How to Lose Your Job From Sexual Harassment in 33 Easy Steps

March 10, 2018 10:19 AM

"Ignore this comment and the other comments, questions, and emails that follow about how his marriage might be breaking up, and would he be a hot commodity on the dating market..." "Respond in the affirmative, and you’ve prostituted yourself. Respond negatively, do not respond at all, or get a lawyer involved, and there goes your career."

Deborah Copaken details how getting a writing job went from promising to yet another story about getting financially screwed because she didn't want to fuck her boss.

posted by jenfullmoon (22 comments total)

Heartbreaking.
posted by Mr. Fig at 10:28 AM on March 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

The small-print postscript about how there is no way for a freelancer to file a complaint is really gross. They are a freelancer, not free meat -- it isn't ok to harass them and certainly should be reportable.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:33 AM on March 10, 2018 [23 favorites]

This is apparently blowing up over on Twitter (if anyone wants to peek over there), complete with a couple "yeah, he did stuff like that to me too" threads.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:41 AM on March 10, 2018 [11 favorites]

Here's the thing that women and young people get offered all the time. I have no idea how often this happens to men because they don't talk about much. So, I'll throw a bone that this happens to "young people" of all genders. But this happened to me a lot when I was a young journalist and then a young graphic designer and a young person (woman) in tech. Could you do this free thing so that we can figure you out and then there will be more? or Could you do this thing that is vastly underpaid so that we can decide to bring you on with more security later? So, you have to "choose" whether you want to be broke with an opportunity or broke with a little money or just broke-broke with your principles and coherent world-view that says you will get paid well if you bring worth. I mean, it always comes back down to "women's choices" am I right? With little discussion of how shitty the items on offer are. Do you want a shit sandwich or an Ebola sandwich? Women, always choosing shit, amirite?!
posted by amanda at 10:45 AM on March 10, 2018 [53 favorites]

Spec work must die.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 10:49 AM on March 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

This just makes me furious.
posted by sarcasticah at 11:46 AM on March 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

To underscore how fucking systemic this bullshit is, when you google the author the first result describes her as a person the New York Times called “a media powerbabe.” Perceived fuckability is always more important than any other skill, intelligence or talent a woman may have.
posted by mrmurbles at 12:28 PM on March 10, 2018 [28 favorites]

I was so hoping that it was the "Big Important Male Editor" who lost his job.


Spolier Alert:


Nope.
posted by jonathanhughes at 12:31 PM on March 10, 2018 [7 favorites]

I don't blame her for the way she was treated, but I gotta say, as I read her account, I kept thinking fuck you, pay me.
posted by adamrice at 1:03 PM on March 10, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't blame her for the sexual harassment part but I can't believe she gave up a higher paying job to take a lower paying one without a written offer. I cringed reading that. She never HAD that job to lose.
posted by fshgrl at 1:15 PM on March 10, 2018 [23 favorites]

Should corporations legally be required to pay a specific amount for specific jobs? Would this help people get paid more fairly by removing wage negotiation from the hiring process? Just a thought.
posted by Beholder at 1:33 PM on March 10, 2018

> "Should corporations legally be required to pay a specific amount for specific jobs? Would this help people get paid more fairly by removing wage negotiation from the hiring process? Just a thought."

Unfortunately, at present that kind of thing generally results in 4 men and 1 woman being hired for [Position] which pays $70,000 per year, and 10 women and 1 man being hired for [Adjunct/Assistant/Freelance/Temporary Position] which pays $40,000 per year but mysteriously entails the exact same duties.
posted by kyrademon at 2:23 PM on March 10, 2018 [33 favorites]

when you google the author the first result describes her as a person the New York Times called “a media powerbabe.”

I imagine that's a reference to the title of one of her books, Shutterbabe.
posted by straight at 3:49 PM on March 10, 2018

For those interested, The Washington Post recently did a piece on the state of the wage gap.

It doesn't do a lot of breakdown by race, and as we all know white women are doing a lot better on this front than non-white women.

