I'm having an issue at the moment. I work in a very small workplace with only women where I am the manager. Our oldest employee (29) has been describing her sex life in GRAPHIC detail to my youngest employee (15). I have NO idea how to handle this. I've already rang my area manager and he's getting onto HR about it. Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
You are the manager. Pull this employee aside immediately and tell her she needs to stop talking about her sex life at work, her conversations are inappropriate and unprofessional and that HR has been contacted. HR will most likely perform an investigation and will at the very least place a note in her file and send her to harassment training. They also may give her a written warning. HR departments do not mess around with sexual harassment complaints.
A few weeks ago I had a question from a different anonymous commenter describing sadistic sexual activities a co-worker wanted to perform with her. (Her comment was too graphic to post). Her question for me was if she reported this harassment to HR, would they think she was a co-conspirator if she had initially played along.
My answer:
No. No. No. They will not. It sounds to me like you initially didn’t want to be mean, but your co-worker has now become bolder, you want him to stop and are afraid to tell him so yourself. Plus, the things he is saying (putting you in a cage, etc.) are scary and need to be taken seriously.
While reading her question about playing along I couldn’t help but be reminded of the new male manager my company hired. In a casual conversation about getting his company vehicle repaired he asked me if I’d come along and sit on his lap. I don’t remember exactly what how I responded, I think I made up an excuse why I couldn’t. I didn’t play along, but I didn’t tell him he was out of line either. Unfortunately, these type of comments continued. I’m not sure what his motives are other than a boast to his ego, but I am offended. It bothers me that he thinks of me as a female, rather than the professional I worked so hard to be. No wonder women feel the need to dress in drab colors and not draw attention to their femininity. I now don’t acknowledge his flirtatious comments and stick to business when talking to him. As I write this post, I can’t remember the last time he made a suggestive comment.
As a follow up to my previous post, the co-worker I talked about has not talked about sex since I told him he was being inappropriate. As to the female who shared her favorite sexual positions with her co-worker was finally promoted – twenty years after the incident and with reservations from HR.
Talking about sex at work is a major career blunder – knock it off.
Today I want to tell you the real reason you weren't invited along on that consulting trip. In Wonder Women, Spar recounts a conversation she had with a senior executive who openly joked he would never take a woman on a consulting trip.
"My wife would kill me!" (Pg. 238)
I wonder how many women were not invited to lunch, out for drinks or on overnight business trips because of what others may think. These missed opportunities result in another advancement strategy not available to women.
Spar recommends two thing that will prod the evolution along:
1. We need to get a larger critical mass of women into the organizations dealing with these tensions. The more women there are in an organization, the more openly gay men and women - the more diversity - the less potent the sexual pressures will be on everyone.
2. The senior men in any organization need to engage actively and professionally with the women around them. They need to bring them along on trips, take them to lunch, invite them for golf and to meet their wives. If there is a hint of sexual attraction involved, so be it. Deal with it, and move on.
In my position as accounting manager, I am almost never included in
management meetings held off-site. For many years I was the only female manager
at my company. I had assumed I was
required to stay back to manage the office while my boss was out, then one of
my employees pointed out I should be at those meetings - all of the other
departments seem to make it through the day with their manager absent. Also, by
not attending these meetings I miss out on critical organizational information no
one thinks to share with me not to mention the relationship building
opportunities I miss out on. It is interesting to note my female predecessor was
not invited to those meetings either.
I have a female friend who works in HR. In her first job she was regularly
invited to lunch by her company’s CFO.She often comments that she learned more about finance during those
lunches than she ever did in the classroom. Unfortunately her co-workers spread
rumors that the two of them were having an affair.
Then there is my former female co-worker who in the 80’s claimed she had
been propositioned for sex while on a business trip with her boss. She refused.
Upon returning to work after the trip,
working for him became so unbearable she had to leave. Contradictory to Spar's advice, Anna Runyan in her book The Professional Woman's Guide to Managing Mensuggests:
Be aware of one-on-one meetings with the men you manage at restaurants and
coffee shops. These can quickly turn into “date” types of situations.Try to bring along another work colleague to
these meetings. Try to hold the meeting in the office or where there will be a
lot of people around.If you need to
leave the office, recommend breakfast or lunch meetings over happy hours and
dinners.You don’t want a business
meeting to turn into an uncomfortable situation. (Pg. 38)
She then gives the following advice if a male employee makes an unwanted
sexual advance:
The most important thing you can do is to catch this immediately before it
turns into sexual harassment.Try to
resolve the situation right away with a conversation.If you feel comfortable enough, you can use
humor to try to keep the working relationship on a positive level and say
something like, “Were you flirting with me? I hope not, I really like working
with you.” If humor is not working, be clear and straightforward.Tell him that you are not interested and your
relationship needs to stay professional.If he continues to hit on you, contact Human Resources. (Pg. 44)
What is your experience? Are you or the women in your workplace given opportunities
to network with men at lunch, on business trips or on the golf course? Were they positive or negative experiences?
