How about there aren't enough women on the front lines defending their country. Try that one.

We had a chance to elect a woman if Hillary would have gotten the nod, but not enough females voted for her.

Women will have to work at it just like everyone else not be appointed because of their gender.

Being appointed because of your gender is discrimination.

[Once again without bugs...]

I am a female scientist. As the field has become more open to women, our numbers have increased. There were definite barriers to entry/advancement in the past. Now, however, I often hear that less than 50 percent female participation in the field is a sign of continued discrimination. I am sure there is some -- life isn't fair and all -- but it seems like many feminists are now engaged in a fight against biology more than male discrimination. To me, equality means equality of opportunity insofar as possible and if women disproportionately want to trade off career advancement to raise their children, have a more balanced lifestyle, etc. then we should let them.

Dr. Oakley is a babe. She's the kind of babe I would have dug a lot in college, but would have had absolutely zero chance at (male to female ratio was greater than one at my college back then, and a lot of dudes were smarter and handsomer than I was).

Really? You don't care at all? You'd be cool with a President who was a fundamentalist Muslim?

I don't have an issue with women in politics. I have an issue with women who make it an issue that they are or support women** in politics.

**Make that Liberal women in the Democrat Party. Conservative Republican women aren't "real" women in the eyes of those who make women in politics an issue.

"Really? You don't care at all? You'd be cool with a President who was a fundamentalist Muslim?" - NicoleK

I'm sure if someone was a fundamentalist Muslim, there would be plenty of aspects of their beliefs that would keep them from being "worthy of election or appointment". Lack of respect for other peoples beliefs,rights, the constitution, ...

I got this from my first guidance counsellor. I want to be a veterinary technician, not a veterinarian, and my guidance counsellor wanted to know *why*. Did I feel I couldn't do it because I'm a woman? When I explained my career goal of being a zookeeper, and that vet tech is the number one thing zoos are looking for, it still wasn't enough. She wanted me to know I could be a zoologist and a veterinarian at a zoo, despite the fact that I don't want to be a veterinarian. It was annoying.

One of the first classes I had to take was "applied psychology," run by a different guidance counsellor. She listened to my presentations and looked over my Meyer's Briggs, and commented that she really felt I was following the right path. I asked if she could be my new guidance counsellor, and she said yes. I'm very happy with her, and she is doing her best to help me with my goals.

Women, not men, are the biggest obstacle to the success of women.

There are a number of things that women do to themselves that make this so:

A. Pregnancy. Family is a wonderful thing, but a business is a business. Your bosses don't like paying you for not working, or providing benefits without a return on their investment in you. And your coworkers, however kind they are, dont' like picking up your slack. And of course, even if nobody minded any of that...how do you expect to get ahead at any time intensive profession while taking extensive amounts of time off? Your coworkers, bosses, and competitors male and female alike will move ahead of you while you are gone.

B. Feeling resentful of the facts in "A" and letting people know about it. Men these days tend to keep their mouths shut about it because we don't want to deal with a lawsuit, but the woman who whines about her own obviously self created disparity, is not only toxic to her coworkers, she is toxic to other women. The boss who hired that woman yesterday...to see her take maternity leave 1 quarter into the year...for the rest of that year, and then return to complain she didn't have seniority over people hired while she was gone...yeah, he's going to think twice before hiring another woman.

C. Sexual harassment. Look its one thing if a man is grabbing your boobs to say hello instead of shaking your hand. But filing a lawsuit for sexual harassment because a sales person took a client to a strip club (and made a sale while at it) does you no good. Filing a harassment lawsuit because someone made a joke you didn't like, makes you toxic to your male coworkers and in the long term, to your career. Nobody wants to work with someone they have to watch themselves around. When I was stationed overseas in Germany I used to go out on the weekends with several other male soldiers, we went to the bars, the strip clubs, and all manner of places. A female soldier filed an equal opportunity complaint because she felt she was being discriminated against over how we spent our off time and the fact that she was never invited. The truth was: We would have invited her, her being a woman had nothing to do with it. Her being a lazy, whining bitch, devoid of any sense of humor whatsoever, were the reasons why she wasn't invited.

