Sexual Harassment Policies
Q: Sexual harassment is in the mind of the receiver.
Well, not always but sometimes. All a man has to do is compliment a
fellow co-worker on his/her apperance and boom, you got sexual
harassment. Even though nothing sexual is mentioned. I had the same
problem when I invited a lady co-worker to lunch. Boss gace me a
serious warning about sexual harassment. Ok, no problem. Me and the
rest of the crew (3 guys and 4 women) went to lunch "alone" together
and laughed about the dumb broad.
the consequence ?
A: 1. Know your audience. 2. Know your audience. 3. Know your audience. I say this as a woman working in what is still pretty much a male-dominated profession (and in an area that is pretty ethnically mixed). The trash we talked *would* get us major busted in other environments. And I personally got very caught totally checking out a male co-worker who usually showed up in T-shirt and jeans but came in one day in a gorgeous olive-green Italian suit. But if we weren't already pals I would have been a lot more circumspect. (Might have gone down the hall to schmooze with the resident Wild Women and said something like, "Did you see Peter in that suit? Rwowwwr" though ;-) But the audience was well known, and we as the *audience* were responsible for letting others know when our personal limits were stretched. "Don't go there" was well-understood and totally respected.