Trying to get a coworker to sit on your lap and telling her about your sexual prowess is 100%, no room for uncertaintainty, sexual harassment. I'm not sure what minority you hail from, but if the environment you were raised in considers that "not sexual harassment" then you need to learn from this story and adjust your behavior appropriately to make sure you aren't sexually harassing in your workplace.
To be fair, in the write-up, she says she laughed at the sexual comments made by her manager.
>I remember thinking to myself, “Did I do something to encourage this kind of behaviour?” I had uncomfortably laughed at some of the sexual comments my manager had made because I didn’t know how else to react as a junior member of the team. Should I not have done that?
And the facts about her 'harassment' are covered in one sentence in the whole article.
> In that week, I was kissed on the cheek, asked to sit on my manager’s lap, told about my manager’s sex life and virility, and told that “all men go through an Asian fetish at some time,”
She doesn't provide any context and keeps it as vague as possible. If you think about it, all/most of those things could have been light jokes that weren't specifically targeted to her. And I am certainly not defending her manager, but I still maintain that she did use this situation to her advantage. Getting a promotion, writing about it several years later in an attempt to promote her current startup.
> To be fair, in the write-up, she says she laughed at the sexual comments made by her manager.
No. That is neither a fair nor accurate paraphrasing of what the author said. That you would say this and then quote her is rather astounding.
She says quite clearly that she laughed uncomfortably because she didn't know how else to react.
> And the facts about her 'harassment' are covered in one sentence in the whole article.
She doesn't owe you or any other reader on the internet any fucking details whatsoever about her experience being harassed. You are nobody. She is not obligated to relive in excruciating details, the experiences she is referencing. She references the HR investigation. She explains how, in the context of the HR investigation--about which she rightly owes you no further details--she had to be:
> ...as specific as possible about all the infractions, the details, and the timelines. [She] had to recount any potential witnesses, for corroboration purposes. [She] felt humiliated. [She] cried.
There was disciplinary action with which she felt satisfied. HR departments don't typically take disciplinary action if they cannot find enough evidence to warrant such action.
Do you know what sexual harassment is?[1] A victim is not required to, and often is not comfortable, asking the person who is making their workplace uncomfortable to stop. HR exists precisely for these kinds of situations. The unwanted sexual harassment should not happen in the first place. It's not a victim's fault for deciding to go directly to HR.
Let's go ahead and review what occurred in one single week, as a new hire:
- kissed on the cheek
- asked to sit on her manager's lap
- offered unwanted details about her manager's sex life
- made the object of an apologist-style "Asian fetish"
So, out of curiosity, if you were a manager with a new female hire, who is an attractive Asian woman, help me understand ...
1. What context excuses and makes it not sexual harassment to kiss the new hire on the cheek uninvited? What light joke that wasn't specifically targeted at her did she miss when she was kissed on the cheek?
2. What context excuses and makes it not sexual harassment to ask a new female employee to sit on your lap? What light joke that wasn't specifically targeted at her did she miss when she was asked to sit on her manager's lap?
3. What context excuses and makes it not sexual harassment to divulge details about your sex life to your new female hire? What light joke that wasn't specifically targeted at her did she miss when she was told details of her manager's sex life?
4. What context excuses and makes it not sexual harassment to tell an Asian female employee that "all men go through an Asian fetish at some time"? What light joke that wasn't specifically targeted at her did she miss when she, an Asian woman, was told that all men have an Asian fetish? That is fucking textbook example of identifying a subject as the object of desire, then telling them they are the object of your desire, with disgusting apologist bullshit to try and make it not seem like you have any control over it.
All of this--and who knows, maybe more that wasn't divulged in the article--is sexual harassment. Even in cultures that kiss on the cheek, it's a token of familiarity not employed by strangers. SV does not have this culture. I've worked with a lot of different women over the years, in a number of professions. I've never kissed any of them on the cheek, uninvited or otherwise. I've dated a few women I've worked with, too--still never kissed any of them on the cheek in the workplace. Or asked them to sit on my lap. Or offered up details of my sex life. Or told them I had an X fetish, where they were clearly easily identified as X.
