Feminism

Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out, On relationship and recovery by Patricia Evans

Recommendation

Author Patricia Evans meticulously researched, described and documented verbal abuse in her previous book, The Verbally Abusive Relationship. This time, she gives domestic abuse a human face by including the experiences of verbal abuse survivors, recounted in their own words. You witness their struggles, confusion, pain and courage as they endure abuse, rediscover themselves and, ultimately, hopefully, move on. Particularly heart-wrenching are the stories of women whose abuse was denied, not only by their abusers, but also by their family, friends and even their counselors, exacerbating their feelings of isolation, guilt and bewilderment. One survivor says, “When I talked to a therapist about it, she said to go shopping.” Evans covers the same ground as in her previous books, but the addition of excerpts from victims’ letters makes it worth the read. If you feel you might be suffering from verbal abuse, or care about someone who is, getAbstract recommends Evans’ book. For counselors and therapists who work with couples, it’s required reading.

Take-Aways

• The perpetrator of verbal abuse wants to control and manipulate his mate.
• The (almost always male) abuser employs many tactics to exercise power over his spouse, including accusing, blaming, criticizing, denying her and withholding love from her.
• The victim’s efforts to love harder or behave better prove futile in stopping the abuse.
• When a woman becomes aware that she is a victim of verbal abuse, she realizes she is not at fault.
• Friends, relatives, the abuser and even the therapist often blame the victim.
• Verbal abuse degrades the victim, sapping her life energy and destroying her spirit.
• Abuse victims feel trapped in the abusive relationship because they lose the confidence and self-esteem they need to change their situation.
• Many women make plans to escape abuse once they recognize it for what it is.
• Strategies for coping with verbal abuse include keeping a journal, joining a support group and taking care of your own needs.
• To heal from verbal abuse, relearn how to act in your own best interests and give yourself time to go through the process of recovery.

Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out Book Summary

Speaking Out

Survivors of verbal abuse come from all walks of life. Some are rich, some poor; some grew up privileged, others destitute; some have been loved, others have been mistreated; they are educated, intelligent, self-made mothers, daughters and wives, and now they are also survivors. As one survivor says: “I just now am becoming able to discuss my abuse, but if there is anything I could do or say to anyone to prevent or to help, I am willing to come forward and speak.”

It’s All about Control

One former victim asks, “How could he be so cold and cruel to me, and so happy-go-lucky around others?” The motivation behind verbal abuse is control. By diminishing his partner, the abuser feels in charge and in power. He – for verbal abusers are usually male – uses many tactics to make his partner feel secondary. He tries to control her time, space and access to money. He withholds love and affection, sulks and acts like the victim, yells and hits things, walks away or refuses to communicate. He tries to tell his mate what she thinks and feels. Then, he blames her for the way he acts, telling her the consequences of his actions are all her fault. The abuser needs to exercise power over his partner so that he doesn’t feel vulnerable or powerless. This power-over makes every interaction in the relationship a contest that he needs to win more than anything else.

“Women have taken the time to write at length about how verbal abuse had circumscribed their lives within the narrow boundaries of self-doubt and paralyzing pain.”

Verbal abuse falls into 15 categories: “withholding; countering; discounting; verbal abuse disguised as a joke; blocking and diverting; accusing and blaming; judging and criticizing; trivializing; undermining; threatening; name calling; forgetting; ordering and demanding; denial and abusive anger.”

Power Over

A verbal abuser needs to exercise power over his mate. In doing so, he is denying her “creative force,” an energy that is life itself, and which renews, flows, and gives birth to artistic expression and a feeling of integration. You experience integration when you live your life in harmony with the world around you. Verbal abuse causes disintegration. When an abuser continually contradicts a woman’s perceptions, feelings, thoughts and instincts, it creates disruption and doubt. In the words of survivors:

• “He kept saying that I have to have everything my way, and after a while he convinced me, but now, in the perspective of time, I think it was not so.”
• “I feel frustrated, helpless, defenseless, angry, frightened, crazy, indecisive, frozen.”
• “My motto was ‘Peace at any Price’.”
• “I had lost much of my identity, but was not aware of it.”
• “He never admitted being wrong; never, ever, apologized.”

“Abusive men stop at nothing to squelch, put down, correct, criticize, belittle, trivialize, ignore, snub, sneer at, and, when all else fails, put on displays of rage in order to dominate and control their mates.”

Many victims of verbal abuse try to change their abusers by giving love. They feel that if only they could get it right, express themselves correctly, or make their partners feel loved and secure, then the abuse would stop. However, the verbal abuser does not want his victim to change. He is not seeking to resolve conflict. He only wants to exert his power through control and manipulation.

Out of Darkness

Survivors explain the road to recovery:

• “It was like being in a dark room and the lights came on – already there are changes being made. He knows I’m different.”
• “My marriage has always been confusing to me. Until recently, I did not realize that I was being verbally abused.”
• “For the first time I believe that it’s not me, that I’m not stupid, dumb and weak.”

“There is clearly an imbalance of power in our culture, and it appears to be reflected in personal relationships.”

These survivors tell you what it is like to become aware that you are suffering verbal abuse. The victim realizes that she is not at fault. Her mate is not seeking mutuality. He is trying to control her by keeping her down. As difficult as this realization is, with it comes relief and understanding. Her newfound awareness releases her feelings of ineptitude, confusion and guilt.

“It’s Your Fault!”

One exceptionally insidious aspect of verbal abuse is that the abuser often blames his victim. This causes her to question herself and search for answers within: What am I doing wrong? How can I change to improve my situation? But the reality is, as one survivor put it, “He abuses because he is an abuser,” not because she is doing something wrong – so all the soul-searching in the world on her behalf won’t put things right.

“The survivors of verbal abuse consistently reported that they came to believe what they were hearing.”

Placing the blame on the victim erodes her self-esteem and makes her doubt her own perceptions. Society in many cultures treats women as inferior, setting them up to take blame. Survivors speak of looking for validation and having their efforts thwarted by the very people they turn to – therapists, clergy, family members and friends. Often others will tell them to “try harder,” or that they “love too much,” are “too sensitive,” “crave high drama and excitement,” “must forgive,” are “a martyr” or that “both partners are responsible” for the abuse. Even therapists sometimes overlook evidence of verbal abuse in couples who seek counseling, missing the fact that a couple cannot attain mutuality in a verbally abusive relationship. Says one survivor, “No one seems to understand or believe that I am suffering abuse. Even professional therapists don’t seem to see verbal abuse as serious, at least not the ones I’ve seen.”

Dying Inside

One woman explained how abuse unfolds: “When your words are not heard, when conversation has become a series of bored one-syllable responses to your questions, when plans are made without regard for your schedule, when your partner talks more, and more lovingly, to your dog, when your accomplishments are received by patronization, when your laughter is met by silence, when you begin to feel like a different person than you were growing up…it is a terribly wrong picture.”

“The abuser is often so used to relating to his mate in an abusive way that it does not even occur to him that he is being abusive.”

These words describe how the abuser “kills the spirit” of his victim. Through repeated behaviors that diminish his partner, he slowly saps her of her life energy. Verbal abuse victims often experience symptoms similar to those of depression, including “feelings of hopelessness, low energy, poor concentration, difficulty sleeping, marked lack of interest in daily activity, low self-esteem, weight loss and even thoughts of suicide.”

Why Stay?

Why do victims of verbal abuse stay in abusive relationships even after they realize what is happening? The reasons are numerous. Some women stay because they lack the financial resources to make it on their own. Others are afraid of what an abuser might do to them if they try to break away. Many victims have lost their confidence or are still hoping their partner will change. The ongoing abuse has isolated them from friends and family. They feel trapped with no way out of the relationship.

“ Remember, there is nothing you can do and no way you can get him to change.”

One survivor explains, “I must leave because all I do is cry. I do not work because he wants me at home. My friends and family are far away. He accuses, blames, judges and criticizes me numerous times a day. He is always ordering me and when I stand up, say ‘Stop it,’ or just leave the room, he tends to be angrier. Why have I stayed in this awful relationship? Obviously my husband is just a mean man.”

“The voices of the survivors seem to echo and merge in one voice seeking truth, understanding, and validation.”

Many women do make plans to leave and escape the abuse, particularly once they recognize it for what it is. They have gone through the stages of abuse, “oppression and control, disintegration, awareness, blaming, killing her spirit, feeling trapped and finally, escape.” Two survivors described their feelings:

• “To leave takes faith in yourself and the ability not to listen and not allow yourself to be confused or deflected. I am filing for divorce, knowing it is the best thing for me, but I am still frightened.”
• “I will go and keep going. I cannot say I love my mate. I feel too injured. He has said too much and gone too far.”

The Figures

A survey of 250 victims of verbal abuse revealed that 71% of respondents felt trapped in their relationships and 83% were afraid of the abuser. More than half of the women who responded also experienced physical abuse. The majority (more than 83%) did not believe their mates would ever change. The overwhelming majority, 93%, also said the verbal abuse increased over time. The survey found that the five most common methods of verbal abuse were, in descending order: “abusive anger; accusing and blaming; judging and criticizing; withholding; and denial.

What to Do If You Choose to Stay

If you decide to stay in a verbally abusive relationship while you develop your resources, get further job training or education, or to work on your marriage, you can employ many coping strategies. Continue to be aware that your partner is exercising power and not looking for mutuality in your relationship. Don’t turn to drugs or alcohol for solace. Exercise, eat well and stay healthy. Join a support group so you don’t feel isolated. Research your legal rights in the jurisdiction where you live. Try keeping a journal to record your thoughts and feelings. As one woman says, “Writing is for me sanity-saving. Writing down your experiences and feelings helps to keep reality clearer for you. It is a confirmation of yourself and your experiences that is eroded by your mate, your family, friends and the general world you live in!”

“When we discover ourselves actively and consciously, when we discover our own value, we awaken what was lost in the trauma or the abuse.”

A healthy relationship is one of “equality, partnership, mutual benefit, good will, validation and intimacy.” You can’t change your partner by trying harder, loving him more or trying desperately to do everything right. The only way he will change is if he is committed to changing in order to help himself and salvage the relationship. The pattern of verbal abuse will not change overnight. Breaking it requires constant vigilance from both partners, and a willingness to communicate and listen. However, the benefits of a mutual relationship are worth the work.

“Recognition is the hardest step; after that, nearly anything is possible.”

Once he has committed to change, the abuser should join a men’s therapy group designed for abusive personalities. He should read material on the subject. He must ask his partner to remind him when he is acting abusively at the time of the offense. Lastly, and in some ways most difficult, the abuser must allow himself to feel the pain he suppresses instead of taking it out on his wife instead. Only when he works through his pain can he become a whole, compassionate and empathetic person.

Into the Light

Recovering from verbal abuse requires time. As one survivor put it, “Just acknowledging the terrific loss of self and spirit helps start the process of healing and rebuilding a self – I am enough, adequate, worthy.” Survivors of verbal abuse must relearn how to act in their own best interests. Begin by nurturing your “inner child.” That is the part of you that is emotional, full of wonder, confidence and interest in the world around you. Verbal abuse wounds your inner child. To nurture her back to health, act as your own loving parent providing security, warmth, acknowledgment and comfort.

“The abuser will usually not admit that there is anything wrong in the relationship at all.”

Identify where your talent and passion lie, and accept them as your gifts, which you contribute to the world. Understand what you need to feel happy and fulfilled. Make a plan to achieve your goals and work toward them every day. Lastly, add structure and substance to your day and let the comfort of your routine soothe your troubled spirit.

About the Author

Patricia Evans has authored four books on the topic of verbal abuse and has worked extensively with abuse victims. She is founder of an institute for interpersonal communication, and works as a consultant, speaker and facilitator.

Video & Podcast

The Sexual Harassment Handbook, Everything You Need to Know Before Someone Calls a Lawyer by Linda Gordon Howard

Recommendation

Employers are increasingly aware that sexual harassment is a problem and that they may be in for trouble if an incident happens in their workplace. However, they still struggle to understand exactly what it is and how to prevent it. In this useful manual, attorney Linda Gordon Howard explains U.S. law in plain language and provides real-life examples of sexual harassment. She points out that sexual harassment affects more than the actor or the target; it can create mistrust and poison the entire workplace atmosphere. She provides advice about investigating complaints, taking action and creating policies. getAbstract recommends this book to human resource managers and supervisors who wish to create workplaces that comply with the law and remain free of hostility.

