The #MeToo Movement reveals deeper issues of America’s workplace culture that permits sexual harassment and assault. The movement demands Americans to address issues of workplace inequality between men and women and confronts powerful executives who have escaped responsibility for assaulting employees until today. #MeToo has become a vehicle for change in the United States and women are primarily driving the cause to bring justice to those who have suffered workplace abuse. As times passes, more women feel empowered by the movement and seek to make tangible changes in workplaces to protect individuals from experiencing sexual harassment and assault and encourage the formation of healthier and safer workplaces. It is critical America embraces the #MeToo Movement and the changes the movement demands because understanding the wrongs of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace allows for valuable social and political change, resulting in better understandings of equal rights, gender empowerment, and the role bystanders play in preventing assault. If America denies the importance of the #MeToo Movement and continues its current acceptance of sexual harassment and assault in professional environments, the country will fail to make social and political progress necessary to advance women’s rights; assault will remain a dominant reality for working women. One potential change companies can make to better protect workers from experiencing sexual harassment and assault in the workplace includes company modification of sexual harassment and assault policies to focus on bystander empowerment education.

Benefits of the #MeToo Movement:

• Teaches men how they can involve themselves in the fight to end sexual harassment and assault in the workplace while enabling women to share their stories and hopes for the movement. When equality in the workplace is present, “all individuals have the same chance to go after opportunities and develop their skills. Employers are able to see how driven each employee is and what his motivations are, [which is] important when selecting leaders and managing the general workforce.”

 

• Decreasing workplace violence leads to increased productivity among workers, decreased rates of attrition among workers, decreased absenteeism, retention of trained and skilled staff, reduced legal costs for employees and companies, and increased self confidence and safety at work.

 

• Social changes resulting from #MeToo yield more support to victims of sexual harassment and assault and shame perpetrators, often times harming company reputations if the perpetrator is a business executive. Kate Upton accused Guess co-founder Paul Marciano of “using his power to ‘sexually and emotionally harass women’” on February 1, “the company’s [stock] shares dropped almost 18%… [and] Guess lost $250 million in market value in one day.”

 

• Senators Lindsey Graham and Kristen Gillibrand introduced the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act of 2017 that rules “no predispute arbitration agreement shall be valid or enforceable if it requires arbitration of a sex discrimination dispute,” essentially meaning the legislation would prevent perpetrators of sexual harassment from using mandatory arbitration clauses in workplace policies to silence their victims and prevent survivors from trying assailants in court.

Dangers of Abandoning the #MeToo Movement:

• Sexual harassment, assault, and stigmas against women in the workplace will persist.

 

• Men will continue to assert dominance over women in the workplace to remind them of their place in corporate and social hierarchies and to maintain the glass ceiling. One business effectiveness consulting analysis notes “most sexual harassment is used by men against women as a display of power with the intention to intimidate, coerce, and degrade. Sexual harassment happens frequently in high pressure working environments and in workplaces where the stresses and challenges facing supervisors and managers are not always recognized or acknowledged.”

 

• No new public policy will be implemented to hold executives to a higher standard of treatment of employees or that further protects women’s rights in the workplace.

 

• While many individuals believe the fact sexual harassment and assault is illegal according to United States law limits or prevents assault from happening, “sexual harassment, including rape… [is] built into structural social hierarchies. Equal pay has been the law for decades and still does not exist. Racial discrimination is nominally illegal in many forms but is still widely practiced against people of color. If the same cultural inequalities are permitted to operate in law as in the behavior the law prohibits, equalizing attempts — such as sexual harassment law — will be systemically resisted.”

 

• It will remain difficult for prosecutors to convict perpetrators of harassment and assault in the workplace without public policy to clarify terms and punishments for committing assault.

 

• Americans will continue to shame victims of sexual harassment and assault and blame survivors for their assault.

Bystander Empowerment Education:

• Includes sessions on teaching individuals how to interrupt situations presenting themselves as harassment or assault through offering the bystander options to directly or indirectly intervene in scenarios.

 

• Bystanders can do something as small as telling a boss or other co-worker about what they witness, or they can distract the perpetrator to allow the victim to leave a situation or pull a victim away from their attacker.

 

• Bystanders can also follow up with individuals who they witness in situations of harassment or assault and ensure the victim feels safe and supported.

 

• Empowering bystanders to understand their role in preventing assault creates avenues for individuals to learn more about how to end assault.

 

• Bystander empowerment education “equips everyone in the workplace to stop harassment, instead of offering people two roles no one wants: harasser or victim,” and teaches employers and employees how to assume a powerful role in preventing instances of sexual assault in the workplace.

 

• Multiple workplace studies of companies, universities, and other organizations that implement bystander civility education programs conclude there are shifts in “attitudes regarding sexual violence and individuals’ ability to stop it, a change measurable both immediately after the training and a year later.”