>>A compliment alone should not constitute sexual harassment, that would be total madness.
That definitely depends on the compliment; exactly what attribute about the person you're complimenting.....
That definitely depends on the compliment; exactly what attribute about the person you're complimenting.....
The original tweeted "quote" was absolutely offensive. The tweet linked by @marczellm, umm... I guess I just don't get it. I've probably said the exact same thing many times to colleagues. I can guarantee women say the same to women on a regular basis, and men to men. But a man uttering the same words to a woman and all of a sudden you're fired and here's a lawsuit to boot? What if a woman complements a man's outfit? How is any of that even remotely sexual harassment?
I think there are reasonable bounds that people generally agree on what is and what is not "sexual harassment". There is some really disgusting shit going on in some of these workplaces... there's more than enough actual harassment going around. If you are calling out basic complements on what you are physically wearing at the moment... frankly I would not risk working with someone who thought an honest complement was sexual harassment. How can you work with someone under those conditions, how can you take the risk they wouldn't go on Twitter and start libeling you?
I don't want to work with anyone I can't build camaraderie with, and that means being able to pay someone an honest complement, without worrying in the back of my mind if the coworker is going to run on Twitter and claim I harassed them. I am certainly more skeptical of the TFA tweet after reading the second posted by @marczellm.
I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, but many women view comments on their appearance as demeaning and threatening, largely because of harassment they've experienced all their lives. Their experience is different than yours, and it's important to acknowledge this. Women aren't men, and treating them this way papers over centuries of oppression and misogyny. It's important to be sex and gender conscious, not sex and gender blind.
It may be triggering but it still is absolutely not sexual harassment. If someone is triggered by things that come up regularly in ordinary work environments, first, that's a terrible situation. At some point they might want to consider disclosing at least something about the trigger to their colleagues so the colleagues can try to avoid it and understand it, versus hiding behind a claim of "sexual harassment" when it actually is not.
I get that's not a good answer, because most people will absolutely not understand what a trigger is and why it happens, and most importantly what being triggered actually feels like while it's happening. But even in light of all that, it's a past crime echoing into the present, and not a new transgression, even though it may certainly feel that way to the person being triggered.
> Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to know if someone is dealing with that, and I'm also not going to walk around in life assuming every woman has PTSD and could be triggered by an honest complement.
You should actually assume a woman doesn't want you to comment on her appearance.
> It may be triggering but it still is absolutely not sexual harassment.
The EEOC does a good job of defining what [harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/harassment.cfm) and [sexual harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm) are. Importantly:
"Harassment is unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information."
Basically, you can't separate out, "Hi [woman], you look great in that dress" from "Hi [woman], that dress makes me sexually attracted to you'. That's an unwelcome sexual advance. And since you can't separate them out, you ought to stay away from them altogether. You don't have the right to say whatever you want to someone. There are lines, and comments about a woman's appearance are on the wrong side of them.
I was taught both in dance/etiquette school and by my grandma that I should ALWAYS compliment if a woman looks great.
...unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual
favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a
sexual nature.
Furthermore, even some conduct which may be considered "sexual harassment" is not illegal. It is only illegal if it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment. Honest complements, by definition, cannot create a hostile or offensive work environment, quite the opposite!
> You should actually assume a woman doesn't want you to comment on her appearance.
If you're talking about strangers, I would absolutely agree. I'm not talking about cat-calling someone in the street, I'm talking about natural conversation with coworkers and colleagues, regardless of their gender. E.g. If a colleague, male or female, comes in on Monday and their hair is a different color, I think not noticing it is more insulting by far.
> Basically, you can't separate out, "Hi [woman], you look great in that dress" from "Hi [woman], that dress makes me sexually attracted to you'.
First, actually, yes you can separate out the two. It takes a few hundred milliseconds to register the change in your interlocutor's facial expression which tells you if they took your comment as it was intended or not. Particularly between two people who have known each other and worked together for more than a week. But even more to the point; telling a coworker you are attracted to them, guess what, it's not sexual harassment, and it's certainly not illegal. The law says, repeated unwanted sexual advances which are so severe that they create a hostile work environment.
