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I am very aware of the ultra PC culture resulting from people who are lawsuit trigger happy. I don't say or write anything not PG rated at work and even that is no guarantee that some snowflake or trouble maker isn't going to contort something into a complaint or lawsuit. So far that hasn't happened and most of my coworkers are educated stable individuals.
No amount of training can prevent the above. A comment about the weather can be contorted into an HR complaint.
This just goes further in showing you clearly don't get it. A lot of times these courses also go into depth on what creates a hostile work environment. I just left a department where the current boss started and MALE coworkers were telling me that it was clear that the boss was so sexist toward females it was making them uncomfortable. I worked remotely, so I had no idea. It was not blatant hanging of porn or propositioning female subordinates.
For example, he'd only invite the men in the department out to lunch and not the women, even though they were group lunches. He certainly wasn't the only manager in the office to have this issue. We had another guy who was infamous about trying to bully women into doing what he wanted and then someone who got fired after an investigation into sexual harassment. We ALL had to take the class and usually had follow up classes at least every other year.
I said a woman I work with "looked nice today", because she was dressed up far more than usual, and while she didn't take it the wrong way, one of the coworkers who witnessed my remark, had me written up and I had to do an interview and go through the Sexual Harassment video and test again as punishment.
Nowadays there are all kinds of jobs/careers where men have to take courses regarding sexual harassment, whether it be office jobs, the military, what have you. But if anything, doesn't it show how defective these guys are if such courses are needed in the first place? And if they are the type to sexually harass would forcing them to take a course on it really make a difference? I dunno, I just think if I owned a business I wouldn't want someone working for me that is so mentally retarded that he would need to know how not to sexually harass in the first place.
It reminds me how in Sweden they actually give refugees from third world countries courses on how not to harass/sexually assault women. Like...Don't you think there's an issue if you bring in men that have to be told such in the first place??? Not that likewise I feel that any man that thinks raping/sexually assaulting women is a cool thing would change their minds by such courses in the first place either.
I have never seen a workplace that requires only men to take these courses. In my experience they are simply part of new hire orientation for men AND women. I had to watch the films and take the quizzes, too. When they e-mail us our online training compliance stuff every year, we ALL get the identical sections, one of which is sexual harassment.
I would like a link or some company name that states only men have to take these courses anywhere.
All the orientation films and courses are geared toward the possibility we are all stupid. Sexual harassment ones are no stupider then the HazMat ones, or the customer service ones. I already know not to pour some poison substance into an unmarked bottle and leave it where a resident (nursing home) could get access to it, yet the course assumes we are all that dumb.
Again I would like to see some evidence that men are being singled out for this, or I don't believe it.
This just goes further in showing you clearly don't get it. A lot of times these courses also go into depth on what creates a hostile work environment. I just left a department where the current boss started and MALE coworkers were telling me that it was clear that the boss was so sexist toward females it was making them uncomfortable. I worked remotely, so I had no idea. It was not blatant hanging of porn or propositioning female subordinates.
For example, he'd only invite the men in the department out to lunch and not the women, even though they were group lunches. He certainly wasn't the only manager in the office to have this issue. We had another guy who was infamous about trying to bully women into doing what he wanted and then someone who got fired after an investigation into sexual harassment. We ALL had to take the class and usually had follow up classes at least every other year.
The real problem in this is you are both right. I've worked in an office where, like you said, the boss made the men uncomfortable with his treatment of women. To the point the men were ready to file a complaint with HR on behalf of the women. And the women asked us not to because they didn't want to look like a whiney female. And I've worked with women who were quite open about the fact they had their complaint all ready to file, they just needed a justification to hang it on, because they figured they could wrangle a promotion out of it. One I work with right now has filed complaints on all of her last four supervisors.
A lot of men accused of SH will say "I didn't know it wasn't okay". So they give a course, and now the guy can't say that. It sort of takes away the opportunity for the guy to claim ignorance of what's "over the line" behavior.
Although there might, possibly, maybe a small benefit in setting standards for some young people who aren't aware of proper means of behavior, that isn't the main goal. After taking the mandatory course, people no longer have the defense that they did not know it was inappropriate. If they do harass somebody, it is easier to fire them and they won't have grounds for a counter suit.
I was wrong. After reading the posts in this thread, it is obvious that people desperately need a basic education on this topic.
I hope that by repeated exposure to the thoughts and concepts presented in the training we will make some progress as a culture.
So basically what you're saying is if you haven't personally experienced it, then it never happens.
Not at all.
I just have a finely tuned BS detector.
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