Save the complaints for real problems, if you thought a joke was tasteless, call him an asshole and get back to work. Calling a representative while the other dozen people are laughing at the joke is not advancing any cause.

D. Promotion & Management strategies: I'm all for promoting talent, but I've known a number of female business persons over the years, and all of the really driven career ones have had the same complaint. "To have a realistic opinion of women employees, you have to have a bad opinion of them." Their experience moving up the chain between male and female supervisors has been fairly consistent. Under a male boss, (one that is interested only in ability) her success is his success and as she pushes him up, he pulls her up with her. If she leaves or he leaves, they go on fairly good terms and have a useful business connection that can last for years. Under female bosses, these same women have said contrary to the "sisterhood" that a man might expect, the female boss is more likely to see any talent as a threat, especially from other women. Instead of trying to get ahead by propelling herself up, most of them make active efforts to hold others down. The end result being a loss of what could have been a long term useful business connection, a higher turnover rate, lost talent, and holding somebody else down gives other people time to actually move forward themselves.

E: Stereotypes: Larry Summers was an excellent example, when he suggested that there might be innate differences between men and women as one of the causes for the skewed sex ratio in the math & science departments at the University, the female reaction ranged from crying and fleeing to descriptions of near vomiting or fainting by some of the female attendees. (Otherwise described in old southern terms as an "attack of the vapors" which was used to shame men out of bad behavior. When women promote stereotypes to promote equality...they do no one any favors, and they make their male counterparts that much more reluctant in dealing with them.

------------------------
The fact is that if we eliminated every single special protection against discrimination, there would still be women entering the workforce, just as there have been since before Delilah worked at her loom to support herself. But it would be just the ones interested in being productive.

Give everyone the best education we possibly can, and let the cream rise to the top.

By the by, I abbreviated that little list of mine somewhat to keep it from turning into a book.

I'm sure some of you will disagree a great deal with some of it. But the sad fact is, that most of the women here who have or have held full time jobs or careers, will have seen first hand every one of those things, when it was directed against them, or picked up the slack for a newly hired woman who takes early advantage of benefits prior to contributing to the job for which she was hired. Those of you who disagree with it, can only do so in a state of either denial or lack of experience.

Too many women? Not to appear as a self-loathing female - but two words Nancy Pelosi, makes me wish there were far fewer.

I understand a lot of women's bitterness about A and B. Men reap the benefits of having a family but don't have to take time off to do it. (Yes, some men do, but it's not a physical necessity.) Which is not to say that I think women should wallow in that bitterness. Life is unfair, and until men can easily bear children, women will always bear the physical costs of having families. (The upside is that we get more control over what happens to the fetus from conception to birth.)

There are things women can do to make this easier, like having reliable childcare (and backup childcare) so they are not taking a day off from work every time their kid gets a cold. They can also not take three months maternity leave, then quit, which just makes everyone cranky. And they can work out the details of the childcare breakdown with the baby's father before conceiving the child instead of developing a supermommy martyr complex about it later.

As for C), I witnessed this once several years ago. A male employee touched a female employee's shoulder, and she didn't complain, because they were friends, but a third, female, employee witnessed it and claimed it made her uncomfortable. She complained to HR, who told both of the other employees to knock it off. No one was punished formally, but it could have been bad.

Folks like those at Emily's List and their ilk are as stupid as they are sexist. Why would women want more elected women when the elected men so reliably bend over backwards to accommodate women's interests? Not only do women's interests get placed above men's, but women can still reserve the right to complain about the "male-dominated" government when things go wrong.

Ben Franklin surely had women in mind when he said that those who would trade liberty for security will end up with, and deserve, neither.

Good example Monica.

I have a tenant who told me a similar story.

She used to work at a car dealership, and they hired a woman into the sales office, well she started following around one particular male who was known for his off colour behavior and jokes.

It wasn't long before she overheard something she didn't like.

Someone asked him if he would have sex with her (referencing the woman that kept following him around)
And he said he'd never fuck her.

According to my tenant, she gave a little smile, and walked right into the bosses office to file a complaint.

