Genesis The Podcast

The Link Between Sexual Harassment & Patriarchal Social Conditioning

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Join us for a compelling conversation with Professor Erin Kelley as we dissect the intricate ties between patriarchy and violence against women, inspired by her latest book, "Law, Literature, and Violence Against Women." You'll gain profound insights into how societal norms and gender biases are deeply embedded in various aspects of life, perpetuating gender-based violence. Professor Kelley's unique blend of real-life accounts and literary examples illuminates the systemic roots of sexual harassment, challenging us to rethink the structures that uphold male dominance.

Ever wondered how perpetrators target their victims in hierarchical workplaces like law firms? This episode exposes the vulnerabilities—such as low self-esteem, youth, and cultural factors—that predators exploit to maintain control. We break down the grueling process victims face when seeking legal recourse, discussing why the fear of lawsuits often doesn't translate into meaningful reform. With an in-depth analysis of DARVO tactics and institutional betrayal, we uncover the obstacles that further complicate the pursuit of justice for those who have suffered abuse.

Understanding the psychological impacts of harassment is crucial. We explore the often-misunderstood freeze response and how it influences reactions to violence, sometimes leading to victim-blaming. This episode is a call to action—join us in the fight for greater equity and support for those affected by domestic violence and workplace harassment.

Speaker 1:

We continue our conversations about patriarchy and the roots of violence against women with Professor Erin Kelly discussing her new book Law, literature and Violence Against Women.

Speaker 1:

I'm Maria McMullin and this is Genesis the podcast. We ended season three of Genesis the Podcast with a call to action for more partnership, more support, more people, organizations and communities joining together against domestic violence and in support of women's rights. The underpinnings of that call to action are revealed in the past 100 or so episodes of this podcast, as well as stories from women around the world that detail gender based violence and a world that both normalizes and perpetuates the abuse of women by men. That normalization often shows itself through what Professor Erin Kelly calls patriarchal social conditioning. Her new book Law, literature and Violence Against Women offers context for that claim and several others, like the origins of our culture of disbelief of victims, or that sexual harassment is just simply a fact of life that women must put up with. Here's a passage from the book's introduction that speaks directly to these arguments and offers some context for today's conversation. A major challenge that reinforces violence against women includes patriarchal social conditioning. Reinforces violence against women includes patriarchal social conditioning the way our systems of family life, education, employment, entertainment and pop culture, spirituality and religion contribute to the unrelenting prevalence of sexual assault, domestic violence and other forms of abuse.

Speaker 1:

In this book, I examine long-standing, commonly accepted, gender-biased social standards that have crossed over cultures, historical time periods and geographical locations. Of course, not all people believe that men have the right to abuse women. However, I contend that this concept exists as the rationale between the acceptance of men's violence against women, and it is the norm for the status quo. One belief that encourages violence includes the idea that women should remain submissive to men in the home and that men have the right to discipline women for incorrect behavior. Under this guise, domestic violence becomes acceptable. Other examples consist of the notion that women should not deny sex to their partners, that sexual harassment is normal and that women are most valued as wives and mothers and not as individuals. In other words, women should exist by the discretion of the masculine order, direction and pleasure. Under this patriarchal belief system, men are valued over women solely due to their gender, and this contributes to a culture of disbelief that signifies men's authority at any cost over women. We decided to begin season four exploring different aspects of this patriarchal social conditioning to help us understand our current predicament. That is a point in history where women have more rights than any other time period and yet continue to experience astronomical rates of violence, abuse and harassment. I can't promise that we can make any of this make sense, so to speak, but perhaps we can use what we learn to advocate for change. To quote Charles Sandberg, we cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change. Today, we examine sexual harassment as having roots in both patriarchal social conditioning and the tolerance and normalization of violence against women.

Speaker 1:

Dr Erin Kelly is a professor of English composition and literature at Dallas College, richland Campus in Dallas, texas. Holding terminal degrees in both literature and law. Dr Kelly just published her first book about law, literature and discrimination of victims of violent crimes. She writes on the abuses of history and a culture of disbelief that fails victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking and sexual harassment. Erin Kelly, welcome to the show, thank you so much for having me and maybe I should say welcome back, because you were here with us in season three and I think we talked about gender bias back then in season three. Yes, we did, we did. It's great to be back and we're going to talk kind of touch on that or expand on it today talking about sexual harassment. But first I must congratulate you on the publication of your book, and in order to talk about that book we'd have to cover a lot of ground. So we're really going to focus in on one chapter and it's the last chapter of the book which is about sexual harassment. So I just want to clarify a few things before we get started.

Speaker 1:

What sexual harassment is? So, as defined by the EEOC, sexual harassment includes unwelcome advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature in the workplace or learning environment. Further, this goes on to say that sexual harassment does not always have to be specifically about sexual behavior or directed at a specific person. For example, negative comments about women as a group may be a form of sexual harassment. And my source for all that I use RAINN as a source. The website is r-a-i-n-norg if anybody wants to check on that definition. So you mentioned in the book that, despite the label and I just said the word sexual about five times in the definition and kind of context for this despite that word in that label, sexual harassment is not about sex. What is it about? That's correct. Sexual harassment is not about sex.

