Yes, they have. I am NOT one of them. I don't have one of those guides. But I've received enough mandatory training to have a layperson's understanding of the baseline in my national jurisdiction which is USA. The baseline is twofold, it is fairly clear, and it is worth reviewing. Don't take my word for it, but I think if you check your authorities you may get confirmation.

First, no "quid pro quo." That is, you should steer clear of even the appearance that you will provide business advantage in exchange for affectionate acts from a person who is sexually attractive to you. This principle is an excellent reason not to ask an interviewee to go out on a date (slightly simplifying an example from elsewhere in recent Hacker News).

Second, no "hostile environment." That is, you should steer clear of even the appearance that you are making the workplace uncomfortable for people who are sexually attractive to you. Decorating your desk with a calendar featuring glamour photos of models, unless that is your duty in your occupation, is not a very good idea.

+1. I've personally never really gotten the whole "bonding over women we mutually find attractive" aspect of hetero male culture (and I guess there are parallels for other genders/orientations) but those who are into it really need to understand how off-putting it can be to other people. I'm a straight guy and I often find it a little off-putting, but I can clearly tell from facial expressions how much more uncomfortable the women in the room become, and I am not particularly socially perceptive. This stuff really has no place in any setting connected to the office.

There can also be things that are way outside your control, that are almost guaranteed to cause serious/widespread feels. For example:

1. a co-worked is very attracted to you, and can't take a hint. Your continued romantic rejection will certainly inflict pain.

2. you exchange fluids with someone (totally unrelated to work) and then later discover that it is someone's recent ex and they are going to find out, and they're really not going to like it.

3. Your boss is in love with you and decreasingly able to hide it.

......

These are situation you can't solve, but you also can't do nothing.

- talk to a someone about it at work. ideally someone with authority, who knows the people involved. just casually, so you aren't kicking off a big process, but so that they can see what is happening before that negative feelings that are being generated metastasise into something more serious.

- gossip ... hold your nose and address it. if you don't it will slowly become accepted fact.

- communicate rejection clearly

Or is "people who are sexually attractive to you" just a lawyer term for "people of a sex you might want to have sex with"?

But, honestly, if you think you might not understand where the line is, get a cat poster and be done with it.

She said "Nothing, really. The problem is that most harassment isn't blatant, it is hidden and not obvious. It's like a feeling that you get from someone. I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in where the person on the other side of the table is regularly looking at my boobs. What am i supposed to do about that?"

So my follow-up question to OP's is: what is she supposed to do about that?

I'm a hetero white male manager. And I have no idea how to answer that question.

And it may be equally possible that some of the 'feeling you get from someone' could be a total miss read. As long as nothing is said nothing changes. I think a culture where people are willing to deal with the discomfort this sort of thing brings would help. Also a culture where people are not thrown under the bus at the first hint of a problem. It is seen as too much of a risk, to have either an offender or a victim of sexual harassment on staff because of the legal repercussions and that's not okay, that keeps things hidden.

There is also the more blatant instance of sexual harassment in the industry (well in every industry) but I think it's a case of the broken window effect. When the little things are allowed to slide things escalate out of control.

Now, if a girl made me uncomfortable in some way because of some advance or because she was staring uncomfortable at me in some way, I would let her know.

Is it worth my friend losing her job over this? Or should she just suck it up and deal with it as a cost of admission to the table?

The culture that doesn't fight the little things ultimately builds a foundation for the outrageous things. But how do you stamp out the little things without sounding crazy?

You're absolutely right, it's hard. It's tough. And I don't have any answers. :(

men have negative consequences from confrontation too... its just unfortunate that they are often raised in a way that makes them more comfortable to make that trade off and deal with the consequences than women ('being a man about it')

few things are more universally supported in today's world than a woman asking for a man to not sexually harass her. if she loses her job over this there will be a queue of lawyers waiting to take the case to tribunal for an easy paycheque...

telling men not to stare at boobs does make them feel bad, and it should, its how they learn their lesson. if nobody tells them, nothing changes.

should men have to champion this cause? isn't that just even more belittling to women, as if they are somehow ill equipped to assert their rights?

if its some important customer its different. in those cases /everyone/ has to put up with all kinds of crap to do their job. this is professionalism in its original sense (not to be confused with wearing smart clothes to work), again, we shouldn't lower the bar for women... that's demeaning too imo.

one last thing. why is it the male perspective to stand up for yourself and hold your own? i.e. to tell them to stop? isn't this sexism? even more so, isn't this one of those little things that allows the outrageous to happen?

