October 7, 2024 • 61 mins
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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We continue our conversations about patriarchy
and the roots of violenceagainst women with Professor
Erin Kelly discussing her newbook Law, literature and
Violence Against Women.
I'm Maria McMullin and this isGenesis the podcast.
We ended season three ofGenesis the Podcast with a call
(00:34):
to action for more partnership,more support, more people,
organizations and communitiesjoining together against
domestic violence and in supportof women's rights.
The underpinnings of that callto action are revealed in the
past 100 or so episodes of thispodcast, as well as stories from
women around the world thatdetail gender based violence and
a world that both normalizesand perpetuates the abuse of
women by men.
That normalization often showsitself through what Professor
Erin Kelly calls patriarchalsocial conditioning.
(00:56):
Her new book Law, literatureand Violence Against Women
offers context for that claimand several others, like the
origins of our culture ofdisbelief of victims, or that
sexual harassment is just simplya fact of life that women must
put up with.
Here's a passage from thebook's introduction that speaks
directly to these arguments andoffers some context for today's
(01:17):
conversation.
A major challenge thatreinforces violence against
women includes patriarchalsocial conditioning.
Reinforces violence againstwomen includes patriarchal
social conditioning the way oursystems of family life,
education, employment,entertainment and pop culture,
spirituality and religioncontribute to the unrelenting
prevalence of sexual assault,domestic violence and other
(01:37):
forms of abuse.
In this book, I examinelong-standing, commonly accepted
, gender-biased social standardsthat have crossed over cultures
, historical time periods andgeographical locations.
Of course, not all peoplebelieve that men have the right
to abuse women.
However, I contend that thisconcept exists as the rationale
(01:57):
between the acceptance of men'sviolence against women, and it
is the norm for the status quo.
One belief that encouragesviolence includes the idea that
women should remain submissiveto men in the home and that men
have the right to disciplinewomen for incorrect behavior.
Under this guise, domesticviolence becomes acceptable.
Other examples consist of thenotion that women should not
(02:21):
deny sex to their partners, thatsexual harassment is normal and
that women are most valued aswives and mothers and not as
individuals.
In other words, women shouldexist by the discretion of the
masculine order, direction andpleasure.
Under this patriarchal beliefsystem, men are valued over
women solely due to their gender, and this contributes to a
(02:44):
culture of disbelief thatsignifies men's authority at any
cost over women.
We decided to begin season fourexploring different aspects of
this patriarchal socialconditioning to help us
understand our currentpredicament.
That is a point in historywhere women have more rights
than any other time period andyet continue to experience
(03:05):
astronomical rates of violence,abuse and harassment.
I can't promise that we canmake any of this make sense, so
to speak, but perhaps we can usewhat we learn to advocate for
change.
To quote Charles Sandberg, wecannot change what we are not
aware of, and once we are aware,we cannot help but change.
Today, we examine sexualharassment as having roots in
(03:29):
both patriarchal socialconditioning and the tolerance
and normalization of violenceagainst women.
Dr Erin Kelly is a professor ofEnglish composition and
literature at Dallas College,richland Campus in Dallas, texas
.
Holding terminal degrees inboth literature and law.
Dr Kelly just published herfirst book about law, literature
and discrimination of victimsof violent crimes.
(03:51):
She writes on the abuses ofhistory and a culture of
disbelief that fails victims ofsexual assault, domestic
violence, stalking and sexualharassment.
Erin Kelly, welcome to the show, thank you so much for having
me and maybe I should saywelcome back, because you were
here with us in season three andI think we talked about gender
bias back then in season three.
(04:13):
Yes, we did, we did.
It's great to be back and we'regoing to talk kind of touch on
that or expand on it todaytalking about sexual harassment.
But first I must congratulateyou on the publication of your
book, and in order to talk aboutthat book we'd have to cover a
lot of ground.
So we're really going to focusin on one chapter and it's the
(04:33):
last chapter of the book whichis about sexual harassment.
So I just want to clarify a fewthings before we get started.
What sexual harassment is?
So, as defined by the EEOC,sexual harassment includes
unwelcome advances, requests forsexual favors and other verbal
(04:55):
or physical harassment of asexual nature in the workplace
or learning environment.
Further, this goes on to saythat sexual harassment does not
always have to be specificallyabout sexual behavior or
directed at a specific person.
For example, negative commentsabout women as a group may be a
(05:16):
form of sexual harassment.
And my source for all that Iuse RAINN as a source.
The website is r-a-i-n-norg ifanybody wants to check on that
definition.
So you mentioned in the bookthat, despite the label and I
just said the word sexual aboutfive times in the definition and
kind of context for thisdespite that word in that label,
(05:39):
sexual harassment is not aboutsex.
What is it about?
That's correct.
Sexual harassment is not aboutsex.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
What is it about?
That's correct.
Sexual harassment is not aboutsex or having sexual encounters.
It's about abusing andleveraging authority and
privilege in the workplacesetting.
So it's about abusing some sortof power differential between
someone of higher rank and oneof lower status.
Historically and statistically,men have been in these higher
(06:08):
positions of power and now, eventhough that's changed a bit
over time, it still reinforcesthe current statistics that we
have, in that women are the oneswho mostly file sexual
harassment claims against theirmale supervisors.
So in my book, in this sense, Iargue that sexual harassment is
(06:29):
not only a form of gender-basedviolence, but it's also a form
of gender inequalities.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And that's true, and you talk a lot about all of
those things throughout the bookand all of the different
chapters.
And, knowing this, let's talkabout your book for a minute and
how you arranged the argumentsabout violence against women,
because you took a uniqueapproach that juxtaposes real
life experience with fictionalaccounts.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
This comes from my background, so I'm a literature
professor, I have a PhD inliterature, but prior to that I
received a Juris Doctorate fromlaw school.
But I've been a literatureprofessor for over 16 years now,
and so I've always had thisappreciation for the value that
literature meaning novels, poems, short stories the value, the
(07:18):
messages that they can providefor us us, because telling
stories is the best way that, inthis sense, we can personalize
challenging issues and we canshare them with our community
and with each other.
We're not just spouting offthese statistics and these case
studies.
Instead, our stories make itmore understandable and
(07:41):
believable because they canconnect people in this common
bond that we all share.
Especially in these days.
Stories are becoming more andmore popular than ever.
With the technology that wehave.
We see people telling theirstories in videos, on podcasts
like this one, in social media,tiktok, ted Talks.
(08:03):
Tell telling stories is evenmore accessible now more than
ever because we can connect withothers so easily through
technology.
So, in this sense, I use thestories of literature, of novels
actually, which are fiction,fictional novels and then I
bring in law, which isnonfiction, to illustrate and to
(08:25):
tell the stories of violenceagainst women, and then also to
challenge some of theseconventional beliefs and the
harm that actually arises fromthese beliefs in the stories of
the law and the literature thatI've chosen.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, and you do it really well, right and so for
this particular discussion aboutsexual harassment, you chose a
2020 novel titled the Boys Clubby author and attorney Erica
Katz.
What is the story Ms Katzshares in the Boys Club and why
did you choose this particularnovel?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
choose this particular novel.
One thing that's veryinteresting about this novel is
if you go to the author, ericaKatz's, author profiles on
Google or Goodreads or Amazon.
If you go to her authorprofiles, it's actually a
pseudonym, she's anonymous, andI say she.
It could be a he, but we'll sayshe's a she, and what's
interesting about that, like youmentioned, is, according to her
profile, she actually is a lawschool graduate, an attorney,
(09:31):
who was hired at a large,prestigious law firm, and it's
what we call big law, big lawlaw firms and so, of course,
this novel.
She does not claim that this isa nonfiction novel.
It's fiction.
Not claim that this is anonfiction novel.
It's fiction, but it'ssupposedly inspired by the
author's own experiences in thisbig law law firm and, as you
mentioned too, it was written in2020, which is very current,
(09:55):
and in that, some of us mightlike to believe that the type of
overt sexual harassment thatoccurs in the novel, some of us
might like to believe that thatdoesn't exist, or maybe this
person you know, maybe thecharacter's lying about it, but,
you know, some people thinkmaybe it doesn't happen anymore,
(10:15):
maybe it used to, but it stillclearly does.
And sexual harassment, of courseit's not in every institution
or organization or business orcorporation, but it still is in
all different types oforganization that allow for a
toxic, complicit institutionalculture, and that begins at the
(10:39):
highest level of leadership thatallows it and then it just
trickles down throughout thatinstitution.
When I studied in thisparticular chapter, I had to
look more into the psychology oforganizational behavior and I
learned that what filters downis, you know, there's these
guidelines, policies and valuesthat every institution has right
(11:01):
, and so what happens is that inthese types of organizations
these guidelines, values,policies, et cetera number one,
they were never created or ifthey were created, they are not
(11:31):
enforced or they're rarelyenforced.
So that opens the door for alltypes of bad behavior to filter
into the organizationalcommunity and it becomes
normalized.
That is where theselongstanding patriarchal gender
roles and some of these biasescome into play that have been
more acceptable on on a largercultural, social scale
(12:00):
guidelines, if you will.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
policies that occurred or that we currently
may have in place at companiesand organizations across the
country didn't really beginuntil the 70s.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Correct, yes.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And I don't know how robust they are across the board
, and I believe it's directed bythe organization to for their
HR department to, you know, kindof install and implement a
sexual harassment policy, butthey haven't been around very
long, I mean in my lifetime.
Yes, these have been in place,but that doesn't mean that
(12:40):
people in my lifetime have notexperienced sexual harassment,
and it may be in response towhat has happened in the past,
but it is still alive and doingvery well.
I mean, it's still out thereand you're right, we do not talk
about this very much and it'svery interesting that Erica
Katz's book was published in2020 with such an overt
(13:04):
experience of sexual harassmentVery, very obvious, very over
the top type of example.
That being said, what parallelsdid you draw from the story to
make the central argument that,like sexual domestic abuse,
sexual harassment of women hasmost often been permitted due to
(13:24):
long-standing gender roles thatreinforce toxic masculinity and
excuse violence?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
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 suchthing as sexual sexual
harassment.
It just happened, and that'swhat was, but one way in which I
argue in my book that sexualharassment is still permissible
(13:57):
in some of these institutions.
The first reason is due just tothis acceptance of toxic
masculinity in the workplace,and what I mean by that is, if
we look at our socialconditioning and history in our
mainstream society today,hyper-masculine characteristics.
(14:18):
They exaggerate strength,dominance and leadership, and
those characteristics are oftenhighly idealized in our society.
Still, there's four differenttraits, though with specific
traits, with hypermasculinity,that help contribute, though, to
violence against women.