But if you keep scrolling it goes into a lot more detail than these pieces generally do -- for example looking at the wage gap among different age and education cohorts (men always make more, they start making a lot more between ages 25 and 35), and within industries (janitors get paid more than housekeepers or maids, and male janitors get paid more than female janitors).
posted by mrmurbles at 3:55 PM on March 10, 2018 [10 favorites]

when you google the author the first result describes her as a person the New York Times called “a media powerbabe.”

I imagine that's a reference to the title of one of her books, Shutterbabe

which actually further underscores the point, since according to an interview in the Nation, that is the title the publisher gave her book against her wishes
posted by mrmurbles at 3:59 PM on March 10, 2018 [29 favorites]

Hey men, next time you're offered a job/raise/etc, feel free to ask the hiring people how much the women in your position make.
posted by FirstMateKate at 4:04 PM on March 10, 2018 [17 favorites]

Ah yes, I knew that rang a bell. Previously.
posted by Athanassiel at 4:05 PM on March 10, 2018

Can't speak about younger, or the male/female divide, but being asked to do something free/really cheap "but you'll get all sorts of exposure!" All the time. "The pay's not great but you'll have equity." Yeah, I didn't even reply on that one, and it was a friend.
posted by oheso at 12:29 AM on March 11, 2018

This story is a great reminder that we need to learn to recognize, and respond to, early red flags. The creepy comment about staring at her breasts at their first meeting: huge red flag. And "dropping hints" that she has a boyfriend rather than saying directly, "Your behavior is inappropriate."

I'm not blaming her. And I know how hard these things can be when money, or the hope of advancement, are on the line. But in my experience, if there are early red flags of this kind, things never get better. If we can learn to call out "lesser" forms of bad behavior, we can, at the very least, protect ourselves from them, and at the very best, create cultures where these behaviors aren't acceptable.
posted by Orlop at 8:51 AM on March 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

It does get a little depressing, Orlop, to think that there might be no other opportunities if women don't push past the red flags and try to make the most of it. Opportunities for women just seem a little harder to come by. And in certain fields where there is already reduced employee rights - any "right to work" state, anyplace where you have a lot of contractors and freelancers and temp-to-hire positions, anyplace with a lot of prestige but lower pay, especially for those newcomers that are "paying their dues" then you have ample openings for bad behavior to take root.

This notion of what is entailed with "paying your dues" has seem to come to rest particularly uncomfortably when it comes to women. I remember a lot of talk about "paying your dues" when I was starting out and when I switched from tech to a more traditionally male-dominated field, paying your dues also meant being paid less and getting less mentorship and opportunities for advancement. But opting out of that, for me, looked like a recession-induced layoff, multiple years of trying to find a new foothold, and finally vowing to work for myself for the rest of my years if possible. Knock wood. But thank goodness in those intervening years, I found some incredible women-owned businesses to cut my teeth on and get the experience and mentorship that I needed. That is progress but it increasingly feels like if we are going to change the workplace, unfortunately, women need to opt out of male-owned and male-developed businesses. It's only looking better and better on that front.
posted by amanda at 10:53 AM on March 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

This story is a great reminder that we need to learn to recognize, and respond to, early red flags. The creepy comment about staring at her breasts at their first meeting: huge red flag. And "dropping hints" that she has a boyfriend rather than saying directly, "Your behavior is inappropriate."

Yes, this. I think we have a stock character in American culture: the harmless womanizer, the sleaze-with-a-heart-of-gold. The implication is that they just like women too much! But of course, the reality is that they don't like women at all. This situation is horrible, and I hate that women just have to grit their teeth and hope things turn out okay in these situations. I'll also say this: when I make excuses for someone who is being creepy, they never deserve the excuses. I always wish I'd let myself assume the worst from the beginning, because that's what we get. Every time.
posted by grandiloquiet at 5:09 PM on March 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

I had a friend in the 80s who was always hitting on women and talking about them in sleazy terms. He told me how much he loved women, and I said, "You don't love women, you love women's parts. Women themselves are a lot of trouble." He couldn't argue.
posted by corvikate at 1:00 PM on March 12, 2018 [1 favorite]