Speaker 2:

What is it about? That's correct. Sexual harassment is not about sex or having sexual encounters. It's about abusing and leveraging authority and privilege in the workplace setting. So it's about abusing some sort of power differential between someone of higher rank and one of lower status. Historically and statistically, men have been in these higher positions of power and now, even though that's changed a bit over time, it still reinforces the current statistics that we have, in that women are the ones who mostly file sexual harassment claims against their male supervisors. So in my book, in this sense, I argue that sexual harassment is not only a form of gender-based violence, but it's also a form of gender inequalities.

Speaker 1:

And that's true, and you talk a lot about all of those things throughout the book and all of the different chapters. And, knowing this, let's talk about your book for a minute and how you arranged the arguments about violence against women, because you took a unique approach that juxtaposes real life experience with fictional accounts.

Speaker 2:

This comes from my background, so I'm a literature professor, I have a PhD in literature, but prior to that I received a Juris Doctorate from law school. But I've been a literature professor for over 16 years now, and so I've always had this appreciation for the value that literature meaning novels, poems, short stories the value, the messages that they can provide for us us, because telling stories is the best way that, in this sense, we can personalize challenging issues and we can share them with our community and with each other. We're not just spouting off these statistics and these case studies. Instead, our stories make it more understandable and believable because they can connect people in this common bond that we all share. Especially in these days.

Speaker 2:

Stories are becoming more and more popular than ever. With the technology that we have. We see people telling their stories in videos, on podcasts like this one, in social media, tiktok, ted Talks. Tell telling stories is even more accessible now more than ever because we can connect with others so easily through technology. So, in this sense, I use the stories of literature, of novels actually, which are fiction, fictional novels and then I bring in law, which is nonfiction, to illustrate and to tell the stories of violence against women, and then also to challenge some of these conventional beliefs and the harm that actually arises from these beliefs in the stories of the law and the literature that I've chosen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you do it really well, right and so for this particular discussion about sexual harassment, you chose a 2020 novel titled the Boys Club by author and attorney Erica Katz. What is the story Ms Katz shares in the Boys Club and why did you choose this particular novel?

Speaker 2:

choose this particular novel. One thing that's very interesting about this novel is if you go to the author, erica Katz's, author profiles on Google or Goodreads or Amazon. If you go to her author profiles, it's actually a pseudonym, she's anonymous, and I say she. It could be a he, but we'll say she's a she, and what's interesting about that, like you mentioned, is, according to her profile, she actually is a law school graduate, an attorney, who was hired at a large, prestigious law firm, and it's what we call big law, big law law firms and so, of course, this novel.

Speaker 2:

She does not claim that this is a nonfiction novel. It's fiction. Not claim that this is a nonfiction novel. It's fiction, but it's supposedly inspired by the author's own experiences in this big law law firm and, as you mentioned too, it was written in 2020, which is very current, and in that, some of us might like to believe that the type of overt sexual harassment that occurs in the novel, some of us might like to believe that that doesn't exist, or maybe this person you know, maybe the character's lying about it, but, you know, some people think maybe it doesn't happen anymore, maybe it used to, but it still clearly does.

Speaker 2:

And sexual harassment, of course it's not in every institution or organization or business or corporation, but it still is in all different types of organization that allow for a toxic, complicit institutional culture, and that begins at the highest level of leadership that allows it and then it just trickles down throughout that institution. When I studied in this particular chapter, I had to look more into the psychology of organizational behavior and I learned that what filters down is, you know, there's these guidelines, policies and values that every institution has right, and so what happens is that in these types of organizations these guidelines, values, policies, et cetera number one, they were never created or if they were created, they are not enforced or they're rarely enforced. So that opens the door for all types of bad behavior to filter into the organizational community and it becomes normalized. That is where these longstanding patriarchal gender roles and some of these biases come into play that have been more acceptable on on a larger cultural, social scale guidelines, if you will.

Speaker 1:

policies that occurred or that we currently may have in place at companies and organizations across the country didn't really begin until the 70s.

Speaker 2:

Correct, yes.

Speaker 1:

And I don't know how robust they are across the board, and I believe it's directed by the organization to for their HR department to, you know, kind of install and implement a sexual harassment policy, but they haven't been around very long, I mean in my lifetime. Yes, these have been in place, but that doesn't mean that people in my lifetime have not experienced sexual harassment, and it may be in response to what has happened in the past, but it is still alive and doing very well. I mean, it's still out there and you're right, we do not talk about this very much and it's very interesting that Erica Katz's book was published in 2020 with such an overt experience of sexual harassment Very, very obvious, very over the top type of example. That being said, what parallels did you draw from the story to make the central argument that, like sexual domestic abuse, sexual harassment of women has most often been permitted due to long-standing gender roles that reinforce toxic masculinity and excuse violence?

