Don't be so negative. They do the same things in Boy Scouts now for the same reasons. The net result is a safer environment for leadership and children alike.

Frankly, I think he is not being cautious enough because the term "sexual harassment" has also moved into the realm of disagreement. Maybe you don't like her work and criticize it or maybe you are her boss and not agreeing with her performance. Most women quickly figure the criticism is being levied because he is overtly professional with them and also because they are women. I have had many women come to me and tell me these stories with this line of reasoning.

Most women aren't like this but the threat model the OP is using is legitimate. In 2017, if you get accused, you are done. Your family is done. Just move to Bermuda and retire. It is not something you can recover from.

> we do walking meetings around the block in public areas.

Please don't do this.

    it is cheaper to just get rid of you even
    if you are innocent

As best I know, this has never happened to anyone in / near my social network. That leads me to believe that this isn’t something that happens very often in the general population (unless I’m an outlier). And if it’s so rare, then it doesn’t seem to be worth going out of my way for.

[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-08/o-reilly-...

This works till it doesn't. All it takes is once.

Raw statistics are worth internalizing, but in an era where a slip of the tongue is enough to hang you (socially), it's worth being overcautious.

Except that's not what we're seeing; we're seeing one spiral into historical many. It's not a witch hunt, it's a reckoning.

>> Please don't do this.

Can you please explain? Walking meetings are quite popular in my network. I thought this is a pretty safe trend.

I'm socially awkward and I still don't have problems having a closed door conversation with a member of the opposite sex. Are you just going to pass on interviewing women because that puts the two of you in a room?

Maybe it would be different if I was the CEO hiring for an executive position, and then I would make an exception. But for white boarding? Even if it were 1 on 1, I don't understand the need to have the door shut.

Privacy makes me uncomfortable anytime in a work environment. I like my home life private, but I'm fine having my work place conversations overheard by others.

Everything else is just being professional.

People might've known me as a weirdo who stuttered or referred to Star Trek too much, but no one would ever think of me as inappropriate, simply because I never was, not even close.

Alone in a room with Putin/Duterte in their homefields, and God knows to what you'd agree. If they coerce you, you might not be believed and, besides, they could have you killed.

Never walk into a room, alone with a dictator.

Or, if you're an 18yo store clerk for American Apparel, never do so w/ the CEO of your company.

And it's unethical to ask a subordinate to expose themselves by joining you, the authority, in such a situation.

... extenuating circumstances aside.

Unless you are an actor or dancer any sort of touching with coworkers is very inappropriate for all genders, sexual or non sexual touching included. Keeping your work and professional lives separate is just good sense. It's rude to make comments about other people's appearances unless you are very close friends with them. Closed door meetings are sometimes needed but you should never do them excessively or with only the young or attractive, that looks like you're being inappropriate.

Basically, it's just professionalism and should apply to everyone, all genders.

I an friendly with my colleagues but I don't want to be friends with them. I prefer to keep my professional relationships professional and my personal relationships personal.

Imagine if we applied the same standards to school.

I think this attitude is part of the reason why adults have a hard time making friends after college.

During work I am usually too busy, uh, working to really socialize. I mean, I'm friendly, there's water cooler banter, but I've got work to do.

I socialize plenty, just outside of the office with people who aren't my colleagues.

I've personally seen excessive fraternization backfire badly. You also realize, once you've been around the block once or twice, that friends you make at work are very shallow friendships 99.99% of the time.

Here's an argument for boundaries at work: https://hbr.org/2003/12/in-praise-of-boundaries-a-conversati...

>You don’t have time to make friends if you’re out socializing every night with pseudofriends. And on a smaller scale, the same is true in business offices. It is a terrific imposition for a business to ask people to give up their weekends and their evenings for unpaid work. I get these pathetic letters from 70-year-old retired executives who say, “I worked for 40 years in this office, and everybody loved me. They gave me this huge party when I left. And now nobody calls me. What happened?” What happened, I say, is that your colleagues aren’t your friends—and they never were.

I used to be like you, and I found it actually put me back in life richness. After I started seeing another non-work friend making friends from work and inviting them to social things, I realized it wasn't a bad thing to be open to be making friends. Your not going to make friends from most people you meet, just like school, but it is a possibility. I think part of the reason why you find them %99.99* shallow is because you might not be open to it.

It's also quite funny that article cites china, japan and so on as places with more formalized boundaries, where it's pretty much tradition that you go out drinking with colleagues every, single, night and you work a fucking shit ton.

What I'm suggesting is to not be afraid of it. If there is some optional board game night that seem enjoyable, and you like it, go do it! If you really click with someone that you have lunch breaks with on your team, it's not a bad thing! If you don't connect with anyone, there is nothing wrong with that either.

99.9% shallow is not because I'm not open to it, its been my direct observation from people around me throughout the years. I didn't start noticing it until I was in my late 20s. It's not hard to observe from being around the block a few times.