Take-Aways

• Sexual harassment can occur when one person, male or female, has power over another.
• Legally, sexual harassment is unwelcome behavior that has a detrimental effect on an employee’s performance.
• Much sexual harassment is unintentional.
• Workplaces don’t need to become dour settings where jokes and flirting are forbidden.
• Supervisors should never become romantically involved with the people they oversee.
• Regardless of how you say “no” to a sexual come-on, the person who made the request should listen to you.
• Employers must do more than announce sexual harassment policies; they must also investigate complaints.
• Employers should encourage employees to report sexual harassment.
• If you’ve been harassed, document everything before you forget the details.
• Being named in a sexual harassment complaint doesn’t mean you are guilty.

The Sexual Harassment Handbook Book Summary

How Sexual Harassment Became an Issue

The workplace is a nonthreatening environment where people can get to know each other. Romance is nothing to worry about and is quite different from sexual harassment. Romantic relationships are consensual, and the people involved share similar feelings. In contrast, sexual harassment is nonconsensual and unwelcome. It usually occurs in four kinds of situations:

1. One person does not want a relationship, but fears that if he or she doesn’t obey a direct supervisor the consequences will be dire.
2. A harasser offends a co-worker with comments or actions.
3. Co-workers end a romantic relationship, and one wants to reunite while the other doesn’t.
4. A group harasses an individual they dislike.

“The currently available tools do not acknowledge the biological and social fact that when people work together, sexual attraction and sexual behavior are inevitable.”

Although sexual harassment has been around forever, changes in law and culture, especially women’s mass entry into the workforce during the last half of the 20th century, have changed society’s view of it. Public awareness of the problem has increased due to high-profile incidents, such as the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, during which Anita Hill – a lawyer who had worked for him in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) – accused him of sexually harassing her.

“The difference in perception of sexual harassment between men and women does not represent an inherent failure of men, but rather a difference in experience and exposure.”

Employees gained protection from harassment with the enactment of antidiscrimination laws such as Title VII, which forbids companies to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex or disability, and protects employees from wrongful treatment and poor working conditions. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that men can be deemed to have harassed other men (and, by implication, that women could be seen as harassing harass other women); that employers are responsible financially and legally if harassment occurs, even if the employee never reported it; that having antiharassment policies in place can protect employers from liability; and that the employer is responsible if an employee loses a job or benefits as a result of sexual harassment.

“It is possible to work together as human beings who value each other, even flirt and joke together, while steering clear of offensive behavior.”

Executives at more than half of businesses in the U.S. believe that sexual harassment is a serious issue that they should address. Many employers conduct training and have instituted antiharassment policies.

Everything You Need to Know about Harassment You Learned in Kindergarten

Three rules, which most people learned as children, can help you avoid becoming the target of harassment accusations:

1. “Leave anyone alone who doesn’t want to play” – Listen to what others say, and do as they ask. This isn’t easy, because most people don’t want to reject others and don’t always communicate their wishes clearly.
2. “Don’t be mean” – Often you don’t intend to hurt, offend or humiliate someone. However, the law doesn’t take into account your intention; it considers only the effect of your behavior. “I was just joking” is not a valid defense.
3. “Don’t pick on little kids” – In the workplace, “little kids” means those with less power than you. Sexual harassment is mainly about power, not sex. Supervisors must be particularly sensitive and avoid using their authority to coerce others.

Defining Sexual Harassment

Terms such as “victim” and “harasser” can affect how others see the people involved in an incident. To sort out what really happened, use neutral terms such as “actor” and “target” to identify who did what. The legal term “responsible supervisor” refers to the person who investigates the sexual harassment complaint. Co-workers who witnessed the incident are the “active observers.”

“Women in positions of supervisory power are able to impose unwanted and offensive behavior on their male and female subordinates just as men in supervisory positions are able to do.”

Legally, sexual harassment is unwanted and has a negative effect on the target. To fit the definition, it must include these four elements:

1. The actor does something verbal, visual or physical, such as touching or flirting.
2. The target views the action as unwelcome or unwanted.
3. The action is somehow sex- or gender-related.
4. The interaction damages the target’s performance, work environment or job security.

“The pursuit of female company or sexual satisfaction is one thing, but using one’s authority as a supervisor or taking advantage of the woman’s inability to escape the attention without leaving her job is another thing altogether.”

Sexual harassment incidents are usually of two kinds:

• “Quid pro quo” – Exchanging a job, promotion or benefit for sex or related activity.
• “Hostile environment” – Creating a poisonous atmosphere. For example, the men in one office regularly pinched and touched a female co-worker, and used vulgar language toward her. Although she didn’t lose any tangible benefits, she experienced harassment nevertheless.

“Once the target submits a formal complaint, no matter how understanding the employer is or how conciliatory the employer represents the complaint procedure to be, the process becomes adversarial.”

Although the legal definition of sexual harassment may sound clear-cut, with language such as “unwelcome” and “sexual,” you can’t always be sure when you’ve crossed the line. Generally, when the target expresses disapproval, you’re harassing him or her. But people don’t always express their dissatisfaction, and the courts don’t view certain one-time behaviors as harassment.

Dealing with Sexual Harassment

If your supervisor makes unwelcome advances, tell him or her. Focus on the action rather than the supervisor’s character or motives. When you approach a supervisor with a complaint about his or her behavior, the supervisor should thank you for the feedback and agree not to do the offensive action again. If that doesn’t work or if you are reluctant to speak up, report the problem to the appropriate manager as soon as possible.

“The key to dealing with an accusation of sexual harassment is recognizing the target’s communication for what it is: a complaint.”

To minimize the possibility of sexual harassment accusations, supervisors should not initiate sexual relationships with subordinates and should reject their advances. Even if your subordinate seems to welcome the relationship, avoid entanglement.

Women sometimes reject men’s advances tactfully by saying something such as: “I have other plans” – leading some men to think they are still open to another invitation. When someone turns you down, no matter how politely, take the response as a final no.

“It is tempting to dismiss an employee’s concerns if other employees put up with, were not bothered by or were amused by the behavior.”

Harassment among co-workers is different from harassment by supervisors, since co-workers don’t have the power to withhold tangible benefits. However, if an employee complains about sexual harassment from co-workers, and the employer either has no policy or fails to investigate the problem, then the court may hold the employer liable.

Conduct a Self-Assessment

Look at these three aspects of your behavior to make sure you’re not offending those around you:

1. “Innocent interaction” – In an innocent interaction, you don’t have an agenda. Determine if your actions or statements are offensive, sexual or condescending by examining the response you seek. Ask yourself whether you would have done the same if the target was the other gender. If your answer is yes, then your interaction was probably innocent.
2. “Gender-specific agenda” – Flirtatious comments, including invitations for drinks, dinner or other social activities, or references to the target’s body parts, appearance or social life can be harassing if the target doesn’t welcome them. If the target responds by laughing uncomfortably, changing the subject or ending the conversation, he or she probably finds your comment unwelcome.
3. “Hostile agenda” – If you don’t care about the target’s response to your actions, you may be acting out of anger or resentment, not fondness or attraction.

What to Do if Someone Harasses You

Take nine steps if you experience sexual harassment:

1. Admit that a problem exists – This doesn’t mean that you’ve done something wrong, but rather that the actor is bothering you and that you need to take action. It’s not your fault. Don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed by the situation.
2. Ask the actor to stop – Explain that the behavior upsets you. You may have to bring it up more than once to get your message across.
3. Talk to someone you trust – Find someone who can provide support, help you recognize your feelings and take the right follow-up actions.
4. Look up your organization’s sexual harassment policy – Determine whether the behavior constitutes sexual harassment.
5. Document everything – Write down names, dates, actions and how you felt. Identify potential witnesses. This diary can serve as evidence. Keep it at home, since information at the business site belongs to the company, and if you leave your job, you won’t be able to take the documentation with you.
6. Report the behavior – Your company’s policy should include a procedure for reporting complaints. Reporting may make you feel uncomfortable or you may want to avoid confrontation. You may not want to see the actor fired; you just want the behavior to stop. However, this might not happen if you don’t report it.
7. Answer questions during the investigation – Be prepared for more than one interview session, and make sure you have enough copies of all relevant information. Never give away your originals.
8. Seek help from an external agency – If your employer doesn’t plan to investigate, then turn to an external organization such as your state antidiscrimination agency or the federal EEOC. The EEOC requires you to file within 180 days of the incident.
9. Get a lawyer – You need a lawyer if your employer has taken no action or if the external agency requests that you sign documents. Lawsuits can take a long time to resolve and can be emotionally and financially draining.

What to Do If Someone Accuses You

If you face an accusation of harassment, take it seriously. Listen to the target. Talk with employees to learn what behaviors they consider acceptable. Stop doing anything your target identified as unwelcome. Review your employer’s sexual harassment policy. Get the advice and support you need to evaluate the situation and find a resolution. Document all activities. Refrain from trying to convince the target that you did nothing wrong.

“The tendency to impose maximum penalties for every violation tends to discourage targets from reporting incidents of sexual harassment.”

If you receive a formal complaint, read the documentation and contact the manager who sent it to you to find out about the complaint process and what you must do. Remember that your company has a responsibility to investigate complaints; a complaint does not mean that you are guilty. Some workers make revenge complaints after they’ve been fired.

The Role of the Supervisor

When you receive a complaint, listen. During the initial contact, learn about and understand the problem. Determine whether the incident is sexual harassment. Ensure the employee’s safety. After resolving any security issues, explain to the employee what happens next. If you’re not sure what to do, find out. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

“Basic prevention activities are usually enough to eliminate much of the employer’s risk of liability.”

Explain the company’s sexual harassment policy, give the employee a copy, and answer any questions about the policy and procedures. Respect the employee’s concerns. Ask for documentation. End the meeting by telling the employee what you will do and when to expect follow up. Soon afterward, contact the responsible person or the EEOC.

The Employer’s Responsibility

Organizations must have policies that explain sexual harassment clearly, and outline procedures for reporting and investigating a situation. The complaint procedure should be easy to follow and use. Though only a handful of states require employers to conduct sexual harassment training, you may want to provide it to communicate the policy and norms for your workplace.

About the Author

Linda Gordon Howard is an attorney, consultant and trainer with expertise in legal and management practices related to sexual harassment.

Tales From the Boom-Boom Room, Women vs. Wall Street by Susan Antilla

Recommendation

Susan Antilla presents a powerful and startling indictment of the sexist behavior of stock brokers working for Wall Street and its offshoots, specifically Smith Barney’s Shearson/American Express office in Garden City, Long Island. Women struggled to be hired, and then found that the men in charge of their careers practiced all sorts of sexual harassment and intimidation, from jokes to displays of sexual prowess, physical contact and threats of rape. As she describes, the bosses sought to bar women or trap them in low positions. While painting the broader picture, Antilla focuses on whistle blower, Pam Martens, who revealed the situation when she sued for damages. This skillfully written book reads like a fascinating novel, so graphic and dramatic that it is more like a screenplay than a report. getAbstract.com believes it will draw intense interest from everyone affected by this issue: female executives who face glass ceilings and harassment, male executives who must determine their own philosophies toward their female colleagues and human resource professionals who are charged with watching out for them both.

Take-Aways

• In the early 1980s, a growing number of women began to enter the securities industry.
• Women found a very hostile working environment in the industry.
• One of the biggest securities firms, Smith Barney, had a network of retail brokerage companies through Shearson/American Express.
• Pam Martens, who later became lead plaintiff against Smith Barney, worked in its very successful Garden City, Long Island, Shearson branch.
• Branch manager Nick Cuneo created a fun atmosphere for Garden City brokers, who turned the office basement into the party-filled “Boom Boom Room.”
• Male brokers there subjected women to verbal harassment and inappropriate touching.
• Martens sued and began exposing the security industry’s mistreatment of women.
• When a class action settlement was offered, Martens rejected it as insufficient.
• Martens drew public attention to the abuses and her lawsuit led to improved conditions for women in the securities industry.
• She won no settlement money since her individual civil suit failed.