She was given a choice to stay or go and collect $7,000 in compensation either way. She chose to leave the job with 7 grand and the promise of a recommendation. The man in question simply lost his job.

The very next day whenever my tenant, or the other two women who worked there, came into the same room as the male employees, with whom there had been a good working relationship before the last female hiree, the men all got very quiet, and avoided their female colleagues like the plague.

Where once they had just been "one of the guys" to the other men, now they were simply "the job hazard".

I'm sure I don't need to go into detail on the probable outcomes that followed:

The company lost a proven sales person and 7 grand, one man lost his job, sales were reduced due to the employment shortfall until 2 more persons could be found to fill the empty slots.

Management was thereafter not likely to hire more women unless they had to. None of the male employees would likely bond well with female employees in the future, or hire women if they could avoid it when they got positions of authority. The female employees likely ended up having a harder time developing their careers since a senior male was less likely to mentor them, fearing a harassment suit if he said something she didn't like. And the women themselves...knowing all to well all of the above since they were anything but stupid...they're likely to take an automatically dim view of hiring women as well.

All this why?

Because 1 woman took a job she didn't want to do and looked for an opportunity to cash out. And what gave her that opportunity? The idea that saying something a woman doesn't like is virtually a criminal offense, worthy of termination of employment and company liability.

Those of you ladies who work hard, do your jobs, and do them as well as and with the same dedication as your male counterparts, don't need protective legislation as a general rule. The greatest threat to you is the misbehavior and systemic abuse of those protections by other women.

The company I work for has 2 black women and about 30 white women & 10 white men in the department.

One is young, about to graduate college, intelligent, sweet, kind, and absolutely fantastic about her job. She is "part-time" as in she covers weekends and a few shifts during the week. She's on-time, diligent, knows what she doesn't know and is always willing to learn. I would say to anyone who would consider her for a job that if they didn't extend an offer, it was their loss.

The other is older and apparently scraped through the welfare to work college program. She's abrasive with the customers, and somewhat with our staff. The last time we can tell that she did a full 40 hours was about three months after she was hired -- three years ago. She still needs support from other staff for the same things she does as customer support multiple times (i.e. this is the nineteenth repetition this year). Customers ask to be assigned to anyone but her.

Most of the rest of the department would like to her ass canned. Unfortunately our boss and HR are scared to fire her for the lawsuit. We're at the point, give her $5k severance, two weeks paid, and allow her unemployment after the period and we'll forgo the slot and cover it for six months. We would be better off.

Just my anecdote to this story.

In the large company where I worked before retirement, maybe 15 or more years ago, a dumb young engineer decided for reasons only known to himself, to write an obscene poem to a female employee, once a day.

She never told anyone, never told him to stop. She took it, every day, dated and signed it, and put it in a file.

When the file was thick enough, she quit her job and took the file to an attorney. When the company saw the file, they settled on the spot for a million dollars. And ran everyone through more sex harassment programs.

Men stopped talking to women. I still talked to women; still took break with women friends. Men would come up to me and tell me I was dumb.

Finding spouses at work was normal for many years. At that company, not any more. So, I suppose women will whine, why won't anyone marry me.

I look at the program I am in and based on a rough tabulation of classmates I find the following:
out of about 125 people, 25 have been women - around 20%. Of all the women, all but 4 are clearly foreigners (thick accent, etc.) and 2 of those is questionable - one is clearly Asian heritage but does not have an accent and dresses American so I figure she is American raised the seems like she might be eastern European but doesn't have a heavy accent. The men are about 50% foreign.

From that, I figure there is likely a large cultural affect on the lack of women in the field.

When I was in the Bio E building it seemed like almost all the students were women. hmmm...

Finding spouses at work was normal for many years. -- irlandes

I have often wonder if this has messed up the dating scene. When I have talked to my parents generation and older, they all met their spouses at work, college or high school. At least there first spouse. Even my brother's group has a lot who met at work. In my age group, non-direct. It does seem to becoming more common but indirect...like starting dating after one person like they work for separate companies that do business and then one changes employers.

At my first job out of school, if two people had the same last name it was a safe bet they were married or parent/child. But at that point, dating was extremely frowned upon and very risky.

