[tptacek]

Your problem meeting women = YOUR PROBLEM.

Keep it out of the office.

When your unwanted advances, innocuous though they seem to you --- the "libertine libertarian" who "prefers to keep his/her workplace relationships intimate" --- result in a complaint from a coworker drafted on a law firm's paperwork, your company will fold like an unsuited 7-2 and pay up, probably to the tune of a year's headcount, and you'll have inflicted that on them because you think your personal life trumps the business.

I've watched this happen multiple times. There's no real fight. Nobody has their day in court. Your company counsel says "we'd be fucking idiots to spend the money taking this to court" and you say "but there's absolutely no merit to the argument" and he says "that doesn't matter" and poof! out goes a person's salary for a year.

You can be a hard-ass about this and call this list "horseshit", but the only reason you haven't been handed your ass on this issue in real life is that most employees aren't savvy enough to have their complaints drafted for $100 by a lawyer. Let me help them out: HAVE YOUR HR COMPLAINT DELIVERED ON A LAW FIRM'S LETTERHEAD SO YOU CAN COLLECT A YEAR OR TWO'S SALARY. There. I feel better. It's fun to rant!

[NLips]

If the other employee isn't your manager or managee, are you really suggesting that "Do you want to go the the pictures tonight?" is in any way related to sexual inequality?

[tptacek]

Yes: women feel like a vulnerable minority, and feel bad (or at least uncomfortable) when they turn men down for dates.

[chc]

True story: A couple of weeks after I proposed, my fiance told me that the best thing about being engaged was that she could politely ward off workplace flirtation just by holding up her hand and saying something to the effect of, "Sorry, wearing a ring." Before that it was apparently quite painful.

[NLips]

Where is the inequality?

Vulnerability? The vulnerability has been caused by something else, which is the inappropriate behaviour. Minority? Irrelevant - (at least) one sex will always be in the minority if there are an odd number of employees. Feeling bad? Unrelated to sex.

Regardless, the behaviour mentioned is neither severe nor pervasive (if standalone) and not intrinsically sexual.

EDIT: From some above comments, you sound like you might be suggesting there is an Atlantic culture device. I'm UK-based, so perhaps this partially explains to you a difference in opinion.

[tptacek]

Who are you arguing with? Me, or HR and the company counsel?

The UK has extremely similar workplace gender equality issues to the US according to the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index; we're basically neck and neck.

[NLips]

I was addressing your experiences with HR and legal departments.

The Gender Gap Index does not measure harassment - "The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria" (from the 2011 report) - so I do not see the relevance to a discussion on sexual harassment.

[mindcrime]

I've watched this happen multiple times.

I've witnessed multiple auto accidents as well, and I still drive to work.

There. I feel better. It's fun to rant!

Cool, glad to hear it!

[tptacek]

I've witnessed a bunch of auto accidents too, and been in one. I don't drive like I did when I was 19 anymore.

[rdl]

Does that thinking mostly come from people in college (where students dating other students exclusively is basically the default) and trying to take it into the workplace?

[tptacek]

I think it's natural and commonsensical to think that asking people out on dates in the environment where you spend most of your day is a reasonable, normal thing to do. So it comes from not understanding (or not caring) that most women feel like a vulnerable minority in the workplace.

[temphn]

Do you think this state of affairs is a desirable one? If you accuse someone of being a communist or a socialist, you are laughed out of the room; if you accuse someone of being a sexist or racist, the onus is on them to disprove it (and this is frankly impossible).

The insane contortions of the American legal system are good reason to base a company outside of the US.

[tptacek]

I'd love to watch more companies get slaughtered by effectively delivered gender discrimination complaints. Post them all to HN and spark 482-comment threads about the injustice of it all! I will laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

I've seen the system be abused by people with totally bogus complaints. Somehow, I just can't work up any outrage about it. Something about how "men like women and women like men and that's just the way it is" just does something to my internal moral compass.

Planning on starting a company in Europe or Asia so you can ask your coworkers out on dates without worrying about discrimination complaints? Good luck with that. ;)

[mindcrime]

Something about how "men like women and women like men and that's just the way it is" just does something to my internal moral compass.

So you don't think that men like women and women like men?

[temphn]

No, planning on starting a company in Asia so that you don't have to accept spurious discrimination complaints that cost you 1-2 years of headcount as a fact of nature.

   Something about how "men like women and women like men 
   and that's just the way it is" just does something to my 
   internal moral compass. 

We shouldn't care if the Christian Coalition's "moral compass" is disturbed by the idea of men with men. And shouldn't care whether your "moral compass" is disturbed by the thought of men with women.

[tptacek]

I don't know who you're arguing with, but it isn't me.