The Women in Philosophy series is running a mini-series called “Ask a Senior Woman Philosopher.” The first installment was posted last August, the second in December, and the third in January. If you have a question for which you would like advice from a senior woman philosopher but don’t have someone to ask or don’t feel like you can ask the senior women philosophers you know, send your question to the series editor, Adriel M. Trott, at trotta [at] wabash [dot] edu. Questions will be anonymized and a suitable respondent found.

by Jill Gordon

What do I do if I’m being sexually harassed by a faculty member in my department? I hesitate to even call it harassment. A colleague regularly comments on my appearance and tries to get me to go out for drinks with them and with other faculty – you know tries in a way that suggests that I am being anti-social or uncollegial by not participating. It is pretty clear to me that the colleague is interested in me romantically and I am not interested. I know this behavior could just as easily be innocent, but I feel uncomfortable and I feel like filing a complaint is overreacting. Still, I want it to stop. And I feel like all my options make me seem like a “difficult person.” What do you think I should do?

The situation you describe is not uncommon, but it is no less difficult to deal with for that. You describe perfectly the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” options that are typical in situations of unwanted attention. Those situations make us feel as though we must either endure the behavior or face further undeserved pressure, derision, or even retaliation. Furthermore, because of someone else’s bad actions, you are now in a position of having to “solve a problem” that might have repercussions for you and will be difficult and uncomfortable. I appreciate your generosity in opening up the possibility that the behavior pattern is “innocent,” since it is best to begin without presumption about people’s motives, but especially given that this person suggests you are being anti-social when you turn down their invitations, I have some doubts. This turning of the tables can itself be part of a pattern. It leads me to believe that this person is also capable of telling you, regardless of how you choose to address the problem, that you are “overreacting,” that they were “just being friendly,” that you should “get over yourself,” or any number of other common reactions that turn the tables and deflect from their own manipulative behavior.

If you anticipated a series of practical suggestions for what to say to this individual, I’m going to put that off initially in order to address several things that I think are worth being conscious of before getting to the specifics of resolving the situation through direct interpersonal engagement. It’s not that I won’t recommend an interpersonal interaction—I will—or that the best solution is to approach this legalistically or institutionally from the beginning. There are, however, good reasons for considering some legal and institutional matters as important background first, before any interpersonal interaction, and I hope to make those reasons clear before making practical recommendations for specific responses to this individual.

The first practical step I would recommend is one you’ve already taken, which is to tell someone about the harassment or unwanted attention (even anonymously, as you’ve done here). This creates a record of your experiences and your attempt to solve the problem. If you haven’t yet confided in a trusted friend or colleague, I would recommend doing that, too. Make sure that this is a truly trustworthy person. While this sounds like I’m going immediately to preparation for institutional procedure, it is not because I think this should be your first or only viable route for addressing the situation. Rather, if you do not take these steps now, and you later face an intensified situation in which there is institutional involvement, even at the department level, it makes things more challenging if there is no record of the events and how they affected you.

Sexual harassment has a legal definition, which you can find in the Report on Sexual Harassment, issued by the APA’s ad hoc committee on sexual harassment. It’s not entirely clear whether the behavior you describe meets the criteria for that of “unwanted sexual attention and coercion” (3). It is clear that this is uninvited and unwanted attention, but the perpetrator seems skilled in keeping the comments interpretable as merely social and retains plausible deniability that they are not sexual in nature nor coercive. I recommend looking at the work of Jennifer Saul and Samantha Brennan, who discuss—in addition to clear cut sexual harassment and sexual assault—micro-behaviors and micro-inequities that do not rise to the legal definition of harassment, but nonetheless contribute to a hostile or unprofessional work environment. Jennifer Saul’s piece lays out a case that more informal, as opposed to formal, approaches to the behavior are needed. You should nevertheless become familiar with your institution’s procedures for filing a sexual harassment complaint, the officers involved, what information is shared and with whom after a complaint is made, and so forth. If you are at a large university and there are departmental procedures, I recommend likewise with those. It’s best to understand how the institution functions and how any process might work, should you find you need to avail yourself of it at a later date.

Another matter to consider is what this colleague’s position is in your department: where are they in their career, what role do they play in the department, how are they regarded? More specifically, will this person be on any internal review committees for tenure and promotion? Will they be on college or university committees that approve leaves, provide intramural grants, make decisions on graduate student work assignments (if you are in a department with graduate students)? We often have colleagues who are untenured at the same time that we ourselves are untenured, and we, therefore, feel we belong to the same cohort, but if they become tenured before us, they can serve in capacities that might affect our future. It is good to be mindful of this; it might play a role in how you decide to approach the situation, whether interpersonally or institutionally.