Speaker 2:

well, first of all, yes, that's sexual harassment wasn't even a term until the 70s, so that was not long ago at all. Like sexual, there was no such thing as sexual sexual harassment. It just happened, and that's what was, but one way in which I argue in my book that sexual harassment is still permissible in some of these institutions. The first reason is due just to this acceptance of toxic masculinity in the workplace, and what I mean by that is, if we look at our social conditioning and history in our mainstream society today, hyper-masculine characteristics. They exaggerate strength, dominance and leadership, and those characteristics are often highly idealized in our society.

Speaker 2:

Still, there's four different traits, though with specific traits, with hypermasculinity, that help contribute, though, to violence against women. The first one is that the view of violence is something acceptable and it's considered manly. In addition to that, there's this perspective that danger and high risk is exciting. The third characteristic is that there's this overall callousness toward women and that one directly helps filter into violence against women. And then the fourth, hyper. The fourth hyper-masculine characteristic is there's this disdain toward emotional displays that are considered feminine. Now, there's an exception to that rule, in that men are allowed to express anger vehemently. They can scream, they can holler, they can express anger. However, if women do this, then we're automatically just considered emotional and hysterical. But beside that, when the four hyper-masculine traits, they then just can easily flip and metamorphose into toxic masculinity. When those types of characteristics then are able to contribute and excuse violence against women.

Speaker 1:

So we know that sexual harassment is happening, obviously it's still happening, and we know that toxic masculinity often permits it to happen. But then we have to wonder how do victims actually become victims of these abusive men? Are there ways that women are socially conditioned to be manipulated, groomed, harassed, abused and victimized? And how does this happen?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I covered this in my book. This is due to psycho-emotional vulnerabilities, and psycho-emotional vulnerabilities is a term that was created by the psychologist Dr Grant Cinnamon, and what that means is there are certain characteristics that make victims more vulnerable and even attractive to perpetrators grooming, and then, with these characteristics, the perpetrators are able to exploit these targets, especially women, and especially in cases of sexual harassment. But before I continue on with that, I want to make sure and note that just because a victim has these characteristics does not mean that they're responsible for being abused. So it's not a flip, it's not an abuse type thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's not victim blaming. Yes, I want to make sure that we're not. We don't do that here anyway. But yeah, and we were just talking about this yesterday at Genesis, and so just like another way to say it is to flip it a little bit and say that an abusive person will use they will find a vulnerability in you where maybe you didn't even know it existed. They will find something about you If you are know it existed. They will find something about you If you are the intended target. They will find something about you that they perceive as a vulnerability and they will exploit it.

Speaker 2:

They will absolutely find it and they will pick it apart. And there's a couple of these and I like how you say that, how they target certain, they look for and they target specific vulnerabilities and in a sense, we all have some of these vulnerabilities, but the more, the more you have, the the more easier it is for a perpetrator to target it. Um, the first one there's a. There's five of them. The first one is a desire, and I thought this was really interesting. So when we have these hunting ground kind of environments where we see, like in the novel, it's a hunting ground environment All the supervisors, all the higher level partners are men and the lower level attorneys, of course there's men coming in, but these lower level attorneys who are trying to prove themselves, they're all these young people. But these lower level attorneys who are trying to prove themselves, they're all these young people, just recent graduates, and so they all have, but especially the women, they all have a very strong desire to prove themselves. And the women when we're talking about sexual harassment of women, that's going to be the first L, and in these hunting ground environments, you're going to see that. And in the boys club, there's this hierarchical structure that makes this a good hunting ground environment.

Speaker 2:

So in the book, the protagonist, alex, she's young, she's successful, she's very bright, but she wants nothing more to prove herself and match in one of these prestigious positions in the law firm and she will do anything that she needs to do to work hard and sacrifice. It's also a highly competitive environment. So desire is the first one. The targets know that. You know I can exploit this desire in them because I have a power or control over their ability to succeed. That's the first one. The second one is a low self-esteem and in my book I say maybe not even low self-esteem, but an insecurity. And in the novel, alex, you know they're all coming in, young people are, they're inexperienced, they don't have learning, life experience.

Speaker 1:

They're right out of law school.

Speaker 2:

right, they're right out of law school they have no idea what it means to be an attorney no idea or to be on their own and working in real life.

Speaker 1:

As we call them at Genesis baby attorneys.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, they've got. You know all the young people do.

Speaker 1:

We did yeah.

Speaker 2:

But you know a lot of these and then you'll also see, especially in women. So, with insecurity, a lot of women are people pleasers by nature. We were taught that we were socially conditioned to do that by these patriarchal structures and, you know, people pleasers tend to ignore their own needs and sacrifice those for others. And a lot of women. We've been conditioned to be polite, to be quiet, to be obedient, to do what we're told and especially if we're young, we're going to try to impress our boss and do what we're told. Right, but on that one too, age, you know, age is another contributing factor. So we've got desire, we've got low self-esteem or insecurity. And then number three is age and, like we just said, young people. They just lack the experience. They're also younger. People are also more easily impressionable by superficial characteristics. So they might be highly impressed by their perpetrator's fame, their wealth, their notoriety, their ability, you know, to succeed is something that they see in their perpetrator and they want. And this is, this is something in which the. You know, if I'm adored and you can, you're seeing this now in a lot of the Hollywood actors that are coming out that have been sexually harassing and abusing people for decades. But you'll see that I mean, there's a reason that they are able to do that, because they have this fame and this notion of you know people who are trying to make it allow for concessions when someone of that that level is getting them any type of attention. So we've got those three. Then the fourth one is really interesting. I was kind of surprised by it.

