If Neil deGrasse Tyson’s accusers had come forth 5 years ago, it wouldn’t have made a blip in the media–traditional or social. Two of the accusations involved him being “creepy.” That is, he looked further at a tattoo of the planets on a woman’s upper arm, and he invited a colleague for wine and cheese and offered a special handshake that involved staring into each other’s eyes and feeling each other’s pulses. Tyson doesn’t deny either event took place, but states he had no bad intentions and had no idea that the women were bothered.
The third accusation of a drugged rape is, much more serious and Tyson denies it took place at all. The event was over 30 years ago, and would be impossible to verify.
And this leads us to a recent article at Bloomberg regarding men on Wall Street being wary of being alone with any women–but especially with young and attractive women. The article begins:
No more dinners with female colleagues. Don’t sit next to them on flights. Book hotel rooms on different floors. Avoid one-on-one meetings.
In fact, as a wealth adviser put it, just hiring a woman these days is “an unknown risk.” What if she took something he said the wrong way?
This fear is definitely founded. We have a situation with Tyson where (in the first two accusations) both parties agree on what happen, but they took it very different ways. No one would be surprised to find that, in the future, Tyson only inviting invite male co-workers to his office for wine and cheese.
To keep reading, click here: From Believe All Women to Hire No Women?
Wonderful article! “Always believe the woman” won’t serve women any better than “always believe the man” did. Seems like part of our problem is that our culture doesn’t really have a handle on what behaviors are right and wrong. We have a double standard, where in some circles masculinity means treating women with respect and in others it means shagging as many as possible. Both men and women are unclear on where the boundaries lie. HR can provide leadership in clarifying for men what behaviors might have been accepted and maybe even applauded in the past and are not permissible today, and for women what behaviors are awkward and unpleasant but should not be considered punishable. For businessmen to avoid women will only delay the discussions we need to have so that both have a clear and agreed-upon vision of the lines that must not be crossed.
Unless someone can define policies for interaction behavior between colleagues, regardless of sexual orientation which will be required for all and immediate enforcement be made, we will still have these problems. I guess all HR people have a big job ahead of them to define this.
I am a man and Stephen Zweig is wrong in his comment “Just try not to be an asshole.” You could be an angel but if someone labels you as an asshole then the public thinks you are an asshole until you are able to prove that you weren’t.
Example: American Airlines accused of abandoning a wheelchair bound woman…except she wasn’t totally wheelchair bound and AA did not abandon her.
h t t p s : / /w w w .dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6459313/Woman-not-left-stranded-Chicagos-OHare-airport-overnight.html
I do not intentionally touch any other person, woman or man and I almost recoil if there is an unintentional contact. At the same time if I were to apologize for accidental contact then that could create/acknowledge an issue. Years ago, I stopped complimenting people on their clothes because there is no way to know how a well-intentioned benign comment will be taken. I also avoid being alone with women in the same room in the office. I keep the door open and try to walk and talk the conversations to common spaces/hallways. I’ve wondered if saying “hi” in passing is too much; I do it and some specific women just pretend I’m not even there and will not respond. Is this back in high school or is it a new thing? Please let me know.
I teach grad school at night to 30-somethings and have office hours immediately before and after class. I do these in the public common room because if I had office hours in a classroom then I would open myself up to a potential situation…not a situation where something would happen, but a situation where a student would lie and say something happened. I deal with this all the time already on tests where students obviously cheat and when confronted they come up with all kinds of outlandish stories that sometimes try to implicate me – I just had this issue two days ago and am currently dealing with the aftermath. BTW, these 30-somethings that falsely accuse me during the evenings work in offices during the day and I have no doubt that they would falsely accuse someone there too.