None of this stuff is easy, but this seems to be the only fair way to do things while the investigation is ongoing. But you state as fact that he made some inappropriate comments, so presumably you have the proof and can back it up. Otherwise, my second option, of ensuring you are never alone together, would mean that either he wouldn’t do it again or you’d have corroboration if he did.
But, unfortunately, bad shit happens to people and it can fuck up their careers. Sometimes it’s someone’s fault, sometimes it isn’t. I don’t have an answer to that, but I still don’t believe that it’s right to punish people on the basis of uncorroborated accusations.
I know what I would say. You talk to the employees and make the hard decision about whom you believe more.
But I have a feeling that the person you’re asking might have a different idea.
Because apparently being accused of sexual misconduct is an injustice that should be protected from by all means necessary.
However, being the victim of sexual misconduct is just a fact if life. And it’s more important to keep your mouth shut rather than harm anyone’s reputation.
I’ll have to say, this attitude is not new. After all, for much of recent human history—and currently still in some countries around the world—victims of rape are far more harshly punished if they speak up than actual rapists are. I just was under the impression that we were starting to leave this behind us.
This ‘‘victims of crime should keep their mouth shut’’ thing isn’t even an ethical argument anymore, it’s become an issue of reason, and it been demonstrated with multiple proposed scenarios to be logically inconsistent. It is blown to smithereens by any attempt to apply it to the real world. ‘‘Oh, um, gee, these are hard cases,’’ ‘‘Oh, well, I don’t have all the answers…’’ Welcome to the real world, where context is everything and hard decisions must be made and someone always gets the short end of the stick. You want to always give the victim the short end of the stick, regardless of the circumstances. We’re just supposed to suck it up and deal because being raped is a fact of life, but being falsely accused of a crime is a special exception to how terrible the world is allowed to be. What irrational bullshit.
Nobody in the world would get the shit beat out of them by someone they know and not tell everybody ''Can you believe what that asshole did to me?" just because there were no witnesses. And if it was your wife getting raped, you’d be fantasizing about taking a length of rebar to that fucker’s head, not asking her to provide corroborating evidence lest she ruin her rapist’s reputation. Give me a break.
Why does a woman have proof of inappropriate comments? People engaging in serious harassment aren’t stupid enough to say the bad stuff with an audience. No, they wait until they need to come over to talk to you about something, then stick in in while no one else is paying attention. Or they are just fine for months, then you are out of town at a conference together and its like you don’t even know the asshole.
What you are likely to get from witnesses is “yeah, Joe can be kind of a jerk, but I’ve never seen him step over the line.”
If a woman has been very on the ball, she’s documented what was said, when and where - but its going to be a journal of her experiences - easily written off as faked if people choose not to believe her.
An accusation is evidence. That’s how it works in the law. Why is an accusation of sexual misconduct suddenly so special that we should be obligated to ignore it? And why in the case of accusations of sexual misconduct do we all have to suddenly treat our normal lives like we are in a court of law?
This idea of “corroboration” is laughable for a type of misconduct that often takes place in private. By the way, Shariah law requires that an accusation of rape by a woman must be supported by the testimony of four male eyewitnesses. Otherwise she might just be prosecuted for adultery. Sound familiar?
Don’t forget the part where the fact that you chose to continue working there is evidence that nothing all that bad really happened and is proof that you are a lying whore. If you really felt so threatened by that person you would have found another job. No rational person would put her career ahead of her perceived safety.
That’s really what this all boils down to, isn’t it? Rape is special because women are lying whores.
And because a bad thing that might just possibly happen to me even if I am a good person is a Travesty but a bad thing that almost certainly won’t happen to me is something that people just have to live with.
I dunno, this sounds to me like more of the same “keep your mouth shut when bad things happen to you, because no one wants to hear it and they’ll just think bad of you for being the victim.”
Fucking Tone Policing to use a modern term. “you sound like a whiner” “victims are losers” “you’re making me uncomfortable”.
Kinda like when my previous boss would be a complete ass, and make very irresponsible or unacceptable statements to me, most of them couched in stories or oblique references so he could claim he never said what I heard and he certainly meant. Before he left, he was a fucking HERO and no one would speak ill of him, and they certainly didn’t want to hear my experiences with him. Months after he left, the floodgates opened and I heard how much of an asshole he was and how he was regularly openly admonished in management meetings for his asshattery.
But yeah, same basic thing. Shut up and take it. Stop whining. Life sucks, it’s your turn, just be a man and put up with it.
Lots of bad shit happens in this world because we try so hard to tell people NOT to speak up about it. How long was Cosby abusing people? Yeah, because women were told to shut up, they wouldn’t be believed, they would be attacked for it. How long did Sandusky get away with what he did? How long did Jimmy Saville get away with it? Well, just like my boss, they had people supporting them on high and allowing them to get away with it, and they were surrounded and protected by people telling the victims to shut up.
An accusation is evidence, so is a denial by the accused - it’s evidence he hasn’t done what he’s accused of. If we don’t give them equal weight, what’s to stop me getting anyone I don’t like, or who is standing in the way of my promotion, or whatever, sacked by simply accusing them of saying something inappropriate?
An accusation is the beginning of a process, not the end of it. All an accusation should do is start an investigation, whether that’s in a criminal or civil court or in your day to day life. Are you seriously telling me you’d believe anything anyone said without question, to the point of cutting friends or family members out of your life, sacking your employees, denying students an education, without any sort of check to see if it’s even remotely plausible?
As for the Sharia law bollocks, in every other legal system you need actual proof to convict someone of rape, not just an accusation. And that’s the way it should be, and hopefully the way it will stay.