1. The men who struggle with this the most are also tend to be men who are dismissive to women or have other communication issues with women. Extreme example: if a man thinks it's okay to smack a female coworker on the ass, do you actually think that man is going to listen to a woman's opinion? He'll think she's being a "bitch" or "uptight" or whatever. Of course 99.99% of incidents aren't that extreme but there is a big need for men to guide other men in the right direction.

2. Women still face a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" dilemma when it comes to asserting themselves. If they don't, they're seen as meek or unable to compete. If they do they're often branded as "bossy" or "bitchy."

3. Not generally an issue in white collar work but there are situations where a woman may not feel physically safe confronting a male coworker. This can obviously be an issue for anybody, male or female, but men do tend to be physically larger and stronger.

4. Power imbalance. Men still hold a majority of management positions and make more money on average. Take any random male worker and any random female worker and more often than not the man will be above the woman in the corporate structure. I am sure you can agree that confronting somebody above you in the power structure is a lot harder.

When we have real gender equality, most of these issues will fade away. In the meantime there is work for men to do.

you highlight issues that society needs to resolve very astutely.

i can relate my one experience of dealing with this where i felt that i had to confront a co-worker for boob staring. it made me feel awkward to sit there and notice him doing it, so the lady involved must have noticed too... i pulled him outside on a false pretense and simply said "stop staring at her tits, its making /me/ feel uncomfortable" and as soon as it was pointed out he was clearly embarrassed and made a concerted effort to not do it.

the lady in question was inappropriately dressed for an office situation - her boobs were literally falling out of her poorly fitted bra and tight shirt with less buttons done up than not. however, it was a client, so extra awkward.

that being said, it seems to be nearly forbidden to comment on how women dress if you are a man, even if they look like some caricature stereotype of a hooker... but, despite that, it is simply true that wearing a low cut top to the office is not suitable attire. sensible women are not offended by this idea, but they also are the ones who tend to wear sweaters to work and do all the buttons up on their blouses etc.

if the situation was reversed i'm not sure what i would do, and that is the worse situation because the lady being ogled is probably going to feel pressure to tolerate the behaviour from a client much more than a co-worker...

I would tend to agree, but I believe there are many that would consider that comment "blaming the victim", or in other words, any comment at all about a female's appearance is discriminatory.

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/02/nothing-but-...

All I am saying is that a woman covering her cleavage isn't some crazy, ridiculous, sexist standard. Men also are expected to cover their chest at work.

if you put your hand in fire, you are the victim, but its still your fault when you get burned. the fire isn't going to go cold whatever your intent behind putting your hand in it.

in the same way men will look at exposed cleavage no matter why you are wearing the low cut top. that's just nature, and blaming men for their natural behaviour is no better than blaming the fire for being hot.

the best defence is to not even go there, don't put your hand in fires and don't show your cleavage... i shouldn't have to disregard such straightforward logic because the person i am talking to is a woman. imo that is demeaning to women...

its a dangerous position to take, but for all of the wrong reasons.

(and of course, men can train themselves to not look, and especially not to stare at boobs - the fire can not train itself to be cold)

I once had a coworker that said a lot of gross things: racist stuff, creepy sexual stuff, etc. Went on for a while. I told my manager, without naming the other coworker.

My manager sent a memo to the department reminding them about the fact that there were often guests in our area and that we needed to be careful about jokes and language.

It worked. The coworker didn't feel personally blamed or as if somebody ratted him out, and he did cease with the gross stuff. Everybody won, basically. Or at least nobody lost.

Now obviously that kind of oblique approach won't always work and people may need to be dealt with. The next step would have been for my manager or I to speak to him privately.

You could try something like that. Maybe get an outside speaker to talk to the team, just to give some reminders about specific things to avoid such as staring at womens' chests?