I have this annoying co-worker, who over the years has shared too much information about his personal life. For the most part he’s harmless, but when he starts talking about his sex life I get uncomfortable.
Early on when he began working for our company, he would look me up and down then ask me my dress size, overly compliment my wardrobe then tell me stories about how his wife wouldn’t have sex with him. One day when he started telling me about a dream he’d had about me the night before I lost it. I cut him off mid-sentence, rudely told him I didn’t want to hear about his dream, that I didn’t want him to ask me my dress size anymore and to stop talking to me about his sex life. I also told him some women would consider these actions sexual harassment. Looking back, his dream may not have been sexual, but at the time I didn’t want to risk hearing about it.
My co-worker didn’t talk to me again for almost a year which didn’t bother me a bit. Then slowly he began initiating conversation and before I knew it he was back to talking about sex again. Recently he’s added sexual jokes and comments about other employee’s sex lives to his topics of conversation.
At a recent going away party this employee made a joke about our President’s sex life in front of everyone including our President’s 70-year old father and our human resource manager. No one acknowledged the joke or laughed. Instead, someone quickly changed the subject.
It baffles me that no one sits this employee down and tells him to knock it off. Not only does he talk about sex with me, but when he thinks he has a funny story or joke he walks around the office sharing it with everyone.
Friday morning he was at it again, making the rounds telling his latest joke about our President’s sex life when I decided I’d had enough. I turned to him and said, “Fred, this isn’t appropriate conversation for the workplace.” He looked at me and repeated my comment, “This isn’t appropriate conversation for the workplace?” I think he got my message, but I’m sure he will be back at it in a few weeks. I’ve decided from now on every time I hear him talking about sex I’m going to repeat my previous comment or tell him he is being unprofessional.
And for those of you who talk about sex at work:
Doing so diminishes your credibility. This goes for women too:
There is this story about one of our female employees who traveled with a male co-worker to an out of state conference many years ago. According to the male co-worker, she talked about her favorite sexual positions the entire length of the trip. To this day, when this female employee’s name comes up for promotion her male co-worker who is now a VP shares this story along with his opinion this employee is not professional.
Not everyone will find your joke funny:
Not everyone has the same sense of humor. When you joke or talk about sex you always run the risk of offending someone. Plus, someone who laughed at your jokes last week may for no obvious reason find them offensive or not funny this week. I once worked with a guy who liked to tell a couple of his female co-workers he’d like to see their lips around a Pepsi bottle or a banana. Sure enough, he made this comment to a new temporary employee and she reported him to HR for sexual harassment.
You are a disruption:
Your jokes and stories are unproductive and disruptive. They stop work- flow and provide fodder for employee gossip. See next topic:
You are drawing unwanted attention to your appearance:
When talking about your sex life you may be providing a visual image to your co-workers they do not want to see. Let’s face it you may not actually be a “ten” and your co-workers may find these visual images repulsive.
Do your career a favor and remember conversations about sex are not appropriate for the workplace.
Have you had a co-worker who talked about sex in the workplace? How did you handle it?
I was looking over a woman's shoulder as the following photo of Hillary Clinton appeared on her computer screen:
Kevin Lamarque / AFP - Getty Images
This particular woman who rarely utters a bad word about anyone and refuses to discuss politics even when probed turned to me, pointed at Hillary’s photo and said:
"She is so ugly."
I was dumbfounded. Not, “I hate her politics” or “She was the worst first lady we’ve ever had or even “She sucks as Secretary of State,” but, “She is ugly.” Seriously! I hesitated a bit before saying, “I think she's been traveling a lot and is probably tired” and quickly changed the subject.
To make matters worse this was the article featured with the photo: 'It pains me': Clinton decries plight of women in male-dominated countries It relayed Hillary’s emotional speech warning there will be "many sacrifices and losses" before daughters were "valued as sons" across the world and included this quote from Hillary:
We are on the right side of history
in this struggle, but there will be many sacrifices and losses until we finally
reach a point where daughters are valued as sons, where girls are as educated
as boys, where women are encouraged and permitted to make their contributions
to their families, to their societies just as the men are.
