We are talking about the relative risk of harassment or even assault vs the risk of fabricated accusations. I am pointing out that no matter what the real situation, some group of offenders will claim that the accusations are fabricated and that they need to take draconian measures to protect against said largely imaginary dangers. Even if those measures are transparently discriminatory. Your inability to accept what people are more politely telling you in this thread makes me skeptical that what you regard as innocent behavior is in fact innocent.
Ah, I see your hypothetical requires me to be promoted! Hypothetically I’m honored, but in reality I’m not the boss, so it doesn’t really apply.
Cool, so this thread has reached the mind-reading phase, as it was ever destined to do. Tell me what non-innocent behavior I have in mind.
ROFLOL you thinking that a woman saying something like that is going to result in anything but the man getting suspended without pay pending investigation and probably being let go even if exonerated (possibly “advised” to resign).
I don’t think there is an epidemic of women making false allegations, and mala fide ones when made are often caught. But frankly, such a statement is going to lead to HR investigations and many weeks of unpleasentness.
To what extent do women treat men differently in the workplace, on account of wanting to strategically avoid harassment, assault and other related unpleasantness? I can imagine female colleagues being a little more amenable and receptive to social outings with each other (going out for coffees, after work drinks, etc…) - as there are no implied invitational undertones. I can also imagine female colleagues being a little more cautious and wary at events like conferences, work trips, networking events etc. where alcohol might be involved and the personal/professional divide is a little hazier. Incidentally, this also applies to men (who will be warier of inviting female colleagues for coffee/drinks, even innocuously, for fear of their invitation being read as a romantic/sexual come-on).
If you cannot totally trust your colleague to not harass you/make false allegations, then the relationship is already irreparably broken and is best ended.
And you are the British (English?) equivalent of what we call an attorney in the US right?
Thats relevant how?
I don’t know how this works in the US, but advising people to quit because they are being sexually harassed would itself be illegal. A lawyer doing that would be beyond crazy.
Wait, you are saying there is no special reason for her to worry, but she won’t be in a conference room alone with a man? Are your conference rooms sound proofed? Are there no other employees nearby?
If a woman has crazy irrational fears of her male colleagues she’s going to have trouble getting her job done. No, i wouldn’t see that as prudent. I would see that as a difficult employee that we would try to accommodate, but who might have to choose between getting good projects and sticking to her rules.
When i had an awkward situation of that nature, I’m pretty sure i would have been fired if I’d reported reported it. Not for that, of course, but for something. Troublemakers aren’t popular employees.
I am not a lawyer, but that would absolutely be my advice. I think it’s a no win situation for the person being harassed, and running away before it blows up is likely to be the best outcome for them.
Not the best for society, or for that company. But for them.
I wouldn’t offer that advice if i were the supervisor, or had any power on the situation, of course. But if a friend confided in me about being harassed at her job, that’s what I’d advise.
I agree. If I had a female employee that refused to be alone in a room with any male coworker - no I would not accept that as her being prudent and only concerned for her safety. It’s not a normal fear, it’s not a normal request and I’d want to know what was behind it.
I’d probably suspect that she was using a blanket excuse to avoid being alone with one or more specific men without singling them out. If I were her employer, I’d want to get to the bottom of it. That request - whether from a man or a woman- is indicative of someone feeling unsafe in my workplace and it would be very important to me to understand why they felt that way.
If she had a traumatic experience in the past that caused her to experience this kind of unreasonable fear, I might try to accommodate her as long as that accommodation wasn’t detrimental to anyone else. Whether or not that was possible would depend on her job and responsibilities, but I’d make it clear that it was an accommodation, not a validation of her fears. Or I might expect she was just finding excuses to push off some of her responsibilities onto someone else and I wouldn’t put up with that.
You know, false accusations of theft are, I suspect, way more common than false accusations of sexual assault. There are many things that would motivate someone to lie about being stolen from - they may have lost or broken something important, they may have spend money that wasn’t theirs to spend.
And if you are falsely accused of theft you can be really damaged professionally. It should be a much more real fear than being accused of sexual harassment or assault. Yet I never hear people say stuff like “If I’m in the boss’s office and he has to leave the room, I always step out into the hall so I won’t be alone with his stuff. I wouldn’t want to be accused of theft.”
If, as an employer, I have employees that are genuinely afraid that other employees are going to physically assault them, or falsely accuse them of physical assault, I’ve got a problem with my workforce. I’ve either made some bad hires or let a toxic atmosphere prevail. Ultimately, it would be my problem and I’d have to solve it.
