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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think that "sexual harassment" is a bit strong to describe this event?

614 replies

BartiiMus · 14/09/2012 10:22

At a training session with work. 3 days, 2 nights on-site.

Around midnight (not long after the people concerned have left the bar), man A rings woman B and asks for a code to connect to the internet (we use password tokens and he'd forgotten his).

Woman says fine, come to my room. Man goes to room, then confesses he didn't come for that at all and tries to kiss her. She refuses. Man is confused saying he thought they had a "connection" earlier in the evening but she denies it. He leaves the room.

A few days later woman B tells my colleague about it. She was half-laughing about it and said she wasn't going to report it.

Last night at a party my colleague told us that there'd been "sexual harassment" during the training this summer but refused to say who had been involved. After a bit of coaxing and lots of clues from him we worked out who the man had been, and our colleague confirmed it.

I know him, I've worked with him before and he's a nice bloke. I'm not saying he didn't do this but he tried it on, was refused and left. Is that really "sexual harassment"?

To be honest, I'm a bit pissed off with the gossip colleague who told us all because it's a bit of a non-event (man tries to pull woman, woman refuses, man leaves) but he's usually highly emotive language like "sexual harassment" to describe it. She's not even reporting it. The man isn't her boss or anything and they don't work together.

I know I probably don't have all the story but I do know the gossip well and he does love to exagerate and I don't think it's very fair to man A to have people slinging mud at him like this.

So, deep breath AIBU?

OP posts:
shanghailady · 14/09/2012 11:40

Narked - agree he went about it the wrong way, I never said I thought his behaviour was good. But it's not harassment
Fastblue - 'everyone'? What you are describing is a totally different scenario, one that would be totally unacceptable and not only move over the boundary into sexual harassment, also much worse, rape. If she'd said no and he'd raped her, not everyone would say she asked for it. I wouldn't! And by the sounds of it you wouldn't either.

WilsonFrickett · 14/09/2012 11:40

I think what's been missed her is that the woman didn't feel it was sexual harassment at that time. But when she's discussed or reported it the company has said 'yes, that's against our rules, that's harassment and we're going to deal with it'. It sounds like the man broke the company - not the social or cultural rules that individual people feel comfortable with - there's no grey area in that IMO.

worldgonecrazy · 14/09/2012 11:40

It doesn't sound like harrassment. It was a one-off, misread of the situation, not continued assault or harrassment. Clumsy, awkward, unprofessional, but not harrassment.

I also think gossiping about it is bad form.

OneMoreChap · 14/09/2012 11:40

seeker Fri 14-Sep-12 11:37:29
Since when has the "first move" been trying to kiss someone?

For... ages? Surely that's the first truly physically intimate thing you do?

I hold hands with my children or my parents. I don't put my mouth on theirs...

I know I'm old, but I do vaguely remember hoping that someone would lean in for a kiss... you don't suddenly imitate a remora - or at least I never did.

No lean in, no kiss.

Narked · 14/09/2012 11:41

Well done HappyAsChips Mocking victims is always funny.

FastidiaBlueberry · 14/09/2012 11:42

I think language is quite useful in communicating whether someone wants you to put their tongue in your mouth (quite an intimate gesture, although apparently thinking so makes me very old fashioned) or taking your hand HappyasChips.

It's only difficult for men who don't respect social and sexual boundaries.

fluffyraggies · 14/09/2012 11:43

I don't think a kiss is very often the first move at all.

quietlysuggests · 14/09/2012 11:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

squeakytoy · 14/09/2012 11:44

Is it hell as sexual harassment.

How many people meet their future partners at work? Plenty do. How does anyone imagine these relationships start?

They had been getting on well in a bar (whilst out of working hours), he rang her using a flimsy excuse.. she had that opportunity then to give him the code, but she invited him to her room. He tries to kiss her, she says no, he goes away. End of it..

He didnt push it. He didnt rape her. He didnt force her to do anything. He hasnt since gone on to keep trying to kiss her.

What planet some of you are on to even consider this as sexual harassment I have no bloody idea.

OneMoreChap · 14/09/2012 11:45

FastidiaBlueberry Fri 14-Sep-12 11:42:02
I think language is quite useful in communicating whether someone wants you to put their tongue in your mouth (quite an intimate gesture, although apparently thinking so makes me very old fashioned) or taking your hand HappyasChips.