Speaker 2:

So the fourth one is a victim who uses avoidance, and what that means is a victim who compartmentalizes, and compartmentalization like that's often a positive characteristic for someone to have. We see, you know doctors who can compartmentalize and you know and continue on with their work despite all the you know other personal things that might be going on around them. But in the novel, the protagonist, she is a compartmentalizer. She knows she doesn't feel good when she's being sexually harassed by a wealthy client. She doesn't like it, she doesn't like the slur and she feels it in her gut. But instead she laughs it off because she wants to be accepted and she uses that compartmentalization to fuel her desire. And there's a great quote in it. So after she's being, after she was in a, there was a sexist slur and she doesn't like it. She immediately cringes. She says I could either accept it, accept that behavior as a challenge. Either accept it, accept that behavior as a challenge, or I could accept it as an insult, but either way I had to accept it. Yes, for her to get to where she wants to go she has in her mind to well, I mean, she has to, or she's going to be blackballed immediately, which we see in the novel, which we see happen eventually.

Speaker 2:

And then the fifth one is kind of overlaps with what we've been talking about is there's also just a cultural contributing factor. So, of course, young people, people also who adhere to kind of these more traditional gender norms, also people of different races or socioeconomic status groups, anybody who has a factor that contributes to they want to succeed, but they also don't want to rock the boat of the status quo. So those are our five characteristics. So again they were desire, low self-esteem or insecurity, age, young age, avoidance they use avoidance. And then there's also these cultural contributing factors that come in. But ultimately what that means is, you know, in a workplace that allows for toxic masculinity, and then these perpetrators are able to easily identify psychoemotional vulnerabilities. Due to the hunting ground nature, it's very easy for perpetrators to target these types of people unfairly and to completely exploit them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I found it really interesting that any of this would exist in an environment that is supposed to be a professional place of practicing law. Right, it just seems counterintuitive that any of this would happen in a law firm. But I mean, we know that it does, it clearly does. It's very realistic. So I appreciate the overview of these psycho-emotional vulnerabilities. This is a really fascinating topic in and of itself to go through and trying to break down exactly what an abusive person sees as perfect prey in an environment that's actually like a professional workplace.

Speaker 1:

And in many ways sexual harassment seems like the perfect cover-up for abuse or violence, because it is often shrouded in innuendo and, though sometimes overt, it can be subtle, difficult to prove, relies on the victim to document and demonstrate what has occurred.

Speaker 1:

It often includes a power dynamic, with a man having some type of control over a woman, and that control is often financial. And as I list these descriptors, I feel like I'm describing domestic violence and possibly coercive control that often occurs in the home or in intimate partner relationships, and the parallel for me is just too strong to ignore. And the parallel for me is just too strong to ignore. To quote chapter five of your book, your argument is that, like sexual assault and domestic abuse, sexual harassment of women has most often been permitted due to longstanding gender roles that reinforce toxic masculinity and excuse violence. That's on page 85. And that is to say, the roots of sexual harassment run deep and perhaps so far back in history that we might struggle to find them. What have you found in your research that explains the genesis of male dominance over women and why that continues to this day?

Speaker 2:

Well, history and social conditioning are very powerful tools that have enabled violence against women for centuries. But, as we know, in the US, as we've said, up until the 60s, women were basically the property of their husbands or their fathers, and what I mean by that is men had the sole discretion. Women didn't have much choice, and men were, and still are in some circumstances. They were considered the authority over women, children, anybody else in the household, pets, servants.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and this was on any topic, uh to your point, and in any aspect of life. And when they were considered the authority, basically that was like a financial authority, because, you know, the one with the who holds the purse strings is the one who gets whatever they want.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and in that when someone has lost their financial control, it's not every woman's abused right and some women live happily in those situations. But there are circumstances, of course, as you see at Genesis, that when this happens men can treat them in any way they see fit, and that of course includes physical abuse. And then the women really have very little say in the matter because they've not only been financially controlled but they've been bridled in every other way due to coercive control tactics. But that's going more into domestic violence, which of course there are many overlaps. But you know, we as women, we I mean we have not had rights for very long. We couldn't vote until the 1920s, we couldn't even have a bank account or credit cards or rent an apartment or own a home since the 70s, and that just was not that long ago.

Speaker 1:

And that's just to say that if you were a married woman, those were. That was the case. So women who were unmarried could have those things. I'm not saying it was easy for them to have them or own them, or even buy them, or even work to make money to buy them, but, but, but that being said, I mean it's hard to undo centuries of teachings.

Speaker 2:

It's I mean it's not going to happen no, it isn't, we're still working on it.

