It didn't say they were uncomfortable hiring or promoting women, it said mentoring which implies a more personal relationship. Specific example from the article, which doesn't seem like bullshit:
nine times more likely to be hesitant to travel with a junior woman for work than a junior man, and six times more likely to be hesitant to have a work dinner with a junior woman than a junior man.
This is, unfortunately, a rational response to the current climate.
Why is it a rational response? I've travelled with female co-workers before, it's not as if the company made us share a bed. We were just two people travelling. I don't really understand how the "current climate" would make me rethink that.
Can you prove you didn’t proposition her during the trip? Remember, she doesn’t have to prove anything to be taken seriously. You, however, have to prove a negative and that’s very hard to do.
If you are gay, and your gay male coworker accuses you of something it looks worse than if you are a woman, and a gay male accuses you. So, yes, of course it is different. Look at this way, a compatible sexual couple is at higher risk of an accusation than non compatible sexual couple.
But a trustworthy employee won't do any of those things, no matter the gender. If you have an untrustworthy employee you have a whole other problem. They could accuse you of making a pass at them, or of stealing from them, bullying them... the list is endless really. I don't get the preoccupation with sexuality in that context.
Because there is a much greater surface area for misunderstanding when you are travelling with someone. E.g, I ask you to drop off my laptop at my office (no misunderstanding), I ask you to drop off my laptop at my hotel room (risk of misunderstanding).
Yup, it's still rational in that respect too; this sucks and the way to fix it seems to be at the organizational level. Make it not one on one meetings, and make it "public" record (transparent), and make the support systems for reporting abuse in either direction act on that public record.
> This is, unfortunately, a rational response to the current climate.
Yes! It is rational to have a fear response to the prospect of being held accountable. Because we have not had a culture of accountability, many men are not confident in their ability NOT to behave in a harmful manner, even if they do not intend to harm. That feeling of discomfort is from finally having to think about these things. I hope more men embrace that discomfort instead of resent it.
Many men aren’t confident that they would be able to prove that something didn’t occur. Many men aren’t confident that they would get a fair process. We saw what happened to Kavanaugh. Flimsy allegations from decades ago when the players were in high school, with no corroboration, even from a person who was the best friend of the accuser and present at the scene of the alleged event. Yet that was almost enough to destroy a judicial career.
Yep, I don't see why is this a problem, just act professionally, don't be a creep. I have mentored many programmers, both male and female and i have zero problems with either. There are some subtleties in dealing with the fairer sex such as different kind of encouragement, read between the line when they say they are tired, making sure that their understanding is correct etc... but generally it's the same for both sexes: respect them and their personal space.
There are some subtleties in dealing with the fairer sex such as different kind of encouragement, read between the line when they say they are tired, making sure that their understanding is correct etc...
That kind of generalization is exactly what can torpedo your career. Try putting those thoughts about the fairer sex in a memo or blog post and see what response you get.
Just an example,if a male coworker said he is tired and he needs to take a leave, I can ask what's wrong and arrange for longer leave if needed. For the other sex, better ask no questions.
But then I live in Asia, things might be different than in America/Europe.
Given that our shared culture seems quite committed to labeling all men as "unfair", I'd think that the converse description "the fairer sex" is only... well, fair, y'know.
Maybe, but English is not my native language so it doesn't matter here.
Fun fact: The word for 'woman' in my country is derived from '婦' - 女 (“woman”) + 帚 (“broom”), so even calling them that way is kinda male chauvinist already.
I think the point is that you may indeed have a problem, despite your best intentions. Nobody knows what will offend or make another person uncomfortable these days. Sure, there are standard things that everyone agrees is wrong. But entirely innocent conduct can be misinterpreted, people project their own biases and assumptions into those interpretations, etc. In the MeToo era, that can be enough to destroy a career.
Seriously, don't be a dick is pretty easy to understand. I've met so many brilliant female engineers that I can't imagine what toxic bullshit causes people to think this way.
The problem is the extreme power imbalance, where any woman you interact with can snap her fingers and destroy your life/career.
Let me put it this way: It's incredibly rare that a bear attacks a human. But pretty much everyone will still avoid a bear if they can. This has nothing to do with "don't piss off the bear and you'll be fine" and everything to do with "if that bear does decide to attack you, you are completely defenseless".
> The problem is the extreme power imbalance, where any woman you interact with can snap her fingers and destroy your life/career.
Sorry, can you actually name a human being who had his "life/career" destroyed by a metaphorical snap of the finger? I mean, good grief, you have to dig like crazy to even find evidence of a false accusation.
I mean, sure, it happens, in the same sense that sure, you might get hit by a truck. Where does this outrageous paranoia come from? The horrifying thing is that you aren't alone -- half this topic is men posting about how terrible shrews are lurking in the bushes about to steal their careers. And... there are no shrews to be seen.
A charitable read of GP means it might not necessarily be an intentional false accusation.
A simple misunderstanding of a truly collegial touch, an off the cuff remark, a glance, a gesture - all completely normal otherwise and often spontaneous - and you can find yourself on the defensive.
And given social media and the virality of outrage (see Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, or go Google Johnny Depp and Amber Heard for an example of how he said she said testimony is reported as "Big if true") it's clear that the paranoia stems from the disproportionate reputational damage in the court of public opinion, not the accusation itself.
Which is accurately reflected in the headline as "discomfort" - having to highly self-regulate your words and actions is, by definition, uncomfortable.
Not that it can't and shouldn't be done. But to follow your analogy of getting hit by a truck then mentoring women is like playing a never-ending round of Frogger.
