Neil Degrasse Tyson accused of assaulting women

[filmore]

@bordelond

I doubt the definition of “harassment” as applied is quite this loosely. Or else any noticing of anything ever would be realistically actionable:

“I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve got a cast on your wrist … are you OK? Need to get off of that data entry assignment?”

“I didn’t ask for that attention … off to HR!”

I’ve never been part of a harassment issue so I don’t know all the nitty-gritty details, but I’m pretty certain that the accused would be called into the manager’s office even in this case. Regardless of what the accuser says, HR must address it. At a minimum, the accused will be called into the manager’s office and be told to refrain from interacting with the accuser unless necessary. Even if HR and the managers all think the accused claim has no validity, some action plan will be put in place. HR is not going to blow off any accusation against you no matter how minor.

For good and bad, that’s part of #MeToo. Whereas in the past HR would make a judgement call, now they don’t. The good part is that they address many real issues of harassment that they previously discounted, but now they have to address 100% of the accusations no matter how trivial. It’s like saying the word ‘bomb’ in front of the TSA. No matter if they think you’re joking or not, they have to treat it as if it was real.

The new environment doesn’t mean that every accused person is suddenly fired. The company will still use judgement when deciding what to do. But now any accusation will certainly reflect on you even if it’s trivial.

[k9bfriender]

@Irishman

My sexual harassment training does not indicate a need for a power imbalance for there to be harassment. Harassment is any unwanted attention, even just once (no pattern required). It can happen between anyone.

It isn’t actionable harassment unless it is a pattern. There are obviously times when it doesn’t need a pattern, if a co-worker rapes another co-worker, for instance. But if it is unwanted attention, then it is not harassment until it has been made clear that the attention is unwanted.

It is also a bit less actionable if you don’t even work together. If you are at a conference, and you meet someone in a bar, and chat them up, that’s a bit different than chatting up someone you work with.

Are you saying that an employee repeatedly propositioning their boss wouldn’t be harassment? That me groping my coworker (at the same job status) wouldn’t be harassment? Of my coworker groping me wouldn’t be harassment?

The first is repeatedly, which is harassment. Of course, the power imbalance means that your boss can simply fire you for your actions. When it is the other way around, and your boss is harassing you, can you do the same? No, you have to go out and go over their head to get them into trouble.

As for the others, those are groping, which is actually sexual assault, as well as harassment.

However, in this case, none of your examples here fit. They don’t work together, there was no repeated proposition.

Not mutually exclusive positions.

And yet, they also have nothing to do with each other, and to assume that one is an indication of the other is presumptuous.

If someone generally acts in a certain way, and that way generally gets a positive feedback from co-workers, colleagues, and friends, then if you don’t like the way they act, then that is not an indication that he has hatred or disrespect for you. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t, of course, but it would be a bit of being on you to provide some modicum of evidence to that effect.

Being a philanthropist is not a mutually exclusive position from being a pedophile, but you don’t accuse philanthropists of being pedophiles simply because they are not mutually exclusive positions.

I think the point is that harassment is so ingrained in our culture that some folks don’t even think it’s being a turd.

Nah, people see that it’s being a turd by the way they get shot down. The problem is, is that there is a difference between sexual harassment and being socially awkward. Sexual harassment is a legally actionable activity that should be shut down. Being socially awkward cannot be cured simply by holding people to account for being socially awkward.

But, I also feel that the workplace should be held to a much higher standard than social settings. If someone is a turd in a social setting, you can just stop going to that social setting, if it bothers you that much. That’s a bigger ask for when it’s not a social setting, but instead, your means of income. If someone is socially awkward at work, you just tell them, you are here to work, not to socialize. If they insist on socializing anyway, and upset people then, then that is actionable. If someone is socially awkward at a bar, then they are there to socialize, not to work, as are the other people patronizing the bar.

[msmith537]

@filmore

I’ve never been part of a harassment issue so I don’t know all the nitty-gritty details, but I’m pretty certain that the accused would be called into the manager’s office even in this case. Regardless of what the accuser says, HR must address it. At a minimum, the accused will be called into the manager’s office and be told to refrain from interacting with the accuser unless necessary. Even if HR and the managers all think the accused claim has no validity, some action plan will be put in place. HR is not going to blow off any accusation against you no matter how minor. .

This is based on what (i.e. are you an HR or legal professional)?
From my own observations and experience, you generally don’t need to be concerned that making casual conversation with a female coworker will land you in hot water with HR. Even dating coworkers is usually not a big deal.

IMHO, behavior that could be considered “harassing” (or at least very shady) is very clear and obvious. Some specific examples:
-A much older and more senior executive being very flirtatious with a younger, junior worker
-Constant casual touching (hugs, hand on shoulder, etc)
-Making sexual innuendo
-Repeated overtures meant to seem innocent, but are transparently shady (let me walk you home, do you need a lift somewhere). Pretty much anything besides “feel free to expense an Uber”.
-Getting too drunk and “lingering” on a female coworker.
IMO, men who don’t “get it” actually know exactly what they are doing but don’t grasp that it’s “harassment” because they have a sense of entitlement that young women are only there for them to it on.

