Sexual harassment

• "It’s hard to find good research on sexual harassment (Christina Hoff Summers) – it’s hard to define it and the numbers are all over the board. But the most reputable study I saw was carried out by the General Social Survey, at the University of Chicago. (This is probably the most trusted source of data in social science.) And in 2014, they asked a random sample of American women: ‘In the last 12 months, were you sexually harassed by anyone while you were working?’ And 3.6 per cent said yes. That was down from 6 per cent in 2002. Now, these results suggest it is a problem, but not a massive war on women in the workplace. So that’s what we know. - review: If that is the case, why is there this accepted wisdom that sexual harassment is at epidemic levels?

Hoff Sommers: People get carried away with stories. And it’s a principle of intersectional theory that in order to discern what’s truly going on in the oppressive, capitalist patriarchy, you can’t rely on statistics. ‘Those are shaped by masculine ways of thinking, listen to women’s stories’, they say. So they’re listening to women’s stories and crediting them, because it’s also a principle that you should believe women and not be sceptical. But you have to know if these stories are true, and whether or not they represent the experience of most women. The best research we have suggests that they do not. - Feminism has to be aware of the importance of due process. And not presuming guilt – guilty because accused is not only morally wrong, it’s socially corrosive. Men and women do work together, we are working together. And, for the most part, it’s good. - I was thinking last night, what is going to be the outcome of all of this #MeToo panic? And, I just think it’s going to be a lot of isolation and loneliness. It’s going to be frightening for many people, for a while, to interact in the workplace – certainly if you’re not supervised. Because any woman now has the power to destroy a man with one accusation, even a false one. - The outcome of all of this #MeToo panic is going to be a lot of isolation and loneliness."