There was a program that I saw a few years ago that was a seminar on the glass ceiling -- about a 50/50 split men to women. Most were not in the under 30 crowd, but you can tell the majority had worked up the ladder.

He had them stand up and asked about about what they would be willing to work: night shifts, outside, overtime, bad boss, money decrease, etc. The women were gone by about half-way down the list vs about half for the men. The men did sit, but on further questioning for the men, vs the women it was more current circumstances that they wouldn't do the work than just not willing. The women were less willing to be subject to adverse jobs (i.e. less glamor and harder circumstances) than men.

It is a plain and simple truth.

At Savannah River Site, you may be sure we're not allowed to consider anything whatsoever about the candidate's personal life when considering promotion or lateral transfer. Much to my amusement, I was chastised for observing that a candidate had two kids. "Why?" I said. "Having kids means this person has a commitment to keeping a job." The objector's face was fun to watch. Idiot.

But, hey, it's about experience and capability when you want performance, and something else when you want to play pretty word games. Shouldn't the NFL and NBA have more white people in play? Oh, of course not, that's different - somehow.

Here's a great bunch.

What's missing? Unqualified people. Just the situation you want when you're doing business with anyone: idiots absent, regardless of what protected class they might occupy.

I am not sure my ideas are rational, Rad.

But, 38 men and 2 women, numbers like that convince me the 2 women are good at what they do.

I don't mean only a few women can do the job, because I don't know. But, with numbers like that it is believable that the 2 women are highly qualified, not given the job because of a quota.

If there were 20 women, they might still be highly qualified, but it wouldn't be obvious. I would have to know more to be sure.

The point is - look at the resumés. Gunsite has qulified people, who have actually done things to merit their inclusion on the staff. It's not 50/50 because there aren't that many women with those skills.

Considering that the skill is in killing people with guns, that's probably OK.

But don't miss the point: ratios dreamed up by some nitwit enamored of some ridiculous idea of "equality" - here in quotes because it has a special meaning for them in such cases - are nonsense.

There is either equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome.

Never both.

>>She never told anyone, never told him to stop. She took it, every day, dated and signed it, and put it in a file. When the file was thick enough, she quit her job and took the file to an attorney. When the company saw the file, they settled on the spot for a million dollars. And ran everyone through more sex harassment programs.

I'm probably as thick as the million dollar file you mention, irlandes.

Because I don't quite get the point of your anecdote.

It seems to me the woman who got the obscene doggerel made a decision to keep a careful, objective, non-hysterical record of the harassment. Smart lady.

The guy who wrote the obscene poems certainly did need to be taught what constitutes inappropriate workplace behavior. So whatever sex harassment programs HAD been in place had failed to work in his case.

Most of your colleagues were ninnies to take fright at the thought of even talking to ANY women at work after the settlement.

But you carried on chatting to female co-workers as normal. And nothing bad happened as a result.

Sounds to me it was a big win for the most aggressive lawyer, as per usual and a short, sharp, expensive lesson for the firm in hiring the obscene poet in the first place?

What have I missed here?

I know 2 people where I work (around 200 people in the building) who were fired for sexual harassment.
I know 1 had 2 complaints and warnings before the the third incident resulted in termination. I don't know how many complaints the second had, but one of the women who had to work with him a lot said that he would always stare at their breasts. For her, it was just the way he was. Didn't appreciate it, but didn't consider it something to report him on.

We have annual 'workplace sensitivity' training, and are told that we can report anything that makes us uncomfortable, but I think most people ignore both the 'training' and whatever our coworkers do that makes them uncomfortable. Men and women interact just fine, with a few exceptions - one being a woman that I won't even look at, because of the feeling that she would use any excuse to say a man is harassing her. Workplace romances are discouraged, but allowed (not boss-underling), and I know 2 couples that met at work.

>>What have I missed here?

