Is This Smart Risk Management, Discriminatory, Or Both?
Some executives, politicians, and other high-profile figures are vulnerable to accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, or consensual but inappropriate sexual relations. A single accusation can be all it takes to destroy a career or irreparably harm a reputation.
Many of those charges are true, of course, but at least some are not. As a result, some bosses—mostly men—have implemented policies that forbid female staffers from being alone with them.
Some Christian conservatives, for example—including Billy Graham, Kirk Cameron, and Rick Warren—try to avoid ever being seen alone with another woman. Warren once said that he has to “set up the parameters that keep you from even being tempted in those areas, which means for instance, I’m never alone, ever, ever, alone with a woman, or even by myself when I’m traveling.”
As a media trainer who helps clients manage risk, I understand their sentiment and why they’d want to take measures to avoid even a whiff of impropriety. But in practice, those sentiments come at a cost—mostly to women—who suffer from a lack of one-on-one access with their bosses.
Pastor Rick Warren
According to The National Journal, several male members of Congress have implemented similar rules:
“It’s no secret that Congress is dominated by men, but as women work to make inroads in the congressional boys club, some female staffers face a huge impediment to moving up: They’re not allowed to spend one-on-one time with their male bosses.
In an anonymous survey of female staffers conducted by National Journal in order to gather information on the difficulties they face in a male-dominated industry, several female aides reported that they have been barred from staffing their male bosses at evening events, driving alone with their congressman or senator, or even sitting down one-on-one in his office for fear that others would get the wrong impression.”
Such practices may not only be hurting women’s careers, but may also be illegal:
“Debra S. Katz, an employment discrimination attorney in Washington for thirty years, said she’d never heard of a such a policy being employed in the private sector, but added that ‘the practices are clearly discriminatory in my view.’”
From a risk management perspective, it makes sense to minimize potential risks. But having separate policies that hurt women in the workplace is clearly wrong.
Such policies are also insufficient as inoculators. As the high-profile Mark Foley scandal showed, harassment can also be directed toward same-sex colleagues. Therefore, it seems that in order to be a truly effective risk management strategy, these politicians should never be alone with any one person, regardless of gender, and should only meet with employees or travel in groups.
And that, of course, is almost certainly impractical.
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Photo via Steve Jurvetson, Wikimedia Commons
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The mechanisms feminists have advocated for to bridge the gender gap is contemptuous. They have forcefully bullying organisations into bridging the gender gap by meeting quota, instead of attempting to develop a professional trusting relationships through diplomacy.
The mechanisms they have employed are illegitimate.Therefore it will take a long time for females to prove that they can develop professional trusting relationships through diplomacy, instead of employing bullying tactics to force themselves into the workplace.
Once again, great post Brad.
Most can see through the ‘blame-the-victim–if–women–would–just–go-away’ nonsense. As you know, it’s a news story because while it happens in a few places, it’s highly unusual. Professionals of either sex in the US today (even in Congress) don’t bring “male minders” to meetings or keep the door ajar lest someone get the wrong idea. We’re not in the 18th century and this is after all, the US not Saudi Arabia.
I find the whole thing very frustrating… ““set up the parameters that keep you from even being tempted in those areas, which means for instance, I’m never alone, ever, ever, alone with a woman, or even by myself when I’m traveling.”
It’s insulting to both the men and women in these scenarios – it suggests that simply by placing two people of opposite gender alone together that some kind of animal instinct will take over and wipe out all rational thinking, morals, etc.
If I’m running for office I will probably avoid any one-on-one business lunches/dinners (opposite sex or same sex), etc, simply because it is so easy to take that out of context with one photo. But to say that you can never be in a room alone with a person of the opposite sex is just down right silly. If a man had that policy I’d seriously be questioning his ability to hear/understand what a woman is saying rather than him simply seeing her as a sex object.
Kathryn and Aileen it is not a simple problem to solve.
All humans have inbuilt cognitive biases. We can attempt to overcome them with effortful thought, sometimes in our efforts we overcompensate by treating a young attractive female worse than a man, or under compensate by treating a young attractive female with favoritism and this can cause offence. It is a fine line to walk.
It requires system 2 effortful thinking and humans expend far more energy attempting to overcome these deeply ingrained biases, in other words its physically exhausting.
These men are attempting to limit their exposure to situations were instead of focusing on the project at hand, they must focus their attention on trying to walk the fine line and accommodate the female in the room, it adds another dimension.
It isn’t about discrimination. It’s about limiting distractions.
I think a prime mistake here is to set or declare a “policy” rather than exercising good sense. As you point out, Kathryn, any one-on-one setting can be taken out of context and should probably be avoided (regardless of gender) to prevent the appearance of impropriety. It is far too easy for predisposed minds to project impropriety when that may not be the case–third parties creating a situation that doesn’t exist. Sad.
Great post, Brad, and one that resonated with me due to similar career experiences.
On the practical side: If someone is in danger if ever is seeing speaking at a woman in a work environment, it must be a reason for that.
A) He has a previous “”history” on the issue, or B) he is VERY important.
In the first case, yes, maybe he needs a chaperone to be at his side all the time, and in case B, he should have a trusted aide to filter everyone who wants to talk to him alone.
On the other side, Justin has a point; it can be exhausting to be constantly auto examining your conduct on trivial matters to just see if you are being partial (on either side) to attractive people of the opposite sex (or your own, depending of your taste). Besides, it has been scientifically proved that we all are positevely biased to attractive persons, and even the cuban government has doing some research into it.