I really, really dislike this method. If there's a problem employee, deal with that employee. Don't send blanket emails to everyone. It (in my experience) does not work since the person that's actually doing something offensive usually doesn't realize it, and it just confuses all other people working into wondering if they somehow are to blame.

This tactic seems to be really common where I work, and all it seems to lead to is confusion and anger with management because they're unclear. It's as if everyone is being lectured for something one person did.

If I've said something inappropriate, please let me know. If not, leave me out of it so I don't have to worry that I might have. This stuff creates a lot of unneeded stress. It's one of the reasons I'm looking for a new job. Seriously.

  > If there's a problem employee, deal with that employee. Don't send blanket emails to everyone. 

However: it doesn't have to be that way at all.

Depending on the severity of what's going on, it's possible to nudge a team towards better behavior without blaming anybody. Secondly, negative feedback has to be a part of an overall message in which team members are also given positive feedback on what they are doing right.

It sounds like at your job, you guys just get a bunch of blame thrown at the whole team and I'm guessing it's not balanced out by positive feedback on the stuff you do right.

This is just blatant non-sense. I am immigrant working in US. I can't tell you how many times women have brushed my arms or tried to grab my ass. I am male and have english accent.

What are people supposed to do when you are sitting at exact opposite side ? Close the eyes ? Even if you are directly looking into women's eyes she could be feel that you are looking at her boobs. Its just her own insecurities speaking out. I would not hire such flamboyant bitch.

Also, mind you with diversity comes time to adjust. You can't mix people from all over the world ( India, China, UK,Australia, Mexicans ) and expect them to follow your culture right away. People from India and China ( including Taiwan ) are very hardcore. Many times I have seen they refuse to mix and adjust according to US culture. When I was working in boston for big software company , which also had Indian and Chinese folks, these people would get coffee within their own group and refuse to invite/mix with others. Many of my friends experienced similar thing.

I believe parent commenter is just non-sense believing everything said to him. I would certainly steer away from such person being my manager. One of the managers responsibility is to listen to everything and make good judgement call which he clearly fails to demonstrate.

This violates the HN guidelines.

Telling someone that their factual recounting of their own experience is "blatant non-sense" is a serious breach of civility, which is the #1 rule people are required to abide by here.

A long time ago I received some pretty serious harassment from a female coworker. It happens to men too, and it is not fun at all.

But the fact that it also happens to men doesn't mean that you can just dismiss womens' problems like that. Unless you are living in a culture where men and women are exactly equal, then you need to realize that men and women experience these things differently.

Second, you're making the assumption that if you're sitting directly across from a woman, you have to either look at her or keep your eyes closed. There are a million other things in the room you can look at that don't involve her breasts. There's a fine line between staring intently at her eyes and making casual eye contact while carrying on a conversation. I'm capable of not staring at her breasts and making women feel comfortable around me -- and so are millions of other men. It's not hard, but it is something we men should be aware of.

Third, you're right. I do believe her when she says that people stare at her breasts (hell, I've checked them out myself) and that it makes her uncomfortable when she notices. I don't see any reason to disbelieve her. You say that women have brushed your arms and grabbed your ass -- why should I not take you at your word? It seems like something that could totally happen. How would you feel if I said to you "Ha, no woman has ever grabbed your ass. Quit being a drama queen"? That's effectively what you just said about my coworker. I don't have any evidence that shows she's a liar -- and neither do you, by the way -- but I have plenty of evidence that what she says is true from her perspective.

You're right about another thing: my responsibility as a manager is to listen to everything and make good judgment calls. I'm not clear on where you think I'm making poor judgment calls. I have literally done nothing but listen to my coworker's thoughts (which I assume falls under the definition of "everything") and have asked for opinions regarding her statement. I haven't taken any action, I haven't fired anyone, I haven't accused anyone of improper behavior. Where is my poor judgment?

Nowhere. I haven't made any poor judgments. If anything, actually stopping to think about her comment and the ramifications is a sign of progress, that the status quo can be improved.