Personally, I'm not willing to "err" on the side of pretending my coworkers are ethereal beings without corporeal form. If someone finds something I say or do offensive, I expect them to let me know, and I will apologize and modify my behavior. That way, even if someone believes I'm making an unwanted sexual advance, I can clarify that no, in fact, I was not talking about sex, and I can try to be more clear about that in the future. In other words, if the only way you're comfortable working with me is by me treating you like a robot, please let me know, and I'll do my best to accommodate you, but I sure as hell am not going to act like that toward the majority of my coworkers.
Yeah I already posted a link to the EEOC's definition.
> ...and very rarely illegal
EEOC charge statistics say otherwise: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm
> Sexual harassment is a completely different beast.
It's a specific type of harassment, like a Labrador Retriever is a specific type of dog. They're not completely different.
> Sexual in this case means sex, as in coitus and other related physical stimuli, not gender.
No, it's not restricted to physical stimuli. To reference the reports in this thread, telling a woman "it's taking all of my self control not to grab your ass right now" is sexual harassment, even if no one is touched. Do you really think otherwise?
You also conveniently left out the rest of the definition:
Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.
> Honest complements, by definition, cannot create a hostile or offensive work environment
They can if they're inappropriate and unwanted. I really encourage you to thoroughly read the definitions I linked to.
> If you're talking about strangers, I would absolutely agree. I'm not talking about cat-calling someone in the street, I'm talking about natural conversation with coworkers and colleagues, regardless of their gender.
I'm talking about the workplace and work-related functions, because that's the topic of this thread.
> E.g. If a colleague, male or female, comes in on Monday and their hair is a different color, I think not noticing it is more insulting by far.
It's extremely entitled to think that someone, man or woman, changed their appearance to elicit a reaction from you.
> The law says, repeated unwanted sexual advances which are so severe that they create a hostile work environment.
To be pedantic, you're quoting the EEOC (I assume), which isn't the law, it's just EEOC's description. Further, you've misquoted them:
Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent *or severe* that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).
You can, because you personally know your intent. But no one else can, and your intent is irrelevant. If your actions create a hostile work environment, it doesn't matter if you meant to or not.
> But even more to the point; telling a coworker you are attracted to them, guess what, it's not sexual harassment, and it's certainly not illegal.
Yes it is, it's an unwelcome sexual advance. If you keep doing it, you're sexually harassing someone, or if you do it in a severe enough way, you're sexually harassing someone.
You don't have a right to say whatever you want to someone. You may intend it to be an honest compliment, but your intent is irrelevant. Someone's attractiveness and physical appearance isn't relevant in the workplace, and it's inappropriate to bring it up.
> The law says, repeated unwanted sexual advances which are so severe that they create a hostile work environment.
Again I assume you're quoting the EEOC, which is not the law, and again you misquoted them:
Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).
This is entitlement, pure and simple. You're not willing to stop commenting on womens' appearances in order to avoid potentially making them uncomfortable, because you have a burning need to compliment? Indefensible. Your need to compliment isn't something that we have to protect. Womens' ability to feel comfortable and safe in the workplace is. It's infinitely more important; any suggestion otherwise is wildly selfish.
> In other words, if the only way you're comfortable working with me is by me treating you like a robot, please let me know, and I'll do my best to accommodate you
You have this backwards. Your default should be professional, workplace-appropriate conduct. Only in very specific circumstances can you act differently. I know we disagree on what workplace-appropriate conduct is, but your argument that it's up to women to "opt out" of your compliments is oppressive. The onus isn't on them, it's on you. And if you disagree that it's oppressive, remember that you're the one complaining about how onerous it would be for you to stop complimenting them. How hard would that really be, honestly?
How do you figure? Less than 100,000 charges of harassment, in a world where someone is harassing you pretty much on a minute-by-minute basis. I'd say that thoroughly substantiates my claim that harassment is almost never illegal.
>> Honest complements, by definition, cannot create a hostile or offensive work environment
> They can if they're inappropriate and unwanted.