The first one is that the viewof violence is something
(14:42):
acceptable and it's consideredmanly.
In addition to that, there'sthis perspective that danger and
high risk is exciting.
The third characteristic isthat there's this overall
callousness toward women andthat one directly helps filter
into violence against women.
And then the fourth, hyper.
(15:03):
The fourth hyper-masculinecharacteristic is there's this
disdain toward emotionaldisplays that are considered
feminine.
Now, there's an exception tothat rule, in that men are
allowed to express angervehemently.
They can scream, they canholler, they can express anger.
(15:27):
However, if women do this, thenwe're automatically just
considered emotional andhysterical.
But beside that, when the fourhyper-masculine traits, they
then just can easily flip andmetamorphose into toxic
masculinity.
When those types ofcharacteristics then are able to
(15:48):
contribute and excuse violenceagainst women.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So we know that sexual harassment is happening,
obviously it's still happening,and we know that toxic
masculinity often permits it tohappen.
But then we have to wonder howdo victims actually become
victims of these abusive men?
Are there ways that women aresocially conditioned to be
(16:13):
manipulated, groomed, harassed,abused and victimized?
And how does this happen?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yes, I covered this in my book.
This is due to psycho-emotionalvulnerabilities, and
psycho-emotional vulnerabilitiesis a term that was created by
the psychologist Dr GrantCinnamon, and what that means is
there are certaincharacteristics that make
victims more vulnerable and evenattractive to perpetrators
grooming, and then, with thesecharacteristics, the
(16:48):
perpetrators are able to exploitthese targets, especially women
, and especially in cases ofsexual harassment.
But before I continue on withthat, I want to make sure and
note that just because a victimhas these characteristics does
not mean that they'reresponsible for being abused.
(17:10):
So it's not a flip, it's not anabuse type thing.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, it's not victim blaming.
Yes, I want to make sure thatwe're not.
We don't do that here anyway.
But yeah, and we were justtalking about this yesterday at
Genesis, and so just likeanother way to say it is to flip
it a little bit and say that anabusive person will use they
will find a vulnerability in youwhere maybe you didn't even
(17:36):
know it existed.
They will find something aboutyou If you are know it existed.
They will find something aboutyou If you are the intended
target.
They will find something aboutyou that they perceive as a
vulnerability and they willexploit it.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
They will absolutely find it and they will pick it
apart.
And there's a couple of theseand I like how you say that, how
they target certain, they lookfor 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 perpetratorto target it.
Um, the first one there's a.
(18:08):
There's five of them.
The first one is a desire, andI thought this was really
interesting.
So when we have these huntingground 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 levelattorneys, of course there's men
(18:32):
coming in, but these lowerlevel attorneys who are trying
to prove themselves, they're allthese young people.
But these lower level attorneyswho are trying to prove
themselves, they're all theseyoung people, just recent
graduates, and so they all have,but especially the women, they
all have a very strong desire toprove themselves.
And the women when we'retalking about sexual harassment
of women, that's going to be thefirst L, and in these hunting
(18:53):
ground environments, you'regoing to see that.
And in the boys club, there'sthis hierarchical structure that
makes this a good huntingground environment.
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 oneof these prestigious positions
(19:14):
in the law firm and she will doanything that she needs to do to
work hard and sacrifice.
It's also a highly competitiveenvironment.
So desire is the first one.
The targets know that.
You know I can exploit thisdesire in them because I have a
power or control over theirability to succeed.
(19:35):
That's the first one.
The second one is a lowself-esteem and in my book I say
maybe not even low self-esteem,but an insecurity.
And in the novel, alex, youknow they're all coming in,
young people are, they'reinexperienced, they don't have
learning, life experience.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
They're right out of law school.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
right, they're right out of law school they have no
idea what it means to be anattorney no idea or to be on
their own and working in reallife.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
As we call them at Genesis baby attorneys.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yes, yes, they've got .
You know all the young peopledo.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
We did yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But you know a lot of these and then you'll also see,
especially in women.
So, with insecurity, a lot ofwomen are people pleasers by
nature.
We were taught that we weresocially conditioned to do that
by these patriarchal structuresand, you know, people pleasers
(20:41):
tend to ignore their own needsand sacrifice those for others.
And a lot of women.
We've been conditioned to bepolite, to be quiet, to be
obedient, to do what we're toldand especially if we're young,
we're going to try to impressour 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 gotlow self-esteem or insecurity.
And then number three is ageand, like we just said, young
(21:04):
people.
They just lack the experience.
They're also younger.
People are also more easilyimpressionable by superficial
characteristics.
So they might be highlyimpressed by their perpetrator's
fame, their wealth, theirnotoriety, their ability, you
know, to succeed is somethingthat they see in their
(21:27):
perpetrator and they want.
And this is, this is somethingin which the.
You know, if I'm adored and youcan, you're seeing this now in
a lot of the Hollywood actorsthat are coming out that have
been sexually harassing andabusing people for decades.
But you'll see that I mean,there's a reason that they are
able to do that, because theyhave this fame and this notion
(21:49):
of you know people who aretrying to make it allow for
concessions when someone of thatthat level is getting them any
type of attention.
So we've got those three.
Then the fourth one is reallyinteresting.
I was kind of surprised by it.
So the fourth one is a victimwho uses avoidance, and what
(22:10):
that means is a victim whocompartmentalizes, and
compartmentalization like that'soften a positive characteristic
for someone to have.
We see, you know doctors whocan compartmentalize and you
know and continue on with theirwork despite all the you know
other personal things that mightbe going on around them.
(22:31):
But in the novel, theprotagonist, she is a
compartmentalizer.
She knows she doesn't feel goodwhen she's being sexually
harassed by a wealthy client.
She doesn't like it, shedoesn't like the slur and she
feels it in her gut.
But instead she laughs it offbecause she wants to be accepted
(22:54):
and she uses thatcompartmentalization to fuel her
desire.
And there's a great quote in it.
So after she's being, after shewas in a, there was a sexist
slur and she doesn't like it.
She immediately cringes.
She says I could either acceptit, accept that behavior as a
challenge.
Either accept it, accept thatbehavior as a challenge, or I
(23:17):
could accept it as an insult,but either way I had to accept
it.
Yes, for her to get to whereshe wants to go she has in her
mind to well, I mean, she has to, or she's going to be
blackballed immediately, whichwe see in the novel, which we
see happen eventually.
And then the fifth one is kindof overlaps with what we've been
(23:38):
talking about is there's alsojust a cultural contributing
factor.
So, of course, young people,people also who adhere to kind
of these more traditional gendernorms, also people of different
races or socioeconomic statusgroups, anybody who has a factor
that contributes to they wantto succeed, but they also don't
(24:02):
want to rock the boat of thestatus quo.
So those are our fivecharacteristics.
So again they were desire, lowself-esteem or insecurity, age,
young age, avoidance they useavoidance.
And then there's also thesecultural contributing factors
that come in.
But ultimately what that meansis, you know, in a workplace
(24:24):
that allows for toxicmasculinity, and then these
perpetrators are able to easilyidentify psychoemotional
vulnerabilities.
Due to the hunting groundnature, it's very easy for
perpetrators to target thesetypes of people unfairly and to
completely exploit them.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, and I found it really interesting that any of
this would exist in anenvironment that is supposed to
be a professional place ofpracticing law.
Right, it just seemscounterintuitive that any of
this would happen in a law firm.
But I mean, we know that itdoes, it clearly does.
It's very realistic.
(25:08):
So I appreciate the overview ofthese psycho-emotional
vulnerabilities.
This is a really fascinatingtopic in and of itself to go
through and trying to break downexactly what an abusive person
sees as perfect prey in anenvironment that's actually like
(25:30):
a professional workplace.
And in many ways sexualharassment seems like the
perfect cover-up for abuse orviolence, because it is often
shrouded in innuendo and, thoughsometimes overt, it can be
subtle, difficult to prove,relies on the victim to document
and demonstrate what hasoccurred.
(25:51):
It often includes a powerdynamic, 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 possiblycoercive control that often
occurs in the home or inintimate partner relationships,
(26:13):
and the parallel for me is justtoo strong to ignore.
And the parallel for me is justtoo strong to ignore.
To quote chapter five of yourbook, your argument is that,
like sexual assault and domesticabuse, sexual harassment of
women has most often beenpermitted due to longstanding
gender roles that reinforcetoxic masculinity and excuse
violence.
That's on page 85.
(26:34):
And that is to say, the rootsof sexual harassment run deep
and perhaps so far back inhistory that we might struggle
to find them.
What have you found in yourresearch that explains the
genesis of male dominance overwomen and why that continues to
this day?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Well, history and social conditioning are very
powerful tools that have enabledviolence against women for
centuries.
But, as we know, in the US, aswe've said, up until the 60s,
women were basically theproperty of their husbands or
their fathers, and what I meanby that is men had the sole
(27:12):
discretion.
Women didn't have much choice,and men were, and still are in
some circumstances.
They were considered theauthority over women, children,
anybody else in the household,pets, servants.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, and this was on any topic, uh to your point,
and in any aspect of life.
And when they were consideredthe authority, basically that
was like a financial authority,because, you know, the one with
the who holds the purse stringsis the one who gets whatever
they want.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Absolutely, and in that when someone has lost their
financial control, it's notevery woman's abused right and
some women live happily in thosesituations.
But there are circumstances, ofcourse, as you see at Genesis,
that when this happens men cantreat them in any way they see
fit, and that of course includesphysical abuse.
(28:06):
And then the women really havevery little say in the matter
because they've not only beenfinancially controlled but
they've been bridled in everyother way due to coercive
control tactics.
But that's going more intodomestic violence, which of
course there are many overlaps.
But you know, we as women, we Imean we have not had rights for
(28:29):
very long.
We couldn't vote until the1920s, we couldn't even have a
bank account or credit cards orrent an apartment or own a home
since the 70s, and that just wasnot that long ago.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And that's just to say that if you were a married
woman, those were.
That was the case.
So women who were unmarriedcould have those things.
I'm not saying it was easy forthem to have them or own them,
or even buy them, or even workto make money to buy them, but,
but, but that being said, I meanit's hard to undo centuries of
(29:03):
teachings.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's I mean it's not going to happen no, it isn't,
we're still working on it.
In fact, we're still very muchworking on that.
So I mean these beliefs ofwomen as property, women being
less, less than when they'reunder the control of their
fathers or their husbands ortheir brothers, that's been so
(29:26):
strongly embedded in our cultureand then also our social
conditioning.
That social conditioning comesin in all different forms and
all different angles.
We talked about this in ourother episode together.
But it comes from, maybe fromour own family life and our own
upbringings.