This episode occurred the day after I read Black Girl in Maine’s post Dear retailers, you will not steal my kid's innocence about her difficulties shopping for an affordable age appropriate dress for her seven year old daughter’s upcoming holiday concert. Instead of finding a cute dress appropriate for a seven year old she could only find dresses that were sexualized, designed to show off non-existent curves and inappropriate as hell.
As the afternoon progressed, I couldn’t get these incidents out of my head; how our society continues to value and promote appearance over accomplishments, how women continue to struggle to be seen as equal to men and how being taken seriously in the workplace is still a common topic of conversation amongst professional women in my social circle.
This brings me to the book I am currently reading: Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman which consists of a series of personal essays all promoting a stand against sexism. Unfortunately for me the book has become unreadable. When Moran mentioned she has of course tasted her own menstrual blood I realized I couldn’t go on. The book is just too crass and vulgar for my tastes.
Then it occurred to me why I love this book - I am not Caitlin Moran’s target audience. Her audience is the 20 to 30 year old woman who doesn’t believe she needs to be concerned with feminism. If they can find humor is Moran’s writing and actually read her book Moran just might be able to convince them feminism means being equal to boys, having the right to make the same amount of money, the same access to education, to have sexual harassment be a crime and to believe they deserve to be valued for more than just their appearance. If so, then this is a wonderful book. I don’t want this generation of women to become middle-aged and like the woman above be unable to see past a bad hair day to recognize the extraordinary accomplishments of a woman like Hillary Clinton.
Have you read Caitlin Moran’s book How to Be a Woman? What were your thoughts?
In this memoir, “real life Peggy Olson” Jane Maas writes about her time as a copywriter the world of advertising in New York. Maas started her career in 1964 at Ogilvy and Mather, eventually becoming the president of an agency in New York. Honestly, who doesn’t want to hear more about what life was like for the Peggy Olsons of the world?
I had recently begun watching Mad Menand was intrigued with show and the character of Peggy
Olson. Sex at the office, three-martini lunches, constant cigarette smoking and
women treated as second class citizens was this show accurate? Jane Maas using
her own experiences along with interviews with her peers provides an insider’s
view. I had to read this book.
Is the show accurate? Mostly yes, though most people Jane knew didn’t drink in the
mornings and those who smoke find the smoking on the show phony. Cigarette smokers
know that smoking is a habit that smokers aren’t aware of.The actors on the show make a big production
of their smoking. The details of the
sets including the office and apartment furnishings and character attire are
right-on except for Peggy; they get an accessory wrong.I am not going to be a spoiler you will have
to read the book to find out what it is.
The show's depiction of sex at the office and women being treated as second class citizens is accurate.
What about Jane? How did her real-life experiences compare with Peggy’s?
Jane confirms women didn’t make the same salary as a man
with the same title, didn’t have equal space – the guys got offices with
windows, women got cubicles.There were
also accounts women were not allowed to work on such as car advertising. Jane
writes:
Why should men take us seriously as advertising
professionals? Women weren’t even taken seriously as consumers. (pg. 55)
Jane did have two advantages over Peggy and most other
working women of the time:
She had a supportive, successful well-connected and liberal-minded
husband. She also had Mabel her nanny and housekeeper who lived with the family
Monday through Friday. Jane admits she would not have been able to devote her
life to her career without Mabel who came to the family in 1963 and stayed for
thirty-two years.*
Mad Women
includes networking and career lessons.I enjoyed the following:
Sit at the front of the room: Jane who is short would always sit in the front-row at agency
meetings.
It is a huge advantage, because in addition to seeing better, you are
also seen. (pg. 35)
Priority setting from Mary Wells, president and founder of
Wells Rich Green:
Early on I learned to focus and eliminate from my life anything
that didn’t really matter because so much in my life did matter.I pretty well eliminated a social life except
with my clients.They were as
interesting to socialize with as anyone else I knew, so that was easy.My life was simply my family, Wells Rich
Greene, and my clients. (pg. 68)
On the importance of a “network:” Jane receives an offer from Leona Helmsley, yes “the Queen
of Mean” Leona Helmsley of Helmsley Hotels, to market the Helmsley motels. Jane
would have her own advertising agency.Leona offers to help Jane get lots of other clients.
At home that night Jane asked her husband Michael what he
thought.He said what do you have to
lose and she agreed.End of
discussion.In hindsight:
Few men would make a big decision like changing jobs without
checking with their Old Boy network.Women still don’t have that instinctive reaction, nor do we have as good an
Old Girl network.We’re getting better,
but we’re not there yet. (pg. 193)
Bottom Line:
I enjoyed this book especially its author Jane Maas.Jane is warm, professional and likeable.She seems honest.She admits her book Adventures of an Advertising Women
was a whitewashed
memoir.As president of a New York
advertising agency she wrote the book to help attract new business.In Mad Women she revisits clients and
advertising campaigns mentioned in her previous book writing the truth this
time.She doesn’t come across as bitter even
when describing the sexism and challenges she faced. Actually, she says she was
having a wonderful time.