The logic of your comment makes sense, but what in actual reality would be the difficulty level of this hypothetical game of Frogger? Maybe you have different stats than I do, but it seems like it's one where a single truck crosses the screen every minute or two.
So yeah, the game is endless. You'll never escape the possibility of jumping in front of the truck and getting squashed flat.
As someone who has been written up at a prior job for nebulously "being creepy" it would be nice to be able to see the trucks coming. For most things that are against the rules in the workplace, there are a list of things you shouldn't do, and you can avoid trouble by simply not doing them. In my case, nobody in HR would tell me what not to do, even though I asked repeatedly. It was just "we got complaints that you were making women feel uncomfortable so please stop doing whatever you were doing." When pressed for examples, none were forthcoming. How is that actionable? How am I responsible for what is inside the thoughts of other people I work with?
I'm now very careful with my interactions with women at work. No 1:1 meetings, all conversation must be strictly work related, no walking the same direction, avoid eye contact as much as possible, etc. It's a total minefield and you need to minimize how much you walk through it, especially if you have a great job.
How would you deal with real cases of sexual harassment of women then?
When it comes to that, it seems to be that the statistics show that real sexual harassment happens more often then the scenario you are describing. How would you handle this, so it is reduced or eliminated?
This was the original power imbalance, and it can't be forgotten.
Generally a pendulum swings many time before finding equilibrium, I think we're just in that process right now.
I don't have an answer, because the alternative is shitty men taking advantage of the situation and preying on women, and in turn women avoiding men.
Don't mistake my comment as calling woman liars or defending sexual misconduct on men's part. I'm simply analyzing the rational for men not wanting to be alone with women in the work place.
If you analyze it a bit more, you don't find it irrational though?
What would be the motivation of a woman to falsify accusations of someone mentoring her? How often does this actually happen? Wouldn't accusing someone also jeopardize her career prospect? Etc.
I fully understand the response of men not wanting to be alone with women in the workplace, but I can't agree that it's rationale, reasonable and justified. We're all human, and unreasonable feelings of fears and worries is something we all suffer from. That said, the current feelings seem mostly irrational to me, and appear to be put forward by fear mongers.
I am very much in agreement that all are innocent until proven guilty, that the public opinion shouldn't be used as a court of law, and that due process must be followed and respected. That said, I'm still happily mentoring women, and respectfully engaging them at work, and I won't let myself fall prey to these irrational fears.
So there haven’t been false accusations? Women have never threatened superiors with unmerited claims? Given the potential for a single false claim to destroy a career, the prudent thing is to avoid situations where such claims could even be plausible. There are more than a few stories of people using false sexual harassment claims to win settlements from companies.
If you are a manager or executive, it’s a real risk that you’ll get dragged through the mud by a false accusation. In a world we’re he-said she-said is biased towards “believing women,” it would be prudent to avoid close professional relationships with women. Literally decades later it can come back to bite you. Remember that while the man may “hire and promote fairly,” not all people necessarily act honestly and “fairly” can be very subjective. Just an accusation can torpedo a career.
Acting like “it’s bullshit” is to ignore the litigious society in which we operate.
It is complicated for sure. I think though, overall, there is over exageration of the risk. What's the probability? If it's so low you're more likely to die in the next 30 days then have it happen to you for example, then it's pretty irrational of a response from the managers surveyed.
Now, I don't know the statistics, I think we need some to know if we're being absurd and irrationally afraid or not.
Similarly, we also need to remember the flip side, many of these interactions used too and still are real risks to women as they can get harassed and abused as well. Again, statistics might help.
Either statistic is hard to find though, because ground truth is difficult and most cases don't necessarily get recorded or even mentioned.
Hopefully, we slowly figure all this out and how to balance it all.
I've mentored hundreds of people. As someone who does not think of themselves as a creep, I've had many scenarios where a misinterpretation could make the mentee/employee/student think I was a creep even if I had good intentions. For many of those people, it was the first time they met me so it was probably not clear to them immediately whether I was being creepy or just had an awkward moment. So I think real life is not so straightforward sometimes.
Maybe some specific examples would help. Somebody came in to ask for advice about whether they should be more aggressive in some work situation. I thought about it and remember some advice that a colleague had applied effectively. The advice was widely praised. I said the same advice word-by-word, but after saying it, realized that this advice only works when said by a woman to another woman (the advice itself was something about being empowered as a woman). It sounded a bit awkward / patronizing when coming from me. This person then later complained to another person that I gave a sexist suggestion. Nothing happened of it, but it was really uncomfortable and had they spread it on social media in a bad light, that would have hurt my reputation.
In another case, a subordinate and I were already at slightly adversarial terms (a bit of loss in trust, but nothing too serious at that time). I could tell they were attentively looking to find what I was saying to be erroneous. I had to be particularly careful in those meetings, and had to constantly respond to accusations like "why did you agree with [male]'s idea when I had proposed the same idea a month ago and you rejected it" (when it was obviously a more complex situation and the context for the proposed idea were different). But had I been a bit more casual in our meetings, I am pretty sure she would have found something to complain about loudly.
Basically, "don't be a creep" is not enough and oversimplifies things. You can not be a creep, yet still get into a bad situation if someone else interprets you as a creep, especially in a situation where the relationship is not a strong trusted one. You often have to meet and advise people who don't know your intentions, and an awkward mis-step can be problematic. That's just the unfortunate reality.
nine times more likely to be hesitant to travel with a junior woman for work than a junior man, and six times more likely to be hesitant to have a work dinner with a junior woman than a junior man.
This is, unfortunately, a rational response to the current climate.