Of Power, Predators And Innocent Mistakes: The Complex Problems Of Sexual Harassment
With so many women coming forward about their experiences of sexual harassment in the workplace, its important employers take note of the challenges and opportunities they have to improve their approach to prevention. How does your workplace define sexual harassment? Do employees have the opportunity to learn about sexual harassment in the workplace and are they aware of procedures for preventing and responding to sexual harassment? These are questions SAPAT can help to answer. Together we can start a dialogue that leads to creating cultures of respect, safety, and accountability.
“Prest would rather have a “better safe than sorry” office environment. “I think we’re so far away from understanding what consent means,” she says.
It has to do with understanding power dynamics at work, where most of us have bosses.
“You want your boss to like you, so you feel like you have to say yes to everything,” she says. “They ask you to go out for drinks after work — you say yes automatically because you want to have this person’s favor.”
Young concedes that “there are very real power differentials in the workplace.” But she’s “concerned about this mindset that we have to constantly police for microaggressions — which, a lot of that is defined very subjectively.””