If you watch Mad Men, are interested in advertising, life in the
sixties, or successful career women, you may enjoy this book. I’ve
left out Jane’s perspective on being a working mother and her take on where
women are today, if interested you will have to read the book.
*This is the third
time I’ve read about career women getting help with their housekeeping. First Mary Kay Ash, then Lisa Bloom and now Jane MaasI am
beginning to believe them, a housekeeper is a necessity.
Last year around this time I read a little book by Susan Bulkeley Butler called Women Count: A Guide to Changing the World. I was so inspired by the book's message (Butler re-assesses how far we’ve come – and how far we have to go) that I made it my 2011 blog goal to Make Women Count. Looking back on my blog postings throughout the year I have to admit many of them were down right depressing. Here is a sampling:
Shadeism: I discover that discrimination still exists between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned members in the same community. Mothers along with their daughters, some as young as six, continue to use potentially harmful skin lightening creams. The question has to be asked, "Don't women already have enough to deal with?"
I am Guilty of Gender Bias - In the midst of my Making Women Count Project, I am disappointed with myself when I automatically and wrongly assume a woman I was introduced to is the subordinate and the man she is with the manager.
Should Employee Report Sexual Harassment - In this true story, both the female employee and her female manager are afraid to report sexual harassment for fear of retaliation while their male manager continues to grope, intimidate and harass them.
The Body Project - In Joan Jacobs Brumberg's book The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls I read increasingly since the early 1900s middle-class adolescent girls and women went from developing their inner beauty to working on their body; so much so that their bodies have become a project.
Lisa Bloom Preaches to the Choir - In Lisa Bloom's book Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World I learn twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win America's Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize and that twenty-three percent would rather lose their ability to read than their figures. Come on ladies please stop spending so much time watching reality TV and start spending more time reading.
Then last night I viewed this enlightening video:
In the video Sheryl Sandberg informs us we still have a real problem:
Women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States in 1981. Since then, we have slowly and steadily made progress, earning increasingly more of the college degrees, taking more of the entry-level jobs, going into previously male-dominated fields, moving up each step of the ladder. But there is one big exception to this improvement -- the top jobs. Thirty years later, we have not come close to holding our proportional share of positions of power in any industry.
More alarmingly, the numbers at the top are no longer improving. In the 2008 election, women lost seats in Congress for the first time in three decades. Across the corporate sector, women have held 15 to 16 percent of the C-level jobs and Board seats since 2002. Globally, only nine of 190 countries are led by women. So even as people worry about boys falling behind girls in education and write articles with headlines like "The End of Men," we have to acknowledge that men still run the world. Our revolution has stalled.
For me the lowest point of the video was Sheryl's revelation that:
My generation really sadly is not going to change the numbers at the top. They are just not moving. We are not going to get to 50% of the population. In my generation we are not going to get to the 50% of women at the top in any industry.
What generation is Sheryl talking about? Sheryl Sandberg was born August 28, 1969 and is seven years younger than me. She is right though; my generation and those of you who are a few years younger are not going to achieve this. We had too far to go:
I remember my female dorm mate back in 1981, a civil engineering major whose professor advised her to change her major because women were not qualified to be engineers. She stuck it out though, coming home in tears more than once after being publicly ridiculed in class. He gave her a "D." She graduated five years later with a B.S. in Engineering. I haven't kept up with her, so I don't know where she is now, but I do know she struggled to even become an engineer.
Which brings me to Rebecca Traister's book Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women one of my last reads of 2011 recommended by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness. I don't particularly enjoy politics, so I really struggled to finish this one; especially the chapters covering the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Since Kim mentioned she enjoyed the chapters after Hillary was out of the race a little bit better I forced myself to soldier on. In the end Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary, and became the first woman ever to win a presidential primary contest - a fact down played by the media Though with her loss to Barack Obama, many first wave feminists also lost hope of seeing a woman elected president in their lifetime.
The book brought home the realization that both sexism and racism still exist in America and played a role in the 2008 election. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were victims of sexism. Plus, feminists questioned whether a Sarah Palin win would actually be harmful for feminism. Here is what Lafferty had to say about Sarah Palin in the Daily Beast:
Not believing in abortion personally was one thing. But preventing other women from exerting full control over their bodies and health, assessing their value as lesser than the value of the fetuses they carried, was, it seemed to me and many others, fundamentally anti-feminist and anti-female.
