One of the things I found most useful and insightful in the OP is a focus on things we can do to change our organizational and personal behaviors to actually keep people safe and treated with dignity, as opposed to just avoiding legal liability, since that has not succeeded in making people safe and treated with dignity.
A "focus on the legal frameworks" is not the only avenue for action, and may not be the most effective -- whether in the tech industry or elsewhere.
We're talking about the tech industry because it's HN and we're all in the talk industry, that's the one we know.
If we started the conversation with the tech industry -- which we know best -- but used what we learned to expand to look at other industries and environments too, talking to people in them too, that sounds like it could be useful. Instead, somehow here we are bizarrely motivated to expand the focus from the tech industry to 'everywhere' as a means to avoid talking about it at all?
I'm not trying to discourage discussion, but I think history has proven that even strong sexual harassment policies do little by themselves. Some people will harass regardless of the consequences, and companies will do what they can to avoid lawsuits and making waves. Changing behaviors is great, but the best time to do that isn't anywhere near the workplace, it's during the formative years. People don't suddenly start working at Google and decide to sexually harass.
While we can work on our own to try to improve the tech sector, I firmly believe that a more effective solution (for both the tech sector and the country at large) is to address it via legal means and education.
I think this essay is a pretty good foray on the 'education' front.
I liked the essay for having some concrete and practical suggestions for what we can do organizationally and personally, that are neither 'legal frameworks' nor exactly just 'sexual harassment policies'. Did you read that part? What do you think?
A "focus on the legal frameworks" is not the only avenue for action, and may not be the most effective -- whether in the tech industry or elsewhere.
We're talking about the tech industry because it's HN and we're all in the talk industry, that's the one we know.
If we started the conversation with the tech industry -- which we know best -- but used what we learned to expand to look at other industries and environments too, talking to people in them too, that sounds like it could be useful. Instead, somehow here we are bizarrely motivated to expand the focus from the tech industry to 'everywhere' as a means to avoid talking about it at all?