Thursday, September 21, 2017

Is industry better at dealing with sexual harassment than academia?

I haven’t been able to express my thoughts about Linda Wang and Andrea Widener’s cover article in this week's C&EN on sexual harassment in academia. (I should note here that Linda is my editor for the Bench and Cubicle columns that I write for C&EN.)

While we're doing full disclosure here, I should note my opinions on the issue: I don't have any doubt that sexual harassment has and does happen in academia. For any particular case of academic sexual harassment that is brought to light in the public, I am much more inclined to believe the accuser who comes forward.

I thought it was a well-researched, comprehensive and gripping article that forced the reader to confront the reality of sexual harassment in the chemical sciences. Each story demonstrated the impact of sexual harassment:  a woman student who is harassed by an male adviser will find themselves isolated, confused, doubting themselves, unable to communicate these issues easily with confidants, potentially ashamed to go their family and they will face a departmental structure that is incentivized to have that student disappear.

What I am most struck by in the article is the pervasive sense that academic departments and universities will continue to self-police. In my humble opinion, no academic process outside of a court of law can deliver a just outcome. After watching the UC system defend Professor Patrick Harran against the Los Angeles District Attorney to the tune of millions of dollars, does anyone think that universities will step up for those at the bottom of the academic hierarchy? I am not really one that is inclined to legislative solutions to problems, but I am certainly tempted by the article's mention of Rep. Speier's bill that would require substantiated cases of harassers to be reported to the funding agencies. If it's a bad idea, it's a useful one that will introduce some threat of accountability into the system.

Something that I was surprised at was this statement from "Elizabeth":
"Some people think industry is where the harassment happens,” Elizabeth says. “But in industry, creeps get fired."
On Twitter, there were a number of people who found this statement worthy of some skepticism.

I am certainly skeptical as well, but I think that it depends on what she meant by "industry." For the 40% of Americans who work at companies with more than 1000 employees, I have no doubt that HR departments (and the lawyers that birthed them) fundamentally expect and enforce a zero-tolerance perspective on issues of sexual harassment. For smaller companies? I also have no doubt that there are well-run shops where sexual harassment is not welcome, and there are some (many?) that probably have terrible cultures.

So I am inviting industrial readers: do you think sexual harassment happens less in industry? If so, why? (My guess: the power differential between employer and employee is never quite the gulf that it is between PI and student.)

32 comments:

  1. Process chemist here in a company of ~160 with production operators as well - zero tolerance on sexual harassment here. The single case in the 8 years I've worked here was dealt with a low orbit ion cannon, and the offender was swiftly walked out of the building. Prior to that the other case I've heard of from a company function where alcohol was involved, the offender was lucky he didn't get drawn up on sexual assault charges on top of immediate dismissal.

    Personal opinion: employers don't like liability, HR is intended to protect the company from exposure to liability and bad PR, as well as to handle administrative functions. If someone needs assistance at a company which has a soul, HR will be objective in assessing the legitimacy of any claim, and follow the national or state level laws, so geographical considerations are also at play.

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    1. I worked at a CRO with ca. 200 people. Virtually everyone knew everyone and we all joked very hard with each other. But "sexual harassment" was just part of the joking that went on there; I could tolerate it but every time these jokes came out amongst the people I was around, I quickly left in case someone with sensitive ears wandered too closely. It wasn't mean-spirited at all but everyone who was involved on the receiving end also dished it back out very hard as well so I think it that's why it was tolerated because no one claimed foul.

      I'm now in a bigger, more global company and shudder to think what would happen if that occurred here, even in the same joking fashion as above...

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  2. Great post and question. I think on average, albeit based on my limited experience of working at two large Pharmas, industry does much, much better although I'm sure there are outliers. I've also noted substantial change over the past 10 ish years where the newer generation of employees are much more aware and vocal. We are also much more committed to hiring for diversity and inclusion. It would be great to have actual data on all of this, but that seems like a difficult proposition

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    1. Also, I should note that at my old company we had many an alcohol fueled Christmas party of overnight department event and the few times incidence were reported, it could be traced back to those events. Where I am now, all parties are during work hours and if alcohol is allowed, the company never pays for it. Not to place the blame on booze as people are ultimately responsible for their behavior, but from a liability standpoint, and cultural, cutting out this fuel during company sponsored events is the right thing to do. Another factor in industry is also related to the power imbalance. Senior leaders don't bring in funding and are rather easy to either fire or retire...this is much different than in academia.