I'm sorry you've experienced sexual harassment. It's a terrible thing to feel uncomfortable going to your work. I don't know what I would do in your situation, but I owe it to myself and to my team to consider what I might do if it happened to me. Don't you agree? Or do you think I should just sweep it under the rug and ignore it?

P.S. I said nothing about culture and diversity or the race/ethnicity of my friend. I'm not sure where that came from. But I don't disagree with you. It's hard to mix cultures. But surely we can try to ensure that everyone is on their best behavior, yes?

I would further posit that the norms of tech culture that isolate some and include others and this culture as it intersects with hiring is basically just a way to normalize, refine, and study turnover in tech business by managers and CEOs.

I remember when I had my, "a-ha!" moment working at a coffee shop in highschool. "why?" I thought, "would my employer show a blatant disregard for sexual harassment, sexist hiring policies, hazing, poor scheduling, and offer few benefits that attract long term employment?"

Because turnover is good for business. Lower salaries make coffee shop margins possible and fresh faces bring more customers.

in a 3D Euclidean space where do the person is supposed to be looking at? Staring all the time down into the table? Up into the ceiling? Close the eyes every time while moving eyes from ceiling to the table? I'm asking just out of curiousity as personally i just stare either into ceiling or into laptop and whatever happens / whoever present at the meeting - i'm not here :)

It is unfortunate that when talking to females, this puts your eyes in the region of their chest, and there have been instances where I've found myself with my eyes locked on someone's chest and it's really not the intent.

  It is unfortunate that when talking to females, this 
  puts your eyes in the region of their chest, and there
  have been instances where I've found myself with my eyes
  locked on someone's chest and it's really not the intent.

But there are objects in the room besides her eyes and her breasts. Make eye contact, look at something else, eye contact, etc.

Honestly, if all else fails, watch how other people do it. Find a guy who has found a happy medium between "intense and unbroken constant eye contact" and "staring at breasts" and just copy that. I'm not even being sarcastic.

For many engineers this stuff doesn't always come naturally but on the flip side it's all pretty learnable.

One thing that makes this challenging is that most men don't know what it's like to be looked at. It's obvious to you because you've likely been a recipient of lots of different kinds of gazes throughout your life and, for better or worse, are calibrated to be able to rank them.

But people almost never look at men. When you're a man, people look you in the eye (but not too much) and that's it. Unless you're a model, abs rippling in the wind as you effortlessly chop lumber, you're never the recipient of any kind of gaze.

This makes it harder to know what a "good" or "bad" look feels like since many men have never experienced either.

Of course, this doesn't justify at all a man giving someone a look that makes them uncomfortable.

But when I hear women say, "Yeah, he gave me this creepy stare," I sure as hell don't want to be that guy, but... I also don't really know how to tell if I am either.

I'd be curious to read if a genuinely honest study has been done in variances internationally - do women in Asian or Latin countries feel as bad when men look at them? Serious question.

To have diversity we have to have more than the white-knight (that takes all accusations made by females at face value).

I've often glanced and looked downwards when talking to someone (or standing close to someone) for a few seconds at a time - just like 100% of us that don't continually stare people in the eyes like a crazy person.

I'm sure that a "lady" that reports that people are always stating at her breasts is either misinterpreting that downward looking action for something it's really not, or is dressing specifically to show off her goods - which will meet with the other person's eyes inadvertently for a second or two.

And I'm all for taking everyone at their word until it seems suspect for some reason. Why not?

But the broad pattern you see in web chats like these is, a woman says something (e.g. the kind of thing that could make men feel badly, if they realize they've been making people uncomfortable through their actions), and invariably one or more men step in to tell her how she's wrong about it, no, that's not how it went at all....when these men weren't there, have no skin in the game, and these remarks are just more of some "women aren't to be trusted or listened to" general pattern.

Does everyone do it? No, of course not. Does it happen all the time? No, of course not.

Does it happen enough that we now have a pejorative dedicated to men who listen to and believe women's stories first, and are skeptical later? Yes, you used it: white knight.

i didn't say that she was wrong. I'm pretty sure that she is telling the truth about how she _felt_ and what was her _interpretation_ of the other man's eye position and movements. I don't doubt her account of her feelings and interpretations.

