| Title: | Topics of Interest to Women |
| Notice: | Welcome to Womannotes! h 1.14 for news of important problems. . es |
| Moderator: | CSC32::M_EVANS |
| Created: | Fri Aug 27 1993 |
| Last Modified: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 623 |
| Total number of notes: | 55447 |
Hi everyone, I need help. And thought I can get it here. Can I? I'm looking for a women's point of view in particular, but men may make suggestions also. I'm particularly interest in reading the thoughts of those that don't frequently write in notes (the silent majority), but would like to hear from everyone. Even if your opinions are soft and personal. I am asking for help... But first, a little about myself I was born in the island or Brava, the smallest of the ten inhabited, Cape Verdean Islands. I came to the US at the age of seven and consider myself an American. I will, and many of my family members have gone to war to protect the USA, including my uncle (born in Brava) who is a hero and has been awarded the military (USA) metals to prove it. However, I'm a minority and will always be especially since there are only 700,000 Cape Verdean in the world. :-) I love it...... It has become increasing impossible to determine what is a hostile environment, to a protect minority group. I would like your help in understanding what constitutes a hostile environment to you? Not to every minority group in general, but to you in particular. I hold a master degree in management and thought I read and experienced enough as a minority to quickly identify a hostile environments. But, recently someone saw a hostile environment that I missed. Your thoughts will help me personally and professionally to reassess my understand of this critical concept. Again, remember I'm a minority and I have experienced hostile environments. What is, or makes a hostile environment to you? Even a one liner will help. Thanks you very much. Armando
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 623.1 | Hostility | TEAMLK::SCHELBERG | Thu Jun 05 1997 16:12 | 13 | |
I would say for me - a hostile environment includes verbal abuse...
physical abuse and just plain being nasty! Also not being equal.
Going back to years ago when women were really not considered equal
in this country...in the 1800's men could kill their wives and not
have to serve one day in jail but if a woman killed her husband she
was executed...and women couldn't vote for a long time or be on jury.
so I would consider that a hostile environment, not being included in
all the rights of the country etc.
/bcat
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| 623.2 | CSC32::M_EVANS | dancing lightly on the edge | Thu Jun 05 1997 16:39 | 56 | |
I will give you my definition, but the mileage may very.
Hostile environments, in my opinion, are created when a group of
persons or one person fails to respect the boundaries of a another
person or group. In other words, if a person asks me to stop a
non-work behavior in the working environmnet that is irritating or
hurtful to them, and I not only don't stop, but escalate the behavior
and/or encourage others in a group to escalate or do a behavior, I am
creating a hostile environment.
I have seen another definition, where it is any behavior which might be
interpreted as offensive is creating a hostile environment, but I
believe this trivializes a really serious problem. In defining an
issue in this way, I think you can actually create a hostile
environment where no one understand what the boundaries are, and things
can really get out of hand.
If I am in what feels like a hostile environment, one where my
boundaries are constantly trampled, then I have the responsibility to:
1. Examine in myself if the environment is really all that hurtful to
me.
2. Explain to the person or persons what behavior is offensive,
hurtful, or frightening to me, and ask that it stop. I do need to
understand that the person(s) doing this behavior are probably not
doing this out of any evil intent, but more out of habit or ignorance.
3. Document the behavior should it continue, or start being more
pointed.
4. Work with a senior team member or a thought leader to address the
situation if it is continuing.
5. Bring it to personnel's attention, only if I can't manage to work
something out below the radar of personnel, or if the person creating
the environment is in a position of power above me.
6. Be prepared, if I have to bring this above radar, to have to sue
and/or change jobs. While every company has an agressive written
policy around workplace harassment or hostile environments, it has not
been my experience or those of friends in any of the corporations they
have worked for that the talk is walked. Often the same aggressive HR
rep that tells people that any laughter or joking in an area is
harassment is the first one to say that you and the person(s) involved
in this should just sit down and get along, even when it is a person in
a supervisory position over the person experiencing harassment. (See
Aberdeen Proving Grounds for an object lesson, and don't think large
corporations are all that different)
7. expect that things will move slowly.
meg
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