Tales From the Boom-Boom Room Book Summary

So Sue Me

Most women face a very hostile work environment when they sue for sexual harassment, and that’s what happened to Pam Martens when she litigated against Smith Barney in the 1990s. Women in the securities industry were initially afraid to talk about sexual harassment, but when they did, their stories of discrimination were strikingly similar.

“The most egregious sex discrimination cases settle for generous amounts, with plaintiffs promising in exchange not to disclose what happened to them – or the price they were paid for their silence.”

These women were scared to come forward for good reason: public attention provoked retaliation from their companies, ranging from subtle social and business exclusions to withdrawal of privileges. A woman who claimed emotional distress – in a climate charged by lawsuits – risked having her psychological, marital and gynecological records subpoenaed and presented to an arbitration panel. The pressure caused emotional problems for many women. Yet, those who pressed their harassment suits found that the most outrageous cases of sexual discrimination were usually settled for fairly high amounts. However, the plaintiffs had to promise to keep quiet about what happened and what amount they were paid.

“Smith Barney became less tolerant of hostile workplace incidents after the women’s lawsuit and was not shy about releasing information about firing men who were involved in improper behavior.”

As this case against Smith Barney proceeded, neither the firm nor many of the plaintiffs would discuss it. However, once the lawsuit was settled, the company became more strict about preventing sexist incidents, changed its policies and fired men who engaged in inappropriate conduct. Before that transition, women encountered difficult, oppressive conditions in the company and in the securities industry.

Insecure in the Securities Biz

By the time Pam Martens first joined the Shearson/American Express office in Garden City, New York, it had already developed a culture as a party center for hard-driving, competitive brokers. The branch was located in an attractive upscale New York City suburb, but in the office, women were treated like tramps and prostitutes by male co-workers who called them names such as “bitch” and “whore.” The men even discussed their sexual exploits in front of their few female colleagues.

“Just about everybody loved Cuneo, because he believed in fun and he believed in having his staff, mostly male heads of households, make money. Big money was spent on entertainment, too.”

The greatest bull market in U.S. history began in 1982. It was a boon for the Shearson/American Express network of 352 retail stock brokerage companies. Garden City was a celebrated office with one of the highest outputs in the system. The head of the office, branch manager Nicholas F. Cuneo, reflected the old style approach to retail sales. He was “loud, direct, demanding and frequently crude in the office,” and the men he managed were much like him. He was displeased when women started working in the office, as were many of the other men. He even told women applicants not to expect to be paid as much as men.

“The early 1980s was a time when men in branch offices of brokerage firms were encountering significant numbers of female colleagues for the first time. For some of them, it was unsettling.”

Cuneo’s hard working, hard partying office performed quite well – ranking in profitability among the top ten percent of the company’s branches. He encouraged a fun atmosphere, where drinking was common at the office and at the local saloon. After the branch moved to a flashy new site, a former furniture store, the brokers set up a party room in the basement where the furnace was located. The “Boom-Boom Room,” as they called it, was adjacent to the conference room where brokers were praised or scorned at mandatory weekly meetings. The office emphasized making the highest commissions possible, with little concern about customers. The brokers often engaged in dubious practices, such as pushing questionable stocks and exaggerating or concealing the performance of mutual funds. Punishment for such actions was rare. At the time, illegal practices, such as insider trading, were common. Speculators such as Ivan F. Boesky would soon become household names. The public was mostly unaware of boiler room tactics, such as cold call scripts filled with exaggerations.

“Cuneo’s flock of hard-charging brokers worked the phones each day in their highly competitive jobs.”

Throughout the security industry, generally, and at Shearson/American Express, in particular, women were often treated poorly, as Pam Martens found when she joined the office in 1985. She came from West Virginia’s Appalachian mountains, and had been raised in an environment that mistrusted big employers. At 35, she sought a job where she could make good money to support her young son, Sean. But when she started in the brokerage’s training program, she earned $19,000 a year while male trainees were paid $30,000.

Taking It at Shearson

Over the next decade, Martens did the best she could to survive and do well despite Shearson’s difficult environment. Her workplace was characterized by continual harassment, mistreatment of customers and fights between competing brokers. She frequently heard the salesman around the corner from her scream at paying customers. The salesmen often shouted and pounded their fists as they argued about who got what account. Marten’s first assignment was to work in the basement bullpen making cold calls for the more experienced upstairs staff. Meanwhile, veteran brokers were stocking the room with party supplies to turn it into the “Boom Boom Room.” Along with eight male brokers, she worked at first with two other women and, later, with three. They helped make her job more enjoyable.

“Up to 1984, the year that Pam Martens set her sights on Wall Street, not much punishment had been meted out for stock transgressions, which were done with a strong dash of arrogance – that is, with a win, a nod, and a quick call to a Swiss bank.”

However, these women encountered harassing incidents over and over. For instance, one broker ranted about not only women, but also blacks and Jews. Even after Martens graduated from the bullpen to her own private office, the outrageous behavior around her continued. Once, the men held a belching contest. Another time, they wrote disparaging comments on the board about the sexual practices of one of the female workers. Cuneo tried to reduce Pam’s earnings after she started doing very well. He attempted to limit her to a $40,000 a year salary after she earned $80,000 in commissions, though she refused. He also transferred some of her accounts to other brokers. Still, she managed to survive and prosper.

The Battle Begins

An event in 1994 precipitated the process that led Martens to become a lead whistleblower in the Smith Barney lawsuit. Cuneo announced that he expected sales assistants to volunteer some personal time each month at the Hospice of Long Island, his favorite charity. Employee Roberta Thorman complained that this was unfair. That, and a series of other incidents, led Martens to begin drawing parallels between Cuneo’s dictatorial ways and the oppression of West Virginia’s coal miners. She began to see the office’s other wrongs against women in this context. Even though the industry had a pattern of harassment, individual women were still isolated. In one case, Linda Atkins Smoot charged that Roger Shuster, her Smith Barney boss, repeatedly touched her inappropriately, verbally abused her and wrote a provocative letter to a client that killed one of her potentially lucrative deals.

“The public was largely oblivious to the boiler room tactics.”

Martens launched a “mass awakening” of women in the industry by meeting with Thorman and contacting some of the women who had worked in Garden City. Common patterns of mistreatment emerged. She began to believe it would be necessary to sue Smith Barney, particularly since standard complaints to the manager and the human resources department were ineffective. Accordingly, in October 1994, she wrote a six-page letter to Smith Barney’s new president James Dimon. Her letter detailed a series of complaints. She described the bad treatment several women had experienced and suggested that someone was covering up for Cuneo. As Dimon considered what to do, Cuneo struck back with a counteroffensive. Three brokers said that if she did not retract her letter, they would dig up dirt about her. She refused to back down and, as Dimon investigated, he began to realize that more and more of her allegations were true. He was under pressure to bury the charges, even when Martens herself reported that she heard Cuneo make rape and death threats against her if his career was threatened. Eventually Martens realized that she had to sue her employer.

Suing Smith Barney: Work For It

Martens hired Judith Vladeck, a 70-year old employment attorney, known for successfully suing big companies and earning settlements in exchange for her clients remaining silent about past ordeals. Vladeck spoke of launching a class-action suit against Smith Barney, preceded by filing forms with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She asked Martens and two other Smith Barney employees – Judy Mione and Lorraine Parker – to look for more plaintiffs among current and former employees. Within days, Mione and Martens began to suffer retaliation. Checks were missing from three of Marten’s client accounts; other brokers recruited her clients. Eventually, Martens was fired for refusing to attend a mandatory brokers’ conference meeting. She replied that she could no longer attend branch meetings due to “constant abuse, ridicule and harassment” at the all male sessions. She was given an hour to pack her desk and leave. After being turned down by Merrill Lynch and Dean Witter, she was hired by A.G. Edwards.

“Women were beginning to be frustrated when they entered jobs in finance and failed to be paid at the level the men were paid.”

Vladeck proceeded slowly and cautiously, accumulating research, but Martens became impatient. She found different lawyers – Linda D. Friedman and Mary Stowell at Leng Stowell Friedman and Verson – who had represented women against the Olde Discount Company. Friedman and Stowell also suggested a class action suit. When the new team filed fresh EEOC charges (a necessary prelude to a civil rights suit), they added retaliation and defamation to Marten’s grievances, since she had been fired. Her May 1996 filing became the lead claim that other female Smith Barney employees could join. The complaint was filed against Jamie Dimon and Nick Cuneo, plus the New York Stock Exchange and the National Association of Securities Dealers, the forums where most Wall Street employment cases were arbitrated. Suing them highlighted the unfairness of mandatory arbitration.

“The Garden City office was a place where rules in general seemed to be flouted. Watching out for the customer was no way to get ahead.”

The case against Smith Barney and the other defendants soon became a major news story. It exposed the pervasive harassment against women throughout the securities industry. Women from Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch began calling Martens to describe the discrimination and harassment at their firms. A group of female Merrill Lynch employees sued their company. Though Smith Barney and the securities industry tried to fight back, the news media displayed their discriminatory practices. In 1997, Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs did a 20/20 interview featuring stories of lewd comments, unwanted sexual advances and a boss who stripped in front of other people. The National Organization for Women gave its “Women of Courage” award to the Smith Barney plaintiffs.

“Trouble was brewing in branch offices from New York’s financial district to the Pacific Coast Highway, but women in the securities industry were in the dark about one another’s distress.”

Martens dropped out of the suit. She challenged Friedman and Stowell’s negotiated settlement, since it omitted some key principles, such as an end to mandatory arbitration. She objected that the settlement provide no lump sum or fund for women, just an internal $15 million for a diversity program at Smith Barney. Martens thought the settlement was selling out. A few other women joined her, including Judy Mione, who hired Gary Phelen at Garrison, Phelan, Levin-Epstein, Chimes and Richardson to represent them. After many hearings, the first Martens suit – now without Martens – got certified as a class action by the judge, though Martens objected. Additional class members were invited to file individual grievances. Meanwhile, Smith Barney made changes itself, such as firing some offenders, advancing women to new positions and starting diversity programming. Martens and Mione failed in their separate civil law suit. The judge ruled that because they were no longer part of the original case, they had “lost their opportunity to pursue their individual claims.” Phelan appealed, but Martens received no settlement, except perhaps the satisfaction of knowing that her case helped open the door about Wall Street’s treatment of female employees.

About the Author

Bloomberg News columnist Susan Antilla once worked at the New York Times, where she launched a weekly investing column and an ombudsman column called “Between Main & Wall.” She was the bureau chief of the Money section of USA Today and financial bureau chief for the Baltimore Sun. She was twice a finalist for a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, What You Need to Know – and What You Can Do by Mary L. Boland

Recommendation

The primary U.S. law regarding sexual conduct in the workplace, which Congress enacted in 1964, has had a profound impact on American society and business. Attorney Mary L. Boland’s comprehensive handbook tells employers and employees how to define and prevent this problem and explains what to do if you are a victim. She provides the right level of detail for nonlawyers, pointing out the kinds of issues, conditions and events that can trigger a complaint. The book is readable and clearly organized, with sections that explain employer responsibilities, legal resources and remedies – from filing a lawsuit to arbitration and mediation. Four appendices and a glossary add valuable information. getAbstract.com highly recommends this lucid, practical book to human resource managers, executives, small business owners and employees at every level, particularly victims of sexual harassment.

Take-Aways

• In a 1992 Working Woman magazine survey, 60% of the respondents said they had been sexually harassed.
• Harassment is common among women in male-dominated fields such as firefighting, the military and law enforcement.
• The private sector spends $1 billion per year on harassment issues.
• In 1999, courts awarded more than $150 million to victims of sexual harassment.
• One study found that in nonprofessional work environments, half of sexual harassment incidents also included a physical act.
• Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws sexual harassment.
• Every state except Georgia and Mississippi has laws against sexual harassment.
• In quid pro quo harassment, an employer requires sexual favors in exchange for hiring or promotion.
• In a hostile work environment, workers are the targets of unsolicited sexual advances that inhibit their ability to perform their duties.
• In workplaces where profanity is common, men often regard women as sexual objects.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Book Summary

“An Immense Problem”

Sexual harassment in the workplace is an “immense problem” for thousands of men and women, who annually report incidents to federal and state agencies, as well as to their employers. The laws against sexual harassment, which state that no one should be the target of “unwelcome” sexual conduct or “pressure” in the workplace, apply to both sexes, since both can be either perpetrators or victims.