It comes from our peers, maybeour religion teaches it, media
(29:47):
and social media also.
But the bottom line is, you know, there are still some men that
want to continue with thesetraditions.
They want to have absolute powerover women because, quite
frankly, they just see us lessthan they see us as the, the,
the weaker sex, and, and youknow, when people are in power
(30:11):
sometimes they're very fearfuland they do whatever they need
to do to stay in that power.
So also historically, whenwomen were supposed to obey men,
when a woman speaks out againstsexual harassment or domestic
violence or sexual assault,there's still, you know, these
(30:33):
underpinnings of ideas in whichshe's immediately met with this
response of you know.
Why is this woman speaking out?
She's supposed to stay silentand, just, you know, move on
about our day under theauthority of a man.
I mean, those ideas are stillvery much there and also that
goes in if she's speaking out,she's automatically lying.
So these are all these verylongstanding ideas that
(30:56):
contribute to this generalculture of what I call just a
disbelief disbelief againstwomen when they do come forward
and speak against a perpetratorof any form of violence against
women.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, and I thank you for all of that insight.
Patriarchal social conditioningis.
It's not just centuries old, italmost you have to go way back
to you know millennia to eventry to understand how it all
began.
But the fact remains that it ishere.
(31:32):
It is very strong here in theUnited States, for sure.
It is very strong here in theUnited States, for sure, and
this country was founded by abunch of people who came to
settle a new world.
Right, in doing so, their firstaction was violence when they
(31:54):
came to the new world, becausethey ripped the land out from
under the people who wereoccupying it and just said well,
this is ours now, and you caneither get out of the way or get
killed.
Right, so that that was.
That was the way that this wasa violent overtaking.
These settlers brought withthem the culture from their home
country, which, in this, whatI'm talking about, is kind of
like, you know, from Englandthat believed that women were
(32:15):
property, and so they just tookeverything that existed culture,
pots and pans, you knoweverything that they had in
England and brought it over andparked it in this new world that
would become the United States.
So it's not really surprisingthat it's here in this country.
But what is surprising is thatit hangs on and in fact, a wife
(32:37):
beating was not just.
You know, this is just aninteresting tidbit Wife beating
was not illegal in every stateof the United States until 1920.
So that's very recent.
That's a hundred years, and sowe still have a lot of work to
do to make sure that, you know,women gain the equity that we
(32:59):
deserve as human beings.
There's one main distinctionbetween what we know as domestic
violence and as sexualharassment, and that is sexual
harassment itself is not a crime, meaning it's not an action or
pattern of behavior that on itsown is considered criminal or
that can be prosecuted in acriminal court.
(33:20):
But there are laws in placethat address sexual harassment.
Help us to understand whatthose are and how things play
out when an individualexperiences sexual harassment
within, let's just say, theworkplace.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Sure.
So there's two aspects andbefore we even get into the
complexities of the law itself,the first part in actually
taking action is extremelydifficult.
It is extremely difficult tosue your employer, and the first
thing that we have to kind ofremember, that has to be
(33:57):
contextualized, is that, whensurveyed, 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, dueto a fear of retaliation and due
(34:20):
to being scared of losing theirjob.
So, just like sexual assaultand domestic violence and even
stalking and I cover those othertopics but the similarity is
there's a high level of itactually occurring, but victims
very rarely report, and that'sbecause victims know they're not
(34:43):
going to be supported.
They haven't been historicallysupported.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, or they're not going to be believed.
And this sounds a lot likeexperiences of rape or sexual
assault and other crimes againstwomen.
There are fewer reports thanthere are actual crimes.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Yep, exactly.
Also, suing an employer isextremely expensive, it's
time-consuming, cases draw outlike years often and it's
mentally and emotionallyabsolutely exhausting.
And the law is very, verystrict, emotionally absolutely
(35:19):
exhausting.
And the law is very, verystrict.
Just because you've beenmistreated or your boss is a
jerk, or just because you'vebeen sexually harassed sometimes
just doesn't mean that itactually violated the elements
of the law.
Also, most employees just don'tunderstand that employers
typically just aren't scared.
They're not scared of beingsued, they aren't.
(35:41):
Employers know that typicallynothing's going to happen out of
it.
Nothing's.
You know nothing will happen.
And but even if an employeelike wins, so to speak and win
is loosely based, not much isever going to change.
Is what research is showing us.
And finally, getting anemployment law attorney for a
(36:03):
sexual harassment case is not aneasy task.
Acquiring one of thoseattorneys.
They're very selective.
They don't want to take oncases that they know that
they're going to lose.
So they're only going to takeon very rare, very few cases to
begin with.
So just getting to the point ofmaking a claim just that part
(36:25):
of it is very, very difficultfor people and it's terrifying
to open your mouth and reportsomething like that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
My understanding from everything I've read and from
survivor stories that I've heard.
More often than not, she quitsthe job.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
That's what research shows as well.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah, she quits the job, doesn't report it most of
the time and goes to worksomewhere else, and the abuse
continues until someone else iswilling to report it, if they
are at all, and that can take avery long time as well, as we
saw with the Me Too movement.
True, very true.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Well, and then secondly, sexual harassment law.
Like I said, it's extremelycomplicated.
It does not favor victims.
So, as you said, sexualharassment it's not a crime,
it's a civil suit and everythinghas to be dictated through the
EEOC, the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission, title
(37:42):
VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
So under this law there's gotto be all these steps that have
to take place, and it'sdifficult to go through these
steps.
The first one is you have tocontact HR and you have to file
an HR claim and we alreadytalked about how difficult that
is and usually HR.
It has to be done within ashort period of time.
It has to be in writing, it hasto be within 30 days.
(38:04):
That's hard for victims as well, because sometimes they have to
really ruminate and really gothrough what's going to happen
to me if I do this, but so saythat does happen, even if you
know she does that within the 30day time.
If the company takes no actionwhich research is showing that
(38:24):
they typically don't then thevictim has to go through all
these additional steps.
She has to file a claim notonly with the EEOC, but then
with whatever the state thecorresponding state agency is,
and then the EEOC can do threethings they can.
They can sit.
They can tell the employer tochange their policy, which
that's not going to.
(38:45):
I mean okay, change your policy.
How does that help the victim,though?
Okay, number two, which isextremely rare, is the EEOC
files a lawsuit on the victim'sbehalf and they are not going to
get involved unless somehowthey know that they will win and
this is going to contribute totheir court precedent,
(39:06):
positively to their courtprecedent.
And then the third thing thatthe EEOC can do is then okay, if
they don't want to do the firsttwo, then they can say okay,
now, victim, you have permissionto file a suit on your own in
your state court.
So very, very picky.
A lot of times people don'tunderstand this, and even just
(39:29):
going through those steps beforeeven getting to filing a claim
within the court system isalmost impossible in and of
itself.
A claim within the court systemis almost impossible in and of
itself.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
So everything that we've talked about so far, and
everything you were justexplaining about the law, is
about sexual harassment in theworkplace, right?
Yes, because if a person wereto experience sexual harassment
on the subway, how would that behandled?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It wouldn't, you know , because you can call a police
officer for an assault, but thatrequires physical damages,
right, like a physical injury.
If someone gropes you on thesubway it's inappropriate
touching, but legally there'snot really a recourse.
(40:20):
Same thing if they would.
Same thing if they're, you know, verbally, sexually harassing.
You know, we've always heard ofthe construction workers.
You know, verbally harass.
The same thing.
I mean, people can sayoffensive things.
It's not illegal, right?
Speaker 1 (40:40):
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'sa, that is a domestic dispute,
but if a stranger punches me inthe face, that's a physical
assault, assault, and so itactually becomes A crime that is
(41:05):
taken more seriously than thesame exact amount of violence
that took place between ahusband and a wife, which
doesn't entirely make sense tome and I have to keep saying it
out loud.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, and what I, what I argue in my book, and
what I saw, what I, what Idiscovered, is that
interpersonal violence andacquaintance crimes are not
going to be taken as seriously.
So what I mean by that?
Domestic violence, sexualharassment, of course it's not a
crime, but again, we're not, wedon't take it very seriously,
right?
Obviously, stalking, same thing.
(41:42):
You know that it's difficult toprove criminally, but it's just
not going to be taken seriously.
And of course, acquaintancerape you know the he said, she
said well, they're going to gowith the he said 95 or more
percent of the time.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Let's talk about Darvo, institutional betrayal
and the challenges of filing acomplaint or a lawsuit.
What's happening here?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Okay so DARVO is something I came across as I
started researching this bookand it's an acronym D-A-R-V-O
and it's an acronym created byDr Jennifer Frey.
She's a psychologist, aprofessor and a researcher and
it's a form of manipulation thatabusers use to shift the blame
(42:31):
to the victim.
And this has been a verypopular and widely accepted and
very successful technique.
And once you recognize it, youwill start to see it and what I
mean by this.
So D okay, so a perpetrator isaccused of sexual harassment, d
(42:51):
is deny, a is accused, they'regoing to accuse the victim and
then they immediately arereverse the victim and then O
offender.
So deny, accuse, reverse victimand offender.
And it can happen very quicklyand very easily and it
automatically shifts the blameinto she's a big fat liar.
(43:15):
A recent example and I don'tinclude this example in my book,
but I came across it while Iwas researching for this chapter
and I just came across itperiodically just in the news,
on the, the internet.
And a recent example is isthere okay, so there there are
claims that men okay so so menwho are supervisors they're
(43:37):
hiring you know, their company'shiring and so these men don't
want to hire a woman or youngerwoman, 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 (43:54):
So what's happening?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
So before we can, even get to Darvo.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
We're just saying, nope, it's a woman, or she's a
woman and it's going to betrouble.
So I'm out.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
We are making up scenarios before they even
happen.
And we already know that womenin these positions are
historical victims of sexualharassment.
But but these, these types ofmen?
They're making up scenarios todeny a potential accusation of
sexual harassment.
Now, to me that puts a bigquestion mark already on their
(44:30):
character.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
It also begs the question of is this an attempt
to keep women out of theworkplace?
Speaker 2 (44:38):
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 reversesvictim and offender and it
reinforces that belief thatwomen are liars, women are just
out to get these men, and it's,you know, it's reinforcing this
(45:00):
culture of disbelief of womenand, just as you said, it's
simultaneously pushing us backdown into these less positions
of power and maintaining us in aspecific space.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, it's fabricating reasons to keep
women in their place and justreinforcing patriarchal social
conditioning.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
But also Dr Frey.
What she does is she broadensthat scope even.
And so we see, when individualperpetrators or individual
people DARVO victims, it turnsinto institutional DARVO because
the institution, theorganization is essentially
(45:40):
doing the same.
