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I do speak to some men who say, “God, I feel like I walk in eggshells these days.” I think part of the confusion is the approach that we’ve tended to have to matters around sexual harassment.
I visited so many companies where they’ll say, “We have our policy,” and they’ll hold up a thousand pages of legalese about “this is our sexual harassment policy,” and it outlines every thing you can’t do, and this and that. And it’s just nonsense. It’s nonsense because that’s not the reality of workplace harassment, or it’s not the total reality of workplace harassment.
Traffic Light Behaviors at Work
There is a framework I developed that I call “red light, green light.” So, think of a traffic light. A red light is very clear. Stop. You don’t do this. And so, when we think of harassment, yes, you do not offer someone a job in exchange for sex.
Now that’s pretty rare these days. It still happens, and the stories from Hollywood tell us it still happens. So yes, we need strong rules and regulations and action if we see that so-called quid pro quo harassment happening. That’s the red light. We say, “You cannot do this at work.”
Green light is also pretty easy to deal with. It means you can be friendly to coworkers. Green lights don’t tend to get people into trouble.
Think though in a city where most accidents happen. Most accidents happen at intersections, and they happen when the light is changing. When there’s no clear red light or green light, there’s this ambiguous, orange, yellow, amber, whatever you call it, light in the middle. And I think that’s where a lot of our focus on the prevention of sexual harassment, education and training of managers around sexual harassment, has to happen. It’s in that amber zone.
So, for example, is it okay if I compliment you? Is it okay to say, “Hey, you’re looking good, today”? Is it okay if I say, “That outfit is fantastic”? Is it okay if I flirt with a coworker? Is it okay if I ask someone on a date? Is it okay if I touch someone? And the answer is it depends.
It depends on the impact. It depends on exactly what you say, on who you say it to, on your work relationship, [and] on your personal relationship. That touch, it depends on what you touch. That compliment, on your body language, your expression, what you’re complimenting, on and on. And these are like the amber light. It’s a warning sign.
So we’ve got to focus our training of managers and staff on these areas of confusion, of maybe-maybe, to really develop a language and a sensitivity that harassment is about impact. It’s not about your intention. Your intention might be to be wonderful and welcoming. It’s not about your intention. It’s about impact. And so, we’ve really got to shift our language, our discussion, around workplace harassment. Yes, to include the most obvious, blatant things that include essentially sexual assault. But we have to go beyond that to include all these more subtle, the amber light, the yellow zone, the orange light, whatever we call it, area.
When Yellow Turns Red
Sometimes it’s pretty easy to know if you’ve crossed a line, if that yellow light has become a red light. You give someone a friendly pat, and you feel them freeze. You say something that you think is a compliment, and that person avoids you the next day. You say something to someone, and you check it out with a friend, and they say, “You said that?” There’s a way to get information. There are things that you should just know.
We have a bit of a should-know criteria. We should know that certain things don’t belong at the workplace. You should know that a thing that you might say to a close friend at work, if you’re away from work or in an office with a closed door, you’re not going to say in front of other staff members. You should know that something could make someone feel uncomfortable.
So you look for reactions, but you also should just start listening.
Moving Forward
If you realize that you’ve done something inappropriate at work, said something inappropriate, I think it’s good to take some sort of action to do so with it. Now what you do is really going to depend on what you did, on the circumstances.
But if we’re talking about, first of all, what seems like low level stuff, if it was just that one time that someone said that to a woman or someone cracked that sexist joke that doesn’t belong, you say, “Oh, well, it just happened once.” But it doesn’t just happen once. This becomes a part of a woman’s life experience. And so, it’s partly the repetition that creates the problem.
So I think that if I realize or worry that I’ve done or said something inappropriate, I’m going to ask someone. I might ask a woman friend [or] a woman colleague: “I said this to someone, do you think that was a problem, or could that have been a problem?” And if it is, then apologize to the person. Say, “I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable by patting you on the shoulder or by saying that.” Or “I realized afterwards that joke really did not belong in that meeting.” Just say it.
I’m not saying that you start flagellating yourself, like the parades in the Middle Ages, or wearing a hair shirt or something, but just take responsibility, say, “I’m sorry.” Move on. It can be pretty simple.