>>Posted by: Jody Tresidder at May 19, 2010 9:50 AM

You missed a million dollars paid out to a woman who was viewed just as strong and capable by the feminist system as men are. Not a man getting three days off, or told to stay home until he got therapy. Not even just fire him. They had to pay that poor, helpless, weak, fragile, inferior dearie a million dollars. When things like that can happen, women in the workplace are an intolerable risk to the employers. And, she clearly was not at all offended. She abused the system for a million dollars. Period; end of debate.

If you don't get it, fine with me; I don't care. I have known for a long time that most American women don't get it; can't get it. That's why I am not there any more, and tell any man who will listen to grow a pair and Get The Hell Out.

The men got it, though.

Harassment of any kind may actually be EQUAL treatment. Here's an excerpt from Allan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa's book, Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, referencing the work of Wayne State law prof and sexual harassment expert Kingsley Browne (http://faculty.law.wayne.edu/browne/):

Sexual harassment cases of the hostile-environment variety result from sex differences in what men and women perceive as "overly sexual" or "hostile" behavior. Many women legitimately complain that they have been subjected to abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment by their male coworkers. Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment.

Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men's repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not treating women differently from men—the definition of discrimination, under which sexual harassment legally falls—but the opposite: Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women.

The original article was about "diversity" in political office. In the U.S., at least, there is very little discussion of the kind of diversity that is most lacking: diversity of professional background.

I don't know precisely what % of our elected representatives are *lawyers*, but it is way too high.

>>Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment.

Yes, Amy, this is absolutely true. There have been cases on all-male oil platforms where men are driven to violence or suicide by the cruel treatment given by other men.

Men don't get a million dollars. They are told to shape up and start acting like a man.
###
Jody -- further thoughts. What you did was have an opinion on the million dollar pay out, and assumed since you thought it, it must be really, really important.

Every man in the large factory except one responded exactly the same, so you assume they are all wrong since they do not respond as you did? Heeheehee!

Not lacking in self-esteem, are you?

There is a reason I reacted differently, not just because I was stupid. I am not going to explain here. The men were correct, from the male viewpoint, and you are one of millions of women who believe the male viewpoint is wrong it is doesn't match your own viewpoint.

>>it is doesn't match your own viewpoint.

if it doesn't match your own viewpoint.

She never told anyone, never told him to stop. She took it, every day, dated and signed it, and put it in a file.

When the file was thick enough, she quit her job and took the file to an attorney. When the company saw the file, they settled on the spot for a million dollars. And ran everyone through more sex harassment programs. -- irlandes

Based on the training I have received -- nothing special, just the twice-a-year thing that every employee got -- I am not a lawyer or anything -- this may not qualify. The guy could say she indicated she was welcoming because she accepted them for an extended amount of time without indicating any displeasure.

It sounds like the guy should have known what he was doing is wrong. However there are alot of gray areas and guys are worried that maybe they will end up in one of those and someone maybe collecting data to pounce later on instead of saying something at the time - that is, you are crossing someone's personal line and continue to do so without knowing it while this person builds her case.

>>Jody -- further thoughts. What you did was have an opinion on the million dollar pay out, and assumed since you thought it, it must be really, really important.

Irlandes,
My only opinion on the million-dollar-settlement itself is that it's way too much. Obviously. It's ridiculous. And - probably like many here - I am often dumbfounded by the mega-$$$$ awards some attorneys can wrangle.

However, as you stressed yourself, the company settled. Maybe that was a stupid dollar decision. Maybe they had a lousy attorney. I dunno. But, from your account, they saw the file, evaluated the evidence, weighed up their chances after meeting her attorney and...settled in advance of a hearing.

I just thought the woman behaved more sensibly than you allow.

And that she was right to get evidence of consistently obscene harassment. The engineer wasn't just being dumb when he kept up the filthy verse - he went very, very far over the line.

(I suspect The Former Banker is probably on thin ice trying the argument that the woman's silence might have implied she welcomed being bombarded with obscene missives every day. That's a pretty self-serving notion!)

I don't think she should have gotten a dime, much less a million $. If she was actually bothered by what he was doing, she should have either told him or HR immediately. The fact that she just coolly collected them indicates to me that it didn't really bother her, she was just trying to wrangle a settlement.

The argument may be on thin ice, I certainly wouldn't want to try it.