Other interesting tidbits:
Michelle Obama has been forced to tone down her power and brain to better suit the media's demand for a more subdued and traditional first lady.
And as to Hillary – it was easier to embrace this woman in a state of diminished power, once she had lost the big prize, when she was no longer threatening the chances of the cool guy.
In conclusion:
As the title of this blog post indicates my Making Women Count project is ending the year on a low note, although I am energized to hear Sheryl Sandberg state she is hopeful that future generations can achieve the 50%. While revisiting my initial Making Women Count post, I realized that despite the depressing revelations and disappointing results Making Women Count continues to be important goal for me. I have decided to continue with the project in 2012.
My manager, who I will call Mr. Bully, belittles, intimidates and harasses one of my employees on a regular basis. Yesterday he threatened to write her up for no apparent reason and made her cry. We are both afraid of him and fear retaliation if I speak up or report him to HR. I’ve tried talking to his manager, but he says Mr. Bully is a friend of our company’s President and there is nothing he can do. When I try to discuss his treatment of my employee or other problems in our department directly with Mr. Bully he yells at me. Then he says we are good right and asks for a hug.
Oh and another thing, he touches and gropes both myself and my employee. I know his manager has seen him do this, but he pretends he has not. This manager then told me to tell him to never touch me again. My employee does not want me to go to HR about the touching because she doesn’t want Mr. Bully to find out we reported him. Both of us really need our jobs and are certain our company’s President will not allow him to be reprimanded.
Mr. Bully is from another country and we understand his behavior towards us (we are women) may be influenced by his culture, but we don’t like it. What should I do?
To start with Mr. Bully’s manager is a spineless weasel. The minute you reported the touching to him regardless of whether he witnessed it himself, he was required to take reasonable care to correct the harassment. In saying that, you also have an obligation to protect your employee from sexual harassment. It is your responsibility as a manager to thoroughly investigate a sexual harassment charge even if you are asked not to. If it comes out later you were aware of sexual harassment and did nothing your job could be in jeopardy.
I recommend you go home and write down every harassment incident you recall. Include dates, times, locations, who was present and what occurred. Include the “asking for a hug” incidents. Stick to the facts. Don’t write: he’s a creep and everyone I talk to thinks he’s a creep too. Don’t give excuses like he is not from our country and doesn’t understand our culture. Don’t say: Mr. Bully’s boss witnessed the incident, but refuses to admit it. Just write Mr. B’s boss was in the room.
First thing tomorrow morning pull out your employee manual and determine how to report a harassment incident. Follow the procedures indicated and file your report. Your company, most likely the HR department, will begin an investigation. They are required to make every effort to keep your identity confidential during and after the investigation. However, you or your employee’s identity may be obvious from the facts of the complaint.
It doesn’t matter that Mr. Bully is a friend of your company’s President. There is nothing he can or should do to prevent Mr. Bully from being investigated, but if you think your employer didn't fulfill its obligation under the law, or you experience retaliation consider contacting the EEOC.
In the interim if Mr. Bully touches you or your employee again tell him his behavior is not acceptable and must stop immediately. He is trying to bully and intimidate you as well as your employee and has created a hostile work environment.
It was hard for me to hear blatant sexual harassment such as this is still occurring in my back yard and that managers remain unwilling and afraid to report it. When this acquaintance initially came to me I was reminded of Penelope Trunk’s post Don’t report sexual harassment (in most cases). Penelope states:
After you've filed a report, human resources will protect the company, not you. The law is set up to encourage a company to take proscribed steps to protect itself from liability rather than to protect your emotional stability, or, for that matter, your career.
She suggests employees have a frank talk with their harasser prior to going to HR and to negotiate with him/her themselves. She recommends asking to be transferred to another department and if that doesn’t work to begin looking for a new job.
I am sure Mr. Bully has harassed women who have worked for him in the past and will do so again if he is not stopped. The thought of this manager getting away with this sickens me. I hope Penelope is wrong and HR will be successful in changing his behavior.
What do you think? Should employees report sexual harassment?
Last month, 
suggests:
which consists of a series of personal essays all promoting a stand against sexism. Unfortunately for me the book has become unreadable. When Moran mentioned she has of course tasted her own menstrual blood I realized I couldn’t go on. The book is just too crass and vulgar for my tastes. 
when Kim Ukura included it on her list of 
was a whitewashed
memoir.
one of my last reads of 2011