Quote:
Originally Posted by All-In Flynn
You're thinking of a hierarchical structure, I think. There are plenty of situations where co-workers are at an equal standing in whatever hierarchy. There's already a norm (and sometimes laws, IIRC) surrounding sexual activity between teaching staff and students, as there should be. There's no norm surrounding students and students, nor should there be. I'm happy to cosign something along the lines of 'Managers shouldn't date subordinates', but I have way more misgivings about making it universal. Don't **** down, let's say.
No, I'm not thinking of a hierarchical structure specifically. I do agree there are some potential exception cases where you would relax hypothetical norms and I've made them. Part of the perniciousness of even 'soft' sexual harassment or the potential discomfort of romance at work is that it specifically burdens ambitious and aspirational people. Think of all the notable examples of O'Reilly, Halperin, Weinstein, etc. essentially trying to trading career advancement, access and perceived job benefits for sex. That works at all levels and all jobs and yes, is felt PARTLY because of the hierarchical considerations but PARTLY because it targets specifically women who are trying to advance and are ambitious and want long term careers in their industry. I think if you actually look around at the #MeToo stories and make a mental inventory as you read them, you'll notice that the victims ARE usually more high status, successful women. That's partly for lots of reasons, many of which may simply be access / size of audience to tell the story, but also because it's pretty clearly a common experience for specifically ambitious women. Consciously or not, I suspect there are lots of men who are hip to precisely this fact and are plying female ambition and unclear workplace norms in these areas to take advantage of the power dynamic -- that is, women can easily get effectively black balled and develop unfair reputations for being perceived as bitchy and not playing along.
And so, as I said: if the job is sort of transient, or for younger people not really on career tracks, whatever, perhaps we could excuse people who are excessively flirting at work or dating or whatever. I went back to like two people who work in food service; say two baristas at Starbucks who are flirting or whatever. Am I looking for their manager to aggressively monitor and police that behavior? Probably not. Take say instead two sales professionals in an office; should norms exist to prevent them from dating? Should co-workers be vigilant and look down on sex jokes, various dating pre-ritual stuff, etc.? Probably?
If I were a master of the universe, I'd probably just wish we had social norms against all of it and call it a day. That's not to say it's ****ing open season to start harassing young women in this or that menial job or that. And I'll repeat that I'm not naive enough to think workplace romance would ever go away.
But I think it's important to recognize that even in relationships with ~relatively equal power dynamics, a work culture that allows for romantic overtures and dating and flirting or whatever else is one that will necessarily make it hard for ambitious and career oriented people dealing with unwanted advances of any sort, even the 'appropriate' ones. The natural inclination is to brush it off and not make a big deal out of it because hey, we all got **** to do, who wants to sit in HR all day hashing this **** out, plus if you're a women, it can make you feel like you're not cooperative and a team player and aggressively bitchy or whatever.
Simply don't tolerate asking people out on dates, sexual banter, etc. and all the ambiguity goes away about what's tolerated and what's not. It's clear who's in the wrong.
Again, I think work culture conventions that are like "dating? -> OK; flirting? -> OK; harassment -> crosses the line" are precisely the sort of gradient areas where harassment can become surprisingly common. Draw the line further on the curve and get less of the really egregious behavior.
Last edited by DVaut1; 10-27-2017 at 01:45 AM.