[filmore]

@msmith537

This is based on what (i.e. are you an HR or legal professional)?.

Just my opinion as a normal worker in a big corporation. Do you know anything specific? I can’t imagine that HR would blow off a complaint in this era no matter how trivial it was. As long as someone tells corporate “This person is bothering me”, that’s all it takes. HR has to start an action plan. Maybe that ends up with you explaining to your manager how you were just making casual conversation and that’s where it ends, but something will come of the complaint.

No corporation wants to take the risk of an accuser making a blog post saying they made a complaint and Big Corp, Inc. did nothing. Even if there was no satisfactory resolution, the corporation will need to show that they investigated the situation and attempted to address it with the accused.

I agree with your examples of what constitutes harassment, but it can often be more subtle than this:

-Repeated overtures meant to seem innocent, but are transparently shady (let me walk you home, do you need a lift somewhere). Pretty much anything besides “feel free to expense an Uber”.

Just hanging around a coworkers desk for excessive amounts of time or trying to instigate casual conversation repeatedly can be considered harassment. It doesn’t have to have anything to do with asking the person on a date or for sexual favors. Imagine the situation of an older employee hanging around an attractive college intern making casual conversation. The older employee may be doing it just for the ego stroking of talking to an attractive young person. There may be nothing sexual about the conversation, but the intern may feel creeped out.

[epbrown01]

@msmith537

This is based on what (i.e. are you an HR or legal professional)?

@filmore

Just my opinion as a normal worker in a big corporation. Do you know anything specific? I can’t imagine that HR would blow off a complaint in this era no matter how trivial it was.

It’s weird. That jibes with my experience working for large companies for about 25 years. In our litigious society, especially in the current environment, HR treats every complaint like they caught you in the storage room with your first raised and a woman lying at your feet with a torn blouse and black eye.

But that said, there’ve been high profile cases where blatant harassment occurred and HR ignored repeated complaints (Andy Signore and Screen Junkies comes to mind, O’Reilly at Fox News, etc).

@msmith537

IMO, men who don’t “get it” actually know exactly what they are doing but don’t grasp that it’s “harassment” because they have a sense of entitlement that young women are only there for them to it on.

In my experience, talking with guys my age (50+) and older IRL and online, they truly don’t get it. In much the way many insist there’s no such thing as white privilege or that they aren’t racist, a lot of men refuse to believe these behaviors are wrong or bad and see the rules/definitions changing as unfair to them.

[Inbred_Mm_domesticus]

@Irishman

My sexual harassment training does not indicate a need for a power imbalance for there to be harassment. Harassment is any unwanted attention, even just once (no pattern required). It can happen between anyone.

Irishman, I completely agree with this and my training does as well. The post you are replying to was a lazy reply to iiandyiii. Each separated sentence was replying to a different part of his post. I should have quoted. That is the socially acceptable thing to do on these boards, and by not doing so, I’ve caused you to have a misconception of my posts.

I think I get what you are saying about misogyny and a disgusted, possibly depressed response by women not being mutually exclusive, but that is only on a superficial, definitional level. I can’t say I know enough about the psychology of misogynists to be able to understand what they systematically regard as a positive response to their behavior.

[divemaster]

@filmore

I’ve never been part of a harassment issue so I don’t know all the nitty-gritty details, but I’m pretty certain that the accused would be called into the manager’s office even in this case. Regardless of what the accuser says, HR must address it. At a minimum, the accused will be called into the manager’s office and be told to refrain from interacting with the accuser unless necessary. Even if HR and the managers all think the accused claim has no validity, some action plan will be put in place. HR is not going to blow off any accusation against you no matter how minor.

For good and bad, that’s part of #MeToo. Whereas in the past HR would make a judgement call, now they don’t.

The new environment doesn’t mean that every accused person is suddenly fired. The company will still use judgement when deciding what to do. But now any accusation will certainly reflect on you even if it’s trivial.

@filmore

As long as someone tells corporate “This person is bothering me”, that’s all it takes. HR has to start an action plan. … Even if there was no satisfactory resolution, the corporation will need to show that they investigated the situation and attempted to address it with the accused.

@epbrown01

It’s weird. That jibes with my experience working for large companies for about 25 years. In our litigious society, especially in the current environment, HR treats every complaint like they caught you in the storage room with your first raised and a woman lying at your feet with a torn blouse and black eye.

I have personally experienced this type of HR reaction. I don’t work for Big Corp, but for a government agency. I’m a fairly high-ranking supervisor. I had a complaint lodged against me by a person I had never met, whom I had never spoken to on the phone, never exchanged an e-mail; or, to my knowledge, even passed in the hallway.

I had to answer a lot of deposition-like questions, both in writing and in person with HR (with a transcriber present). It was several months before I was told HR had closed my file. Nothing ever came of it on my end, but I assume somewhere, in my file, I am an “accused harasser.” (I later learned that this person basically made a career out of complaining to HR, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still rankle me).