      Another factor to consider is comparing Pharma to other industries. I've heard horrendous stories from friends and family in finance or insurance, but it's difficult to know if those are outliers or close to typical.

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  3. It's better in industry unless it's the CEO. Just saying.

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  4. Was at a small btech (~40 ppl) years ago and there was one guy ~35 yo, a 'head technician' with a rumored track track record of harassing multiple younger female techs. Our HR person did let slip that he had a thick file of complaints, but nothing was ever done. He was one of the original employees, and a favorite of the CEO. His boss was a woman who, I assume it being such a small company, must have known what was going on.

    Just 1 anecdote.

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  5. Employees and managers at companies can be fired, demoted, transferred, their bonus may be cut so people are forced to behave according to policies whether they believe in them or not. What exactly can be done to a tenured prof. who's behaving inappropriately? And it takes 5 seconds to fire a student. Makes it difficult to expect a fair outcome and no retaliation in a harassment case in Academia.

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  6. It's not perfect, but I think the ability to move people between groups and the lack of the academic heirarchy help keep things from getting too bad, at least in chemistry companies. At my former company, which went from a startup to a 300+ person company in the time that I was there, they dealt with things before they got out of control. Nothing really big happened (to my knowledge) - a few dating couples got transferred so they weren't in the same group, etc. Early in the startup phase, a rather creepy guy got hired and was put into the same office as me - it went from a spacious 3 person office to a crowded 4 person one. He would invade my personal space, stare at me, use my desk when I wasn't in there, say suggestive stuff that didn't quite cross the line into reportable territory, etc. We didn't have a lot of women at the company, but he did make some of the other women uncomfortable, especially the younger ones (and even some of the men). He didn't say suggestive stuff to my male officemates, or do it when they were around. It wasn't textbook sexual harassment - he wasn't in my group and I was senior to him although I was a lot younger, but it made me very uncomfortable and impacted my productivity. He was also really loud and talked on the phone all the time about non-work stuff, so after two months or so I went to my boss and asked to move offices. I played up the fact that officemate was loud and was using my desk, rather than that he was creeping me out, but my boss figured it out. He pulled some strings for me to move offices. The creepy guy remained at the company for a year or two more and and was eventually fired for poor performance. All in all, I think the company's response was appropriate since it was in the grey area. If it had happened now, rather than in 1999, I probably would've gone to my boss sooner and listed all the reasons creepydude made me uncomfortable, and creepydude might have been asked to be more careful in his interactions with the women at the company. A few years later I met someone who was related to creepydude by marriage, and he told me creepydude had basically been disowned from the family for hitting on all the male relatives' wives.

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  7. Male 30-something chemist, previously at a <100 person research site for a 50K-employee company. One of my direct reports (woman just out of college), let me know that a colleague had been making unwanted remarks with sexual innuendo toward her. Since we didn't have an HR person on-site, I talked to my boss (also the boss of the offender), who basically told me that unless I had something more concrete than vague remarks, I should "let it go". I've since left the company, but my inaction still makes me upset.

    I think the size of the site (not necessarily the company) as well as the demographics (this site was dominated by men in their late 50s and 60s who had had very few female colleagues in their career). I'm inclined to believe it may not be as bad in industry as in academia for the reasons cited by others, but anecdotally I've seen the opposite.

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  8. Industry is nowhere near as bad as the Wild West of academia (and much better than it was 20 or even 10 years ago), but you'll still see these issues anywhere where there's a vast gender imbalance in the male direction. My experience (having worked at both large pharma and small biotech) is that the smaller the company, the better the HR department, EXCEPT when it comes to dealing with harassment issues. Large pharma will drop the hammer on this (unless, of course, it comes to dealing with one of their executives, which is a whole different story). A small company often takes the attitude of "that person is too valuable to the organization and must be protected" (Uber, anyone?). I recall an issue (at a small company) where a younger female was being harassed by a group of men, reported it to HR and her boss, got nowhere, and eventually got a lawyer and received a substantial settlement. That, sadly, was one of the more positive outcomes I've observed. More common (again, small company) was the manager who made frequent sexist comments in meetings, in front of several women, and never received even the slightest reprimand even though everyone was visibly uncomfortable. It made for a poisonous culture because everyone knew the guy was untouchable.