They can only if they're inappropriate and unwanted... and so frequent or severe enough. Which honest complements cannot be. A complement on someone's appearance is not sexual nor inappropriate. It may be unwanted, which goes back to my point about how well-meaning humans communicate through things like eye contact and facial expressions. I'd ask you to point out a single case of proven sexual harassment based on someone simply paying complements to a co-worker, but it's probably not worth your time.
If sexual comments are inappropriate, unwanted, and are so frequent or severe that they create a hostile work environment (did I get the quote right that time?!), then they rise to illegal sexual harassment. It seems simple enough to me. Clearly a complement fails the 'severe' test, fails the sexual test, and so I'm left to just guess where you're coming from -- perhaps you're imagining a coworker doggedly pursuing an uninterested colleague, which, again, would not be what I call a honest complement.
>> First, actually, yes you can separate out the two.
> You can, because you personally know your intent. But no one else can, and your intent is irrelevant. If your actions create a hostile work environment...
Certainly I agree the definition of a 'hostile work environment' does not hinge on the harasser admitting fault or intent. However, I also do not think a hostile work environment can be something that "just happens" without some actual physical manifestation of harassment. When we tell co-workers to speak up it's about identifying these moments when a line is crossed. Long before honest complements could somehow even remotely approach the point of creating a hostile work environment, I am quite comfortable the vast majority of people's ability to recognize that. And I am convinced that calling for a outright ban on complementing someone's appearance in the workplace is incredible overreach.
> You don't have a right to say whatever you want to someone.
Whatever you want? Surely not. But this is a logical fallacy I won't chase.
> Someone's attractiveness and physical appearance isn't relevant in the workplace, and it's inappropriate to bring it up.
You're overgeneralizing here. In most workplaces physical appearance is absolutely relevant to some degree.
But ignoring the obvious cases where physical appearance is relevant, I'm honestly not sure what you mean by 'relevant in the workplace'. My workplace is not an assembly line where I don't interact with humans; quite the contrary. Interaction with humans is a large part of most workplaces, and conversing with, building rapport, trust, shared understanding and common goals is a major component of most workplaces. Part of team building is also building relationships and friendships, and that will naturally include people talking about themselves and talking about each other. While we should all expect this is always done in a positive and inclusive manor, we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Comments about peoples apparel, or appearance are natural, unoffensive, and should not be banned in the work environment. The damage in sterilizing the workplace of this type of camaraderie far outweighs to potential for harm. My general thesis is, that this is an over-reaction to the base and vile things that sometimes, but rarely, do occur in the workplace.
>> E.g. If a colleague, male or female, comes in on Monday and their hair is a different color, I think not noticing it is more insulting by far.
> It's extremely entitled to think that someone, man or woman, changed their appearance to elicit a reaction from you.
Huh, what?! That's not what I said at all, please re-read it. I think something just shifted in your tone, and I'm sorry to see it go in that direction. Please try to remain charitable in light of the limited bandwidth of the communication medium. I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, probably because I was trying to be too cute while saying it.
The point I'm trying to make is, I don't think it's a reasonable trade-off, in fact I think it's massive overreach to strictly enforce a sterile workplace because someone might be offended by an honest complement. It's actually not about "me" it's just that pronouns get messy in comment threads. Please keep ad hominem out of it, because I'm actually trying to have a productive conversation here.
I'm not complaining about how onerous it would be for me to stop complementing someone. What I think we do need to protect is our ability to be human and humane to one another, to empathize with one another, and to have the option of connecting on a remotely personal level to people we spend the majority of our days with. I think this happens naturally and copacetically 99.99% of the time. I think your quoted Charge Statistics support my conclusion.
Or it's drastically under-reported. Other stats bear this out, google around (or look elsewhere in this thread).
> They can only if they're inappropriate and unwanted... and so frequent or severe enough. Which honest complements cannot be.
I believe Vic Gundotera was honest when he was sexually harassing Kelly Ellis via compliments. Why is honesty a defense? Intent is irrelevant in harassment; it's the environment the harasser creates and the feelings the victim feels.
