The Ultimate ***** Weapon
About 12 years ago, I had some socially inept, but very innocent puppydoggish behaviour result in me having to endure a sexual harassment witchhunt. I was interrogated by an HR exec for almost two hours, and then humiliated as friends and co-workers (including one that I had a very big crush on....she, a good girl, actually helped get me out of trouble), were called in as witnesses. I was eventually completely exonerated, but get this, still written up and cautioned that upon even the report of another incident, I would be dismissed without investigation......kind of interesting, in that it was discovered that I hadn't actually done anything really wrong.
I've said this before-Sexual Harassment is the ultimate multi purpose ***** weapon. Drew Carey and Brad Pitt can do the exact same thing, and a woman will choose to perecute only Drew. The problem isn't the action....if it were, then Brad would be in trouble. De Facto, Sexual Harassment laws and policies make it possible for a woman to persecute a guy for not being someone she considers attractive (Hello arbitrary, and whim driven), and having the temerity to try and have a relationship with her.
I find it interesting that all kinds of obnoxious behaviour is acceptable in the workplace. One can be bitchy, moody, intrusive, nosy, megalomanical, arrogant, loud, egocentric,.....however, should one be SEXUALLY obnoxious, our culture has deigned that you are subject to dismissal and civil penalty. Why is it that SEX is given special treatment. Could it be that we are a country of regressive puritanical assholes?
Also, as my buddy Sin, I have, over the years, been the recipient of aggressive obnoxious unwanted sexual advances, mostly from fugly girls, but also from a male bi-sexual boss at a shitty job that I wasn't in a position to lose at the time. In all cases, I IGNORED IT, and eventually, the problem went away. And GUESS WHAT...............I didn't suffer any permenant damage from doing so.
Sounds like urban myth to me
While I know there are women like that out there, I highly doubt these are "geniune" forms they have filled out. It's internet folklore.
Besides, I reserve just as much ire & contempt for men who have six kids by six different women to whom they offer no support.
Workplace Sexual Harrassment
For several years I was a HR Director for a fast growing tech company. During this period I handled 6 accusations by women employees claiming that they were "victums" of sexual harrassment by male co-workers.
After thorough and thoughtfull investigations, in each case the woman were either lying or mistaken--in each case however, I had to personally conclude (ie this view was not stated, even casually to trusted co-workers) that EACH of these woman were PSYCHO.
In the most blatant case, after being terminated for ample cause, one of our CEO's Administrative Assistants (it is sexually discriminatory to call them secretaries) indicated to me in her termination interview that she believed she was being terminated because she would not service the CEO sexually (a blatant lie) and by the way, she thought after all of her "dedicated" service to the company (i.e. being the bitchy back-stabing gatekeeper to signer of all paychecks) only getting 2 weeks severance in lieu of notice was terribly unfair.
Yes guys, I know its hard to believe, but this American Woman, used the spector of a sexual harrassment lawsuit in order to Extort money from the company in the form of increased serverance. She succeeded. We were in the process of comming out with our IPO and it was much easier to give her an extra 6K to get rid of her than to have to deal with the PR ramifications as a company must disclose all of its litigation to the street during an IPO. Magically, when she had the check in hand the sexual harrassment ceased to have existed.
(The funny thing about this to me was that the silly twit could have gotten alot more. Her mistake was not naming a figure. Since she did not do so, I recommended 6K to our CEO as I thought this would make her happy, which it did. The fact is she could have asked for 3 or 4 times that amount and would have gotten it without a blink as our CEO really didn't want that kind of problem at that time. Moreover, she could have demanded that her all her stock options vest upon termination instead of losing them all due to not meeting the length of service requirements under the general plan. These options would have been worth HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS to her in a couple of years!)
Being an HR Director in corporate America was very educational. I can tell you that with out a doubt a male in the corporate jungle is definately a second class citizen as the most innocent of behaviors (not to mention outright fabrications) can be intererperated by a female to have sexual overtones if she so chooses and have dire consequences to a guy's employement. We have developed as a society a rather Soviet style environment. Most women in the work place are wonderfull poeple to work with and will NEVER accuse a man without there being a real offense.
But the truly vicious minority, as well as the not quite bright or emotionally unbalanced, can use the current system to bring down any man they don't like or to extort for some particular benefit, and in my experience the vast majority of all accusations are patently invalid.