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  9. Great question. Based on own experience I would reiterate the comments above and say yes, industry is better because of the very different kind of power differential and environment that exists there. Harassment policies are usually zero-tolerance and are made clear. It's a bit more informal in small companies where group cohesion is expected to lead to reasonable behavior. There is one practice in industry, however, which I fear invites trouble: I have always been a bit wary of happy hours in which the alcohol flows freely. As far as I can tell nobody has crossed a line in these events, but they can also lead potential harassers to tempt fate.

    However, I do feel less optimistic when I think about the declining job security in industry. Apart from other reasons, it is easier to report harassment when you think that you would just be able to quit and find another job if there were retaliation or indifference. Unfortunately it becomes easier to be tempted to stay silent or ignore harassment when there's food to put on the table and you really need the job. In such an environment it also becomes easier for the harasser to continue his or her behavior because he knows that you won't complain. In that sense, I think that the problem of harassment in industry is a problem with the bigger picture of industrial employment.

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    1. Ash, there are plenty of happy hours in academia... also, although alcohol facilitates problematic behavior, the off-site nature of a happy hour lends itself to control (unlike interactions in a department office).

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    2. @anon 3:13 PM. I don't know. We had a go through a frozen water melon off the roof of the chemistry department during happy hour. Fortunately it did not hit anyone in the crowd below. Do you know what happened to the guy? He ended up being a chemistry professor.

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    3. Anon 3:13: Well, I have heard at least one or two cases of female scientists being made to feel uncomfortable during off-site drinking sessions and retreats. In fact the off-site nature of these events can sometimes encourage unruly behavior because people think the rules of the office no longer apply (I don't know whether organizations can legally do anything about this since it seems to be a fuzzy boundary).

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    4. Heh, that sounds familiar. Was this mentioned in that famous Chemistry Blog entry on Danishefsky?

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  10. I'd put this in the same category as lab safety - industry is much more advanced and improved, but not perfect.

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    1. Just commenting to say this is a great analogy, Anon.

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  11. I work in industry. In the past 5.5 years there were two cases of inappropriate comments. Both individuals were fired. One very fast. The other was warned and then fired because he went after the accuser in a verbally angry tone. When I was a grad student, I heard plenty of inappropriate comments made by males towards females. One particular group (an infamous PI who's name is no stranger to chem blogs) apparently had a very casual attitude towards pornography on the computers (I didn't see it but heard the female group members complain). In industry you have an HR department. You can go to your HR department and report anything. Managers are encouraged not to handle "issues" with their employees on their own but to rather go straight to HR (mainly for legal reasons). I don't doubt that there are bad actors in industry but from my experience so far academics is worse for behavior that could be seen as harassment. I would add as an aside to all this that sexual harassment is not the only kind of harassment that females experience at work. For example, the chem department chair where my wife works made an extremely inappropriate comment after she had a miscarriage. Totally would have been fired from my company (which isn't even that sophisticated of a company). The HR department offered my wife an investigation if she wanted. She hasn't opted for that as the person being investigated will know she opened a case against him and she is not tenured.

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    1. Make sure you document that. Massive settlements to aggrieved faculty have been paid for far less.

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  12. My policy is to never be alone behind closed doors, elevators, or a place alcohol is served with a member of the opposite sex. Served me well for 30 years.

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    1. My supervisor is the opposite sex. I had a one on one with them for 90 minutes yesterday behind a closed door. How would you avoid this?

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    2. Mike Pence? Is that you?

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    3. I'm sorry you are still single.

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    4. I understand that. How about schoolboys?

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    5. I understand why some people are against personal policies like this (perpetuation of the boys club, etc.), but I do think it is wise. As for meetings with a supervisor of the opposite sex, I think there are easy ways around this, meet in a conference room, have a door with a window, etc.

      I wonder if this is part of the trend toward glass-walled offices?