I think you're misusing the term "honest compliments". If I were to tell a woman, "hey your legs are very attractive", that's an honest compliment. It's also sexual harassment if I keep doing it. I think when you say "honest compliment", you mean "hey nice shoes".
The problem is, which parts of a woman's appearance can you compliment without being sexual? Avoid her body? "Hey nice skirt" is still pretty sexual. "Hey nice hose", "hey nice necklace", hey nice blouse", etc. can all draw attention to parts of a woman's body. Tone can also be a factor. "Hey nice hair" said in one tone can seem like what you would call an "honest compliment". "Hey nice hair" with a certain tone and closeness can imply, "I'd like to run my fingers through it".
1 in 4 women experiences workplace sexual harassment. It's very possible they associate comments about their appearance with that experience. They shouldn't have to opt-out of your compliments.
How can you avoid all of tihs? Stop complimenting a woman's appearance.
> I'd ask you to point out a single case of proven sexual harassment based on someone simply paying complements to a co-worker, but it's probably not worth your time.
You should just google around for legal advice regarding comments on appearance being sexual harassment. It's absolutely sexual harassment if it is frequent or severe enough. I just googled "workplace appearance comments harassing", and basically all the results were good.
> You're overgeneralizing here. In most workplaces physical appearance is absolutely relevant to some degree.
Only if it becomes a problem. And I'm overgeneralizing because that should be the default approach. Don't comment on a woman's appearance unless necessary.
> Interaction with humans is a large part of most workplaces, and conversing with, building rapport, trust, shared understanding and common goals is a major component of most workplaces.
Which is all why you should be professional and appropriate, because in most workplaces you have to interact with others, and women shouldn't suffer these kinds of "compliments" just to have a job. The things you listed are critical to creating a positive work environment. When women are constantly judged by and harassed based on their appearance, that positive work environment dissipates.
> The damage in sterilizing the workplace of this type of camaraderie far outweighs to potential for harm.
This is hyperbole. There are already tons of topics completely unsuitable for the workplace. Adding one more doesn't suddenly make the workplace "sterile". Feel free to talk about crazy things that happened to you, or food that you've eaten, or sports, or any one of a million things humans experience.
> Huh, what?! That's not what I said at all, please re-read it. I think something just shifted in your tone, and I'm sorry to see it go in that direction. Please try to remain charitable in light of the limited bandwidth of the communication medium. I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, probably because I was trying to be too cute while saying it.
I'm trying to assume the best, but this logic is the kind of logic street harassers use to justify their behavior. "She wouldn't dress that way unless she wanted compliments", or "it would be an insult not to holler at that dress". I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm saying, from what you've been writing here, that your behavior is problematic.
I appreciate that the context is different, but I don't think that you appreciate that the difference in context matters very little.
> Please keep ad hominem out of it, because I'm actually trying to have a productive conversation here.
I wasn't specifically talking about you. I'm saying that belief indicates a strong sense of entitlement. If you're of that belief, then I think you're entitled. I don't know how to correct someone's behavior without saying their behavior is bad.
> I'm not complaining about how onerous it would be for me to stop complementing someone. What I think we do need to protect is our ability to be human and humane to one another, to empathize with one another, and to have the option of connecting on a remotely personal level to people we spend the majority of our days with. I think this happens naturally and copacetically 99.99% of the time.
1 in 4 women experiences sexual harassment in the workplace. Often they experience it multiple times, especially women in low-wage jobs. In my workplace, we don't comment on the appearance of women, and we still manage to have a blast. For Christmas, we went to an Irish pub together and swapped hilarious stories. Someone told stories about competing in a triathlon, someone else told stories from when they were in boot camp. I wouldn't call us friends per se, but I would say we're very collegial. Your assertion that banning comments on women's appearances would sterilize the workplace is simply not true. So don't worry about it :).
Instead, worry about how millions and millions of women are sexually harassed every day. I really think that issue is far, far bigger.
