Commentary
Nearly Half Of Us Know Someone Who Has Experienced Workplace Sexual Misconduct
- by Richard Whitman , Columnist, December 18, 2017
Kantar’s consumer research brand, Lightspeed, has issued some jaw-dropping findings from a recent survey of more than 1,000 people regarding their views on sexual misconduct in the workplace.
Most men and women (80% and 89%, respectively) view workplace harassment and misconduct as a serious issue. While that’s good to hear, it does make you wonder what’s going on inside the heads of the minority of both genders that don’t believe it’s that big of a deal.
But here’s the jaw-dropping part: Nearly half of those surveyed know someone who has experienced sexual misconduct in the workplace. That includes 50% of the women and 40% of the men polled. And 37% of the women surveyed reported having personally experienced harassment or misconduct on the job.
Those figures are staggering, at least to me. And it really makes me think about how little progress we’ve made as a society when it comes to sexism in the workplace.
Sure, the Harvey Weinstein scandal has led to revelations in dozens of other cases—so far about five or six dozen—of sexual harassment, or worse, conducted by prominent and powerful men over the last several decades.
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But if this survey is accurate, those reported cases are a drop in the bucket amid what amounts to an epidemic of sexual misconduct in America. An epidemic of really bad, unjustifiable behavior on the part of (mostly) men in this country.
Solving this problem is way above my pay grade, although I believe that exposure and humiliation of the wrongdoers might be part of the solution.
A lot of people disagree with me. according to the Lightspeed research, which found that 47% of women and 51% of men believe sexual misconduct is too often the focus of news.
So the alternative is to sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen? Not exactly. Women want men to suffer greater consequences for their ill-deeds than they have up to now, per the Lightspeed survey. Significantly more women (78%) say the consequences for sexual misconduct aren’t severe enough, while 43% of men find them sufficient.
Maybe if more men experienced the ugly reality of sexual harassment first-hand, they’d believe otherwise.
The survey also found that most people believe company policies don’t do enough to protect victims. Just 21% of women and 37% of men say they are sufficient.
Oddly, respondents to the survey also said they were more forgiving of entertainers, athletes and other public figures alleged to have committed offenses than politicians.
Makes you wonder how the hell Trump got elected. I won't ever think of the entertainment miscreants who have been exposed for their misdeeds in the same light going forward.
Take Dustin Hoffman and all the great films he made. Now, think of the lurid pictures his accusers have drawn in press reports. Unless there is some conspiracy among women, he’s a sexual pervert. Simply expressing my opinion here, but I’d be shocked if I were alone.
I’ll have a hard time watching "The Graduate" again. Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson.
Sadly, I hope at some time in the future there is a shift in the conversation to also include women (who as they enter the halls of power and who find themselves in leadership) are also abusive of both men and women. Very likely, in the same proportion of these bad men in a proportion of the much-maligned male in general.
I work in an industry that has long had many women in leadership. In 30 years of employment I've mostly had female bosses and female executives in my leadership chain. In fact I've only ever worked for three men in my whole career.
In that 30 year span I have know a few men who are abusers, sexual predators the likes of Harvey Weinstein. But I have also worked for or around a number of women who were also sexual predators and harassers. Women who abused their power and authority in similar numbers to the abusing men I've come across.
But that’s not the motivation of the media or this era of exposing male predators. Admitting that women too can be sexual predators or ill behaved does not play along with the gamebook of feminism in today's media.
Men are supposed to be honored at advances from women. If manipulated by a female superior men are supposed to find it complimentary and accept it no matter how vile or abhorrent the situation may have been. Female abusers we are told have earned the right to do so, or getting back for years o male abuse, or are just making fair use of thier power. Men have been taught not to complain or report it, as they will be emasculated for it both professionally and privately. And re just as likely to loose jobs and promotions as women who come forward to compain about men.
Equality demands that the standards are equally applied and practiced for both male and female abusers or there will never be any equality at all.