Organizations are supposed toprovide safe working
environments for employees andwhen they engage in this kind of
institutional, impliedinstitutional DARVO it's
institutional.
Then it's called institutionalbetrayal and arguably the law
(46:01):
can sometimes be considered asystem of institutional betrayal
, system of institutionalbetrayal because they don't you
know, we know the statistics nowand the courts protect the
employers.
They don't protect employeeswho file the claims.
And I've got a couple of quickcourt cases.
The courts heavily rely on thesenon-productive anti-sexual
(46:28):
harassment policies.
You know, oftentimes they'rereally not very productive,
they're not very enforceable,they may not be very fair.
The Supreme Court decision in1998, faragher versus City of
Boca Raton, gives wide latitudeand the court in this case said
that as long as the employertook some sort of reasonable
(46:51):
steps to have an anti-sexualharassment policy, that that
would be sufficient.
And also the court in Leopold vBaccarat it's a New York
appellate court decision saidthat even if the company policy
itself is inadequate quote thelaw is very clear that a
(47:13):
reasonable policy will do so.
The courts provide heavily,heavily reliance.
As long as you have ananti-sexual harassment policy in
place, that's going to sufficeand the case can be completely
thrown out if it had even becomea claim or a case to begin with
.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Okay, so then just kind of extending from there.
We've talked about how thecourt would respond to these
allegations, but there's anaspect of sexual harassment
that's even darker that wehaven't talked about, and it's
something I wasn't familiar withuntil you kind of introduced it
in the book, and that was adultgrooming.
(47:53):
What role does this have insexual harassment?
Help us understand how thishappens and then the
consequences for those actions.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Adult grooming was new to me too.
It was something that Idiscovered in my research and I
was just.
It opened all kinds of doorsfor me when I saw it, but it
makes perfect sense.
So we think about grooming.
It's this slow, methodicalpractice that manipulates a
victim and the goal is to builda false relationship of trust
(48:30):
and to prepare this victim forexploit and abuse and then hang
on to him, hang on to them, sothey can be continually
exploited and abused.
That's what grooming is and wemostly think of it, and most of
the research has been childgrooming of adult perpetrators.
But anyone can be groomed, itturns out, and there is adult
(48:53):
grooming.
There's some current examplesIf you watch the documentary
series.
There's a lot of documentaryseries coming out of famous
people who have been harassingand assaulting victims for a
very long time and they'refinally being found out.
You know one of them, of courseisvey weinstein.
There's the r kelly documentaryand the newest one is kevin
spacey.
(49:13):
Kevin spacey, who didn't groomwomen, he groomed and abused men
, and that's a whole other issue.
But.
But you can see that he honedin on their psycho-emotional
vulnerabilities.
But there is like a there's,there's a set progression that
(49:33):
goes through a stage of adultgrooming.
And the researcher, dr GrantCinnamon, he's a psychologist,
he's the one who has come upwith these seven stages of adult
grooming.
And so what happens is in thefirst five stages there's this
preparation they're preparingthe victim.
But the last two stages areexploiting the victim.
(49:56):
So it's really, reallyinteresting to go through, you
know, and you can see throughthe progression of these
different types of steps thatperpetrators use to, you know,
for their target, thatperpetrators use for their
targets.
The first one is the isolation,and that's when abusers have a
hunting ground, type ofenvironment, schools, colleges,
(50:16):
these working, thesehierarchical structures in the
workplace and then they choose avictim that displays some of
these psycho-emotionalvulnerabilities.
So they're gonna pick them outspecifically.
Then they start gatheringinformation.
You know what's this personlike, what's their personality,
what are their habits, theirfriendships, their values, their
(50:37):
family life, all of thosethings.
They study them in that senseand then, after they gather that
information, they begin toestablish trust.
That's the third step andthey're starting to exploit
those whatever psycho-emotionalvulnerabilities and they're
starting to create this falsesense of intimacy.
(50:58):
So this is when you know thesehighly charismatic, successful,
good looking, whatever it may be, when these perpetrators start
to make these victims feel thatthey're special in some way.
That's step three, establishingtrust.
And then they move on to four.
So when they're created, afterthey've created this false sense
(51:20):
of intimacy, they start to meetthe need and establish
credentials in step four.
And establish credentials instep four, and then what that
means?
They start to manufacturescenarios so they can isolate,
you know, continue to isolate,and spend time with the victim
oftentimes.
And in erica katz's novel yousee that they'll create these
(51:44):
chance encounters.
Oh, you happen to be on thewest side in this same
restaurant on a Saturday evening.
But they do that through spying, through electronic stalking,
they track the victim, all ofthese different types of ways.
They're not chance encounters,in other words.
And then that takes to stepfive, which is actually priming
(52:06):
the target, to step five, whichis actually priming the target,
and that's when they're tryingto pull them even further away
from any influences of familyand friends.
And so once they haveestablished that, then they go
back into actually exploitingand that's when they number.
Part six is when they've primedthem and they've gotten them
(52:27):
ready through steps one to five.
Then they initiate the sexualcontact.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
I thought it was really interesting in the book
when you were talking about theexample in the boys club.
When Alex's abusive bossfinally gets her to have an
intimate relationship with himOnce he has what that, what that
conquest has been made.
He then stops.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
He removes his affection, and that's step seven
.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Yes, he stops all the contact and leaves her
wondering what the heck happened.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Exactly yes, and that's that is intentional.
And it's to keep the victim offkilter.
It's to keep them confused andemotionally vulnerable and you
know sometimes they're desperatethat you know what the heck
happened.
But you know and you know hejust removes his affection.
But sometimes other other waysis they'll control the victim.
(53:26):
They're continuing to controlthe victim to exploit them
sexually.
Maybe they do it throughpromises, giving gifts, maybe
threats, and then in the book heremoves his, he becomes 100%
emotionally unavailable.
But whatever the technique, hedoes it to keep the victim off
kilter.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
Right and in a place where she remains vulnerable, I
would think, and then also isbeholden to him.
Her career is in his hands,yeah for sure.
There's another aspect that weactually haven't talked about in
.
You know the response to sexualharassment, and that is the
freeze response.
(54:06):
So in your book there's anexcellent example of the freeze
response.
Gropes her in public, in frontof all of her colleagues.
(54:31):
She wondered if it reallyhappened at all which seems
strange, but I've heard thismany, many times and if, in fact
, she brought this all onherself by whatever clothes or
makeup or something that youknow she was wearing, or
something she did, what isreally happening when a victim
(54:52):
feels this way?
Is this a typical freezeresponse?
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yes, it is.
So freeze is a fight, flightfreeze.
And what research is showingthat in all these different
forms of violence against women,the freeze response is the most
common response.
And in this case what happensis when we freeze.
So whether we fight, fight orfreeze, I mean it's our body's
(55:17):
innate response to immediatedanger.
So it's not part of ourexecutive 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 ourbodily functions that we don't
control, like our respiration orall of those things Anyway, but
(55:37):
statistically the freezeresponse is this most common
response in violence againstwomen and what happens is
something happens, and ithappens so quickly that they
just become paralyzed, victimsbecome paralyzed and they can't
control that and that doesn'thave to be only physically
paralyzed, absolutely not.
(55:59):
Yes, and in this example and insexual harassment it might look
(56:20):
like she's kind of just givinginto a flirtation, or she likes
it maybe, or she laughs.
She laughs it off but in somesense she's consent, she's
permitting, she's engaging inthe behavior, but that's
honestly the freeze response.
I mean any woman that just getsgroped by a man that she finds
repulsive or a man that shedoesn't know is not going to
like that.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
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 theguy Right.
Well, I mean you'd like to, butmore than You're not going to
slug the guy Right.
Well, I mean you'd like to, butmore than likely you are not
going to.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Right, exactly.
And so so, culturally, you knowour culture of disbelief, you
know, has dismissed this as, oh,she actually was just asking
for it in some way or she's, youknow, she, she's, she's
obviously permitting it orlaughing it off.
So in that sense, she's, she,just, you know, she doesn't mind
(57:13):
it.
But you know, a lot of timeswhen it, when, when things
happen like that, like a victimwill 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 isusually one that you know
you're not running away, you'renot slugging the guy, you're not
(57:36):
going to do that, those thingsin public anyway.
But but, but we see this, we seeit in sexual assault, we see it
in domestic violence, violenceand also you know we're talking
about when it acutely happens insexual harassment.
Maybe these things arehappening over time.
(57:58):
Same thing in domestic violence.
These things happen over time.
There's also what I call afunctional freeze response,
where victims will adapt certainsurvival mechanisms due to this
ongoing PTSD and again itconceals their distress to an
untrained eye or to the publicat large.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
I think it's time for some changes in the workplace,
in sexual harassment laws andpolicies, and I think it's time
for a change in our society.
We opened this episode with aquote Sandberg's we cannot
change what we are not aware of.
And once we are aware, wecannot help but change.
And we're closing it with acall for change, because perhaps
(58:40):
we are all now a little moreaware of the underpinnings of
sexual harassment and how it iscaused by patriarchal social
conditioning, how it contributesto and perpetuates both
violence against women and to aculture that not only tolerates
such, but also often looks theother way or simply will not
fight for women, will notbelieve women, blames victims
(59:03):
and continually contributes toinequity.
What's the change that we need?
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Start believing women when this actually happens,
because women who come forwardalready know that they're going
to not be believed, that alreadythey'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 reasonto believe them and also
(59:33):
understand that perpetratorslove to use DARVO.
If you can start and you canstart recognizing it everywhere
you know, in the news and when,when famous men are being
accused, you can startrecognizing how they use DARVO.
So when you can recognize thatautomatically, I think that's a
(59:54):
reason to exercise even moreawareness and caution, because
when someone is accused and thenthey use DARVO, this should be
immediately more cause forsuspect.
Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
All true and ultimately, we owe it to
ourselves and our futuregenerations to keep learning
about how a culture and acountry built upon inequities
can never be fully free foreveryone until the inequities
cease.
To restate Sheryl Sandberg, wecan change what we are aware of.
Will we?
Genesis Women's Shelter andSupport exists to give women in
(01:00:32):
abusive situations a way out.
We are committed to our missionof providing safety, shelter
and support for women andchildren who have experienced
domestic violence and to raiseawareness regarding its cause,
prevalence and impact.
Join us in creating a societalshift on how people think about
domestic violence.
You can learn more atgenesisshelterorg and when you
(01:00:53):
follow us on social media onFacebook and Instagram at
Genesis Women's Shelter and on Xat Genesis Shelter.
The Genesis Helpline isavailable 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, by call or text at214-946-HELP 214-946-4357.