“All employers have a responsibility to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.”

Women file most sexual harassment complaints. In the 1970s, Redbook magazine found that 90% of the 9,000 women who answered a questionnaire had encountered sexual harassment at work. Another Redbook study found that 81% of women on a California naval base and in a nearby town said they had been harassed. A Cornell University study found that 70% of the respondents reported being sexually harassed. More recently, a 1992 study in Working Woman magazine found that 60% of the 9,000 respondents said they had been sexually harassed.

“The laws say that no one should have to work in a locker-room atmosphere, and no one has the right to sexually bully another person at work.”

Harassment has an economic impact, leading to job problems and lawsuits against private corporations and the U.S. government. During a two-year period in the mid-1990s, the federal government spent more than $300 million defending itself against complaints, while the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the private sector spends $1 billion per year on harassment issues. These estimates exclude the legal judgments and out-of-court amounts paid to settle sexual harassment claims. In 1999, the courts awarded more than $150 million to harassment victims.

A Form of Discrimination

Any employee at any level can commit sexual harassment. However, because of the nature of supervisors’ responsibilities, you must be especially aware of sexual harassment policies if you manage employees, particularly if you control their working conditions and promotional opportunities.

“Stereotypical views of women pose serious risks for women in a workplace.”

Employees who feel they have been victimized should report harassment immediately, knowing that the law forbids employers to retaliate against workers who complain. The stress of harassment can be very damaging. One study found that 96% of harassment victims suffered emotional complications, and one-third experienced stress-related physical problems. Women who are harassed may become traumatized and fear a violent attack. According to the American Psychiatric Association, some victims develop post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Supervisors can engage in more forms of sexual harassment because of the authority (they are) given, so their acts are considered the acts of the company or employer.”

Employers should act promptly to investigate harassment complaints. If your company ends up in court, it will need to prove that its managers exercised “due care” to prevent problems and to correct those they discovered.

Sexual harassment occurs in all segments of the labor market, public and private, and in all industries. However, complaints are more frequent in professions where women are a minority, including among doctors and investment bankers. Many documented cases of sexual harassment have occurred in predominantly male work environments, such as law enforcement, firefighting and the military. In such workplaces, male workers may stigmatize or start rumors about a woman who makes a mistake, eventually creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that she cannot perform a “man’s job.” Harassment is often intertwined with stereotypes such as the idea that women work in order to find husbands or that they are paid more than they are worth.

Harassment in Law Enforcement and the Military

In 1995, the Los Angeles Police Department settled a harassment complaint brought by a policewoman who was raped. At the same time, it was working to settle more than two dozen additional sexually related complaints. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, nine female police officers sued the city, charging that more than 20 male officers had harassed them between 1996 and 2000. At the time, only 50 of Grand Rapid’s 400 police officers were women. Nationally, by 2001 about 13% of all police were women, yet despite their increasing numbers, they continued to report numerous cases of harassment.

“Favoritism arises when a supervisor promotes his girlfriend to a position you were also qualified for.”

In 1996, a national survey of women in the military found that about half of all military women said they had been sexually harassed. At that time, many women in Army circles reported being raped. The hotline that the Army created to address the problem received about 6,600 complaints in the first two months.

“High levels of sexual harassment exist when there is a low number of women in the workplace.”

One famous example of sexual harassment occurred in 1991 during the Tailhook military convention, when Navy officers publicly groped a female helicopter pilot. She sued and won a $5 million judgment in a civil lawsuit. The Navy eventually found that 117 officers had been involved in incidents at the convention and disciplined more than 70 of them.

“The nature of sexual harassment is necessarily disturbing and distressing, but in preparing to make your report, you must carefully consider the facts that you will include.”

A 2004 Department of Defense survey found that one in seven female trainees at U.S. military academies had been assaulted, although the women reported only one-third of the assaults.

Contributing Factors

Various cultural factors in the workplace can encourage sexual harassment:

• Profanity – In workplaces where swearing is common, women are three times more likely to be regarded as objects of sexual attention.
• Prejudice – Sexual harassment is often an expression of prejudice. People tend to associate and socialize with people who resemble them, and often these preferences play a role in hiring and promotions: men tend to hire and promote other men. When these social relations take precedence over other job qualifications, the courts consider them a form of “unlawful discrimination.”
• Resentment – Men may feel threatened by having women in the workplace, even though women earn about 75 cents for each dollar men earn. When a woman is promoted, she earns less: 69 cents for each dollar a man earns in the same position.

The Impact of Title VII

Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws sexual harassment. Although the term “sexual discrimination” does not appear in Title VII, it is covered under other provisions that protect against employment discrimination. Fair employment practice acts and antidiscrimination laws supplement Title VII at the state level. Victims of discrimination can also seek relief in the civil courts.

“An informal settlement works best when the harassment is relatively minor and the parties desire to continue to work together.”

When Title VII was first passed, some courts treated sexual harassment complaints as “personal relationship” problems and did not acknowledge that they had legal standing. By 1976, though, many courts had begun to consider work-related sexual harassment to be a form of discrimination. Today, all states except Georgia and Mississippi have laws against sexual harassment. These laws differ in terms of coverage, penalties, responsible persons, damages, and caps on compensatory and punitive damages. Victims can file Title VII complaints with the state, federal or local department that has jurisdiction over sexual harassment investigations. In addition, some cities and municipalities have laws governing harassment complaints.

“A Continuum of Harm”

Each case of sexual harassment is unique, but the key variables are usually the severity of the action, who did it and how it harmed the victim. Since offensive conduct manifests in many forms and degrees, the nature and frequency of the act are crucial. The more severe or gross the action, the fewer times it has to happen before it constitutes legal harassment. Some obnoxious behaviors are not sufficient by themselves to constitute a legal basis for a claim. However, harassment may include sexual joking; using sexist words, such as “doll,” “babe” or “honey;” brushing against a person or even staring. Other forms of harassing behavior include asking for sex, sexual coercion and actual physical assault. One study found that 50% of females who were harassed in nonprofessional work environments also became the victims of physical acts.

“A hostile work environment case is established when the environment becomes so intimidating or offensive that it changes the conditions of the job.”

Sexual harassment cases fall into two main categories:

1. Quid pro quo – In such cases, the victim receives unsolicited sexual advances to which he or she must acquiesce to keep a job or receive a promotion.
2. Hostile work environment – These cases are more difficult to prove than quid-pro-quo cases, since the criteria are vague. The courts have found that work enviroments can be treated as “intimidating, hostile or offensive” if workers there receive unsolicited advances that negatively affect their work. One court case found that off-color photos and jokes contributed to a “hostile working environment” that elevated sexual tensions.

The Issues in Harassment Cases

Recently, the number of both types of cases has increased. The courts have taken the following factors into consideration in their rulings:

• “Unwelcome” conduct – Two people who work together may engage in voluntary romantic behavior. However, unwelcome statements or advances may be harassing or discriminatory.
• “Changing conditions” at work – The Supreme Court has ruled that a single comment or flirtatious act does not constitute a hostile work environment. But if many people repeat the same comment, that eventually can constitute a hostile environment.
• Special considerations – If a manager offers an employee a promotion on the condition that the employee grants him or her sexual favors, it is harassment.
• Same-sex harassment – In 1998, a male oil rig worker experienced unwanted advances from a male co-worker and went to court charging sexual harassment. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that laws against sexual harassment are also applicable to same-gender situations.
• Harassment outside of work – When employees are on work-related business, such as traveling or attending meetings, any offensive conduct may become part of a business-related claim.

Preventing Harassment

To prevent sexual harassment, make sure your company has a formal sexual harassment policy that clearly defines sexual harassment, provides examples of violations, guarantees confidentiality, forbids retaliation, explains legal avenues of recourse, spells out disciplinary actions and establishes follow-up procedures. Make it clear that your organization is committed to resolving all harassment complaints quickly, and maintain detailed records about all investigations and their resolutions, in case the complaint ends up in court.

Restoring Employee Confidence

Remedies for sexual harassment may include issuing back pay; rehiring the employee into his or her old position with the same seniority; granting a promotion; issuing “front pay,” or a salary advance; and injunctive relief, which can take the form of employee education or training. Title VII allows harassment plaintiffs who win against their employers to recover court costs and fees for lawyers and expert witnesses.

“Sexual harassment can cause serious harm to its victims, their families and other co-workers.”

Victims are entitled to compensatory damages for emotional pain and suffering, and to punitive damages. In 1991, Congress capped the amount of punitive and compensatory damages that employers must pay. Limits are based on the number of employees. For instance, the liability of companies with 501 or more employees is limited to $300,000. Liability payments from firms with 15 to 100 employees are capped at $50,000.

“Whatever the job environment, workers have a right not to be sexually harassed.”

Mediation and arbitration are other ways to resolve harassment complaints. “Alternative dispute resolution” is becoming more popular as legal costs increase. Victims who want to maintain their relationships with their employers should consider mediation. Arbitration tends to favor the employer, but it is cheaper than filing a lawsuit.

About the Author

Mary L. Boland has authored legislation protecting victims and co-chairs the victim’s committees of both the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association and the Prosecutor’s Bar Association of Illinois. She has served on the Task Force on Gender Bias in the Illinois Courts and on the City of Chicago Advisory Council on Women. A full-time prosecutor, she has taught at Governor’s State University, Roosevelt University and Loyola Law School.

Breaking the Silence Habit, A Practical Guide to Uncomfortable Conversations in the #MeToo Workplace by Sarah Beaulieu

Recommendation

Workplace consultant and trainer Sarah Beaulieu went on a two-year “listening tour” to learn to understand how people talk about sexual violence. Interviews with leaders, experts in sexual harassment and violence, and men and women from diverse backgrounds led her to create a five-point framework to guide people through the workplace conversations they need to have in the wake of #MeToo. She offers a ticket past the eye-rolling and grumbling that usually accompany office training and shows how to make people feel safe so they can do their most productive work.

Take-Aways

• A safe, productive work environment requires a new competency: the ability and willingness to engage in uncomfortable conversations.
• Honest assessment and deliberate practice nourish habit change – not just a reiteration of existing rules. 
• The “Uncomfortable Conversation Framework” includes five principles that help participants arrive at a conversation with shared expectations and goals.
• 1. “Know the facts” – Be aware that victims of sexual violence can be male, and perpetrators can be female. Victims often experience long-term effects.
• 2. “Get uncomfortable” – Discomfort will be part of any conversation about sexual violence.
• 3. “Pause the reaction” – Suspend your responses. Pause long enough to become curious and ask questions.
• 4. “Embrace practical questions” – Examine the situation from multiple perspectives.
• 5. “See the whole picture” – Discussing fictional sexual harassment scenarios by using the Uncomfortable Conversation Framework can prepare you to deal with real-life incidents. 

Breaking the Silence Habit Book Summary

A safe, productive work environment requires people to develop a new competency: the ability and willingness to engage in uncomfortable conversations.

One out of every two transgender individuals, one out of three women, and one out of six men have experienced sexual abuse or assault. In 2018, a Pew study found that due to the recent cultural focus on sexual harassment, 51% of men were unsure about how to interact with women at work. A June 2016 US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) study found sexual harassment rates of up to 85% in some industries. It’s likely that sexual abuse or violence already influence your workplace even if no one talks about them openly. 

“If organizations are to achieve the psychological – and physical – safety required for productivity, they must establish new ways of behaving and interacting among employees.”

Conversations about sexual abuse are uncomfortable and often unpredictable, but avoiding them doesn’t lead to change. You’ve likely witnessed legal, financial and public relations disasters arising from sexual misconduct in the workplace. The loss of productivity stemming from working in an unstable or unsafe environment is less visible but similarly damaging.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines sexual harassment as “a sexual act that is committed or attempted by another person without freely given consent of the victim or against someone who is unable to consent or refuse.” Someone may be unable to consent or refuse because he or she is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The EEOC defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature” that “directly or indirectly” affect a person’s job, “unreasonably interfere with an individual’s work performance, or create an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.” 

Honest assessment and deliberate practice nourish habit change – not just a reiteration of existing rules. 