I know the programs I was sent through stressed the importance of reporting the incident - even if you just witnessed it and are even question if any might have taken place.

If the emails were as bad as implied then 1 would be enough, and 2 for sure. Particularly if she told him she found the material offensive.

I believe William has the notion, if something is so bad they are going to report it someone or at least complain to him.

Perhaps it is a difference in local laws.

"I just thought the woman behaved more sensibly than you allow."
~Jody

She was indeed being smart.

About how to wrangle money from the company.

If she minded that much, she could have said something. She could have said something to him.
She could have said something to H.R.
Hell she could have slapped him and nobody would have said anything.
She could have talked to one of his friends.
She could have forwarded the the email to his boss.

But she did nothing.

Doing nothing says 1 of 4 things.

A. Fear. Meaning she's a coward to afraid of confronting a man. This is not the act of a "strong woman." But this isn't her either, obviously if she eventually did complain, it wasn't the case.

B. Indifference. She just didn't care, at first one might think this is the case, but she complained, so obviously at least nominally she did care.

C. Enjoyment. Perhaps she really did enjoy the attention, silence on repetition is as good as acceptance...but why complain? So it wasn't that either.

D. CHA-CHING. Every email made a cash register noise in her head. Until she figured (rightly) that she had enough for a settlement. Are you going to suggest that this wasn't her motive? If she'd wanted it to stop, she could have acted at any time.

So the "Sensible thing" as you describe it Jody, is setting up a company for a payout. And your belief that this is some how smart, or correct, or in any way appropriate, is exactly why men are hesitant about working with women, and companies, especially small businesses, are hesitant to hire them.
-------------
So Jody, what should she have recieved in "compensation"?
Or
What do you think would have been the appropriate response?

big case on equal pay discrimination:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/business/20drug.html

>>Doing nothing says 1 of 4 things...

Robert,
Your point-by-point speculation goes in just one direction - to assume the worst of the female victim in the broadly outlined story from irlandes.

The elephant in the room - as I see it given the scarcity of many critical details - is why the company settled for a million bucks.

You suggest the woman was simply a money-grubbing opportunist who deliberately failed to approach the tip-top professionals in the company's HR dept.

You've also decided the obscene poet likely simply needed a timely telling off by his "boss" or a handy co-worker to mend his filthy ways.

You further speculate that Mr Dirty Doggerel himself might have seen the light had the victim had only had a brisk word with him face-to-face - or even physically assaulted (!) him.

So -if all that is true - why did the company panic & sign such a big, fat check?

I don't know, and neither do you.

All we do know is that people who feel poisonously, personally & regularly threatened by someone they can't avoid are routinely advised to document the threats.

And that's exactly what the female employee did.

>>A. Fear. Meaning she's a coward to afraid of confronting a man. This is not the act of a "strong woman." But this isn't her either, obviously if she eventually did complain, it wasn't the case.

Also, Robert?
This bit of your comment struck me as total bullshit. And a very telling bit of bullshit to boot.

You define the woman in the story as possibly being a "coward" if she is "afraid of confronting a man."

It wasn't "a man" she was understandably anxious about: it was this particular man who - as irlandes put it decided "for reasons only known to himself, to write an obscene poem to a female employee, once a day."

It was his very particular, very personal, very creepy behavior that was the problem.

Yet nowhere do you call HIM a coward for failing to confront the woman of his infatuation more directly!

Thats because were dicusiing vaginas, not assholes.

If she wanted her job and wanted him to stop she should have told him and/or HR the first time it happened,, because the second time it happend he would have been fired and noone would have thought twice about it.

But she says nothing, to noone, for months?

I'm all for documenting, paranoid bastard that I am, but she the fact that the only person she ever told was her lawyer is telling.

Why they settled for a million bucks is pretty obvious. Because it wouldn't matter to a jury that she never took any corrective action. All she'd have to do is claim, however ludicrously, that they should have known, or that she felt intimidated, etc.

Its fine to "document the threats" but as near as we know, there were no threats. The guy was an ass, no question about that, at BEST we can describe him as an exceedingly childish and juvenile man with few to no social skills. His behavior was ridiculous and out of bounds. But dirty limmericks are NOT threats. But what was her behavior?

