey, stop it! I will throw you out of the company if you continue!
Sexual harassment persists because of three factors: the sense of entitlement that some men feel toward the women they work with; the presumption that women won’t report it or fight back; and the presumed support—even tacit support in the form of not calling out bad behavior—of other men.
What we’ve seen recently is the second leg of the stool getting kicked out. There’s been an outpouring of resistance from women. Women are speaking out, loudly, and not stopping.
Now it’s time to kick out the third leg. When men remain silent, it can be taken as a sign that we agree with the harasser, that we think the behavior is OK, and that we won’t intervene. Men are complicit in a culture that enables sexual harassment, so it is up to us to actively, volubly speak up and let the perpetrators know that we are not OK with what they do.
I’ll make one assertion here, which is backed by my experiences working with companies to promote gender equality over several decades: The overwhelming majority of men do not want to be jerks. We don’t want to make women uncomfortable and don’t want to say things that are offensive.
This puts a slightly more positive spin on the current male anxiety, which most assume is about being reported for harassment. But it also might be about the desire not to behave badly—and about not knowing exactly how to act.
We can act in a positive manner, however. Here’s one scenario I suspect is remarkably common:
Adeline is sitting in a meeting. She is the only woman in the room. Rob is in the meeting, too, and he makes a sexist comment. The room goes silent. Everyone’s attention is on Adeline: Is she going to do something, say something? Oh, God, here she goes, many of the other men are saying to themselves. Big eye roll. She’s gonna call him out and make everyone feel bad. And Adeline has to decide if she’s going to say something and make everyone miserable, or swallow it and stay miserable herself.
After the meeting, one of Adeline’s colleagues, Fabrice, privately apologizes to her for Rob. “I’m really sorry about what he said in there,” Fabrice says. “I didn’t like that at all.”
Fabrice thinks he’s being supportive, but he’s actually introducing another dilemma for Adeline. Does she nod politely and thank him? Or does she say, “Uh, where were you when I needed you?”
Men, what could you do differently? The obvious answer is that you could speak up, right then in the meeting, and say that you aren’t comfortable with those kinds of statements. But typically we don’t do that. Why not?
We’re afraid that if we do, we’ll be marginalized, kicked out of the men’s club—that we’ll become, in effect, “honorary women.” Men know that doing the right thing sometimes carries costs, and most of us are worried about jeopardizing what we have. So we betray the women in the room, abandon our ethics, and slink away uncomfortably.
But think about that moment when Rob made his comment. I’m sure there were guys in the meeting who were looking down at their shoes, laughing uncomfortably, or shuffling the papers on the table. They didn’t like it either but were too frightened to act.
Men, this is your chance. After the meeting, don’t apologize to Adeline. Talk to one of the other guys who looked uneasy:
“Listen, Mateo, I hate it when Rob says things like that.”
“So do I,” says Mateo.
This is your opening: “The next time he does that, I’m going to say something. But as soon as I do, you have to jump right in and say that you don’t like it either. Can I count on you?”
Because here is what we know. It might be too scary for one guy to risk marginalization by speaking up, even though failing to do the right thing will make him ashamed later. But when two guys call out sexism, that opens a space for more men to chime in. And the behavior that makes women feel uncomfortable and alone might stop right there.
A global insurance company I consulted with developed informal “male allies” training, teaching men how to develop strategies to support one another. Critically, they were not being asked to “rescue” women; they were charged with challenging other men. The men developed several approaches, including supporting one another when a child was sick or a family issue arose. Soon the company’s male employees started talking more openly with one another about their experiences, their families, and their efforts to balance their lives. And after a year, the men reported higher levels of job satisfaction. Though it remains to be seen how these changes will affect sexual harassment at the company, the shared language and norms the men have developed will help them challenge one another and support men who speak out.
So, where do we go from here? After decades of accepting sexual harassment as the status quo, we have to take some of the weight off women’s shoulders. It’s simply not their responsibility alone to talk about and enforce workplace equality. We must call out the sexist behaviors of other men because it’s wrong and because it undermines women’s confidence and effectiveness in the workplace.
This is what it means to be allies, men. To stand up together and do the right thing. We know how to do it, and we’re good at it most of the time. Brotherhood, teamwork, and camaraderie are the essence of the fraternity, the foxhole, and the sports team. Now we have to learn how to come together at work—and on the right side of things.
Originally published in January 2018. Reprint BG1801