Speaker 2:

In fact, we're still very much working on that. So I mean these beliefs of women as property, women being less, less than when they're under the control of their fathers or their husbands or their brothers, that's been so strongly embedded in our culture and then also our social conditioning. That social conditioning comes in in all different forms and all different angles. We talked about this in our other episode together. But it comes from, maybe from our own family life and our own upbringings. It comes from our peers, maybe our religion teaches it, media and social media also.

Speaker 2:

But the bottom line is, you know, there are still some men that want to continue with these traditions.

Speaker 2:

They want to have absolute power over women because, quite frankly, they just see us less than they see us as the, the, the weaker sex, and, and you know, when people are in power sometimes they're very fearful and they do whatever they need to do to stay in that power. So also historically, when women were supposed to obey men, when a woman speaks out against sexual harassment or domestic violence or sexual assault, there's still, you know, these underpinnings of ideas in which she's immediately met with this response of you know. Why is this woman speaking out? She's supposed to stay silent and, just, you know, move on about our day under the authority of a man. I mean, those ideas are still very much there and also that goes in if she's speaking out, she's automatically lying. So these are all these very longstanding ideas that contribute to this general culture of what I call just a disbelief disbelief against women when they do come forward and speak against a perpetrator of any form of violence against women.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I thank you for all of that insight. Patriarchal social conditioning is. It's not just centuries old, it almost you have to go way back to you know millennia to even try to understand how it all began. But the fact remains that it is here. It is very strong here in the United States, for sure. It is very strong here in the United States, for sure, and this country was founded by a bunch of people who came to settle a new world.

Speaker 1:

Right, in doing so, their first action was violence when they came to the new world, because they ripped the land out from under the people who were occupying it and just said well, this is ours now, and you can either get out of the way or get killed. Right, so that that was. That was the way that this was a violent overtaking. These settlers brought with them the culture from their home country, which, in this, what I'm talking about, is kind of like, you know, from England that believed that women were property, and so they just took everything that existed culture, pots and pans, you know everything that they had in England and brought it over and parked it in this new world that would become the United States. So it's not really surprising that it's here in this country.

Speaker 1:

But what is surprising is that it hangs on and in fact, a wife beating was not just. You know, this is just an interesting tidbit Wife beating was not illegal in every state of the United States until 1920. So that's very recent. That's a hundred years, and so we still have a lot of work to do to make sure that, you know, women gain the equity that we deserve as human beings. There's one main distinction between what we know as domestic violence and as sexual harassment, and that is sexual harassment itself is not a crime, meaning it's not an action or pattern of behavior that on its own is considered criminal or that can be prosecuted in a criminal court. But there are laws in place that address sexual harassment. Help us to understand what those are and how things play out when an individual experiences sexual harassment within, let's just say, the workplace.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So there's two aspects and before we even get into the complexities of the law itself, the first part in actually taking action is extremely difficult. It is extremely difficult to sue your employer, and the first thing that we have to kind of remember, that has to be contextualized, is that, when surveyed, 50% of women have been sexually harassed at work, according to one particular survey that I cite in my book. However, of those 50%, only 5% to 15% even report the abuse because they don't want it, due to a fear of retaliation and due to being scared of losing their job. So, just like sexual assault and domestic violence and even stalking and I cover those other topics but the similarity is there's a high level of it actually occurring, but victims very rarely report, and that's because victims know they're not going to be supported. They haven't been historically supported.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, or they're not going to be believed. And this sounds a lot like experiences of rape or sexual assault and other crimes against women. There are fewer reports than there are actual crimes.

Speaker 2:

Yep, exactly. Also, suing an employer is extremely expensive, it's time-consuming, cases draw out like years often and it's mentally and emotionally absolutely exhausting. And the law is very, very strict, emotionally absolutely exhausting. And the law is very, very strict. Just because you've been mistreated or your boss is a jerk, or just because you've been sexually harassed sometimes just doesn't mean that it actually violated the elements of the law.

Speaker 2:

Also, most employees just don't understand that employers typically just aren't scared. They're not scared of being sued, they aren't. Employers know that typically nothing's going to happen out of it. Nothing's. You know nothing will happen. And but even if an employee like wins, so to speak and win is loosely based, not much is ever going to change. Is what research is showing us. And finally, getting an employment law attorney for a sexual harassment case is not an easy task. Acquiring one of those attorneys. They're very selective. They don't want to take on cases that they know that they're going to lose. So they're only going to take on very rare, very few cases to begin with. So just getting to the point of making a claim just that part of it is very, very difficult for people and it's terrifying to open your mouth and report something like that.

Speaker 1:

My understanding from everything I've read and from survivor stories that I've heard. More often than not, she quits the job.

Speaker 2:

That's what research shows as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she quits the job, doesn't report it most of the time and goes to work somewhere else, and the abuse continues until someone else is willing to report it, if they are at all, and that can take a very long time as well, as we saw with the Me Too movement. True, very true.