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    6. This is easier if you're a man working with mostly male coworkers. I've also been a chemist for almost 30 years - as a woman this policy would've put me at a major disadvantage, especially at the start of my career.
      Also, how the hell do you handle the elevator situation? Never use them? Get out any time a woman gets on? Use the special 'no girls allowed' elevator?

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    7. Anon 9:41: not sure about the glass-walled offices, but pretty sure it is related to why prostate exams are no longer given without a third staff person as witness present :)

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    8. This comment has very different implications depending on whether the commenter is male or female...

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  13. Female here, started working at a large chemical company in the early 1990s. Things were pretty bad there for women for an assortment of reasons (satellite lab far from headquarters, upper management who were womanizers, etc.). I was harassed by an assistant lab director, the quid pro quo type (promotion in exchange for sex). Luckily, he was forced to retire, for unrelated reasons. Later I was harassed by a coworker several levels above me, who had difficulty working with women; this was more the ‘hostile environment’ type of behavior, where he leered at my breasts whenever I walked by him, as well as talking about me in crude terms (comfirmed by male coworker). Long story short I did file a complaint, only to have the lab management state there was no evidence that he’d ever bothered me. That was the official finding. Unofficially, they told him to stop leering at me, and to stay away from me, which he did. However, I was still labeled a troublemaker/whiner/complainer, and it took a good 5 years to repair the damage to my career.
    I’ve aged out of the ‘harass-ables’ cohort of women, once I turned 40. I don’t hear of any harassment issues, but that may just be that I out of the loop. It’s not like they discuss these things at safety meetings. I’d like to think my current employer is good at handling these things, but I just don’t know.
    One reason companies, unlike academia, have to take harassment seriously is because their business liability insurers demand it, since the insurers do not want to pay out big monetary claims due to harassment lawsuits, a la Fox News. I suspect what goes on at private companies nowadays is that they look at the relative position of the harasser vis-à-vis the harassed. If the harasser is a manager or high-ranking researcher, I think they are less likely to take the complaint seriously. If the harasser is simply some average worker, then I doubt a company would hesitate to do something, including firing the person.
    Still, I can tell you from experience, it is not pleasant having to file a complaint to HR. I had my behavior in the whole episode scrutinized left and right. I first had to tell the leering harasser that his behavior was unwelcome, which resulted in him saying I was trying to get him fired. The HR people were lukewarm at best to my concerns. Altogether a negative experience, and actually worse than the harassment itself.

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    1. I agree with you! Dealing with the consequences of reporting the harassment is much worse than the actual harassment due to all the side-eye and scrutiny your coworkers give you. But, dealing with the harassment on your own by avoiding the harasser makes it look like you are "uncommunicative" and "not a team player". That was the case with me when my direct supervisor developed some dumb crush on me and would, at alcohol-fueled corporate parties and in private meetings, leer at me and make gross comments about my appearance. I eventually reported it to another manager, and the harasser quietly transferred out of our department. But, the damage to my professional reputation was done and I'm still (after 3 years or so) recovering from it. I also had to deal with the nasty gossip and my male coworkers avoiding me as if I was hyper-sensitive and over-emotional and totally out to get them. Being ostracized by your coworkers is no fun and I developed a fairly bad case of reactive depression and anxiety from it.

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    2. Dear Anon 4:10,
      I'm Unknown 8:07 from above, and I encourage you to hang in there. I also dealt with ostracism, which for me was worse actually from some women than from the men. What worked for me was finding a small group at the same site that needed someone with my background, and frankly just letting time go by. What happened that helped was new people transferring in from other sites who didn't know about the harassment, so they were friendly towards me, which made my work days a lot easier. I also focused on keeping my technical skills up, and on taking the long term view. I did consider leaving the company and even went on interviews, but decided in the end to stay, and I'm glad that I did. Over time people just forgot about the harassment situation, and treated me no differently than if it had never happened. I know this doesn't sound like an easy row to hoe, but I would tell myself that a. I hadn't done anything wrong, and b. everyone has some difficulty or another to deal with, and so this was mine to manage as best I could under the circumstances.
      So hang in there and give things some time to sort themselves out.

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    3. I am happy to serve as a potential intermediary, if A4:10 and U8:10 wish to speak to one another in private.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20