We continue our conversations about patriarchy
and the roots of violenceagainst women with Professor
Erin Kelly discussing her newbook Law, literature and
Violence Against Women.
I'm Maria McMullin and this isGenesis the podcast.
We ended season three ofGenesis the Podcast with a call
(00:34):
to action for more partnership,more support, more people,
organizations and communitiesjoining together against
domestic violence and in supportof women's rights.
The underpinnings of that callto action are revealed in the
past 100 or so episodes of thispodcast, as well as stories from
women around the world thatdetail gender based violence and
a world that both normalizesand perpetuates the abuse of
women by men.
That normalization often showsitself through what Professor
Erin Kelly calls patriarchalsocial conditioning.
(00:56):
Her new book Law, literatureand Violence Against Women
offers context for that claimand several others, like the
origins of our culture ofdisbelief of victims, or that
sexual harassment is just simplya fact of life that women must
put up with.
Here's a passage from thebook's introduction that speaks
directly to these arguments andoffers some context for today's
(01:17):
conversation.
A major challenge thatreinforces violence against
women includes patriarchalsocial conditioning.
Reinforces violence againstwomen includes patriarchal
social conditioning the way oursystems of family life,
education, employment,entertainment and pop culture,
spirituality and religioncontribute to the unrelenting
prevalence of sexual assault,domestic violence and other
(01:37):
forms of abuse.
In this book, I examinelong-standing, commonly accepted
, gender-biased social standardsthat have crossed over cultures
, historical time periods andgeographical locations.
Of course, not all peoplebelieve that men have the right
to abuse women.
However, I contend that thisconcept exists as the rationale
(01:57):
between the acceptance of men'sviolence against women, and it
is the norm for the status quo.
One belief that encouragesviolence includes the idea that
women should remain submissiveto men in the home and that men
have the right to disciplinewomen for incorrect behavior.
Under this guise, domesticviolence becomes acceptable.
Other examples consist of thenotion that women should not
(02:21):
deny sex to their partners, thatsexual harassment is normal and
that women are most valued aswives and mothers and not as
individuals.
In other words, women shouldexist by the discretion of the
masculine order, direction andpleasure.
Under this patriarchal beliefsystem, men are valued over
women solely due to their gender, and this contributes to a
(02:44):
culture of disbelief thatsignifies men's authority at any
cost over women.
We decided to begin season fourexploring different aspects of
this patriarchal socialconditioning to help us
understand our currentpredicament.
That is a point in historywhere women have more rights
than any other time period andyet continue to experience
(03:05):
astronomical rates of violence,abuse and harassment.
I can't promise that we canmake any of this make sense, so
to speak, but perhaps we can usewhat we learn to advocate for
change.
To quote Charles Sandberg, wecannot change what we are not
aware of, and once we are aware,we cannot help but change.
Today, we examine sexualharassment as having roots in
(03:29):
both patriarchal socialconditioning and the tolerance
and normalization of violenceagainst women.
Dr Erin Kelly is a professor ofEnglish composition and
literature at Dallas College,richland Campus in Dallas, texas
.
Holding terminal degrees inboth literature and law.
Dr Kelly just published herfirst book about law, literature
and discrimination of victimsof violent crimes.
(03:51):
She writes on the abuses ofhistory and a culture of
disbelief that fails victims ofsexual assault, domestic
violence, stalking and sexualharassment.
Erin Kelly, welcome to the show, thank you so much for having
me and maybe I should saywelcome back, because you were
here with us in season three andI think we talked about gender
bias back then in season three.
(04:13):
Yes, we did, we did.
It's great to be back and we'regoing to talk kind of touch on
that or expand on it todaytalking about sexual harassment.
But first I must congratulateyou on the publication of your
book, and in order to talk aboutthat book we'd have to cover a
lot of ground.
So we're really going to focusin on one chapter and it's the
(04:33):
last chapter of the book whichis about sexual harassment.
So I just want to clarify a fewthings before we get started.
What sexual harassment is?
So, as defined by the EEOC,sexual harassment includes
unwelcome advances, requests forsexual favors and other verbal
(04:55):
or physical harassment of asexual nature in the workplace
or learning environment.
Further, this goes on to saythat sexual harassment does not
always have to be specificallyabout sexual behavior or
directed at a specific person.
For example, negative commentsabout women as a group may be a
(05:16):
form of sexual harassment.
And my source for all that Iuse RAINN as a source.
The website is r-a-i-n-norg ifanybody wants to check on that
definition.
So you mentioned in the bookthat, despite the label and I
just said the word sexual aboutfive times in the definition and
kind of context for thisdespite that word in that label,
(05:39):
sexual harassment is not aboutsex.
What is it about?
That's correct.
Sexual harassment is not aboutsex.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
What is it about?
That's correct.
Sexual harassment is not aboutsex or having sexual encounters.
It's about abusing andleveraging authority and
privilege in the workplacesetting.
So it's about abusing some sortof power differential between
someone of higher rank and oneof lower status.
Historically and statistically,men have been in these higher
(06:08):
positions of power and now, eventhough that's changed a bit
over time, it still reinforcesthe current statistics that we
have, in that women are the oneswho mostly file sexual
harassment claims against theirmale supervisors.
So in my book, in this sense, Iargue that sexual harassment is
(06:29):
not only a form of gender-basedviolence, but it's also a form
of gender inequalities.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And that's true, and you talk a lot about all of
those things throughout the bookand all of the different
chapters.
And, knowing this, let's talkabout your book for a minute and
how you arranged the argumentsabout violence against women,
because you took a uniqueapproach that juxtaposes real
life experience with fictionalaccounts.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
This comes from my background, so I'm a literature
professor, I have a PhD inliterature, but prior to that I
received a Juris Doctorate fromlaw school.
But I've been a literatureprofessor for over 16 years now,
and so I've always had thisappreciation for the value that
literature meaning novels, poems, short stories the value, the
(07:18):
messages that they can providefor us us, because telling
stories is the best way that, inthis sense, we can personalize
challenging issues and we canshare them with our community
and with each other.
We're not just spouting offthese statistics and these case
studies.
Instead, our stories make itmore understandable and
(07:41):
believable because they canconnect people in this common
bond that we all share.
Especially in these days.
Stories are becoming more andmore popular than ever.
With the technology that wehave.
We see people telling theirstories in videos, on podcasts
like this one, in social media,tiktok, ted Talks.
(08:03):
Tell telling stories is evenmore accessible now more than
ever because we can connect withothers so easily through
technology.
So, in this sense, I use thestories of literature, of novels
actually, which are fiction,fictional novels and then I
bring in law, which isnonfiction, to illustrate and to
(08:25):
tell the stories of violenceagainst women, and then also to
challenge some of theseconventional beliefs and the
harm that actually arises fromthese beliefs in the stories of
the law and the literature thatI've chosen.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, and you do it really well, right and so for
this particular discussion aboutsexual harassment, you chose a
2020 novel titled the Boys Clubby author and attorney Erica
Katz.
What is the story Ms Katzshares in the Boys Club and why
did you choose this particularnovel?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
choose this particular novel.
One thing that's veryinteresting about this novel is
if you go to the author, ericaKatz's, author profiles on
Google or Goodreads or Amazon.
If you go to her authorprofiles, it's actually a
pseudonym, she's anonymous, andI say she.
It could be a he, but we'll sayshe's a she, and what's
interesting about that, like youmentioned, is, according to her
profile, she actually is a lawschool graduate, an attorney,
(09:31):
who was hired at a large,prestigious law firm, and it's
what we call big law, big lawlaw firms and so, of course,
this novel.
She does not claim that this isa nonfiction novel.
It's fiction.
Not claim that this is anonfiction novel.
It's fiction, but it'ssupposedly inspired by the
author's own experiences in thisbig law law firm and, as you
mentioned too, it was written in2020, which is very current,
(09:55):
and in that, some of us mightlike to believe that the type of
overt sexual harassment thatoccurs in the novel, some of us
might like to believe that thatdoesn't exist, or maybe this
person you know, maybe thecharacter's lying about it, but,
you know, some people thinkmaybe it doesn't happen anymore,
(10:15):
maybe it used to, but it stillclearly does.
And sexual harassment, of courseit's not in every institution
or organization or business orcorporation, but it still is in
all different types oforganization that allow for a
toxic, complicit institutionalculture, and that begins at the
(10:39):
highest level of leadership thatallows it and then it just
trickles down throughout thatinstitution.
When I studied in thisparticular chapter, I had to
look more into the psychology oforganizational behavior and I
learned that what filters downis, you know, there's these
guidelines, policies and valuesthat every institution has right
(11:01):
, and so what happens is that inthese types of organizations
these guidelines, values,policies, et cetera number one,
they were never created or ifthey were created, they are not
(11:31):
enforced or they're rarelyenforced.
So that opens the door for alltypes of bad behavior to filter
into the organizationalcommunity and it becomes
normalized.
That is where theselongstanding patriarchal gender
roles and some of these biasescome into play that have been
more acceptable on on a largercultural, social scale
(12:00):
guidelines, if you will.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
policies that occurred or that we currently
may have in place at companiesand organizations across the
country didn't really beginuntil the 70s.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Correct, yes.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And I don't know how robust they are across the board
, and I believe it's directed bythe organization to for their
HR department to, you know, kindof install and implement a
sexual harassment policy, butthey haven't been around very
long, I mean in my lifetime.
Yes, these have been in place,but that doesn't mean that
(12:40):
people in my lifetime have notexperienced sexual harassment,
and it may be in response towhat has happened in the past,
but it is still alive and doingvery well.
I mean, it's still out thereand you're right, we do not talk
about this very much and it'svery interesting that Erica
Katz's book was published in2020 with such an overt
(13:04):
experience of sexual harassmentVery, very obvious, very over
the top type of example.
That being said, what parallelsdid you draw from the story to
make the central argument that,like sexual domestic abuse,
sexual harassment of women hasmost often been permitted due to
(13:24):
long-standing gender roles thatreinforce toxic masculinity and
excuse violence?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
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 suchthing as sexual sexual
harassment.
It just happened, and that'swhat was, but one way in which I
argue in my book that sexualharassment is still permissible
(13:57):
in some of these institutions.
The first reason is due just tothis acceptance of toxic
masculinity in the workplace,and what I mean by that is, if
we look at our socialconditioning and history in our
mainstream society today,hyper-masculine characteristics.
(14:18):
They exaggerate strength,dominance and leadership, and
those characteristics are oftenhighly idealized in our society.
Still, there's four differenttraits, though with specific
traits, with hypermasculinity,that help contribute, though, to
violence against women.