Speaker 2:

Well, and then secondly, sexual harassment law. Like I said, it's extremely complicated. It does not favor victims. So, as you said, sexual harassment it's not a crime, it's a civil suit and everything has to be dictated through the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. So under this law there's got to be all these steps that have to take place, and it's difficult to go through these steps. The first one is you have to contact HR and you have to file an HR claim and we already talked about how difficult that is and usually HR. It has to be done within a short period of time. It has to be in writing, it has to be within 30 days. That's hard for victims as well, because sometimes they have to really ruminate and really go through what's going to happen to me if I do this, but so say that does happen, even if you know she does that within the 30 day time.

Speaker 2:

If the company takes no action which research is showing that they typically don't then the victim has to go through all these additional steps. She has to file a claim not only with the EEOC, but then with whatever the state the corresponding state agency is, and then the EEOC can do three things they can. They can sit. They can tell the employer to change their policy, which that's not going to. I mean okay, change your policy.

Speaker 2:

How does that help the victim, though? Okay, number two, which is extremely rare, is the EEOC files a lawsuit on the victim's behalf and they are not going to get involved unless somehow they know that they will win and this is going to contribute to their court precedent, positively to their court precedent. And then the third thing that the EEOC can do is then okay, if they don't want to do the first two, then they can say okay, now, victim, you have permission to file a suit on your own in your state court. So very, very picky. A lot of times people don't understand this, and even just going through those steps before even getting to filing a claim within the court system is almost impossible in and of itself. A claim within the court system is almost impossible in and of itself.

Speaker 1:

So everything that we've talked about so far, and everything you were just explaining about the law, is about sexual harassment in the workplace, right? Yes, because if a person were to experience sexual harassment on the subway, how would that be handled?

Speaker 2:

It wouldn't, you know, because you can call a police officer for an assault, but that requires physical damages, right, like a physical injury. If someone gropes you on the subway it's inappropriate touching, but legally there's not really a recourse. Same thing if they would. Same thing if they're, you know, verbally, sexually harassing. You know, we've always heard of the construction workers. You know, verbally harass. The same thing. I mean, people can say offensive things. It's not illegal, right?

Speaker 1:

It goes back to, like the, to experiences of violence, like if I, if my husband, punches me in the face, no matter where it happens, that's a, that is a domestic dispute, but if a stranger punches me in the face, that's a physical assault, assault, and so it actually becomes A crime that is taken more seriously than the same exact amount of violence that took place between a husband and a wife, which doesn't entirely make sense to me and I have to keep saying it out loud.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and what I, what I argue in my book, and what I saw, what I, what I discovered, is that interpersonal violence and acquaintance crimes are not going to be taken as seriously. So what I mean by that? Domestic violence, sexual harassment, of course it's not a crime, but again, we're not, we don't take it very seriously, right? Obviously, stalking, same thing. You know that it's difficult to prove criminally, but it's just not going to be taken seriously. And of course, acquaintance rape you know the he said, she said well, they're going to go with the he said 95 or more percent of the time.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about Darvo, institutional betrayal and the challenges of filing a complaint or a lawsuit. What's happening here?

Speaker 2:

Okay so DARVO is something I came across as I started researching this book and it's an acronym D-A-R-V-O and it's an acronym created by Dr Jennifer Frey. She's a psychologist, a professor and a researcher and it's a form of manipulation that abusers use to shift the blame to the victim. And this has been a very popular and widely accepted and very successful technique. And once you recognize it, you will start to see it and what I mean by this. So D okay, so a perpetrator is accused of sexual harassment, d is deny, a is accused, they're going to accuse the victim and then they immediately are reverse the victim and then O offender. So deny, accuse, reverse victim and offender. And it can happen very quickly and very easily and it automatically shifts the blame into she's a big fat liar.

Speaker 2:

A recent example and I don't include this example in my book, but I came across it while I was researching for this chapter and I just came across it periodically just in the news, on the, the internet. And a recent example is is there okay, so there there are claims that men okay so so men who are supervisors they're hiring you know, their company's hiring and so these men don't want to hire a woman or younger woman, for whom they would be, for whom they would supervise, because they quote they don't want to be quote me too'd.

Speaker 1:

So what's happening?

Speaker 2:

So before we can, even get to Darvo.

Speaker 1:

We're just saying, nope, it's a woman, or she's a woman and it's going to be trouble. So I'm out.

Speaker 2:

We are making up scenarios before they even happen. And we already know that women in these positions are historical victims of sexual harassment. But but these, these types of men? They're making up scenarios to deny a potential accusation of sexual harassment. Now, to me that puts a big question mark already on their character.

Speaker 1:

It also begs the question of is this an attempt to keep women out of the workplace?

Speaker 2:

We talked about male authority, yeah, and maintaining power and authority. Why not use Darvo? Yeah, why not use? Why not use DARVO? Yeah, but you know this. And this automatically reverses victim and offender and it reinforces that belief that women are liars, women are just out to get these men, and it's, you know, it's reinforcing this culture of disbelief of women and, just as you said, it's simultaneously pushing us back down into these less positions of power and maintaining us in a specific space.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's fabricating reasons to keep women in their place and just reinforcing patriarchal social conditioning.