Employers base most training about sexual harassment on regulatory compliance. Companies tend to teach rules, policies and reporting guidelines. Official sexual harassment policies take the pressure off would-be victims, recognize power imbalances inherent in the workplace and create a culture that invites people to communicate their personal boundaries. 

“What defines an uncomfortable conversation? It’s a conversation where we intentionally prioritize the safety and health of our relationships and our community, even if it means making ourselves feel uncomfortable.”

Establishing an environment that prevents sexual harassment rather than only dealing with it when it occurs requires taking further steps. In skills-based training, going over rules and reviewing reporting policies is only the beginning. The next step involves an honest assessment of how much experience each individual has with conducting conversations about sexual harassment. Each individual on your team can fill out an anonymous conversation experience assessment (available from the author at sarahbeaulieu.me). Then the team can open its conversation about sexual harassment by sharing everyone’s survey results. Make sure individual results remain anonymous.

The “Uncomfortable Conversation Framework” includes five principles that help participants arrive at a conversation with shared expectations and goals.

After acknowledging everyone’s different comfort level, introduce the Uncomfortable Conversation Framework. Conversations about sexual harassment often devolve into polarizing arguments about right versus wrong, men versus women, or winners versus losers. You can prevent that.

“The Uncomfortable Conversation Framework “is less of a step-by-step approach and more of a mind-set, a set of guiding principles, that will build your capacity to engage in more meaningful and productive conversations about sexual harassment and violence.”

 The five principles of the Uncomfortable Conversation Framework are:

1. “Know the facts” – Be aware that victims of sexual violence can be male, and perpetrators can be female. Victims often experience long-term effects.

Begin a conversation about sexual abuse by asking whether you and the person you’re talking to have correct, pertinent information about the concern you’re discussing. Getting accurate numbers about sexual harassment is difficult because few people report it. Estimates suggest that around 75% of victims remain silent. 

Come back to the conversation after you do your research and have the facts. Familiarize yourself with a study’s data collection methods and analysis to understand research results. Give more weight to data and facts that are open to professional scrutiny than to people’s opinions and the conspiracy theories that are rampant online. You interact with survivors every day, whether you know it or not. 

Regardless of a victim’s gender, the consequences of sexual abuse don’t usually end with the incident. Victims are more likely to develop chronic and long-term health problems such as heart disease and diabetes. They’re more likely to use drugs, suffer from depression or commit suicide. The CDC suggests that adult rape victims suffer a lifetime financial burden of around $120,000 due to lost productivity, medical bills and property damage. In 2017, sexual harassment cost companies $43 million in disclosed settlements. Most final payment amounts are confidential.

“You will believe people of all genders if you understand that sexual harassment is about power, not gender.”

Sexual violence doesn’t occur in a vacuum. People contribute to the conditions that facilitate sexual violence if they remain silent when they see something wrong. Bystanders who intervene early can reduce sexual violence. Intervention can take four forms: “Direct, disrupt, delegate and delay.” Direct intervention is when a bystander speaks to the person who behaves inappropriately. Disrupting means creating a commotion or distracting perpetrators with a different activity. Delegating involves asking someone – a manager, a friend of the perpetrator or anyone who has more power than you – to intervene. If you’re not sure how to respond, delay your response until you bring the incident up at a later time.

2. “Get uncomfortable” – Discomfort will be part of any conversation about sexual violence.

Conversations about sexual abuse are polarizing and tend to inspire strong feelings. People often come to such conversations with incomplete or incorrect information, particularly about taboo topics like sexual harassment, and they may cling to pre-existing frameworks that have nothing to do with the facts.

“The key to navigating discomfort is to bring it into the conversation transparently, so we can address it and move on.”

When you confront sexual abuse, you may recognize that two seemingly conflicting emotions can simultaneously be true: Sexual abuse can make you feel powerless, whether you’re the victim or not. At the same time, you may also know, like or even love the perpetrator. Discomfort compounds when conversations about sexual abuse take place at work, where people generally prefer not to discuss private matters. 

Pinpoint the origin of your discomfort to gain a better idea of how to proceed. Pushing through discomfort is the only way to create positive results. Men often respond to conversations about sexual abuse with anger or defensiveness. Society has taught men to avoid vulnerability, and sometimes a man responds angrily to conversations about sexual abuse because he, too, is a survivor of it. If that’s the case, he may be ashamed to talk about it and in need of empathy. 

3. “Pause the reaction” – Suspend your response. Pause long enough to become curious and ask questions.

When you enter a conversation about sexual abuse, expect emotional responses from yourself and your conversation partners, and have a plan to handle them. Acting on your feelings immediately might shut down the conversation, especially if you feel the need to put someone in his or her place. Pause, acknowledge your feelings and then figure out how to aim for understanding.

“If you can’t talk about sexual harassment or violence, you can’t prevent or respond to it.”

Be generous in your interpretation of other people’s words. Snapping in response to mistakes won’t make anyone learn faster. Blame is an effective tool for closing a discussion about a problem, and it rarely launches a conversation about solutions. Blame contributes to a sense of shame that perpetuates silence. If someone is threatening or aggressive, leave the conversation. 

When talking about sexual harassment at work, someone – and this happens often – may sarcastically ask whether hugging a co-worker is a firing offense. You could reply, “Are you always the person initiating the hugs?” or “Does the person you are hugging want a hug? How do you know?” Questions can lead a discussion away from sarcasm to the central issue, and responses to those questions will illustrate that there are no universal answers. Sometimes office hugs are appropriate, sometimes not.

Your questions should be genuine and nonjudgmental. Every person has a unique background that influences how he or she approaches conversations about sexual violence. If you feel at odds with your conversation partner, respond with a basic curious request for more information. People won’t always understand your intentions or respond well to your questions. If people become angry, sometimes the appropriate response is to thank them for their feedback and process the situation later with a trusted friend. If a conversation goes poorly, try to understand why your questions elicited an angry response. Prioritize empathy and accountability over shame, blame and humiliation.

4. “Embrace practical questions” – Examine the situation from multiple perspectives.

Use the framework to practice having uncomfortable conversations. When people hear a story about sexual violence, they tend to focus on one perspective, either that of the victim or the perpetrator. They may question whether the victim is telling the truth or immediately demand that the employer fire the perpetrator. 

Preventing sexual assault requires multiple conversations. One conversation might concentrate on the impact on the victim. Another might focus on how the perpetrator can take responsibility for his or her actions. Both conversations require empathy, even for the perpetrator. The company may fire or discipline the perpetrator, but these actions can be humane, with the knowledge that people are capable of change. 

“When viewed through this lens we can understand and appreciate that a person who commits harassment will have friends and family who might not love their behavior, but will love them and their potential to change.”

Survivors of sexual assault can benefit the community by sharing the lessons they learned from their healing process. When someone discloses a sexual harassment incident to you, your default should be to believe that the incident affected that person. Respond with empathy and active listening. Allow the victim to decide whether to report the incident formally. Explain what the next steps could be if the victim chooses to report the incident or confront the perpetrator. If the person is upset, ask a practical question, like, “Can I get you anything?” Stay nearby to show your support. 

5. “See the whole picture” – Discussing fictional sexual harassment scenarios by using the Uncomfortable Conversation Framework can prepare you to deal with real-life incidents.

Work on habit change, alone and as a team. Like any other skill, having uncomfortable conversations takes practice. Rules, policies and statistics do little to prepare you for how a sexual harassment situation may actually play out. Practicing fictional scenarios might prepare you for the emotions that come up in a real situation. Practice leads to habit change even if you do it under pretend circumstances. Scenarios can help people recognize existing power structures and learn to set boundaries and to respect the boundaries that other people set.

“When we practice with a broad group of colleagues…we begin to see the organization through the eyes of people who have more or less power than we do, which allows us to intervene more effectively.”

If you have experienced sexual abuse, you get to choose whether and how much to share about your experience during sexual harassment conversations at work. Having the experience doesn’t necessarily make easier to have these conversations. Sharing may leave you feeling depleted and “triggered.” Whether you choose to share your experiences or not, practice self-care. Find some way to create solace for yourself while you contemplate these conversations. If you need help in the United States, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. If you’re outside the United States, similar services may exist in your country.

About the Author

Sarah Beaulieu leads skills-based trainings for sexual harassment prevention and co-founded The Uncomfortable Conversation, Inc., which posts instructional videos on YouTube.

The Man’s Guide to Corporate Culture, A Practical Guide to the New Normal and Relating to Female Coworkers in the Modern Workplace by Heather Zumarraga

Recommendation

The gender equality movement has fundamentally altered the work environment. Companies are now hiring and promoting more women – notably, in upper management positions traditionally dominated by men. Many men feel uncertain about navigating these developments. Wariness of sexual harassment allegations can make some men shy away from working closely with female colleagues. Others find themselves questioning their longstanding attitudes and behaviors. In this must-read manual, Heather Zumarraga offers compassionate, yet challenging advice for men on how to avoid workplace pitfalls. Her approach isn’t flawless, but the topic is so crucial, men and women alike can benefit from her guidance.

Take-Aways

• The rise of women in the workforce changes the rules for men.
• Women have proven their merit as leaders.
• Sexual harassment threatens women’s safety and security.
• To avoid trouble, men should follow a clear set of guidelines.
• Unfounded accusations damage reputations.
• Casual dress code or not, appearance still matters.

The Man’s Guide to Corporate Culture Book Summary

The rise of women in the workforce changes the rules for men.

As women make progress toward workplace equality, the issue of sexual harassment has moved to the forefront. Sexual harassment allegations have wrecked the careers of many prominent men, as the reality of sexual harassment has harmed many women. As a result, some men are wary of accusations of inappropriate conduct, and may struggle to understand the new rules of workplace engagement.

“For us women, the dark ages have passed. We are living in the Renaissance for aspiring professional women.”

Many men need to learn better ways to communicate and collaborate with female co-workers. Those who deny that workplace culture has changed and resist forming productive relationships with women at work will never maximize their career potential.

Women have proven their merit as leaders.

Companies benefit from the presence of more women in the labor market. According to an International Monetary Fund survey, the contrasting skills and viewpoints of men and women boost organizational growth and productivity. Studies indicate that adding women to corporate boards improves their companies’ financial performance. Though men still run most Fortune 500 companies, the corporate world has more female CEOs now than ever before. In 2020, Jane Fraser became president of the Wall Street banking giant Citigroup – the first female CEO in the corporation’s history.

Despite the many positives of having more women in the workforce, a joint study by SurveyMonkey and LeanIn.org found that six out of ten managers feel uncomfortable engaging in typical office activities, including mentoring and socializing, with women. Sometimes, male managers, fearful of being labeled a sexist, hesitate to give female employees negative feedback or low scores on performance reviews – a choice that hurts everyone.

“False accusations, or even misplaced suspicions, now have absurdly powerful repercussions.”

Women are far more vocal about sexual discrimination than men – though according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, one in five people who reports being harassed is male. 

Considering the destructive ramifications of sexual harassment, avoid commenting on people’s physical appearance in the workplace. Assume your co-workers will be sensitive to remarks about how they look.

Relationships are the cornerstone of business. Dale Carnegie, author of How to Make Friends and Influence People, believed that 85% of financial success depends on personality and leadership skills. You can’t expect to get along with everyone at the office, but male and female colleagues must co-exist. Being labeled as hard to work with can damage your career.

Forging a relationship begins with the art of casual conversation. Find common topics to discuss with your co-workers. At work, avoid controversial subjects, such as sex, religion, politics or personal drama. Avoid gossip. Never bad-mouth your colleagues or your company. Do not give shoulder rubs, hugs or head pats. One in four adults say they steer clear of a specific co-workers because of how they greet others; some 75% of employees favor barring all physical contact at the office.

Sexual harassment threatens women’s safety and security.

In this era of heightened sensibilities, many males feel insecure about the way they talk and act in the workplace. Part of the problem may stem from a failure to understand exactly what constitutes harassment. Offensive actions include telling off-color jokes and sharing questionable photos, staring or gesturing in a sexual manner, physically blocking someone’s path, and discussing a co-worker’s sexual history or preferences. All employees need to feel safe and secure at work. If you make people feel unsafe, you’ll never develop trusting and productive working relationships.

“You can influence your workplace culture to reflect different behaviors that make everyone feel included.”