A simple "No thanks asshole" might have been enough. It might not have been. A complaint about his behavior to a boss, might have been enough. But it was never made. She might have told a coworker and asked them to discuss it with him. But she never did that either. He might have been subject to social pressure same as almost everyone else that is a nonsociopath. And frankly, a brisk word very well might have been sufficient. There is no evidence of anything else problematic. He was probably a clumsy flirt, or just a dumbass who thought he was being funny, and assumed for whatever reason, she shared his sense of humor.

As far as the jackass guy in question Jody, I'd say he was being pretty damn direct. Just also ridiculously childish. I'll call him a childish asshole, but that is different from being a coward, lets call vices what they are shall we?

I could go on and on about that idiot's vices. Frankly he sounds like the sort of guy that never got a date in school, and still lives with his mother.

lujlp is dead on the money, she didn't want it handled "appropriately" because that would have closed the cash register.

In the late 80's, a young woman technician whom I mentored (I was what was called a lead person, not management) came to me and told me she was offended by the comments she was receiving from one creep in our area. (He was weird with or without working with women.)

She preferred to keep it as low as possible, and she trusted me to at least do my best to handle it without a fuss - which she did not want. I went and talked to him. He huffed and puffed, but in the end, he stopped saying inappropriate things to her.

The official company position was complaints were to go directly to HR. The Union's official position was to deal with problems caused by Union members at as low a level as possible, and the local Union Steward was the stated choice. We solved it without even going that high.

No one got any money. No one got reprimanded, and nothing was put on their work record. In fact, only three people knew there had been a problem. Problem solved, and everyone but SkinHead Creep was happy. We didn't care much about his feelings, heh, heh.

In the case of the opportunist millionaire, if other engineers had known what he was doing, he would have been dragged in the back room for behavior modification exercises. Has anyone here worked with engineers?

By the way, though I didn't mention it, virtually all the women factory workers agreed she was an opportunist, that the complaint system was too well publicized for her not to use it. So, it wasn't just stupid old men being unreasonable.

Gee, I almost forgot to mention. Our annual sex harassment package was very sexist. All examples were men harassing women, which is not totally accurate.

If you think it through, you can figure out why the company paid the million bucks. They were under the EEOC gun to make the work place not only female friendly, but to make it female friendly in a very well publicized way, to encourage women to work there.

They absolutely needed to show extreme measures would be taken at any misbehavior at all.

The downside is, every opportunist within 1,000 miles would be trying to get a job there, and hoping to set up a major kill herself. And, every opportunist already working there would be re-assessing the men around her.

That is another thing most men almost instinctively recognize, which is another reason men will shy away from ALL women when something like that happens.

>>By the way, though I didn't mention it, virtually all the women factory workers agreed she was an opportunist, that the complaint system was too well publicized for her not to use it. So, it wasn't just stupid old men being unreasonable.

Frankly, irlandes, so what?

Everyone gets snotty when they hear about outrageous cash settlements won by someone they know.

Unless the woman was found cut up into little pieces in the engineer's lunchbox, it would take a saint to sympathize with an ex-co-worker suddenly rolling in dough.

Look, IF you have any HARD facts you "didn't mention" before, to suddenly add to your fascinating tale of the vindictive gold-digger who screwed the company over a few off-color sonnets, please share!

Maybe the victim gave lap dances in her lunch hour?

Perhaps you've just "remembered" that the obscene poet raised money for the blind in his spare time - and was going through a personal crisis because his bitch of an ex-wife had cut up all his trousers and run off with the Mexican pool boy?

Knowing the general drift of your comments at Amy's, I'm not surprised that you see every single case of workplace harassment as proof of the pernicious reach of American feminazis.

I simply feel it's my duty to gently suggest that's not the only interpretation from your original sparse account.

As you also wrote in this thread:

"If you don't get it, fine with me; I don't care. I have known for a long time that most American women don't get it; can't get it. That's why I am not there any more, and tell any man who will listen to grow a pair and Get The Hell Out."

Grow a pair of what?