Speaker 2:

But also Dr Frey. What she does is she broadens that scope even. And so we see, when individual perpetrators or individual people DARVO victims, it turns into institutional DARVO because the institution, the organization is essentially doing the same. Organizations are supposed to provide safe working environments for employees and when they engage in this kind of institutional, implied institutional DARVO it's institutional. Then it's called institutional betrayal and arguably the law can sometimes be considered a system of institutional betrayal, system of institutional betrayal because they don't you know, we know the statistics now and the courts protect the employers. They don't protect employees who file the claims. And I've got a couple of quick court cases.

Speaker 2:

The courts heavily rely on these non-productive anti-sexual harassment policies. You know, oftentimes they're really not very productive, they're not very enforceable, they may not be very fair. The Supreme Court decision in 1998, faragher versus City of Boca Raton, gives wide latitude and the court in this case said that as long as the employer took some sort of reasonable steps to have an anti-sexual harassment policy, that that would be sufficient. And also the court in Leopold v Baccarat it's a New York appellate court decision said that even if the company policy itself is inadequate quote the law is very clear that a reasonable policy will do so. The courts provide heavily, heavily reliance. As long as you have an anti-sexual harassment policy in place, that's going to suffice and the case can be completely thrown out if it had even become a claim or a case to begin with.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so then just kind of extending from there. We've talked about how the court would respond to these allegations, but there's an aspect of sexual harassment that's even darker that we haven't talked about, and it's something I wasn't familiar with until you kind of introduced it in the book, and that was adult grooming. What role does this have in sexual harassment? Help us understand how this happens and then the consequences for those actions.

Speaker 2:

Adult grooming was new to me too. It was something that I discovered in my research and I was just. It opened all kinds of doors for me when I saw it, but it makes perfect sense. So we think about grooming. It's this slow, methodical practice that manipulates a victim and the goal is to build a false relationship of trust and to prepare this victim for exploit and abuse and then hang on to him, hang on to them, so they can be continually exploited and abused. That's what grooming is and we mostly think of it, and most of the research has been child grooming of adult perpetrators. But anyone can be groomed, it turns out, and there is adult grooming. There's some current examples If you watch the documentary series.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of documentary series coming out of famous people who have been harassing and assaulting victims for a very long time and they're finally being found out. You know one of them, of course isvey weinstein. There's the r kelly documentary and the newest one is kevin spacey. Kevin spacey, who didn't groom women, he groomed and abused men, and that's a whole other issue. But. But you can see that he honed in on their psycho-emotional vulnerabilities. But there is like a there's, there's a set progression that goes through a stage of adult grooming. And the researcher, dr Grant Cinnamon, he's a psychologist, he's the one who has come up with these seven stages of adult grooming. And so what happens is in the first five stages there's this preparation they're preparing the victim. But the last two stages are exploiting the victim. So it's really, really interesting to go through, you know, and you can see through the progression of these different types of steps that perpetrators use to, you know, for their target, that perpetrators use for their targets. The first one is the isolation, and that's when abusers have a hunting ground, type of environment, schools, colleges, these working, these hierarchical structures in the workplace and then they choose a victim that displays some of these psycho-emotional vulnerabilities. So they're gonna pick them out specifically.

Speaker 2:

Then they start gathering information. You know what's this person like, what's their personality, what are their habits, their friendships, their values, their family life, all of those things. They study them in that sense and then, after they gather that information, they begin to establish trust. That's the third step and they're starting to exploit those whatever psycho-emotional vulnerabilities and they're starting to create this false sense of intimacy. So this is when you know these highly charismatic, successful, good looking, whatever it may be, when these perpetrators start to make these victims feel that they're special in some way. That's step three, establishing trust. And then they move on to four. So when they're created, after they've created this false sense of intimacy, they start to meet the need and establish credentials in step four. And establish credentials in step four, and then what that means?

Speaker 2:

They start to manufacture scenarios so they can isolate, you know, continue to isolate, and spend time with the victim oftentimes. And in erica katz's novel you see that they'll create these chance encounters. Oh, you happen to be on the west side in this same restaurant on a Saturday evening. But they do that through spying, through electronic stalking, they track the victim, all of these different types of ways. They're not chance encounters, in other words. And then that takes to step five, which is actually priming the target, to step five, which is actually priming the target, and that's when they're trying to pull them even further away from any influences of family and friends. And so once they have established that, then they go back into actually exploiting and that's when they number. Part six is when they've primed them and they've gotten them ready through steps one to five. Then they initiate the sexual contact.

Speaker 1:

I thought it was really interesting in the book when you were talking about the example in the boys club. When Alex's abusive boss finally gets her to have an intimate relationship with him Once he has what that, what that conquest has been made. He then stops.

Speaker 2:

He removes his affection, and that's step seven.

Speaker 1:

Yes, he stops all the contact and leaves her wondering what the heck happened.