On the other side - why should we trust her interpretation (which i trust she had) about the state of mind of the other man - "gawping" - if she wasn't in the man's head. One thing to say "he kept his eyes on my boobs for 5 seconds for 3 times" - statement of fact (though precise knowledge of direction of somebody eyes may be questionable) vs. "he was gawping" - interpretation about the man's state of mind.

And boobs ... yes I am a human male in his sexual prime and not glancing at boobs is literally impossible. It's like asking me not to breathe.

I have recently been informed that human females have a similar problem with bulges. Not glancing is impossible.

i consider myself generally quite misogynistic and horny as hell... so take my word that it is possible.

Bullshit.

The most successful perpetrators of sexual harassment primarily act in ways that are not easily proven or defined. Consciously or unconsciously, they take advantage of natural biases to both prevent their actions from being reported and prevent people from believing reports when they do occur.

Here's something you can say: "If someone makes you uncomfortable and you want to tell someone, you can tell me. I won't ask why; I won't argue; I will listen to you, accept what you're saying, and remember it."

As you point out in the question, you're never going to receive a set of rules that you just have to follow like a checklist, because the same behaviors can be consensual and encouraged between one pair of people, and non-consensual and creepy between another pair of people. That's normal.

The only definitive rule is: don't hurt people. If you hurt someone, even in a small way -- and you will -- apologize sincerely when called out, and try harder next time. No-one expects you to never make (non-huge) mistakes; just to learn from the ones you make.

And awful. That's one reason that this problem looms larger in technical circles: we're already far more likely than the average to be socially awkward or otherwise ill-equipped to navigate these waters. I can be a fun and flirty person in the right group, but at work I do my best to act as though I am completely without sex/gender and as though everyone else is, too. If sexual, gendered, or racial topics come up, I say nothing on those topics and try to extricate myself from the situation. If the situation is around my desk, I quietly dive back into work. This is the only way to have an acceptably low risk of late night realization that I said something that someone could have taken as harassment.

Everyone makes mistakes, but so many HR departments have zero tolerance policies towards perceived sexual harassment, and if it goes public you're doubly screwed... if you can get someone to talk to you first, you have a chance to identify and learn from the mistake, without being hung out to dry.

After having my own extremely negative run-in with HR about this kind of issue, I am very gun shy about expressing anything even remotely resembling a personal opinion around women.

Most other lines of work don't seem to spill out as much from the office, and people in them seem to socialize more outside their field. If X and Y are married, I think P(X is in field F|Y is in field F) is generally higher when F is a tech field than when it is not.

So even if tech were 50/50 male/female, I think we'd still have more problems than other fields (although if women were equally represented and powerful, more of the complaints would be from men being hit on by women at work...).

Sometimes I think tech companies should set up some kind of internal dating or matchmaking site, and establish a rule that if an employee is interested in exploring romantic or sexual relationships with coworkers, they have to go through that site. Communication otherwise must be kept on a professional level.

I feel a great disturbance in the force as if a million lawyers cried out in horror/glee and where at once silenced.

Tinder for coworkers. This.... is.... brilliant. But for some reason, someone is going to screw it up and it'll be a big fiasco and then the whole thing will be terminated. But seriously, does anyone see any negatives in this idea? I'm just assuming it'd be problematic because I'm conditioned to believe flirting/romance/dating in the workplace, 9 times out of 10, leads to disaster. But is there a more concrete potential event that'd screw this up?

End of the day, you should always proceed with caution when establishing out of work relationships with co-workers of the opposite sex. You should not engage in romantic or sexual relationships with coworkers.

The risk in both situations is that you're potentially (and unwittingly) creating a workplace perceived as hostile or rigged. Many people are hesitant to confront issues Tha bother them when it involves the person who is banging the boss.

Other things to consider:

- HR is not your friend. They are there to protect the company from you. If you need a confidant, talk t a therapist or trusted friend.

- There are plenty of nutjobs out there, and one of them may decide that you are the source of their misery. If you run into this, keep a written log of interactions with the person.

- Most problems can be avoided by listening to others and treating people with respect.

- If you are a supervisor and learn of an issue, deal with it immediately.