Drinking with colleagues in Japan is not actually socialization, its just an extension of the office. Its a highly formal and ritualized event even though there is alcohol. It's considered part of work.

I'm not going to board game nights with coworkers because I'm busy playing board games with my actual friends. Sometimes new friendships happen in the office, ok, but I'd like to avoid mixing friendship and business if possible.

1) Making friends with all your colleagues can become a minefield to navigate after a while, uh.

2) You know friendships with people you aren't required to be around are legitimate.

if it's important to you, that's why you have friends and family.

i'm sure as an adult you can handle not fondling other adults at work, because even if you think 'it's important', you don't know what kind of space other people are in and how they feel about you touching them.

Fondling is not even close to the word touching.

Fondling is about sexuality.

Touching is a physical action. You touch a cup. You touch a dog. You touch a touch screen. You touch someone when you shake their hand.

Roughly, you can't fondle a cup. You wouldn't say you fondle a dog, and you won't say you fondle friends and family.

(And I do know spaces my workmates are in... as much as family and friends, so should you if you are able. Human beings matter, a workplace is more than money)

if human beings matter to you, hopefully you can see this.

Weird. So I guess you never shake hands with someone in a business meeting, and it is only appropriate to do so if you are an actor or dancer.

> Closed door meetings are sometimes needed but you should never do them excessively or with only the young or attractive, that looks like you're being inappropriate.

When I worked at Evil Corp, the only meetings I could have were behind closed doors. I worked closely with a female colleague on another team - she was young and attractive, nobody thought it was inappropriate.

> Basically, it's just professionalism and should apply to everyone, all genders.

I can agree to that.

That they aren't being denied networking opportunities or opportunities to build working relationships?

What is a positive take-away for women from powerful or monied men saying, in public, "I am afraid of meeting with women, so I no longer will"?

For the record, I'm a dude and when I hear men say this, I think much less of them--for being cowardly and shutting women out of industry for their cowardice.

At work we discussed a customer who wouldn't shake hands with women because of his religion. A coworker said that's not sexist and the company should accommodate the customer. I asked him how he'd feel if a customer's religion bars handshakes with white dudes. He looked down and had no response.

> I'd wager that people making these claims probably _do_ have this as a risk, for good reason.

why do you think they have this as a risk? why for good reason? why do you wager this situation?

your phrasing seems like a sneering insinuation, but framed such that you can say it doesn't mean any one concrete thing, should someone respond. this seems like "weasel wording" and it seems disingenuous to reply the way you did.

The people who think women should be equal ...

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Could you explain this?

When you go shopping do you take a chaperone so as to keep yourself out of a potentially unsafe shoplifting situation?

We're all always adjacent to a potential crime or difficult situation. But we're not supposed to live in fear of them.

it's not an insinuation, it's risk mitigation.

What I'm really worried about is keeping myself out of situations where mutual feelings of physical attraction develop. This could lead to situations that threaten my work and family.

I had an uncle who was a Catholic priest. They are not allowed to spend time alone with nuns, and I think its the same idea.

Back to your analogy.... I don't bring a chaperone to the grocery store to prevent myself from shoplifting. But I definitely bring my wallet. I also try to shop AFTER dinner rather than BEFORE, because when I shop while hungry it completely changes my buying behavior. I view this as the same thing.

I want to provide fertile ground for the type of relationships that I want to have, and make it difficult for the kinds that I am avoiding to even get started.

I find it easier to not have to consider the sexual preferences of my coworkers when I'm interacting with them.

Edit: I should add, if someone is going to attack my character, they're going to do it regardless of what I do. I'm not going to go out of my way to prevent that.

Similar to using encryption everywhere you can: it makes the use of it non-suspicious. The last thing I want is for being alone with a coworker to be implicitly suspicious because the new norm is this sillyness.

The worry is about him appearing plausibly improper, so their sexuality doesn't matter.

Sure.

> If someone in power cannot meet with someone one on one without attempting anything

Uh, that's not what the paranoia is. The paranoia is about accusations.

Fear isn't rational.

You can't imagine someone in this situation that's excessively worried about a very unlikely but possible occurrence, and acts based on that fear?

I have zero sympathy whatsoever for those cowards, and I extremely abhor the implied insinuation that women won't receive opportunities in the future unless they allow themselves to be harassed and shut up about it.

American Beauty How to Quit a Job With Kevin Spacey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psNuJuaYqVU

Why is that? I'm not American so I don't understand, is it because of self-defense against allegations or because you see it inappropriate?

Either way, I think you guys are a bit nuts over there, avoiding normal human interaction between genders, or people in general, is the solution?

I give PLENTY of compliments throughout the day. But I keep it limited to someone's thought's, actions, attitude, and quality of work.

Basically I try not to do anything that would be confused with one of those things.

If you don't do that, then yeah you're a jerk.