Workplace romances often are unavoidable. Roughly 20% of married couples in the United States met at work. But a romantic relationship with a colleague can affect your productivity and even threaten your job. Most organizations have guidelines concerning office relationships. Some companies prohibit supervisors from dating their direct reports. Asking for a transfer to a different department may be the best way to avoid problems.

Remember, human resource departments exist, primarily, to safeguard the company. Ultimately, you are responsible for protecting your job and reputation.

To avoid trouble, men should follow a clear set of guidelines.

Men’s concerns about unfounded charges of sexual harassment affect corporate culture. The SurveyMonkey-LeanIn.org survey revealed that senior-level males are much more hesitant to meet privately with a junior female colleague than with a junior male colleague.

“Never hesitate to report any form of bullying to your boss, a trusted colleague, or the human resources department.”

The main rule of thumb is to be consistently respectful, well-mannered and professional.The following “Secret Rules” can help you avoid potential problems:

1. Communicate as a professional – It’s never appropriate to send sexually explicit images to colleagues. Carefully consider the language and content of every email and text. Others may find your idea of humor or sarcasm offensive. If you have any doubts about what you’re sending, don’t send it.
2. Be aware of everyone’s personal space – Fist bumps, high-fives and handshakes are acceptable forms of touching, says Jodi Smith, founder of the Mannersmith consulting firm. 
3. “Give neutral compliments” – Refrain from commenting on anyone’s looks or clothing. Keep compliments job-oriented and refer only to someone’s work.
4. Introduce the highest-ranking person first – Mention individuals with the highest position first, regardless of gender. If a man and woman have equal positions, introduce the woman first.
5. First think, then talk – Exercise discretion and common sense. Avoid locker room talk, even with fellow males. It’s difficult to deny if you’re overheard. Besides, you have no idea if your words will offend anyone. When in doubt, shut your mouth.
6. Dress professionally – Though the trend is toward more casual clothing in the office, wearing a suit sends a strong message about your professionalism. Clothing affects how others perceive you and influences your opportunities for promotion. If your profession or workplace allows a more casual look, enjoy it.
7. Make your handshake consistent – COVID-19 has dramatically altered this timeless business custom. No one knows whether hand-shaking will make a comeback. Offer the same firm, consistent handshake to both males and females.
8. Be an active listener – Paying close attention to the other person without offering advice or passing judgment generates more productive conversations. You want the other person to feel heard. Be patient and understanding.
9. Seek mutual respect – Common decency means being attentive and courteous. Mutual respect builds a strong corporate culture. People are more likely to leave a company if they don’t feel respected.
10. Look for common ground – Be proactive in getting to know your co-workers. Ask simple questions such as where they live or what college they attended. Most people like it when others show interest in them.

Unfounded accusations damage reputations.

False accusations of harassment or sexism make worklife even more difficult for women who have genuine complaints. The push for gender equality in the workplace means new guidelines for women, as well as men. Tasteless remarks and actions that result in reprimand or dismissal may not qualify as harassment in a courtroom, but they undermine corporate culture. The law states that the so-called harasser must act intentionally and repeat the behavior several times. Even if the accused does not suffer legal consequences, his reputation could suffer considerable damage.

“When in doubt, if you wouldn’t do it with a man, don’t do it with a woman.”

Be aware of what you say and do. Don’t give anyone a reason to suspect you of sexual harassment. Yes, the rules have changed, but practicing professionalism, courtesy and respect are unquestioned standards.

Casual dress code or not, appearance still matters.

Years ago, men wore suits and ties and women wore dresses and skirts. The casual Friday movement that started in the 1990s has expanded to include every workday. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon dispensed with a policy that required the company’s investment bankers to dress with elegance every day. Google, Facebook and Twitter fully embrace the business casual philosophy.

“The best way to combat workplace sexual harassment is to reduce gender inequality and promote women in leadership positions.”

Dress properly even in a relaxed environment. Research a company’s culture if you’re a job candidate. An inside contact can tell you how people dress.

Etiquette applies to both speech and manners, and to both men and women. Say “please” and “thank you.” Keep your ego in check. Acknowledge other people’s accomplishments. Managers and subordinates have the power to influence a company’s culture through positive attitudes and interactions. While the modern workplace offers considerable challenges, your best strategy is mutual respect.

About the Author

Heather Zumarraga is an economic and financial correspondent for several national TV news outlets.

Video & Audio

#MeToo in the Corporate World, Power, Privilege, and the Path Forward by Sylvia Ann Hewlett

Recommendation

The #MeToo movement brought a storm of change, but its over-focus on the experiences of young, white women is problematic, argues economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, given that men, older women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community and others also experience abuse. To provide greater safety and support for all, leaders can make changes to corporate values, culture, and procedures for tracking incidents and responses. Studies verify that diversity boosts a company’s bottom line. Thus, Hewlett says, by committing to “inclusive leadership” organizations help their employees – and themselves. 

Take-Aways

• The #MeToo moment increased public support for victims, but young, white women aren’t the only ones who experience harassment.
• The term #MeToo went viral in 2018.
• A 2018 harassment study challenged traditional “victim” and “aggressor” profiles.
• Power – not gender – often lies at the root of sexual harassment or assault.
• Men are less likely to report sexual harassment or assault because it runs counter to their “masculine identity.”
• When former NFL linebacker Terry Crews was harassed, #MeToo paved the way for him to go public.
• Nike paid the costs of ignoring rampant sexual harassment within its organization.
• Employees can create a safer workplace.
• #MeToo has undercut male mentoring of female professionals, but you can mentor safely.
• Corporate culture can change if leaders pave the way.

#MeToo in the Corporate World Book Summary

The #MeToo moment increased public support for victims, but young, white women aren’t the only ones who experience harassment.

The #MeToo movement brought greater public support for victims of sexual harassment, resulting in increased penalties for perpetrators and support for greater leadership diversity. While the movement generally focuses on older, powerful white men who assault or harass younger white women, this narrative is too narrow. Other employees – including people of color and LGBTQ+ staff members – experience as much, if not more, harassment.

“New evidence makes quite clear…that the #MeToo movement has not had a big enough tent.”

Sexual misconduct carries heavy costs for organizations – as CBS, Nike and the Catholic Church discovered. The lasting concern is whether this movement compels companies to change their culture and leadership styles.

The term #MeToo went viral in 2018.

The Civil Rights Act, which made discrimination illegal under Title VII, didn’t mention sexual harassment. Cornell University scholar Lin Farley coined that term in 1975. 

In 1991, a US Senator called Anita Hill’s claim of sexual harassment by then-Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas a “fantasy.” Since then, the Boston Globe has uncovered abuse in the Catholic Church; Bill Cosby fell from paternal figure to pariah; and – prior to the 2016 presidential election – candidate Donald Trump openly talked of kissing and fondling women at will. When former victims and law enforcement officials held film producer Harvey Weinstein accountable for years of harassment, the #MeToo movement ignited. The term went viral in 2018, but Black civil rights advocate Tamara Burke, co-founder of the #MeToo movement, first used it in 2006. The volume of accusations against Weinstein and the social status of his victims brought sexual harassment into public consciousness.

“Men and women of color and LGBTQ employees experience particularly high rates of sexual harassment and assault.”

Media headlines on this issue moved public opinion. In 2018, this shift affected the careers of 201 high-profile men and prompted corporate leaders and shareholders to face the problem of workplace harassment directly.

A 2018 harassment study challenged traditional “victim” and “aggressor” profiles.

Fully one-third of women report having experienced sexual harassment at work; 13% of men report similar treatment as well. A majority of both men and women stated their harassers occupied more senior positions within their organizations. Regarding sexual assault, the numbers for men and women varied by only 2%. The Center for Talent Innovation (now named Coqual), founded by author Sylvia Ann Hewlett, conducted a study of harassment among more than 3,000 college-educated “full-time white collar” employees in 2018. Black men reported a much higher incidence of sexual harassment (21%) than other groups. Among women, Latinas and Caucasians reported the highest incidence of sexual harassment at work, both at 37%, followed by 25% of Black women and 23% of Asian women. Sexual assault by a colleague affected 7% of Black women and 6% of Caucasian, Latina and Asian women.

““These uncomfortable facts support the idea that the fundamental variable in workplace sexual misconduct is not ‘man’ or ‘woman’ but power.” ”

LGBTQ+ staff members reported more incidents of harassment and assault than any other group. A shocking 43% of LGBTQ+ women and 23% of LGBTQ+ men suffered harassment. 

Power – rather than gender – often lies at the root of sexual harassment or assault.

While the vast majority of cases of sexual harassment involve men as perpetrators, women carry out their share of harassment. In one situation, a male graduate student sued a female professor who essentially controlled his career.

“As more women gain power…they may act more like men and abuse that power more often.”

Women prey on women, too. The CTI study found that a woman was the aggressor in 13% of female harassment and 19% of female assault cases. Lara Stemple, assistant dean at UCLA Law School, studies “sexual victimization” by women. Her 2014 research indicated that a higher number of women victimize men and women than the CTI study found. Stemple believes the basis of harassment is “abuse of power.” Seeing women only as victims reinforces “outdated stereotypes” of females as one-dimensional. Because the role of women as corporate leaders is relatively new, statistics offer no baseline for how women in such positions of power behave. Predatory women, thus, seem like outliers. 

Men are less likely to report sexual harassment or assault because it runs counter to their “masculine identity.”

The law did not recognize sexual harassment against men until 1998. As late as 2013, the FBI still defined rape as a type of assault featuring a female victim. With no legal history of support for their claims of assault, men rarely reported sexual harassment or abuse. The military epitomizes this idea of male culture. A 2014 RAND Corporation study reported that of the 1.3 million US soldiers on active duty, 20,000 reported at least one sexual assault in the preceding year. Some 60% of the victims were men. About a third of them said the assault occurred as part of hazing.

“Feelings of powerlessness in the wake of sexual harassment and assault seem to be particularly damaging to men.”

When men find themselves in the victim role, they feel more shame and self-blame than women in that situation. CTI data found that job satisfaction for harassed men fell from 56% to 39%, while for women it fell only 8%.

When a man sexually harassed former NFL linebacker Terry Crews, the #MeToo movement paved the way for him to go public.

In 2018, testifying before a US Senate Judiciary Committee, Terry Crews, a Black former NFL linebacker, now an actor and television host, relayed an experience with sexual harassment. At 6’3” and 245 lbs., Crews might seem like the last person to fall victim to unwanted sexual behavior. But, at a Hollywood work party in 2016, as Crews extended his hand for a handshake, high-profile agent Adam Venit – who worked for the agency that represented Crews – grabbed Crews’ genitals and squeezed.

Crews didn’t respond to Venit’s action with violence. He left the party and contacted his agency the next day. Venit called Crews to apologize, but the agency did not respond further. When Weinstein’s victims came forward and launched the #MeToo movement, Crews spoke out on Twitter, filed a police report and sued the agency. After his Tweet, a rapper accused Crews of not being masculine; a hip-hop producer asserted the agency should reinstate Venit; and numerous people told Crews that Venit was only joking.

Venit’s actions epitomize the sort of racist behavior intended to make minority people feel subordinate. Crews’ experience illustrates a perception issue which unfairly characterizes Black men: some regard them as “predators,” but also see them as objects of sexual fantasy. People project similar ideas onto Latina and Black women. Columbia Law School professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” to describe discrimination based on multiple, overlapping factors – such as race, gender, social class and sexual orientation.

Nike paid the costs of ignoring rampant sexual harassment within its organization.

Workplace sexual harassment and assault can harm a company’s bottom line five ways. In 2018, when female Nike employees “revolted” due to career limitations, male colleagues’ poor behavior and an ineffectual corporate HR response, the company experienced all five negative effects. 

The first effect is high legal costs. Shareholders and previous employees are suing Nike. Illustrating the second pain point, Nike lost 11 senior leaders, including a president who was in line to succeed the CEO. The third penalty is reduced market value. For Nike, with a brand worth $32 billion, the shareholder’s lawsuit asserts that the work environment “harmed and threatens” its financial future. The fourth effect is loss of talented recruits. Some women became unwilling to work for Nike. A Kapor Center study showed that culture, not money, is the main reason people leave a company. The fifth cost is to brand value. When headlines repeatedly detail sexually inappropriate treatment of women at a company, it hurts the brand.

Employees can create a safer workplace.

