NEW YORK (AP) — Sheryl Sandberg warned of a potential backlash against women and urged companies to put into place clear policies on how allegations of sexual harassment are handled.
In a lengthy Facebook post over the weekend, the chief operating officer at Facebook wrote that organizations under pressure to beef up policies for handling allegations of sexual misconduct may be tempted to limit their exposure by limiting opportunities for women.
“I have already heard the rumblings of a backlash: ‘This is why you shouldn’t hire women,'” Sanders wrote, referring to the rising chorus of women — and some men — alleging sexual misconduct in the workplace. “Actually, this is why you should.”
That movement, following the high-profile sexual misconduct scandals of powerful men including Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Matt Lauer, is empowering victims to speak up — but Sandberg said it isn’t enough.
“Too many workplaces lack clear policies about how to handle accusations of sexual harassment,” she wrote. She recommends every workplace start with clear principles and put in place policies to support them. That includes creating training sessions on proper workplace behavior, taking all claims seriously, establishing an investigation process and taking swift, decisive action against wrongdoing.
“We have to be vigilant to make sure this happens,” Sandberg wrote.
Sandberg also said that she has experienced harassment while doing her job, although never from anyone she’s worked for. She noted, however, that in each instance the harasser had more power than she did.
“That’s not a coincidence,” the 48-year-old wrote. “It’s why they felt free to cross that line.”
Sheryl took a break from overthrowing Western democracies and propping up Asian and Eastern European dictatorships to warn of a backlash.
“The secret to comedy,” Ms. Sandberg concluded, “is … wait for it … timing.”
she makes total sense; the current vacuum of policies is a recipe for chaos and possible disaster. anyone who listened to the takeaway (wnyc) heard a vicious ad hominem attack on todd zwillich by rebeccah carrol (because zwillich is white and male) that can only reinforce the biases of a segment of society that feels they are occupationally disenfranchised by ‘pc.’ even making an allowance for the obvious racism and misogyny, at the zero-sum (low end) of the employment scale, there is some validity to their suspicions.
Now that she is in a position of power, of course, she is going to name and shame anyone who she knows is trying to pull the backlash thing. Right?
Women have been told all their lives not to say anything by men. Now we have to worry about women executives doing the same thing? Warnings that one should not Rock the Boat until written policies are in place (which will never happen except in large corporations) are unproductive.
Many, if not most, of the women who have gotten ahead in corporate america have done so by behaving as much like men as possible. (Except for the behaviors that are “no-nonsense” in a man and “bitchy” in a woman)