If you are the keynote speaker of a conference, DO NOT flirt with other attendees or other coworkers, regardless of the line of report. There are code of conduct left and right for a reason. Saying "they were not my employees" does not excuse you from using your influence, in a work-related setting, to approach someone else for sex matters.
Focusing on the conference aspect is not particularly helpful in understanding the expected framework here...
I assume there's nothing magical about a conference environment. In some cases the alleged harassment is occurring at bars where everyone is drinking alcohol. In another case it's a long-standing online chat relationship.
Where is the Harvey-esque influence peddling? I mean in that case is was more like straight-up blackmail.
Sometimes a guy will flirt with a girl and the feeling is not mutual. This happens quite frequently and it's not illegal or even wrong. Being an influential or powerful man (or woman!) doesn't make this wrong or illegal unless there is something more to it...
Even simpler than that, really: treat a conference and the outside social stuff that rides along as a work environment regardless of your status or role. You’re not at a knitting convention. You’re meeting professional peers. I had to fuck up to learn this, and I think it’s extremely important.
I think I might be misunderstanding you. People absolutely should not be expected to live their whole lives like they are at the office. What defines outside social stuff that rides along as a work environment?
How far outside your social sphere are you supposed to be meeting or getting introduced to actual people who are interesting to you as a peer and potential romantic partner?
So it sounds like it's back to what I said earlier -- there's basically no social environment related to the tech industry where you think it would be alright for someone who happens to be influential in the tech sector to flirt with someone? But this seems to absolutely not be the definition of sexual harassment under the EEOC.
To try to remove some of the moral righteousness from it, lets assume we're talking about a single male, no wife or girlfriend, who is a well-known tech executive and blogger.
I don't think anyone here is talking about "flirting." Although I think it's also fair to say that the closer you get to being "in the office" the more caution is probably called for.
Fair enough. I did not see that and would actually disagree with it for appropriately non aggressive values of flirting. (If you’re a high profile keynote speaker specifically though, caution is increasingly called for.)
Greer's account of Scoble flirting with her at a hotel bar (drinks in both hands, touched her leg) is quite the counter-point.
It appears like that moment had a lasting and significant impact on Michelle. [1] The repercussions as Michelle tells them are certainly terrible. I feel badly for Michelle and want to understand better what she experienced from her perspective.
That was certainly unwanted sexual contact. Was it sexual assault? Possibly. Was is sexual harassment? Possibly! All unwanted sexual contact is not actually automatically sexual harassment. [2]
I think that goes way beyond casual "flirting" in most people's book. Obviously people differ, signals get misread, and tolerances vary. I'm aware of one "code of conduct violation" report based on a Tshirt that made me roll my eyes--as well as the eyes of quite a few women I know. But that doesn't seem like a particular edge case as reported.
No. I would not have said so Clearly it varies based on how well you know and your relationship with a person. But randomly in a semi-professional context?
It was clearly inappropriate, that's not what I'm asking. Inappropriate flirting is a thing. If I read in a book, "she touched his leg" I would call that flirting.
I feel like there's something I'm missing because, as recounted, his actions had such a strong and lasting impact to Greer.
Maybe this Scoble dude is just a nuclear style creep and just having to sit next to him is torturous. But that seems highly unlikely. I've never met the guy! I don't recall ever hearing him speak or watching a video of him even. So...
If I'm understanding the story, 4 people at a hotel bar drinking, one touching someone's leg. And what that led to, or possibly even caused -- I think it's fair to describe it as incredibly damaging? Obviously we want to avoid people being hurt like that. So, we construct social mores and civil law to try to prevent it from happening, and punish a small subset of offenders very harshly.
Decent human beings make unwanted sexual advances all the fucking time. We can't read each other's minds after all.
This is why we go to the trouble of defining a "sexual harassment" standard in the workplace, which holds coworkers to a higher standard of care than what is expected outside of the workplace.
Obviously we are not supposed to live our lives interacting with every other human purely professionally.
Wow. Mind reading is not required. You've watched too many movies that go from strangers to married with children in 90 minutes. How about spending weeks, months, and even years building a relationship? Talking->dating->holding hands->... Spend more than 5 minutes on each stage. I know it seems old-fashioned, but it can really reduce the degree of offense when you misjudge the stage of a relationship.
Very condescending reply and ad hominem isn't necessary, but I think is reflective of the strength of the argument.
Dating is messy, complicated business. People get hurt. There is no magic ritual or length of time that will prevent that.
But I think the ivory tower condescension that if only men would follow this or that prescriptive approach is extremely damaging and even perpetuates the problem.
Harassment is a pattern of undesired behavior. One advance is OK, but if you're turned down you DO NOT MAKE ANOTHER to that person. Just accept it and move on.
Really that's it. It applies everywhere. It applies to non-sexual harassment as well.
Does your office serve alcohol? Does your rule of thumb extend to what you eat and drink? What kind of clothes you wear? Whether you stay or leave?
I think it would be great if it did. But then you would have to significantly restructure conferences to conform. Many of the official events of a conference are blatant violations of workplace behavior.
Since drinking an unspecified amount of alcohol can render a woman (but not a man) incapable of consenting while possibly also giving the outward appearance of consenting, no absolutely don't serve alcohol at the workplace when women are present.
Now of course this is an absurd statement, but are their elements of truth in it? Quinn's account is Scoble and another woman were "making out" and that both were drunk. There was no question at all of Scoble's capacity to consent but Quinn felt she or her friend was able to determine the woman (who she doesn't know and apparently didn't talk to) was not able to consent, and claim that Scoble was minutes from raping her.
Three other witnesses have come forward and said that they were concerned the woman was too drunk to consent. Artur Bergman's account: "Me and my friend realized we had seen Scoble appear next to her repeatedly during the evening. Pouring more and more alcohol for her. After seeing this for a while we felt we had to intervene and help her get away."