As an individual or manager, follow your company’s guidelines to keep yourself and your colleagues safe. Respect other people’s personal space. For most people [pre-COVID], this is a minimum distance of 18 inches (45.72 cm). 

Though attire is never an excuse for harassment, dress professionally at work. The female general counsel for International Paper underscores this by advising separating how you dress in your personal time versus how you want to appear at work or at work-related social functions.This advice also applies to female executives. In 2008, Erin Callan became the CFO of Lehman Brothers. When a glossy magazine featured her in a photo spread wearing low-cut blouses, short skirts and stiletto heels, the media focused on her appearance, not her professional accomplishments.

“Whether you are junior or senior, man or woman, you should relentlessly telegraph professionalism at work.”

If you’re traveling with a colleague, meet in the hotel lobby, a conference room or a business area instead of a hotel room or at the bar. One senior vice president at Freddie Mac uses his company’s corporate cafeteria, instead of a local restaurant, as a place to get to know his subordinates. Having an affair with a subordinate, boss or married person will damage your career and have a negative impact on morale in your office. If you are responsible for misconduct, apologize. A Canadian broadcaster accused of sexually abusing more than 20 women wrote an essay about it. Instead of apologizing, he lamented his lost career and reputation. The attitude he displayed in his article caused such a backlash that the publication fired the editor who published it.

When you see sexual harassment at work, identify it immediately and talk to your human resources officer. If you witness “disrespectful” behavior, enlist someone higher up in the organization to talk to the perpetrator if he or she doesn’t work for you.

#MeToo has undercut male mentoring of female professionals, but you can mentor safely.

Executive diversity results in higher corporate revenues and returns, but the #MeToo movement makes it clear that executives must modify how they cultivate new talent. When you work with someone you mentor, meet in public areas. Share the background of the person you’re coaching with your colleagues and explain why he or she is an asset to the company. In the quest for diversity, remain open to new ideas. For example, a female Merrill Lynch director in charge of diversity marketing took a chance on a young male associate who wanted to market to the LGBTQ+ community. She gave him a $15,000 budget and clear goals to see what he could create. His initiative resulted in $1.4 billion of business.

In the past, people didn’t believe women could contribute to a company’s bottom line. Even now, some men look askance at women who win quick promotions.As a senior leader or CEO, challenge this attitude by citing studies proving that greater diversity provides greater revenue.

Corporate culture can change if leaders pave the way.

Corporate values matter when companies adhere to them. Companies that act in alignment with their values outperform companies that don’t. Change your corporate values to reflect “zero tolerance” of sexual misconduct. The CEO should communicate this red line directly through words and actions. Executives and board members might not want to hear reports of harassment from HR, but must be aware of what is happening in their companies’ offices.

Train and coach employees, so they feel comfortable taking action when they see inappropriate behavior. Since men are also victims of sexual harassment and abuse, these policies should empower, not censor them. Create new ways to report incidents of sexual misconduct and to collect information about them. The HR department should not be the sole avenue for reporting harassment. IBM, for example, created “Talk It Over,” a hotline employees can call about harassment incidents and to determine next steps. The system alerts senior managers if the company receives two complaints against any individual. Be proactive – use existing data and create information banks to identify problem areas.

“Own the harm. Do the work. Make restitution. That’s what a real mea culpa looks like.”

Take organizational responsibility for past events. People must believe the company will stand behind its values of inclusivity and respect, even if these are newly stated values. Support “inclusive leadership.” Encourage different perspectives. Take risks. Give feedback. Help bolster employees’ independence and “share credit.”

About the Author

Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett is the CEO of Hewlett Consulting Partners, founder of the Center for Talent Innovation and author of 14 books, including Executive Presence and The Sponsor Effect.

Video & Podcast

There’s Nothing Micro about a Billion Women, Making Finance Work for Women by Mary Ellen Iskenderian

Recommendation

Nearly one billion women, globally, have no access to the financial system. Failure to include women costs financial institutions billions in potential profit. Mary Ellen Iskenderian, president and CEO of the nonprofit organization Women’s World Banking, explains the causes of this exclusion, how to combat it and why everyone benefits from financial inclusion. Citing examples from India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Rwanda, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Bangladesh and Mexico, Iskenderian details myriad ways to give women access to financial tools and emphasizes that financial institutions can do well by doing good.

Take-Aways

• Despite decades of effort, almost one billion women remain financially disempowered.
• Digital and financial literacy training are prerequisites to successful financial inclusion.
• Digital finance ought to help empower women.
• Some commercial banks succeeded by prioritizing medium and small enterprises led by women.
• Saving and credit opportunities are fundamental for women’s financial inclusion.
• Including women in finance requires action from regulators and policy makers.
• Financial firms and private citizens can help achieve greater “financial inclusion” for women.

There’s Nothing Micro about a Billion Women Book Summary

Despite decades of effort, almost one billion women remain financially disempowered.

One-third of the planet’s adults have no access to financial services. More than half of these 1.7 billion people – almost a billion – are women. Women share the financial problems of low-income men, but gender norms can make their financial exclusion even more onerous.

For example, certain societies disapprove of women owning smartphones, which stops them from banking by phone. Yet when women control money, they are more likely than men to invest it for their families’ benefit. In households where women have more financial authority, children receive superior nutrition than in households where they don’t.

The “rotating savings and credit association” (ROSCA) offers a traditional option for impoverished people. It enables people without access to banking to pool their resources and lend money, sequentially, to its members. Such groups may form due to shared activities or backgrounds, and they rely on high levels of trust. Such cooperatives were precursors to modern banks.

“Improving a woman’s financial access brings with it an intergenerational multiplier effect that leads to consistently better outcomes in the health, education and lifelong earning potential of every member of her entire family…”

Muhammad Yunus invented microfinance in 1975 in Bangladesh, where he pioneered lending small sums of seed capital to groups of impoverished people. The capital gave them an opportunity to start self-sustaining businesses. Nonprofits worldwide experimented with microfinance institutions (MFIs). Initially, a few offered savings accounts and the ability to save became a precondition for receiving a loan. Most MFI borrowers have been women. Typically, MFIs lend money to people who are part of a group and repayment becomes the group’s responsibility.

Although MFIs are, by definition, self-sustaining, they initially relied on donations. Their evolution revealed problems. For example, to cover operating costs, MFIs charged high interest rates – sometimes as high as the local loan sharks charged.

Mexican MFI Compartamos, for example, went public with an IPO in 2007. In 2010, several women who borrowed from MFIs committed suicide when they couldn’t repay their debts. They knew that if they defaulted, their entire group would be responsible for their debt.

Digital and financial literacy training are prerequisites to successful financial inclusion.

When a Dominican bank included financial education in a telenovela about a house cleaner whose husband discovered her cash savings and splurged on a party, its account opening rate rose 39% over the next half year. Many women mentioned the TV drama as their reason for opening their accounts.

In Indonesia, one fintech company partnered with midwives to enable women to open savings accounts and gain access to digital finance services without having to share their phone numbers with male bank representatives.

“A woman’s ‘strategic life choices’ extend far beyond the purely economic options she has available, but her economic empowerment is an essential step toward gaining both resources and agency.”

Banks in the developing world often accept only immovable assets – such as homes – as collateral, which financial institutions often require. Thus, women often need title to their property in order to borrow, but their ability to secure title varies depending on the laws of their home country. For example, Rwanda’s government did not give women land inheritance rights until 1998 – a critical step toward recovery from the nation’s genocide. The settlement of Colombia’s conflict with Communist guerillas prioritized distribution of land to women. 

Women often face obstacles that do not confront men. For instance, a greater number of women than men lack legal identity documents. Even gender neutrality can become an obstacle, since “gender blind” policies tend, implicitly, to favor males. Also, women’s economic empowerment requires them to learn more skills, including literacy, negotiation tactics and knowledge of their rights.

Digital finance ought to help empower women.

While mobile financial tools matter, by themselves, they have a limited impact on women’s financial agency. Still, cell phone ownership is a critical tipping point for empowering women’s financial lives. Cellphone banking gives women confidentiality and convenience, so they can manage their money without proximity to a financial institution or input from a spouse or some other authority figure.

Women in India benefited from receiving economic advice along with the digital deposit of their federal “workfare.” Those who received supplemental information stayed employed longer and earned more money than those who received their digital payment without that information.

Gender norms in Niger make it difficult for women to assert opinions about their family’s money in public, so they benefit from receiving cell phone digital deposits which enable private financial discussions at home.

“Empowerment is, at its heart, the freedom to make one’s own choices…And sometimes that includes the choice to walk out the door.”

Whether financial inclusion increases a woman’s risk of domestic abuse remains unclear. In some countries, inclusion seems to correlate with higher risk. However, the self-confidence and security women gain from financial inclusion can make it easier for them to leave violent relationships. For example, a bank in Colombia observed that women whose account balances reached a certain trigger point would often leave abusive relationships. The bank partnered with shelters to keep its customers safe. 

Some commercial banks succeeded by prioritizing medium and small enterprises led by women.

If financial institutions treated women’s business loans as they treat men’s loans, they could gain $30 billion in new income. Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), for example, is among the banks that offer women’s business clubs for developing contacts, education and even business travel. Women find its training and networking particularly valuable.

Acknowledging that its credit-approval process relied too heavily on collateral, KCB reformed its procedures to focus on a company’s cash flow. The bank implemented “gender sensitization training” in its branches, and its loans to female entrepreneurs grew substantially over two years. The bank’s portfolio for this project featured fewer non-performing loans than its overall loan portfolio featured, even though the loans’ basis did not include collateral. While addressing the women’s market required a significant commitment of resources and changes in processes, training and products, KCB expanded the program’s availability.

“Rarely do these households receive a regular, daily income of any kind.”

In 2013, when a third of Nigeria’s population had no access to financial services, the national government tried to expand its availability. Diamond Bank, one of Nigeria’s biggest, designed a savings account for small-scale market traders, many of them women. 

Informal savings schemes, like ROSCAs, were already popular in West Africa. To secure a loan, a group member would coordinate the process, collecting cash from each member and holding the funds for a fee. Women appreciated having the bank’s coordinator collect funds at their doors, but they objected to the fees.

Diamond emulated informal savings groups by sending representatives door to door. It introduced customers to ATM cards and cellphone banking, but the personal relationships they formed proved the most significant factor in women deciding to create bank accounts. 

“The lack of appropriate identification documents exacerbates and reinforces the gender gap in mobile phone ownership.”

Millions of women have become faithful customers of banks that make such efforts. Despite a subsequent decline in Nigeria’s economy, many clients report that banking helped their businesses and their families.

Savings accounts have advantages over informal savings groups. Such groups require members to take turns using the combined money, so cash might not be available to individuals when they need it. With a personal bank account, women also can maintain confidentiality, which reduces demands for money from their kin and neighbors. Diamond Bank’s leadership in the women’s market was a crucial factor when Access, Africa’s largest bank, acquired it in 2009.

Saving and credit opportunities are fundamental for women’s financial inclusion.

Women need health insurance. In some countries, the lion’s share of a patient’s financial burden comes from the cost of transportation to the hospital and bribes to get decent care.

Jordan’s Microfund for Women bundles hospitalization insurance with loans. In partnership with the Jordan Insurance Company, the Microfund provides about a day’s pay for each day of hospitalization. The fund’s managers initially didn’t think it would be possible to devise an insurance product the poor could afford and would accept. The Microfund insisted on having no exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Jordan initially resisted, but then officials discovered that it cost less to do without the exclusions than to collect the data necessary to enforce them.

“Female regulators and others from previously excluded groups must be listened to and their recommendations endorsed, so that their lived experience is valued as a resource for developing better policies.”

Although they don’t prioritize financial inclusion, Fintech companies with big data are lowering the costs of extending credit and expanding the potential market for loans. By contrast, inadequate data availability constrains traditional banks. 

Peer to peer (P2P) lending can be faster and less onerous for women than traditional forms of borrowing. Analysis in China found that peer lending to women was more profitable than similar lending to men. In 2019, P2P loans totaled $67.9billion worldwide.

Including women in finance requires action from regulators and policy makers.