But what I thought was really interesting in that quote @marczellm linked to, and more specifically in the Twitter replies discussing it (they're now private, so I can't go back and quote them)... someone asked something like "how can this be harassment?" followed by some nasty personal attacks and then statements like "this is always harassment" and "you can never say anything like this". And so I'm looking at the statement completely outside the context of TFA (because that's just tweeted allegations after all).
It would be terribly disheartening to learn that I can't actually do/say those things because women are so overcome by constant harassment it becomes too likely that a complement or nice gesture would actually be harassing. I'm not quite convinced this is true, but I am certainly more attune to the possibility than I was previously.
> No, it's not restricted to physical stimuli. To reference the reports in this thread, telling a woman "it's taking all of my self control not to grab your ass right now" is sexual harassment, even if no one is touched. Do you really think otherwise?
I do not think otherwise, you simply misread what I wrote. I was opining on the qualifier sexual in the phrase sexual harassment. Grabbing someone's ass, or threatening to grab someones ass, or telling someone you are imagining yourself grabbing their ass, all obviously qualify as sexual harassment. Harassment which is rooted in sex or other related physical stimuli. Sexist remarks against women in general are what I would call 'gender harassment' not sexual harassment.
It's worth mentioning that the term "sexual harassment" was invented, a so-called "term of art" whose definition is far from settled. "Because of this, one cannot simply appeal to the 'facts' to determine which behaviors fit the category and which do not. There is disagreemetn about what the relevant 'facts' are. People must establish that there are identifiable features of certain behaviors that make it useful to label them sexual harassment. This leaves open the possibility for disagreement about which behaviors, if any, count as sexual harassment." [1]
[1] - Margaret A. Crouch, Thinking about Sexual Harassment: A Guide for the Perplexed ;-)
>Yes it is, it's an unwelcome sexual advance.
You're wrong here, because if we ban people from revealing their attractions, then no one will enter relationships, and humankind will be extinct.
It's really disappointing to see people defending vile behaviour on HN, and is the reason I normally flag these threads.
> Personally, I'm not willing to "err" on the side of pretending my coworkers are ethereal beings without corporeal form.
You've set up some bizarre distortion of what you're being asked to do, which is very simply "don't comment on a person's appearance unless you know that person well enough to do so (and almost certainly never if they're a work colleague).
From what I understand from @camgunz replies, "unless you know that person well enough to do so" is not an acceptable exception in @camgunz mind. I specifically said I'm not talking about cat-calling strangers or anything remotely obviously offensive.
Recall the starting point, with my claim that telling a colleague, "You look amazing in that ___, like a rock star." is not harassment. To which @camgunz replied that women can't be complemented the same way as men, and "many women view comments on their appearance as demeaning and threatening".
My point was, in the workplace, between colleagues, and forget about the specific person being indited in these tweets, can you pay a colleague a complement? I think emphatically, why yes you can. I almost can't believe I'm having the argument.
> Men aren't harassed based upon their appearance.
I have been harassed based on my appearance, and many of my friends have reported the same. Anecdote isn't data, but your statement is categorically false. The harassment may be different (e.g. men being put-down or physically provoked versus women being cat-called) but it is all harassment.
> When men are raped, they aren't asked about their appearance, or if their appearance was provocative.
Also, categorically false. Questions as to consent, or mistake of fact regarding consent, are always raised at trial by competent defense. Let me clear, provocative appearance is not even remotely consent, but it is regularly part of the story told by the defense, regardless of the gender of the accused and the victim. I'm just stating legal fact here to debunk your claim, not endorsing anything.
The same thing goes for harassment based on appearance. Certainly men can be harassed in this way, but it's nothing like when women are, because the history is totally different.
> Questions as to consent, or mistake of fact regarding consent, are always raised at trial by competent defense.
These are different for men than they are for women. Men have to face the "can men really be raped?" argument, where as women have to face the "was she asking for it?" argument. You can see how men's appearance doesn't factor into this; it's the gender stereotype of men being willing to have sex with anything that's at play. But we agree that both are pretty fucked up.
> I'm just stating legal fact here to debunk your claim, not endorsing anything.
Haha, things are getting a little hot in here I guess. I don't think you're defending rapists or anything :).