It can be a useful tool. It isn't the only one.
Holding hands I would have thought a less certain signal than moving towards you...

It's only difficult for men who don't respect social and sexual boundaries.
Outrageous. It's a problem for anyone who doesn't respect boundaries. And yes, there are women who don't.

Narked · 14/09/2012 11:45

'It's only difficult for men who don't respect social and sexual boundaries'

Exactly Fastidia

catwoo · 14/09/2012 11:45

Absolutely sexual harrassment.
The point is it's a work environment..If it had happened in a social context then it would have been completely different.
Not that it's relevant but I am guessing she didn't have her password to hand when he rang and that's why she told him to stop by to collect it .

Narked · 14/09/2012 11:47

Do you often hold hands with work colleagues OneMoreChap? Grin

fluffyraggies · 14/09/2012 11:48

Grin @ narked

LRDtheFeministDragon · 14/09/2012 11:48

Spectacularly missing the point, squeaky.

No, oddly enough, no-one I knew fell head over heels for their future DH like this.

Workplace romances are pretty easy, like someone said above, normal people do it by asking someone on a date or going over to chat - not by telling a lie then kissing them.

It could possibly be someone very gauche and socially awkward, but unfortunately, even socially awkward people don't get carte blanche to do whatever they like.

It's like loads of other kinds of professional misconduct - it's your responsibility not to do it, not someone else's to make excuses for you.

AitchTwoOhOneTwo · 14/09/2012 11:48

i am AMAZED that so many women think that our gender's role when a man phones and asks for something completely innocuous is to immediately work out the ways that he could be trying to trick us and to defeat him.

why the fuck shouldn't she have expected him to have gone to the room to get the code and then gone away again, with no incident? he was the one lying to her.

glad to see your eyes have been opened a bit here, OP.

geegee888 · 14/09/2012 11:48

I'm pretty sure if she did report him to their mutual employers, it would constitute gross misconduct on grounds of sexual harassment too. Or at the very least a disciplinary hearing.

I think she is being very generous in not reporting him, and I can't think why you are criticising her. Do you have a very old fashioned view of the workplace OP, where women are supposed to put up and shut up?

I think many women simply don't want to make a fuss, especially just after it has happened.

What was to stop him asking her out on a date when they were both out of the work setting, if he did like her? The traditional means of working out whether someone is interested in you or not?

He sounds like the sort of man who is an expensive lawsuit waiting to happen. Personally I don't think this type of employee is one I would want to employ, due to his potential for causing problems.

squeakytoy · 14/09/2012 11:49

Narked, this couple had been sat talking in a bar all evening.

He fancied her, he thought she fancied him. She didnt and told him so. He left.

MySpanielHell · 14/09/2012 11:50

I am also bewildered by people claiming it isn't sexual harassment because he didn't follow it up with an attempted assault. The reason we have a term 'sexual harassment' is because there are forms of behaviour which are not sexual assault but do constitute harassment.

Narked · 14/09/2012 11:50

To repeat myself, is this how some people feel life works? Every man you work with is allowed one attempt to kiss you - because he felt 'a connection' unless you start all conversations with, 'I am not interested in you sexually?'

CaptainHoratioWragge · 14/09/2012 11:50

I think the password excuse makes it harrasement rather than just misread signals.

If he'd rung up and said, do you fancy a nightcap etc, and she'd said yes and then turned down his kiss that would be different.

He rang a work colleague and ask to go to their room for work purposes, which she agreed to, but he turned out to have a different agenda that she didn't know about until he was in her room.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 14/09/2012 11:51

squeaky, you left out him lying and him kissing her.

Indeed, in your version of events where you completely left out the sexual harrassment, there is no sexual harrassment mentioned.

But maybe it'd be useful to comment on what actually happened, not some made-up version?

AWimbaWay · 14/09/2012 11:52

I met my husband at work, I approached him, obviously he said yes but had he said no and I'd backed off immediately would I have been accused of sexual harrassment?

squeakytoy · 14/09/2012 11:52

He TRIED to kiss her. He didnt actually kiss her.

So perhaps it would be useful if you actually stuck to what happened.

MySpanielHell · 14/09/2012 11:54

And why are they now being described as a couple?! If you sit next to somebody in a bar talking, you don't suddenly become a couple.