Jesus fucking Christ. I wanted to leave my participation in this thread at the point where I said “/thread”. But you are offering a perfect illustration of how the internet mob can tar and feather and defame someone whether they stand up for themselves or not, but especially if they don’t.
So no, it has nothing to do with any of the bullshit you are spewing. My answer would be the same if two straight white guys came back from sharing a hotel room on a business trip and one of them said the other had stolen money out of his wallet while he was in the shower. One of them is guilty of something bad; but absent any corroboration, there is no way of knowing whether it is lying and trying to frame someone, or stealing money. And it would be wrong to treat either of them as less than completely aboveboard as long as that is the case.
No, the point is that rape isn’t special, at least from a legal perspective, and shouldn’t be treated differently to other crimes. The same levels of proof should be required for a rape accusation as for one of theft, or physical assault, or any other crime. That goes for sacking someone due to it as well.
People - men as well as women - lie all the fucking time, about minor things and incredibly serious things, for any reason or for none at all. We know for a fact that some people - again, men and women - have lied about being raped. That’s why any accusation needs to be investigated, and some evidence beyond just the accusation found, before any action is taken against the suspect.
Some of us are. Change is happening. Times like this it means everything in the world to have allies. So, thanks.
[QUOTE=Chimera]
Well, just like my boss, they had people supporting them on high and allowing them to get away with it, and they were surrounded and protected by people telling the victims to shut up.
[/QUOTE]
People don’t like to deal with victimization because it puts the lie to their belief that it’s possible to be in a situation where you’re totally helpless to prevent yourself from harm. If I’m being really cynical, the true motive is probably because it messes with their social obligations. People don’t like conflict, and victimization immediately introduces a conflict into any social setting. When the victim disturbs the peace, they are in essence ruining all of the old, comfortable dynamics. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this.
[QUOTE=Slacker]
Jesus fucking Christ. I wanted to leave my participation in this thread at the point where I said “/thread”. But you are offering a perfect illustration of how the internet mob can tar and feather and defame someone whether they stand up for themselves or not, but especially if they don’t.
[/QUOTE]
There’s no internet mob here, there are three or four people disagreeing with you, and you getting really angry and defensive about it. ‘‘Women are lying whores’’ is a belief that impacts victims of rape and sexual abuse on a regular basis, so it is relevant to the conversation. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.
Since you’ve come back into the thread, would you care to address the question I’ve now asked you twice?
[QUOTE=Steophan]
People - men as well as women - lie all the fucking time, about minor things and incredibly serious things, for any reason or for none at all. We know for a fact that some people - again, men and women - have lied about being raped. That’s why any accusation needs to be investigated, and some evidence beyond just the accusation found, before any action is taken against the suspect.
[/QUOTE]
Again, we are talking about two completely different things. That is, the right of a victim of a crime to talk about it vs. the right of a person to make up their own damned mind about what happened. I don’t see any conflict there, but apparently you do.
Something similar to that happened to me, as it happens, except it was a former housemate who still had a key rather than in a hotel. Came into my room and stole some money, and I’m absolutely certain it was him. Of course I can’t prove it, the police investigated and saw there was no actual evidence, and told me that unless they caught him that day with money in his pocket he couldn’t explain there was nothing that could be done. I agreed with them, of course.
Now, people that know both of us will know he’s a habitual criminal and I’m not, and be able to decide who to believe. Certainly my landlord believed me, and accepted why I didn’t have the rent that month (and we arranged it so I wouldn’t be paying cash from then onwards), but that’s not the point.
The police also told me that one reason they don’t automatically believe every accusation like that is because plenty of people will spend their rent money then lie that it was stolen, and there’s no reason that anyone who doesn’t know me shouldn’t think that’s a possibility.
Legal action, sure. Some investigation, sure. But if I have a trusted employee who has worked for me for years without a complaint and whose judgment and honestly have been demonstrated on many occasions come to me with a perfectly plausible complaint about a new guy? I’m going to believe her, and fire him.
Slacker is arguing that I can’t take any action at all unless and until there is enough evidence to convict in a criminal court, and in fact my trusted employee is a bad person for telling anyone about the assault if she can’t prove it.
Slacker, you still haven’t answered the question–if my co-worker grabs my boobs, am I morally obligated to go to the cops but also morally obligated NOT to tell my employer?
But **SlackerInc **is arguing you shouldn’t have told anybody who knew him and you shouldn’t have told your landlord. You should only have told the police. You have no right to tell anybody anything that might damage his reputation without evidence that will prove him guilty in a court of law.
You have repeatedly denied that people should make up their own minds about what happened, rather saying that people should just believe you and not him.
Slacker says** you’re not allowed to voice what happened to the people who know both of you.** That even mentioning that it happened will unfairly prejudice them against him and he can’t defend himself.
Or at least, that’s what he’d say if he raped you. I don’t know if you are allowed to mention that someone is a thief.
[QUOTE=Spiece Weasel]
You people, on the outside, having to make decisions about who to believe, that’s your own problem. Feel free to consider things like a) overall credibility of person making the claim, or b) corroborating evidence. I don’t care. If you were my mother and you knew, and you looked the other way, and then you punished me for it, you can go straight to hell. If you were my grandmother and you didn’t take me at my word, you can go straight to hell. My abuser’s business associate? Stranger off the street? Person who doesn’t know either of us? I don’t give a fuck, though I’m definitely not inviting anyone over to Sunday dinner who can’t take me at my word. I have already accepted that injustice is a permanent part of this experience.
[/QUOTE]
Then you are a terrible employer, and certainly where I live that would be illegal. In most civilised places, except some American states, you can’t fire someone without a reason like that.