NOW WHAT?percent of women and 8% of men reported unwanted sexual or
romantic attention or touching at work. Seven percent of women
and less than 1% of men reported being bribed or threatened with
workplace consequences if they did not engage in sexual behavior.
Fourteen percent of women and 5% of men said that they had lost
work opportunities because of sexual harassment, which was also
associated with delays in promotions, reduced access to high- profi le
When Hollywood producer Harvey
Weinstein was accused of sex-
ual harassment, the dam broke.
Allegations of sexual miscon-
duct were raised against many
powerful people, and millions of
women shared their own stories
of harassment. It’s a watershed
moment for equality, say Williams,
a legal scholar, and Lebsock, a
feminist historian. Now 87% of
Americans favor zero tolerance of
harassment. Half of men are re-
thinking their own behavior. Over
75% of people are more likely to
report sexist treatment at work.
Everything has changed, for a
simple reason: Women are being
believed. Such was not the case
in 1991, when Anita Hill claimed
harassment by Supreme Court
justice nominee Clarence Thomas.
Back then women who came for-
ward were often discredited as
“vengeful, lying sluts.” But that
stereotype has been drained of
power by feminists who coined
the term “slut-shaming” and
reverse-shamed those who did
it. As the #MeToo and Time’s Up
movements demonstrate, women
will no longer be silenced. Trans-
lating outrage into action requires
new norms of workplace conduct,
which the authors outline. Firms
are moving away from quiet set-
tlements with victims and toward
fi ring abusers. But employers
still must follow due process and
evaluate the credibility of reports.
They need clear policies and fair
procedures for handling harass-
ment. No one’s asking men to stop
being men. But the reasonable
assumption is that work relation-
ships should be about work. You
must not take one in a romantic
direction if it’s unwelcome, and
the only way to safely tell what
someone else wants is to ask.
At the same time men shouldn’t
avoid women at work. That’s un-
necessary, unfair, and illegal: It
deprives women of opportunities
simply because of their gender.
Women, if colleagues make you
uncomfortable, tell them. If you’re
harassed, report it. The authors
aren’t sure they’d have said that
before #MeToo, but they do now,
and it signals that the world has
changed.Idea in Brief