“Should you not report sexual harrassment at work?  What happenes to the women who report it?”  This question comes up on the Human Resources UK group on LinkedIn and I notice it draws my attention.  I notice the implicit assumption that being harrassed is a women-only experience.  I also ponder the difference between coming to such an experience as a victim and coming to it as someone who is empowered to make choices.  This is my response on the forum:

From the point of view of the person who is viewing the behaviour of another as harrassment, two key questions (in my view) are this: is he or she ready to open up a conversation with uncertain outcomes? And what is the cost of not doing so?

We face the same dilemma in every area of our lives. For example, there was a time following the death of my father when I became aware that one friend was unhappy because I wasn’t choosing to spend as much time with her as I had been used to and I was making a different decision with another friend. She shared her feelings with me and I invested time in listening. I also asked her to hear what was going on for me and, effectively, she said no. For me, this was a process of discovery, finding out about the limits of our friendship and, ultimately, led me to let go of that friendship. I was ready for that. Some others might not have been.

Coming back to sexual harrassment at work, anyone who chooses to open up a dialogue about their experiences is choosing to find out more about the organisation they work for as well as about the person whose behaviour he or she is not enjoying. It’s likely that this won’t always be pretty. At the same time, this does open up further choices. Of course the question is there to be asked: what’s the learning for me in this situation? And there is also the question: given what I have experienced as a result of raising an allegation of sexual harrassment, do I want to stay with this organisation or move on?

Perhaps there’s a question here about whether we come to the dialogue as a “victim” or as an empowered person who is ready to find out more and use new insights to make decisions.

Of course, there is so much more that could be said.  This was my starter for ten.