Oh - I see. Grow pair of running shoes:)

"By the way, though I didn't mention it, virtually all the women factory workers agreed she was an opportunist, that the complaint system was too well publicized for her not to use it. So, it wasn't just stupid old men being unreasonable."
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"Frankly, irlandes, so what?"
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To answer the question "so what?"

SO: Men at work will trust and communicate women at work rather less, fearing set ups on themselves. Yes we know not all women are like that. But with that understood, try identifying which one is in advance. And so to protect one's career, the only safe thing is to assume the worst until proven otherwise. Don't like it, offer an alternative protection.

SO: Women seeking serious employment will be treated with skepticism by male and female employers alike, who are unsure if they're setting themselves up for a similar problem.

SO: The cost of services to the consumers of that corporations good or service are increased accordingly, the money to pay this woman came from somewhere, and if you wonder where, look in your pocket.

SO: The reduction in profits means a reduction in the company's continued ability to operate, and to provide benefits and support to its untold numbers of other employees, thus money was also taken out of the pockets of good honest workers who had done nothing wrong.

SO: Other opportunists seeking a big payout for their "emotional distress" are encouraged to seek out scam opportunities instead of honest work, because of ones like the above who succeed in their little or large scams. I'll leave it to you to guess the cumulative impact of this.

SO: Time is wasted on future sensitivity and harassment courses in place of actual work, reducing the availability of goods and services, wasting untold thousands of hours in productivity from business to business to train people not to hurt people's feelings, and the cost of that reduction in supply raises the cost for us all, due to the constant of demand, see your pocket again.

SO: Case law is expanded to allow someone to delay their status as "offended enough for a payout" to allow future scammers and opportunists to wait a year or more to claim upset at an incident or several incidents, and seek a big fat payout. See your pocket again for the cost coverage source.

SO: That'll put a glass ceiling where there wasn't one, if anything will.

Well Jody, there is the "What" you asked about. Is that enough yet?

>>Well Jody, there is the "What" you asked about. Is that enough yet?

I have a hunch your final question is rhetorical Robert!

A simpler lesson from that anecdote from irlandes might be something like; guys with an urge to bombard a female colleague with daily obscene verses should think twice.

It's smart - and it applies to us all whatever our gender - not to create opportunities for an opportunist.

Robert, that's as far as you're going to get with Jody: a deflection.

The new millionaire is "an opportunist", and that's apparently just dandy. If it wasn't there'd be an objection.

>>Robert, that's as far as you're going to get with Jody: a deflection.

The new millionaire is "an opportunist", and that's apparently just dandy. If it wasn't there'd be an objection.

Radwaste,
A feeble swipe from you!

I use the word "opportunist" only to acknowledge Robert's dogged loyalty to the word.

In the sense that IF some bozo at work swamps a colleague with unsolicited obscene poems, the fact of HIS behavior creates an opportunity for the victim to deal with the abuse.

No abusive behavior = no opportunity.

Got it?

Well Jody, my final question was and it wasn't.

It was enough "what" for yours truly. However you did ask "so what" so I gave you some whats, and in truth, I am curious enough to mean the question in a serious tone:

Is that enough "what" for you on the subject?
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Yes, I'm quite loyal to the use of the word. I call a spade a spade, a club a club, and an opportunist an opportunist. I suppose I could also use the term unethical fraudster...but that is just burdensome to type.
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If the behavior WERE abusive in her mind, then reacting appropriately on the instant would have been more than sufficient.

A clever girl with a sense of humor might have forwarded his messages to his boss, or his coworkers, and let it go from there.

Another tech savvy coworker would have just blocked her email box from recieving his mail. Or set it to autoforward to HR. Yes you can do that with about 60 seconds fidling with the software's settings.

Any anonymous or public action that would have resolved the situation was ignored until there was enough for a big fat settlement.

That is no coincidence, that is an opportunist at work.

Nothing more, nothing less.

>>A clever girl with a sense of humor might have forwarded his messages to his boss, or his coworkers, and let it go from there.

The old "jeez, getta sense of humor, lady!" defense, Robert!

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about how funny the guy's bombardment of obscene messages must have seemed to his female colleague.