And, in today’s world, I don’t know that HR could have acted any differently. I mean, “believe the woman” is okay, as long as you allow for the possibility to change your mind once the fellow has his say. Which applies to my case, thank goodness.

I’m not commenting on the Tyson case (I had no idea who he even was before this), but on the general vibe I get in these types of discussions that all you have to do to be immune to accusation is “just not rape someone.”

[Inigo_Montoya]

Is this only about a power gradient? Because if you take that element out of the equation it really just sounds like an awkward encounter that was, in the main, handled appropriately. We have a guy who maybe had some interest or even believed he sensed a mutual interest, SOMEBODY’S gotta make the first move. So he lays out, “There’s a gathering over there, or there’s wine and cheese at my place.” It’s a decent invite with a no harm/no foul exit for her built right in. She chooses the private event replete with intoxicants and a genuinely sensuous experience. He didn’t “inveigle her up to his flat to view his collection of stamps”, or even to discuss work. He offered an intimate alternative to a social gathering, and she took him up on it. Things start not working out, and she is allowed to leave without a fuss. The handshake thing was a bit creepy/awkward, but he’d have been truly damned if he’d instead contrived something more smooth or outright violent. It strikes me as his abbreviated “It’s cold outside” appeal.

And if it’s about the power gradient, well, that’s why you only hang out with your equals. If you get too personal and familiar with your underlings you can forget yourself and perceive only the humanity of a situation and not the social overlays which you’ve both cast off a long time ago. The hardest I can view this is dude made an observation, formed a hypothesis, made a prediction based on that hypothesis, tested the prediction, and accepted the conclusion his hypothesis was not viable. Nobody took any drugs they hadn’t intended, nobody got taken against their will. Except for the rapey handshake. That still just sounds desperate & weird.

[epbrown01]

@divemaster

Nothing ever came of it on my end, but I assume somewhere, in my file, I am an “accused harasser.” (I later learned that this person basically made a career out of complaining to HR, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still rankle me).

The parenthetical is my pet peeve. In my experience, HR tends to ignore blatantly obvious trends. We had an employee in a nearby dept who complained about several coworkers, even people in other departments, making the most spurious claims, getting them hassled by HR - all the while ignoring the fact that all these “bad eggs” were people of color.

We had four different people fired for sexual harassment - the common denominator? They’d all dated the same coworker, who dumped them, then claimed any sort of contact was creating a hostile environment. On the one hand, yeah, why were these morons still going out with her? But c’mon, HR - at what point do they explain to her that dating a coworker could lead to working with your ex?

[commasense]

@Inigo_Montoya

Is this only about a power gradient? Because if you take that element out of the equation it really just sounds like an awkward encounter that was, in the main, handled appropriately. We have a guy who maybe had some interest or even believed he sensed a mutual interest, SOMEBODY’S gotta make the first move. So he lays out, “There’s a gathering over there, or there’s wine and cheese at my place.” It’s a decent invite with a no harm/no foul exit for her built right in. She chooses the private event replete with intoxicants and a genuinely sensuous experience. He didn’t “inveigle her up to his flat to view his collection of stamps”, or even to discuss work. He offered an intimate alternative to a social gathering, and she took him up on it. Things start not working out, and she is allowed to leave without a fuss. The handshake thing was a bit creepy/awkward, but he’d have been truly damned if he’d instead contrived something more smooth or outright violent. It strikes me as his abbreviated “It’s cold outside” appeal.

And if it’s about the power gradient, well, that’s why you only hang out with your equals. If you get too personal and familiar with your underlings you can forget yourself and perceive only the humanity of a situation and not the social overlays which you’ve both cast off a long time ago. The hardest I can view this is dude made an observation, formed a hypothesis, made a prediction based on that hypothesis, tested the prediction, and accepted the conclusion his hypothesis was not viable. Nobody took any drugs they hadn’t intended, nobody got taken against their will. Except for the rapey handshake. That still just sounds desperate & weird.

Well of course it’s about the power differential: he’s the big famous (and apparently married) scientist/star, and she’s a young woman hoping to advance her career. If this had happened a few years ago, I might have given him more of a break, but to do something like this a year or two after #MeToo is just really stupid. He was one of my favorite public figures, and I’m extremely disappointed in him.

But mainly I wanted to say I appreciated your shout out to Flanders and Swann. It’s a terrible shame that that song, which is one of the cleverest, lyrically and musically, ever written, should be about a subject we can no longer treat so lightly.

[Inigo_Montoya]

@commasense

But mainly I wanted to say I appreciated your shout out to Flanders and Swann. It’s a terrible shame that that song, which is one of the cleverest, lyrically and musically, ever written, should be about a subject we can no longer treat so lightly.

Always makes me smile. And I refuse to feel creepy about that.

[Bijou_Drains]

his shows are going back on the air after they looked into the charges.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Will Return to TV After Sexual Misconduct Investigation