Often, college and university policy recommends that you approach your department Chair, even in cases that do not rise to the level of sexual harassment. A knowledgeable and effective chair can make a huge difference in these circumstances. If, however, your department chair is not someone you trust to handle the situation well—or if the Chair is the person who is bothering you—this is probably not a good step to take at this point. Chairs view the behaviors you describe in wide-ranging ways. What feels unequivocally inappropriate and uncomfortable for you (and most women), can sometimes appear to others as “no big deal.” There can be instances in which a department chair feels more affinity with the perpetrator and is less receptive to taking a complaint at face value. Though we should absolutely not accede to the attitudes of such a Chair, we cannot be naïve about it either. If you do approach your department Chair, you might consider bringing to your Chair’s attention the Report on Sexual Harassment referenced above as part of your conversation. It contains concrete suggestions for how Chairs should handle reports of sexual harassment or behaviors that negatively affect work climate, and it provides some good guidelines for departments that want to improve departmental procedures and practices.

With these matters framing your situation, I turn to providing some concrete things you might say to the person in question, but these steps too need some consideration and will depend on the context. This is a difficult situation for reasons you already know and that have been laid out here: you don’t know for sure what this person’s motives are; this person has already manipulated the social situation to make you feel as though your clear signal that you are not interested is somehow “anti-social;” and the situation has put you in a double bind: if you say nothing, the sorts of people who are inclined to harass continue to harass, and if you say something, the sorts of people who are inclined to harass turn the tables to make this “your problem” and may even retaliate. To start with, I would recommend a mix of goodwill and low expectations.

I suggest you begin with honest talk without apology about how you experience the situation. And although you may approach this with goodwill as to the person’s motives, be prepared for a bad faith response and further manipulation. Not knowing the personalities involved, including yours and what you’re comfortable with, I might recommend one of several things. First, whether the comments about your appearance are made privately or in front of others, this is an opportunity to say something like, “While you might be trying to compliment me, this makes me uncomfortable as your professional colleague.” Or, better yet, you could dispense completely with the softening first clause, and just state simply that you think comments on your appearance in a professional context are inappropriate and that you’re uncomfortable. I also don’t think it’s a bad idea to say this to your colleague in an email if you choose not to respond at the moment the comments are made.

With regard to invitations to socialize, this is trickier, since many colleagues do socialize—and enjoy socializing—absent any unwanted sexual attention. This can be a healthy and supportive aspect of workplace climate that you are entitled to enjoy if you want it. I infer from your question that social invitations are not the problem per se, but that they feel problematic against the backdrop of other unwanted and persistent behaviors. Consequently, I would recommend one of several approaches that you would have to assess in a given situation. If among the behaviors you want to stop are any and all invitations to socialize outside of work, I would recommend again a firm, “Thank you for the invitations, but I’m not comfortable socializing (with you) outside of work.” If the invitations are coming via email, I think this type of response in writing would be especially effective. If you would ordinarily like to socialize with some of the others who are included in these outings but engage in self-exclusion because of this particular colleague, you could again tell a trusted colleague what is going on and they could help to provide support and run interference; you could travel to and from the gathering with that colleague, as well. This approach, however, may not stop the behavior, which is what you most want. It is only a stop-gap measure in the case you would like to accept invitations to socialize with some colleagues and, but for this particular person, you would.

It is possible that direct communication in any of these ways could be enough to change your colleague’s behavior. If you are met with one of the table-turning tropes like the ones I mention in the first paragraph, however, or if you try this one of these approaches and your colleague’s behavior persists or escalates, then I would recommend you begin an institutional approach at the level you deem appropriate: a formal email, talking to your Chair or ombudsperson, or making a report.

It’s worth commenting here that one of the inequities that can result from situations like yours is the tendency to avoid physical spaces or specific situations where this person may be present. The need for this avoidance behavior, while understandable, is patently unfair, and we shouldn’t diminish it. To have to limit your movement, to be constrained in your daily comings and goings, to have to consider external factors like your own discomfort when deciding whether to attend department events, professional or social—this is, in my opinion, at the heart of the matter here. It is unjust and part of the work climate that needs to be addressed.

Finally, if you think your department might benefit from an APA Site Visit, I would recommend it. While there have been a small number of site visits that have drawn public attention because of especially egregious behavior, most site visits take place at institutions that have common problems and good willed people interested in addressing workplace climate issues for women and members of other under-represented groups. Most faculty are eager to have discussions about department climate, to learn from one another, and to take steps toward genuine improvement. Even more importantly, as we know from active bystander strategies, many colleagues who witness behavior they think is inappropriate want to respond but do not know how they should respond. The Site Visit Program provides the framework for conversations to begin among your colleagues and for changes to happen.

I hope that my reply doesn’t sound like an overreaction or like pushing you to remedies that you are not ready for or are inappropriate at this point. Rather, I am urging as much awareness of the big picture here as possible first, and then appropriate interpersonal interaction with that consciousness firmly in place. Most importantly, you are entitled to move freely and to feel unbothered in the workplace. Sending all best wishes to you.