But I don’t think my solution would involve glass-walled offices, I’d need to repair the atmosphere.
For fuck’s sake. If a coworker refused to meet with me one-on-one but would meet with women one-on-one, I’d be irked. If it had only negligible effect on my job, I’d roll my eyes and let it go. If it seriously impacted my ability to do my job, I’d consider going to HR.
The question isn’t whether it’s discrimination. It’s 100% discrimination. The question is whether it’d be worth doing anything about.
You are right, you don’t know how this works. 
Since I highly doubt it would be illegal. (It may or may not be good advice, depending on specific case facts). One of a lawyer’s basic tasks is to find the most efficacious remedy for her/his client in the circumstances.
And it takes some exceptionally bad reading to construe that as saying “quit because of sexual assault”. It was a comment on trust issues between two parties, even if no incident has occurred. Forget sexual misconduct for a second and take another example. If you were worried (rightly or wrongly) whether a business partner was going to defraud you, would that be a conducive environment for a relationship? Of course not. And that’s separately from whether they actually have done so (in which case the remedy is civil and or criminal action).
Repairing the atmosphere would be crucial, of course. I never wanted glass-walled offices when i didn’t have them, because the atmosphere was good and i had comfortable working relationships with all the guys i worked with.
But now that i work in a place where all the offices have windows… It’s a really nice feature. I feel like it decreases the odds of something bad happening, whether the something bad is inappropriate touching or false accusations.
Agreed with @Ann_Hedonia (for probably the first time ever). If a woman makes a claim that he is worried that a man is going to harass her, you want to get to the bottom of it ASAP. If its against a particular man, even sans any actual misconduct I hope you will talk to him to find out why he gives off a vibe. If its a woman who is worried about “all men”, yes you need to find out the root cause as well.
It was a particular man, and he was much higher in the peckling order than i was. I started to tell a friend who was between us on the pecking order, and he stopped me, saying he was afraid I’d say something he had to report.
I’m still there, and creepy guy isn’t. (He was eventually fired for his alcohol problem.) I’m pretty sure i wouldn’t be there if HR had gotten wind of it. That was before his alcohol problem blew up (although it was related to him being creepy to me) and he was a golden boy.
No, it wouldn’t. If a woman wanted to know how to avoid being alone with any man at work, to the point that being in an office with an open door was unacceptable, I in no way think they’d find support here. A particular man, or a particular circumstance (I often have to work until 8 or 9 o’clock alone in a building with one male co-worker and I am uncomfortable) but otherwise, no. It is in no way a main stream view that it’s reasonable or prudent for women to demand to never be alone with men in general.
By the way, the answer to that thread would be to loudly discuss your menstrual or menopausal problems constantly.
You’re welcome.
Workplaces with a small group of people whose work and social lives have gotten blurred together often do have a good deal more leeway; in large part because people get to know each other and the conversational rules become more those for talk among a group of friends than those for a business situation. This can especially be true if the members of the group all come out of similar social groups, such as “young, mostly single people living alone” and probably all recently out of similar universities.
Sometimes however such groups don’t notice when they’re causing problems for a newcomer, or even for a long time group member who may feel outnumbered and unwilling to speak up. So some attention needs to be paid to make sure that isn’t happening.
You’re wrong.
As @puzzlegal says: if someone won’t take a one on one because of the behavior of a specific person, that’s not discriminatory. If they won’t take one in general with anyone of a particular gender, that is discriminatory.
Welcome to our world.
I don’t think that’s remotely what was meant. I think that what was meant was ‘it’s reasonable to take more precautions against rape than against gossip.’ Which is a fair point.
Your mindreading attempts aren’t working. My reaction to that question is a combination of ‘I don’t’, ‘in many workplaces one can’t’ and ‘do they mean specific men who have previously caused problems? that’s an unpleasant fact of life that we all need to be doing something about; but attempting to avoid all men, if that’s what’s actually meant, isn’t the solution.’
Have you never heard of gay and lesbian and bisexual people?
And being reasonably cautious about alcohol at a professional event strikes me as a good idea for everybody for multiple reasons. One doesn’t generally want to wake up the next morning realizing that one told the boss what one thinks of them; or even that one told some other person what one thinks of the boss without knowing what that person’s relationship is with said boss.
They’re the one who’s going to be out of a job; and very probably to get a reputation for quitting with no reason, since you seem to be advising that they not report the reason. How on earth is that better for them?