1. Attractive male opens door for female. Female blushes, there is no problem.

2. Unattractive male opens door for female. Female reports unwanted behavior.

("attractive" does not have to mean "physically attractive", it could be another quality)

And I'm not being smug here with the above. No matter what, life is a popularity contest.

Outside of that example, with grey zones, it's all on a case-by-case bases, as far as what appropriate behavior is.

But if you need an actionable answer, then realizes that right now we are living in a time where victimhood is the predominant social "virtue"... People are seeking it, promoting it, and pretending to be outraged over it (e.g., social justice) - and will do anything to get attention.

So if you are a male, it's best not to have any type of non-work contact and non-work dialog with opposite sex co-workers, unless you want to be the subject of another world-trending tweet and/or 1000 point + 500 reply HN post.

As anything from a simple compliment, to a obvious joke, will be interpreted in the worst of ways.

That's what threw me off, so sorry with the confusion. I can also state that it doesn't fit my personal experiences even in a figurative sense, but that's a comparison that I don't think is easy to make in a few comments back and forth online.

  1) Where is the line for legal liability
  2) Where is the line for individuals

2) I prefer to consider Karl Popper's reframing of the Golden Rule: "The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by"

This unfortunately requires some communication about what people would want, and establishing that usually involves some communication which in and of itself may cross the line, woops. You simply can't assume you know what someone wants, or what they are OK with, so the line for individuals will always be variable, and you can only do your best to be conservative and take feedback to heart.

I think -- but don't have the employee handbook in front of me -- that corporate policy is limited to requiring that reports-to relationships be disjoint from screwing-eachother relationships.

I'm totally unqualified but I think that the legal advice still stands. And it like what this means that any romantic entanglements with subordinates will end with serious liability if there's a situation where anyone objects.

It seems as if recent events also show that it is hard to know what really happened in any particular event and once someone crosses one line (even a line that doesn't seem to immediately offend anyone) in the world of relationships, they can easily be accused and even convicted of crossing every line. That might not be fair but it's life. It's kind of like car accidents - some accidents might be legally and clearly one person's fault but you should drive to have no accidents, not to simply not the one at fault. When improper sexual relations get to the level of legality, both people's lives are damaged and logic dictates that's often going to be unfair to one of them (and logic leaves us in the lurch determining apriori which, despite the ideology and vituperations of all parts of the political spectrum).

But, the modern workplace culture encourages being more then 'professional coworker' to your coworkers outside of the office.

Indeed, at the start-up workplace seems to. And recent events also seems to cast this approach as a train wreck (wrecks) waiting to happen.

That's typically a bad idea anyway. I know that we in the hip, cool developer world like to pretend that an organisation can be flat and rankless—but it really can't.

I think it's completely appropriate for superiors and subordinates to socialise in groups (and kudos to the tech world for keeping that tradition alive when so many organisational cultures are stomping it out), but private socialisation should be limited to those who are on the same level.

As for specifically sex-related issues, the only thing I can think makes sense is to scrupulously treat every team member the same, and don't date within the organisation—and if, despite one's best intentions, one does form a relationship, then one or both parties should leave.

Do you think the other person is full of shit? that they're out to get you? That there's far too much coddling of women and minorities in the world today?

Or are you honestly trying to do the right thing?

Here's two examples. Wadhwa met his criticism by saying that over sensitive feminists are hurting themselves and other women, that they're out to get him and stuff about slander.

That ESA engineer with the South Park t-shirt made an honest apology and probably made a lot of new friends.

i like to think i am fairly equal minded, but at the same time i do put my foot in my mouth and fall into the misogynist camp more than i would like.

some things are obvious, but every once in a while i state what seems like obvious truth and get slammed for it just because there is a woman involved.

(don't get me wrong, i also put my foot in my mouth because i am an ass)

as with all such things the best defence is to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing, so to err on the side of caution. although, it can be difficult to even see what that is if you get comfortable working in male dominated environments...

i don't think male dominated environments (or female) are going to go away. simply because the evidence points to the fact that the more freedom you give to people to express themselves, and choose careers, the more the inate gender differences come to the fore and dominate the statistics.

the best way to get women into STEM is to be a 3rd world country with terrible human rights policies.