Speaker 2:

Exactly yes, and that's that is intentional. And it's to keep the victim off kilter. It's to keep them confused and emotionally vulnerable and you know sometimes they're desperate that you know what the heck happened. But you know and you know he just removes his affection. But sometimes other other ways is they'll control the victim. They're continuing to control the victim to exploit them sexually. Maybe they do it through promises, giving gifts, maybe threats, and then in the book he removes his, he becomes 100% emotionally unavailable. But whatever the technique, he does it to keep the victim off kilter.

Speaker 1:

Right and in a place where she remains vulnerable, I would think, and then also is beholden to him. Her career is in his hands, yeah for sure. There's another aspect that we actually haven't talked about in. You know the response to sexual harassment, and that is the freeze response. So in your book there's an excellent example of the freeze response. Gropes her in public, in front of all of her colleagues. She wondered if it really happened at all which seems strange, but I've heard this many, many times and if, in fact, she brought this all on herself by whatever clothes or makeup or something that you know she was wearing, or something she did, what is really happening when a victim feels this way? Is this a typical freeze response?

Speaker 2:

Yes, it is. So freeze is a fight, flight freeze. And what research is showing that in all these different forms of violence against women, the freeze response is the most common response. And in this case what happens is when we freeze. So whether we fight, fight or freeze, I mean it's our body's innate response to immediate danger. So it's not part of our executive functioning. We don't think it through. A different part of the brain, the amygdala, is in charge, and the amygdala is in charge of our bodily functions that we don't control, like our respiration or all of those things Anyway, but statistically the freeze response is this most common response in violence against women and what happens is something happens, and it happens so quickly that they just become paralyzed, victims become paralyzed and they can't control that and that doesn't have to be only physically paralyzed, absolutely not.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and in this example and in sexual harassment it might look like she's kind of just giving into a flirtation, or she likes it maybe, or she laughs. She laughs it off but in some sense she's consent, she's permitting, she's engaging in the behavior, but that's honestly the freeze response. I mean any woman that just gets groped by a man that she finds repulsive or a man that she doesn't know is not going to like that.

Speaker 1:

Right, and it may be difficult to even figure out how you're allowed to respond, depending on the situation and the safety. You're not going to slug the guy Right. Well, I mean you'd like to, but more than You're not going to slug the guy Right. Well, I mean you'd like to, but more than likely you are not going to.

Speaker 2:

Right, exactly. And so so, culturally, you know our culture of disbelief, you know, has dismissed this as, oh, she actually was just asking for it in some way or she's, you know, she, she's, she's obviously permitting it or laughing it off. So in that sense, she's, she, just, you know, she doesn't mind it. But you know, a lot of times when it, when, when things happen like that, like a victim will just they can't, they'll, they'll, they'll tell us that, you know, they, they're so, so shocked that they can't move, they can't speak, they can't think clearly. So whatever reaction happens is usually one that you know you're not running away, you're not slugging the guy, you're not going to do that, those things in public anyway.

Speaker 2:

But but, but we see this, we see it in sexual assault, we see it in domestic violence, violence and also you know we're talking about when it acutely happens in sexual harassment. Maybe these things are happening over time. Same thing in domestic violence. These things happen over time. There's also what I call a functional freeze response, where victims will adapt certain survival mechanisms due to this ongoing PTSD and again it conceals their distress to an untrained eye or to the public at large.

Speaker 1:

I think it's time for some changes in the workplace, in sexual harassment laws and policies, and I think it's time for a change in our society. We opened this episode with a quote Sandberg's we cannot change what we are not aware of. And once we are aware, we cannot help but change. And we're closing it with a call for change, because perhaps we are all now a little more aware of the underpinnings of sexual harassment and how it is caused by patriarchal social conditioning, how it contributes to and perpetuates both violence against women and to a culture that not only tolerates such, but also often looks the other way or simply will not fight for women, will not believe women, blames victims and continually contributes to inequity. What's the change that we need?

Speaker 2:

Start believing women when this actually happens, because women who come forward already know that they're going to not be believed, that already they're going to be darvowed, not only by their perpetrator, most likely, but also by society at large. But if a victim comes forward, they already know that the odds are stacked against them. So that's all the more reason to believe them and also understand that perpetrators love to use DARVO. If you can start and you can start recognizing it everywhere you know, in the news and when, when famous men are being accused, you can start recognizing how they use DARVO. So when you can recognize that automatically, I think that's a reason to exercise even more awareness and caution, because when someone is accused and then they use DARVO, this should be immediately more cause for suspect.

Speaker 1:

All true and ultimately, we owe it to ourselves and our future generations to keep learning about how a culture and a country built upon inequities can never be fully free for everyone until the inequities cease. To restate Sheryl Sandberg, we can change what we are aware of. Will we? Genesis Women's Shelter and Support exists to give women in abusive situations a way out. We are committed to our mission of providing safety, shelter and support for women and children who have experienced domestic violence and to raise awareness regarding its cause, prevalence and impact. Join us in creating a societal shift on how people think about domestic violence. You can learn more at genesisshelterorg and when you follow us on social media on Facebook and Instagram at Genesis Women's Shelter and on X at Genesis Shelter. The Genesis Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by call or text at 214-946-HELP 214-946-4357.