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Is Sexual Harassment a Laughing Matter?

October 8, 2008 RSS Feed Print

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''Working Girl'' aka Karen Burns

I got some blowback from last week's post on laughter as a weapon against sexual harassment.

Some commenters thought that Working Girl was advising "laughing off" sexual harassment. Others concluded that WG proposes laughter as the one and only response to all forms of sexual harassment. She does not, on both counts, and is sorry to anyone who thought so.

Laughter is a tool you might choose to try if your situation meets two criteria: (1) it fits the level of the crime, and (2) you are the snarky type of person who can carry it off. (Ridicule and scorn are powerful weapons. Why deprive ourselves of them?)

But if a short, sharp "ha-ha!" to improper remarks doesn't stop a harasser in his/her tracks, then you should immediately employ another approach. For some excellent suggestions, check out the comment trail (many thanks to LGH, et al.).

In any case, whatever approach you do use, when the offense is minor, casual, and unthinking (as it so commonly is), it's a good idea at first to try to deal with it yourself. Meaning: Don't run to HR if someone calls you "Sweetie." According to Cynthia Shapiro, author of Corporate Confidential, reporting harassment can backfire by branding you a problem employee. Yes, it's unfair. HR people are wonderful, intelligent, and kind, but when push comes to shove, HR will protect the interests of the company over your interests.

Sexual harassment is, sadly, still a fact of life in many workplaces. If a snarky riposte can nip the offense in the bud—as it has for Working Girl, countless times*—you should feel free to bring on the scorn. If not, then not.

*All of WG's suggestions are purely and simply based on her own work experiences.

Karen Burns, Working Girl, is the author of The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use, to be released by Running Press in April 2009. She blogs at karenburnsworkinggirl.com.

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As one of the first women technicians at IBM, I put up with a lot - not so much from co-workers although there was one I threatened - but from workers in factories and railroads and trucking companies. Karen is absolutely right that turning advances into a joke is THE BEST WAY to cut them off. Only the worst will try to recover after you laugh them off as a joke.
Most will drop it when they see you're laughing at them. Those that don't - like the co-worker I mentioned - need to be told VERY CLEARLY that you will NOT put up with their behavior. And if even that does not work, get reassigned. I had one really bad customer who was so over the top that I simply asked a very confident, intelligent and dominant male coworker to handle calls there.
What is over the top? Customers who place urgent service calls and then insist you go to dinner with them first. Telling you your manager told you to do something you know darn well the manager would never have agreed to do. Coworkers trying to corner you in a back room.
If you won't put up with it you CAN stop it most of the time. If that does not work, you need a new job.

Gail Gardner of TX 3:52PM October 29, 2012

Working Girl, I like your style. Way to come back swinging.
If it works, it works. Sometimes laughter is exactly the best response to something that is crazy and out of whack. The WAY one laughs makes all the difference though, as you say. If your laughter is derisive and snarky (vs. nervous or conciliatory), and if (further) being"snarky" isn't going to backfire on you, that's terrific.
Laughing snarkily at your boss, though, is probably always going to be a dangerous thing. As will laughing at a particularly aggressive harrasser. Dominant and domineering people will not like being "attacked" in this way, and could retaliate.
Cause that's what harrassment really is... an attempt to dominate. It's all just like handling middle school bullies... most of them (but *not* all of them) can be handled most effectively by simply refusing to react in the submissive or way that they want.

Almostgotit.com of TN 8:35PM October 09, 2008

I read a bunch of these comments and as a long time manager in a business with lots of men and not so many women, I admired a woman who had the self confidence and savoir-faire to deal with idiotic inappropriate comments, and if laughter was a technique that worked, great. If the situation is really serious, and it sometimes is, then, yes, get HR involved or the boss involved. But for the countless little situations that happen in the workplace, value those who can deal with it without escalating it into something it doesn't need to be. The good thing about laughter is that it diffuses a situation, whereas anger usually begets anger.

A. Reader of 4:30PM October 08, 2008

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