The first one is that the viewof violence is something
(14:42):
acceptable and it's consideredmanly.
In addition to that, there'sthis perspective that danger and
high risk is exciting.
The third characteristic isthat there's this overall
callousness toward women andthat one directly helps filter
into violence against women.
And then the fourth, hyper.
(15:03):
The fourth hyper-masculinecharacteristic is there's this
disdain toward emotionaldisplays that are considered
feminine.
Now, there's an exception tothat rule, in that men are
allowed to express angervehemently.
They can scream, they canholler, they can express anger.
(15:27):
However, if women do this, thenwe're automatically just
considered emotional andhysterical.
But beside that, when the fourhyper-masculine traits, they
then just can easily flip andmetamorphose into toxic
masculinity.
When those types ofcharacteristics then are able to
(15:48):
contribute and excuse violenceagainst women.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So we know that sexual harassment is happening,
obviously it's still happening,and we know that toxic
masculinity often permits it tohappen.
But then we have to wonder howdo victims actually become
victims of these abusive men?
Are there ways that women aresocially conditioned to be
(16:13):
manipulated, groomed, harassed,abused and victimized?
And how does this happen?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yes, I covered this in my book.
This is due to psycho-emotionalvulnerabilities, and
psycho-emotional vulnerabilitiesis a term that was created by
the psychologist Dr GrantCinnamon, and what that means is
there are certaincharacteristics that make
victims more vulnerable and evenattractive to perpetrators
grooming, and then, with thesecharacteristics, the
(16:48):
perpetrators are able to exploitthese targets, especially women
, and especially in cases ofsexual harassment.
But before I continue on withthat, I want to make sure and
note that just because a victimhas these characteristics does
not mean that they'reresponsible for being abused.
(17:10):
So it's not a flip, it's not anabuse type thing.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, it's not victim blaming.
Yes, I want to make sure thatwe're not.
We don't do that here anyway.
But yeah, and we were justtalking about this yesterday at
Genesis, and so just likeanother way to say it is to flip
it a little bit and say that anabusive person will use they
will find a vulnerability in youwhere maybe you didn't even
(17:36):
know it existed.
They will find something aboutyou If you are know it existed.
They will find something aboutyou If you are the intended
target.
They will find something aboutyou that they perceive as a
vulnerability and they willexploit it.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
They will absolutely find it and they will pick it
apart.
And there's a couple of theseand I like how you say that, how
they target certain, they lookfor 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 perpetratorto target it.
Um, the first one there's a.
(18:08):
There's five of them.
The first one is a desire, andI thought this was really
interesting.
So when we have these huntingground 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 levelattorneys, of course there's men
(18:32):
coming in, but these lowerlevel attorneys who are trying
to prove themselves, they're allthese young people.
But these lower level attorneyswho are trying to prove
themselves, they're all theseyoung people, just recent
graduates, and so they all have,but especially the women, they
all have a very strong desire toprove themselves.
And the women when we'retalking about sexual harassment
of women, that's going to be thefirst L, and in these hunting
(18:53):
ground environments, you'regoing to see that.
And in the boys club, there'sthis hierarchical structure that
makes this a good huntingground environment.
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 oneof these prestigious positions
(19:14):
in the law firm and she will doanything that she needs to do to
work hard and sacrifice.
It's also a highly competitiveenvironment.
So desire is the first one.
The targets know that.
You know I can exploit thisdesire in them because I have a
power or control over theirability to succeed.
(19:35):
That's the first one.
The second one is a lowself-esteem and in my book I say
maybe not even low self-esteem,but an insecurity.
And in the novel, alex, youknow they're all coming in,
young people are, they'reinexperienced, they don't have
learning, life experience.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
They're right out of law school.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
right, they're right out of law school they have no
idea what it means to be anattorney no idea or to be on
their own and working in reallife.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
As we call them at Genesis baby attorneys.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yes, yes, they've got .
You know all the young peopledo.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
We did yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But you know a lot of these and then you'll also see,
especially in women.
So, with insecurity, a lot ofwomen are people pleasers by
nature.
We were taught that we weresocially conditioned to do that
by these patriarchal structuresand, you know, people pleasers
(20:41):
tend to ignore their own needsand sacrifice those for others.
And a lot of women.
We've been conditioned to bepolite, to be quiet, to be
obedient, to do what we're toldand especially if we're young,
we're going to try to impressour 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 gotlow self-esteem or insecurity.
And then number three is ageand, like we just said, young
(21:04):
people.
They just lack the experience.
They're also younger.
People are also more easilyimpressionable by superficial
characteristics.
So they might be highlyimpressed by their perpetrator's
fame, their wealth, theirnotoriety, their ability, you
know, to succeed is somethingthat they see in their
(21:27):
perpetrator and they want.
And this is, this is somethingin which the.
You know, if I'm adored and youcan, you're seeing this now in
a lot of the Hollywood actorsthat are coming out that have
been sexually harassing andabusing people for decades.
But you'll see that I mean,there's a reason that they are
able to do that, because theyhave this fame and this notion
(21:49):
of you know people who aretrying to make it allow for
concessions when someone of thatthat level is getting them any
type of attention.
So we've got those three.
Then the fourth one is reallyinteresting.
I was kind of surprised by it.
So the fourth one is a victimwho uses avoidance, and what
(22:10):
that means is a victim whocompartmentalizes, and
compartmentalization like that'soften a positive characteristic
for someone to have.
We see, you know doctors whocan compartmentalize and you
know and continue on with theirwork despite all the you know
other personal things that mightbe going on around them.
(22:31):
But in the novel, theprotagonist, she is a
compartmentalizer.
She knows she doesn't feel goodwhen she's being sexually
harassed by a wealthy client.
She doesn't like it, shedoesn't like the slur and she
feels it in her gut.
But instead she laughs it offbecause she wants to be accepted
(22:54):
and she uses thatcompartmentalization to fuel her
desire.
And there's a great quote in it.
So after she's being, after shewas in a, there was a sexist
slur and she doesn't like it.
She immediately cringes.
She says I could either acceptit, accept that behavior as a
challenge.
Either accept it, accept thatbehavior as a challenge, or I
(23:17):
could accept it as an insult,but either way I had to accept
it.
Yes, for her to get to whereshe wants to go she has in her
mind to well, I mean, she has to, or she's going to be
blackballed immediately, whichwe see in the novel, which we
see happen eventually.
And then the fifth one is kindof overlaps with what we've been
(23:38):
talking about is there's alsojust a cultural contributing
factor.
So, of course, young people,people also who adhere to kind
of these more traditional gendernorms, also people of different
races or socioeconomic statusgroups, anybody who has a factor
that contributes to they wantto succeed, but they also don't
(24:02):
want to rock the boat of thestatus quo.
So those are our fivecharacteristics.
So again they were desire, lowself-esteem or insecurity, age,
young age, avoidance they useavoidance.
And then there's also thesecultural contributing factors
that come in.
But ultimately what that meansis, you know, in a workplace
(24:24):
that allows for toxicmasculinity, and then these
perpetrators are able to easilyidentify psychoemotional
vulnerabilities.
Due to the hunting groundnature, it's very easy for
perpetrators to target thesetypes of people unfairly and to
completely exploit them.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, and I found it really interesting that any of
this would exist in anenvironment that is supposed to
be a professional place ofpracticing law.
Right, it just seemscounterintuitive that any of
this would happen in a law firm.
But I mean, we know that itdoes, it clearly does.
It's very realistic.
(25:08):
So I appreciate the overview ofthese psycho-emotional
vulnerabilities.
This is a really fascinatingtopic in and of itself to go
through and trying to break downexactly what an abusive person
sees as perfect prey in anenvironment that's actually like
(25:30):
a professional workplace.
And in many ways sexualharassment seems like the
perfect cover-up for abuse orviolence, because it is often
shrouded in innuendo and, thoughsometimes overt, it can be
subtle, difficult to prove,relies on the victim to document
and demonstrate what hasoccurred.
(25:51):
It often includes a powerdynamic, 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 possiblycoercive control that often
occurs in the home or inintimate partner relationships,
(26:13):
and the parallel for me is justtoo strong to ignore.
And the parallel for me is justtoo strong to ignore.
To quote chapter five of yourbook, your argument is that,
like sexual assault and domesticabuse, sexual harassment of
women has most often beenpermitted due to longstanding
gender roles that reinforcetoxic masculinity and excuse
violence.
That's on page 85.
(26:34):
And that is to say, the rootsof sexual harassment run deep
and perhaps so far back inhistory that we might struggle
to find them.
What have you found in yourresearch that explains the
genesis of male dominance overwomen and why that continues to
this day?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Well, history and social conditioning are very
powerful tools that have enabledviolence against women for
centuries.
But, as we know, in the US, aswe've said, up until the 60s,
women were basically theproperty of their husbands or
their fathers, and what I meanby that is men had the sole
(27:12):
discretion.
Women didn't have much choice,and men were, and still are in
some circumstances.
They were considered theauthority over women, children,
anybody else in the household,pets, servants.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, and this was on any topic, uh to your point,
and in any aspect of life.
And when they were consideredthe authority, basically that
was like a financial authority,because, you know, the one with
the who holds the purse stringsis the one who gets whatever
they want.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Absolutely, and in that when someone has lost their
financial control, it's notevery woman's abused right and
some women live happily in thosesituations.
But there are circumstances, ofcourse, as you see at Genesis,
that when this happens men cantreat them in any way they see
fit, and that of course includesphysical abuse.
(28:06):
And then the women really havevery little say in the matter
because they've not only beenfinancially controlled but
they've been bridled in everyother way due to coercive
control tactics.
But that's going more intodomestic violence, which of
course there are many overlaps.
But you know, we as women, we Imean we have not had rights for
(28:29):
very long.
We couldn't vote until the1920s, we couldn't even have a
bank account or credit cards orrent an apartment or own a home
since the 70s, and that just wasnot that long ago.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And that's just to say that if you were a married
woman, those were.
That was the case.
So women who were unmarriedcould have those things.
I'm not saying it was easy forthem to have them or own them,
or even buy them, or even workto make money to buy them, but,
but, but that being said, I meanit's hard to undo centuries of
(29:03):
teachings.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's I mean it's not going to happen no, it isn't,
we're still working on it.
In fact, we're still very muchworking on that.
So I mean these beliefs ofwomen as property, women being
less, less than when they'reunder the control of their
fathers or their husbands ortheir brothers, that's been so
(29:26):
strongly embedded in our cultureand then also our social
conditioning.
That social conditioning comesin in all different forms and
all different angles.
We talked about this in ourother episode together.
But it comes from, maybe fromour own family life and our own
upbringings.
