My friend got canned for comments made outside work.

[errantember]

It's worth noting this entire thread was supposed to be a comment on troyisburning's LJ. I can only blame pumpkin inhalation.

I agree that there should be a reasonable recourse for anyone who feels uncomfortable at work because of someone else's behavior, but the current state of affairs regarding sexual harassment is definitely disproportionately unfair to men. Much the same as the damage that can be done to someone's reputation by a false accusation of rape, women in a corporate environment can do almost any amount of damage to someone's career an livelihood, up to an including getting them fired and making it very hard for them to find another job. Troy's experience here is an uncomfortably real-world example. The fact that this environment exists is directly the responsibility of feminists' efforts to deal with the *other* inequality of institutionalized sexism in the workplace.

Until we work to rectify *all* inequalities for *both* sexes, there will be good reason for complaint. In most cases I agree with feminism's efforts to earn equality for women, but in circumstances where all it's done is reverse the direction of discrimination, it needs to be resisted, like any other form of oppression. I need to hear people who identify as feminists say "in some cases we have gone to far, and we will willing relinquish in some cases hard-earned power because having it makes things unequal."

Comments

[errantember.livejournal.com]

I should probably be more specific, too. What I think shouldn't have happened here is for someone to get fired because of something (potentially) sexist they said outside work to a coworker. Unless it was some kind of realistic physical threat, which it almost certainly wasn't, the most that should have happened is a discussion with HR about how someone was feeling uncomfortable. The fact both 1) that's it was even possible for this to happen and 2) that it happened the way it did is a *direct* result of feminist efforts to combat sexist in the workplace.

The question of how to handle interaction between the sexes in the workplace is definitely an important and difficult question. To me the easiest answer is for everyone to be mature enough to discuss their issues and own their feelings, with HR as a backup if something can't get resolved. Obviously the society we live in doesn't teach people that kind of maturity. The way that I see it now, though, is that men have to walk on eggshells in any interaction with women or they could get summarily dismissed. This isn't even remotely fair or reasonable.

As far as interactions at work go, it's kind of funny. I *used* to be out to everyone at work, but now I'm not. And now I definitely keep a firewall between my outside life and my work life, which is why I don't use my name on my LJ and rarely post identifiable pictures of myself there.