Those in power can take numerous steps to include women in the financial system:

• Simplify procedures – Some countries have implemented simpler customer protocols to facilitate people opening accounts even with only scant documentation. These basic accounts helped provide COVID-19 pandemic relief to millions of people previously excluded from the system.
• Collect data about gender – Failure to “disaggregate” data by gender impedes financial inclusion. 
• Remove legislative discrimination – The World Bank found that 167 countries have at least one law constraining women’s financial opportunities.
• Subsidize phones for impoverished people – Governments should subsidize phone ownership for their poorest constituents. They can take measures to reduce the cost of having a phone, such as building infrastructure and encouraging competition.
• Enable women to own property in their own names – When women own property, they have collateral for a bank loan. A registry of movable collateral helps women by expanding the pool of qualified collateral.
• Send government payments to women’s bank accounts – Too often, countries send such payments to a male “head of household.” Directing payments to women would provide more benefits to their families.
• Add women to regulatory boards – Banks have a poor record on gender diversity, but regulatory institutions have even worse records. Greater representation of women on supervisory boards correlates with more stable banking sectors. 

Financial firms and private citizens can help achieve greater “financial inclusion” for women.

Financial institutions that neglect women surrender up to $700 billion in annual revenue. This amount represents up to one-fifth of the revenue that “banks, insurers and financial service providers” could generate. Institutions should do the following instead:

• Make sure senior management supports a “women’s proposition” – Women behave differently than men and have distinctive needs and preferences. They may seek more information and want more time than men to consider a financial decision.
• Analyze data by gender – Data tools that address how women use financial services should guide the design and delivery of products and staffing decisions.
• Encourage “discouraged borrowers” – Some creditworthy potential borrowers expect to be declined and, thus, they don’t apply for loans in the first place. In fact, women-owned companies are no more likely to suffer rejection than male-owned firms. Raising expectations promotes greater inclusion.
• Diversify teams – Women remain dramatically under-represented in financial firms’ upper management and on their boards. More women in leadership positions correlates with fewer non-performing loans, higher profits and more innovation.

Concerned consumers can check their financial institution’s support for women. Becoming informed equips you to help stem financial abuse and broaden the teaching of financial literacy.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Iskenderian is president and CEO of Women’s World Banking, a global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to financial tools and resources.

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Women & Power, A Manifesto by Mary Beard

Recommendation

Classics scholar and Cambridge professor Mary Beard explains that the misogyny women face today – from anonymous social media threats of violence to subtle acts of exclusion from systems of power – trace back to classical antiquity. Writing in an academic, yet lively and accessible style, she details how society constructed power to exclude women. Beard’s rousing survey of history urges readers to re-imagine what power could look like today.

Take-Aways

• Ancient examples of men silencing women relate to contemporary events.
• The ancient Greeks viewed women who spoke publicly as androgynous and monstrous.
• People often don’t regard feminine-sounding voices as authoritative.
• Women today face threats when they speak out, as they did in the ancient world.
• Society punishes women more for their mistakes than it punishes men. 
• Western society constructs power as existing outside the realm of the feminine.
• Women challenged men’s abuses of power as part of the #MeToo movement.
• Social movements demonstrate the importance of re-imagining power.

Women & Power Book Summary

Ancient examples of men silencing women relate to contemporary events.

One of the earliest examples of a man silencing a woman’s voice dates back 3,000 years, near the origins of recorded Western culture. In Homer’s Odyssey, the queen Penelope asks a bard, who is singing about the obstacles preventing Greek heroes from returning home after the Trojan War, to sing a happier song; her husband, Odysseus, is among these missing heroes.

Her son Telemachus silences her, saying, “Go back up into your quarters, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff…speech will be the business of men, all men, and me most of all, for mine is the power in this household.” Ancient narratives offer multiple such examples of men silencing women. These examples relate to contemporary moments of men excluding women from public speech. The stories also show that modern-day bullying – say, by posting threats on social media – and the abuse of women who disagree with men, or challenge existing authority structures, is not a new phenomenon.

“What interests me is the relationship between the classic Homeric moment of silencing a woman, and some of the ways women’s voices are not publicly heard in our own contemporary culture, and in our own politics from the front bench to the shop floor.”

When Englishmen created the House of Commons’ parliamentary rules and procedures in the 19th century, they drew from classical traditions. Rumor has it that Barack Obama’s speechwriters, likewise, gained inspiration from ancient statesmen and orators like Cicero. Ancient templates for public speech continue to shape contemporary conceptions of which kinds of public speech are bad or good. The exclusion of women from public speech, comment and debate has a complex history, and many classical ideas about gendered approaches to advocacy influence today’s discourse.

The ancient Greeks viewed women who spoke publicly as androgynous and monstrous.

In the ancient world, people regarded public speaking as inherently and exclusively masculine. Public speaking was innate to the social construction of masculinity, not femininity. When women spoke publicly in first-century Rome, one anthologist described them as “women whose natural condition did not manage to keep them silent in the forum.” When a woman named Maesia defended herself skillfully in the Roman courts, that commentator attributed her ability to the notion that “she really had a man’s nature,” and was androgynous. 

“A woman speaking in public was, in most circumstances, by definition not a woman.”

Ancient Greek myths about women who challenged men, such as Medea, Antigone and Clytemnestra, depict them as “monstrous hybrids” whom society must punish for “unnaturally” clinging to power. In Aeschylus’s drama Agamemnon, for example, Queen Clytemnestra rules her city while King Agamemnon is away fighting in the Trojan War. Aeschylus refers to her as having “manly purpose,” then describes her as trying to hold onto power illegitimately by killing her husband on his return. Her children restore the patriarchal order by teaming up to kill her.

People often don’t regard feminine-sounding voices as authoritative.

In Homeric Greek, writers use the word muthos to denote authoritative speech, in contrast with women’s private, domestic chatter. This notion continues to influence modern understandings of how a knowledgeable speaker should sound. People today view Western women politicians as lacking in authority or wisdom if they don’t imitate a deep, masculine-sounding voice. 

As in the Ancient Western world, modern women in the political arena often feel they must take on more androgynous characteristics – such as imitating male vocal qualities – to command respect. For example, Margaret Thatcher underwent vocal training to change her high-pitched feminine voice to a lower, more masculine-sounding register, which her advisers felt conveyed more authority. 

“What we need is some good old-fashioned consciousness-raising about what we mean by the ‘voice of authority’ and how we’ve come to construct it.”

The Romans described the voices of women who spoke out publicly in disparaging ways, comparing their speech to “yapping” and “barking.” Today, misogynists describe women who voice their opinions as “whining” or “whinging.” Given that women suffer underrepresentation in positions of political power, people must reflect on the role that gender bias plays in determining the types of voices they feel convey authority, and which ones they associate with impudence or lack of gravitas.

Women today face threats when they speak out, as they did in the ancient world.

Stories from the ancient Western world often feature female characters violently robbed of their ability to speak by men. For example, in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Princess Philomela’s rapist cuts out her tongue to prevent her from speaking of his crime. In Roman mythology, the nymph Echo loses her ability to express herself. As punishment for talking too much, Echo can only repeat other people’s words – never using her own voice – for the rest of her existence. These stories served as cautionary tales. If women dared to speak too boldly or to confront the patriarchal status quo, they would suffer violence or taunting.

“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been called an ‘ignorant moron’.”

Still today some men bully and threaten women who speak publicly in traditionally male-dominated roles, ranging from professional sportscasting to politics. For example, when Jacqui Oatley became the first woman in the United Kingdom to provide sportscasting commentary for the football program Match of the Day, male commentators called her performance “an insult to the controlled commentaries of men.” 

Outspoken women frequently receive online threats of violence – including of rape or murder. Internet trolls take to Twitter, assaulting women who voice their opinions with threats such as a tweet directed to author Mary Beard that said, “I’m going to cut off your head and rape it.” 

Some men bully women in politics when they try to speak publicly. For example, in the British House of Commons, male MPs taunt female counterparts loudly to drown out their voices. Underlying this abuse is a fear that women might legitimately challenge the patriarchal order. Ovid captures this fear in Metamorphoses, when Philomela tells her story of survival – despite no longer having her tongue – by weaving her saga into textile art and identifying her rapist.

Society punishes women more for their mistakes than it punishes men. 

Women face an unfair double standard when they speak publicly and make mistakes. People will forgive male politicians for fumbling their words – take, for example, Boris Johnson’s clueless-sounding remarks during a 2017 interview on the Tory’s position on preventing racism within the justice system or expanding access to higher education. However, women face steeper criticism for their mistakes. 

“It is not just that it is more difficult for women to succeed, they get treated much more harshly if ever they mess up. ”

While people tended to dismiss Johnson’s errors as acceptable forms of “laddish waywardness,” they proved less forgiving when UK MP Dianne Abbott became confused during the same election cycle when discussing figures relating to police recruitment. People ridiculed her, hurling insults such as “fat idiot” and “bone-headed stupid.” Women have a right to pursue success in traditionally male-dominated roles, as well as the right to make mistakes without engendering fiery chastisement.

Western society constructs power as existing outside the realm of the feminine.

Conventional definitions of power exclude women. History doesn’t offer a template for how powerful women should fill traditionally male-dominated roles. Women in those roles tend to imitate masculine aesthetics. Female politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel, for example, wear pantsuits to fit the image of a powerful person, which society holds as masculine by default. 

The ancient Greeks viewed the powerful Goddess Athena as more masculine than feminine, depicting her in male warrior clothing and as a virgin born, not of a mother, but from the head of her father. When people conjure images of someone in power, such as a professor or a politician, those images tend to be male. A search for images of cartoon professors using UK Google Images, for example, produces an overwhelming majority of male characters. 

Despite the fact that more women occupy powerful positions today than they did half a century ago – now taking on roles ranging from police officers to CEOs – these women are a minority of those in power. People often associate femininity with weakness, and masculinity with power. President Donald Trump complained bitterly, for example, about actor Melissa McCarthy’s parody of then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live, because he felt she made him appear “weak.”

“The point is simple but important: As far back as we can see in Western history, there is a radical separation – real, cultural and imaginary – between women and power.”

When the idea of female power does emerge in historic narratives, it exists predominantly as something men must suppress whenever it appears. The symbolism of the head of the Medusa, depicted in art from the ancient Greeks through modernity, captures the essence of this perceived threat to male power.

In one myth of Medusa’s origins, Poseidon rapes Medusa in Athena’s temple, and Athena punishes his victim – instead of Poseidon – by transforming Medusa into a monster with snakes for hair. Medusa gains power after this transformation, and anyone who looks at her turns to stone. A male hero, Perseus, decapitates her to strip her of this power.

Contemporary women challenged men’s abuses of power as part of the #MeToo movement.

In classical antiquity, men permitted women to speak publicly in two situations: when they were victims, describing crimes someone committed against them, and when they were about to die as martyrs. Early Christian women in Ancient Rome, for example, would give their testimonies before lions devoured them. 

Media and public forums created spaces for women’s voices as part the #MeToo movement, as women described their experiences as survivors of rapes and sexual assaults perpetrated by powerful men in industries such as film. 

“Thankfully, not everything we do or think goes back directly or indirectly to the Greeks and Romans; and I often find myself insisting that there are no simple lessons for us in the history of the ancient world…That said, looking harder at Greece and Rome helps us look harder at ourselves, and to understand better how we have learned to think as we do.”

While women have felt rightfully empowered to tell their stories – a difficult feat given that men served as gatekeepers to their success – powerful male perpetrators of these crimes won’t be held accountable unless society dissects the accused aggressors’ versions of events. What excuses are powerful men using to justify their actions to themselves and other people, and why don’t these excuses hold up anymore? It’s not enough for women to share their stories of surviving sexual harassment and assault; now society must collectively challenge the narratives powerful men rely on when they misuse their power.

Social movements demonstrate the importance of re-imagining power. 

Power should no longer be the elite and prestigious realm of a minority of people, associated with leadership, prestige and celebrity. Social movements such as Black Lives Matter demonstrate the importance of defining power as something that exists in collaboration, among leaders and their followers. Few people had heard of Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors before they created Black Lives Matter, but they launched one of the most important social movements in recent history. Garza, Tometi and Cullors prove that ordinary individuals can challenge the status quo, and that women don’t need elite status to be powerful.

About the Author

Mary Beard, the classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, is a classics professor at the University of Cambridge, an ancient literature professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, and a Newnham College fellow.

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