It comes from our peers, maybeour religion teaches it, media
(29:47):
and social media also.
But the bottom line is, you know, there are still some men that
want to continue with thesetraditions.
They want to have absolute powerover women because, quite
frankly, they just see us lessthan they see us as the, the,
the weaker sex, and, and youknow, when people are in power
(30:11):
sometimes they're very fearfuland they do whatever they need
to do to stay in that power.
So also historically, whenwomen were supposed to obey men,
when a woman speaks out againstsexual harassment or domestic
violence or sexual assault,there's still, you know, these
(30:33):
underpinnings of ideas in whichshe's immediately met with this
response of you know.
Why is this woman speaking out?
She's supposed to stay silentand, just, you know, move on
about our day under theauthority of a man.
I mean, those ideas are stillvery much there and also that
goes in if she's speaking out,she's automatically lying.
So these are all these verylongstanding ideas that
(30:56):
contribute to this generalculture of what I call just a
disbelief disbelief againstwomen when they do come forward
and speak against a perpetratorof any form of violence against
women.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, and I thank you for all of that insight.
Patriarchal social conditioningis.
It's not just centuries old, italmost you have to go way back
to you know millennia to eventry to understand how it all
began.
But the fact remains that it ishere.
(31:32):
It is very strong here in theUnited States, for sure.
It is very strong here in theUnited States, for sure, and
this country was founded by abunch of people who came to
settle a new world.
Right, in doing so, their firstaction was violence when they
(31:54):
came to the new world, becausethey ripped the land out from
under the people who wereoccupying it and just said well,
this is ours now, and you caneither get out of the way or get
killed.
Right, so that that was.
That was the way that this wasa violent overtaking.
These settlers brought withthem the culture from their home
country, which, in this, whatI'm talking about, is kind of
like, you know, from Englandthat believed that women were
(32:15):
property, and so they just tookeverything that existed culture,
pots and pans, you knoweverything that they had in
England and brought it over andparked it in this new world that
would become the United States.
So it's not really surprisingthat it's here in this country.
But what is surprising is thatit hangs on and in fact, a wife
(32:37):
beating was not just.
You know, this is just aninteresting tidbit Wife beating
was not illegal in every stateof the United States until 1920.
So that's very recent.
That's a hundred years, and sowe still have a lot of work to
do to make sure that, you know,women gain the equity that we
(32:59):
deserve as human beings.
There's one main distinctionbetween what we know as domestic
violence and as sexualharassment, and that is sexual
harassment itself is not a crime, meaning it's not an action or
pattern of behavior that on itsown is considered criminal or
that can be prosecuted in acriminal court.
(33:20):
But there are laws in placethat address sexual harassment.
Help us to understand whatthose are and how things play
out when an individualexperiences sexual harassment
within, let's just say, theworkplace.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Sure.
So there's two aspects andbefore we even get into the
complexities of the law itself,the first part in actually
taking action is extremelydifficult.
It is extremely difficult tosue your employer, and the first
thing that we have to kind ofremember, that has to be
(33:57):
contextualized, is that, whensurveyed, 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, dueto a fear of retaliation and due
(34:20):
to being scared of losing theirjob.
So, just like sexual assaultand domestic violence and even
stalking and I cover those othertopics but the similarity is
there's a high level of itactually occurring, but victims
very rarely report, and that'sbecause victims know they're not
(34:43):
going to be supported.
They haven't been historicallysupported.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, or they're not going to be believed.
And this sounds a lot likeexperiences of rape or sexual
assault and other crimes againstwomen.
There are fewer reports thanthere are actual crimes.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Yep, exactly.
Also, suing an employer isextremely expensive, it's
time-consuming, cases draw outlike years often and it's
mentally and emotionallyabsolutely exhausting.
And the law is very, verystrict, emotionally absolutely
(35:19):
exhausting.
And the law is very, verystrict.
Just because you've beenmistreated or your boss is a
jerk, or just because you'vebeen sexually harassed sometimes
just doesn't mean that itactually violated the elements
of the law.
Also, most employees just don'tunderstand that employers
typically just aren't scared.
They're not scared of beingsued, they aren't.
(35:41):
Employers know that typicallynothing's going to happen out of
it.
Nothing's.
You know nothing will happen.
And but even if an employeelike wins, so to speak and win
is loosely based, not much isever going to change.
Is what research is showing us.
And finally, getting anemployment law attorney for a
(36:03):
sexual harassment case is not aneasy task.
Acquiring one of thoseattorneys.
They're very selective.
They don't want to take oncases that they know that
they're going to lose.
So they're only going to takeon very rare, very few cases to
begin with.
So just getting to the point ofmaking a claim just that part
(36:25):
of it is very, very difficultfor people and it's terrifying
to open your mouth and reportsomething like that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
My understanding from everything I've read and from
survivor stories that I've heard.
More often than not, she quitsthe job.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
That's what research shows as well.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah, she quits the job, doesn't report it most of
the time and goes to worksomewhere else, and the abuse
continues until someone else iswilling to report it, if they
are at all, and that can take avery long time as well, as we
saw with the Me Too movement.
True, very true.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Well, and then secondly, sexual harassment law.
Like I said, it's extremelycomplicated.
It does not favor victims.
So, as you said, sexualharassment it's not a crime,
it's a civil suit and everythinghas to be dictated through the
EEOC, the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission, title
(37:42):
VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
So under this law there's gotto be all these steps that have
to take place, and it'sdifficult to go through these
steps.
The first one is you have tocontact HR and you have to file
an HR claim and we alreadytalked about how difficult that
is and usually HR.
It has to be done within ashort period of time.
It has to be in writing, it hasto be within 30 days.
(38:04):
That's hard for victims as well, because sometimes they have to
really ruminate and really gothrough what's going to happen
to me if I do this, but so saythat does happen, even if you
know she does that within the 30day time.
If the company takes no actionwhich research is showing that
(38:24):
they typically don't then thevictim has to go through all
these additional steps.
She has to file a claim notonly with the EEOC, but then
with whatever the state thecorresponding state agency is,
and then the EEOC can do threethings they can.
They can sit.
They can tell the employer tochange their policy, which
that's not going to.
(38:45):
I mean okay, change your policy.
How does that help the victim,though?
Okay, number two, which isextremely rare, is the EEOC
files a lawsuit on the victim'sbehalf and they are not going to
get involved unless somehowthey know that they will win and
this is going to contribute totheir court precedent,
(39:06):
positively to their courtprecedent.
And then the third thing thatthe EEOC can do is then okay, if
they don't want to do the firsttwo, then they can say okay,
now, victim, you have permissionto file a suit on your own in
your state court.
So very, very picky.
A lot of times people don'tunderstand this, and even just
(39:29):
going through those steps beforeeven getting to filing a claim
within the court system isalmost impossible in and of
itself.
A claim within the court systemis almost impossible in and of
itself.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
So everything that we've talked about so far, and
everything you were justexplaining about the law, is
about sexual harassment in theworkplace, right?
Yes, because if a person wereto experience sexual harassment
on the subway, how would that behandled?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It wouldn't, you know , because you can call a police
officer for an assault, but thatrequires physical damages,
right, like a physical injury.
If someone gropes you on thesubway it's inappropriate
touching, but legally there'snot really a recourse.
(40:20):
Same thing if they would.
Same thing if they're, you know, verbally, sexually harassing.
You know, we've always heard ofthe construction workers.
You know, verbally harass.
The same thing.
I mean, people can sayoffensive things.
It's not illegal, right?
Speaker 1 (40:40):
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'sa, that is a domestic dispute,
but if a stranger punches me inthe face, that's a physical
assault, assault, and so itactually becomes A crime that is
(41:05):
taken more seriously than thesame exact amount of violence
that took place between ahusband and a wife, which
doesn't entirely make sense tome and I have to keep saying it
out loud.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, and what I, what I argue in my book, and
what I saw, what I, what Idiscovered, is that
interpersonal violence andacquaintance crimes are not
going to be taken as seriously.
So what I mean by that?
Domestic violence, sexualharassment, of course it's not a
crime, but again, we're not, wedon't take it very seriously,
right?
Obviously, stalking, same thing.
(41:42):
You know that it's difficult toprove criminally, but it's just
not going to be taken seriously.
And of course, acquaintancerape you know the he said, she
said well, they're going to gowith the he said 95 or more
percent of the time.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Let's talk about Darvo, institutional betrayal
and the challenges of filing acomplaint or a lawsuit.
What's happening here?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Okay so DARVO is something I came across as I
started researching this bookand it's an acronym D-A-R-V-O
and it's an acronym created byDr Jennifer Frey.
She's a psychologist, aprofessor and a researcher and
it's a form of manipulation thatabusers use to shift the blame
(42:31):
to the victim.
And this has been a verypopular and widely accepted and
very successful technique.
And once you recognize it, youwill start to see it and what I
mean by this.
So D okay, so a perpetrator isaccused of sexual harassment, d
(42:51):
is deny, a is accused, they'regoing to accuse the victim and
then they immediately arereverse the victim and then O
offender.
So deny, accuse, reverse victimand offender.
And it can happen very quicklyand very easily and it
automatically shifts the blameinto she's a big fat liar.
(43:15):
A recent example and I don'tinclude this example in my book,
but I came across it while Iwas researching for this chapter
and I just came across itperiodically just in the news,
on the, the internet.
And a recent example is isthere okay, so there there are
claims that men okay so so menwho are supervisors they're
(43:37):
hiring you know, their company'shiring and so these men don't
want to hire a woman or youngerwoman, 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 (43:54):
So what's happening?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
So before we can, even get to Darvo.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
We're just saying, nope, it's a woman, or she's a
woman and it's going to betrouble.
So I'm out.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
We are making up scenarios before they even
happen.
And we already know that womenin these positions are
historical victims of sexualharassment.
But but these, these types ofmen?
They're making up scenarios todeny a potential accusation of
sexual harassment.
Now, to me that puts a bigquestion mark already on their
(44:30):
character.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
It also begs the question of is this an attempt
to keep women out of theworkplace?
Speaker 2 (44:38):
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 reversesvictim and offender and it
reinforces that belief thatwomen are liars, women are just
out to get these men, and it's,you know, it's reinforcing this
(45:00):
culture of disbelief of womenand, just as you said, it's
simultaneously pushing us backdown into these less positions
of power and maintaining us in aspecific space.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah, it's fabricating reasons to keep
women in their place and justreinforcing patriarchal social
conditioning.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
But also Dr Frey.
What she does is she broadensthat scope even.
And so we see, when individualperpetrators or individual
people DARVO victims, it turnsinto institutional DARVO because
the institution, theorganization is essentially
(45:40):
doing the same.
Organizations are supposed toprovide safe working
environments for employees andwhen they engage in this kind of
institutional, impliedinstitutional DARVO it's
institutional.
Then it's called institutionalbetrayal and arguably the law
(46:01):
can sometimes be considered asystem of institutional betrayal
, system of institutionalbetrayal because they don't you
know, we know the statistics nowand the courts protect the
employers.
They don't protect employeeswho file the claims.
And I've got a couple of quickcourt cases.
The courts heavily rely on thesenon-productive anti-sexual
(46:28):
harassment policies.
You know, oftentimes they'rereally not very productive,
they're not very enforceable,they may not be very fair.
The Supreme Court decision in1998, faragher versus City of
Boca Raton, gives wide latitudeand the court in this case said
that as long as the employertook some sort of reasonable
(46:51):
steps to have an anti-sexualharassment policy, that that
would be sufficient.
And also the court in Leopold vBaccarat it's a New York
appellate court decision saidthat even if the company policy
itself is inadequate quote thelaw is very clear that a
(47:13):
reasonable policy will do so.
The courts provide heavily,heavily reliance.
As long as you have ananti-sexual harassment policy in
place, that's going to sufficeand the case can be completely
thrown out if it had even becomea claim or a case to begin with
.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Okay, so then just kind of extending from there.
We've talked about how thecourt would respond to these
allegations, but there's anaspect of sexual harassment
that's even darker that wehaven't talked about, and it's
something I wasn't familiar withuntil you kind of introduced it
in the book, and that was adultgrooming.
(47:53):
What role does this have insexual harassment?
Help us understand how thishappens and then the
consequences for those actions.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Adult grooming was new to me too.
It was something that Idiscovered in my research and I
was just.
It opened all kinds of doorsfor me when I saw it, but it
makes perfect sense.
So we think about grooming.
It's this slow, methodicalpractice that manipulates a
victim and the goal is to builda false relationship of trust
(48:30):
and to prepare this victim forexploit and abuse and then hang
on to him, hang on to them, sothey can be continually
exploited and abused.
That's what grooming is and wemostly think of it, and most of
the research has been childgrooming of adult perpetrators.
But anyone can be groomed, itturns out, and there is adult
(48:53):
grooming.
There's some current examplesIf you watch the documentary
series.
There's a lot of documentaryseries coming out of famous
people who have been harassingand assaulting victims for a
very long time and they'refinally being found out.
You know one of them, of courseisvey weinstein.
There's the r kelly documentaryand the newest one is kevin
spacey.
(49:13):
Kevin spacey, who didn't groomwomen, he groomed and abused men
, and that's a whole other issue.
But.
But you can see that he honedin on their psycho-emotional
vulnerabilities.
But there is like a there's,there's a set progression that
(49:33):
goes through a stage of adultgrooming.
And the researcher, dr GrantCinnamon, he's a psychologist,
he's the one who has come upwith these seven stages of adult
grooming.
And so what happens is in thefirst five stages there's this
preparation they're preparingthe victim.
But the last two stages areexploiting the victim.
(49:56):
So it's really, reallyinteresting to go through, you
know, and you can see throughthe progression of these
different types of steps thatperpetrators use to, you know,
for their target, thatperpetrators use for their
targets.
The first one is the isolation,and that's when abusers have a
hunting ground, type ofenvironment, schools, colleges,
(50:16):
these working, thesehierarchical structures in the
workplace and then they choose avictim that displays some of
these psycho-emotionalvulnerabilities.
So they're gonna pick them outspecifically.
Then they start gatheringinformation.
You know what's this personlike, what's their personality,
what are their habits, theirfriendships, their values, their
(50:37):
family life, all of thosethings.
They study them in that senseand then, after they gather that
information, they begin toestablish trust.
That's the third step andthey're starting to exploit
those whatever psycho-emotionalvulnerabilities and they're
starting to create this falsesense of intimacy.
(50:58):
So this is when you know thesehighly charismatic, successful,
good looking, whatever it may be, when these perpetrators start
to make these victims feel thatthey're special in some way.
That's step three, establishingtrust.
And then they move on to four.
So when they're created, afterthey've created this false sense
(51:20):
of intimacy, they start to meetthe need and establish
credentials in step four.
And establish credentials instep four, and then what that
means?
They start to manufacturescenarios so they can isolate,
you know, continue to isolate,and spend time with the victim
oftentimes.
And in erica katz's novel yousee that they'll create these
(51:44):
chance encounters.
Oh, you happen to be on thewest side in this same
restaurant on a Saturday evening.
But they do that through spying, through electronic stalking,
they track the victim, all ofthese different types of ways.
They're not chance encounters,in other words.
And then that takes to stepfive, which is actually priming
(52:06):
the target, to step five, whichis actually priming the target,
and that's when they're tryingto pull them even further away
from any influences of familyand friends.
And so once they haveestablished that, then they go
back into actually exploitingand that's when they number.
Part six is when they've primedthem and they've gotten them
(52:27):
ready through steps one to five.
Then they initiate the sexualcontact.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
I thought it was really interesting in the book
when you were talking about theexample in the boys club.
When Alex's abusive bossfinally gets her to have an
intimate relationship with himOnce he has what that, what that
conquest has been made.
He then stops.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
He removes his affection, and that's step seven
.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
Yes, he stops all the contact and leaves her
wondering what the heck happened.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Exactly yes, and that's that is intentional.
And it's to keep the victim offkilter.
It's to keep them confused andemotionally vulnerable and you
know sometimes they're desperatethat you know what the heck
happened.
But you know and you know hejust removes his affection.
But sometimes other other waysis they'll control the victim.
(53:26):
They're continuing to controlthe victim to exploit them
sexually.
Maybe they do it throughpromises, giving gifts, maybe
threats, and then in the book heremoves his, he becomes 100%
emotionally unavailable.
But whatever the technique, hedoes it to keep the victim off
kilter.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
Right and in a place where she remains vulnerable, I
would think, and then also isbeholden to him.
Her career is in his hands,yeah for sure.
There's another aspect that weactually haven't talked about in
.
You know the response to sexualharassment, and that is the
freeze response.
(54:06):
So in your book there's anexcellent example of the freeze
response.
Gropes her in public, in frontof all of her colleagues.
(54:31):
She wondered if it reallyhappened at all which seems
strange, but I've heard thismany, many times and if, in fact
, she brought this all onherself by whatever clothes or
makeup or something that youknow she was wearing, or
something she did, what isreally happening when a victim
(54:52):
feels this way?
Is this a typical freezeresponse?
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yes, it is.
So freeze is a fight, flightfreeze.
And what research is showingthat in all these different
forms of violence against women,the freeze response is the most
common response.
And in this case what happensis when we freeze.
So whether we fight, fight orfreeze, I mean it's our body's
(55:17):
innate response to immediatedanger.
So it's not part of ourexecutive 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 ourbodily functions that we don't
control, like our respiration orall of those things Anyway, but
(55:37):
statistically the freezeresponse is this most common
response in violence againstwomen and what happens is
something happens, and ithappens so quickly that they
just become paralyzed, victimsbecome paralyzed and they can't
control that and that doesn'thave to be only physically
paralyzed, absolutely not.
(55:59):
Yes, and in this example and insexual harassment it might look
(56:20):
like she's kind of just givinginto a flirtation, or she likes
it maybe, or she laughs.
She laughs it off but in somesense she's consent, she's
permitting, she's engaging inthe behavior, but that's
honestly the freeze response.
I mean any woman that just getsgroped by a man that she finds
repulsive or a man that shedoesn't know is not going to
like that.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
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 theguy Right.
Well, I mean you'd like to, butmore than You're not going to
slug the guy Right.
Well, I mean you'd like to, butmore than likely you are not
going to.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Right, exactly.
And so so, culturally, you knowour culture of disbelief, you
know, has dismissed this as, oh,she actually was just asking
for it in some way or she's, youknow, she, she's, she's
obviously permitting it orlaughing it off.
So in that sense, she's, she,just, you know, she doesn't mind
(57:13):
it.
But you know, a lot of timeswhen it, when, when things
happen like that, like a victimwill 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 isusually one that you know
you're not running away, you'renot slugging the guy, you're not
(57:36):
going to do that, those thingsin public anyway.
But but, but we see this, we seeit in sexual assault, we see it
in domestic violence, violenceand also you know we're talking
about when it acutely happens insexual harassment.
Maybe these things arehappening over time.
(57:58):
Same thing in domestic violence.
These things happen over time.
There's also what I call afunctional freeze response,
where victims will adapt certainsurvival mechanisms due to this
ongoing PTSD and again itconceals their distress to an
untrained eye or to the publicat large.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
I think it's time for some changes in the workplace,
in sexual harassment laws andpolicies, and I think it's time
for a change in our society.
We opened this episode with aquote Sandberg's we cannot
change what we are not aware of.
And once we are aware, wecannot help but change.
And we're closing it with acall for change, because perhaps
(58:40):
we are all now a little moreaware of the underpinnings of
sexual harassment and how it iscaused by patriarchal social
conditioning, how it contributesto and perpetuates both
violence against women and to aculture that not only tolerates
such, but also often looks theother way or simply will not
fight for women, will notbelieve women, blames victims
(59:03):
and continually contributes toinequity.
What's the change that we need?
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Start believing women when this actually happens,
because women who come forwardalready know that they're going
to not be believed, that alreadythey'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 reasonto believe them and also
(59:33):
understand that perpetratorslove to use DARVO.
If you can start and you canstart recognizing it everywhere
you know, in the news and when,when famous men are being
accused, you can startrecognizing how they use DARVO.
So when you can recognize thatautomatically, I think that's a
(59:54):
reason to exercise even moreawareness and caution, because
when someone is accused and thenthey use DARVO, this should be
immediately more cause forsuspect.
Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
All true and ultimately, we owe it to
ourselves and our futuregenerations to keep learning
about how a culture and acountry built upon inequities
can never be fully free foreveryone until the inequities
cease.
To restate Sheryl Sandberg, wecan change what we are aware of.
Will we?
Genesis Women's Shelter andSupport exists to give women in
(01:00:32):
abusive situations a way out.
We are committed to our missionof providing safety, shelter
and support for women andchildren who have experienced
domestic violence and to raiseawareness regarding its cause,
prevalence and impact.
Join us in creating a societalshift on how people think about
domestic violence.
You can learn more atgenesisshelterorg and when you
(01:00:53):
follow us on social media onFacebook and Instagram at
Genesis Women's Shelter and on Xat Genesis Shelter.
The Genesis Helpline isavailable 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, by call or text at214-946-HELP 214-946-4357.
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