![]() Roughly 44% of women founders today say they've been harassed in the tech industry, according to Women Who Tech's survey. In addition to HR departments holding company leaders accountable, Kapin says the tech industry also needs to do a better job at holding investors accountable for sexual discrimination and sexual misconduct against female founders. "The problem," she says, "is creating a culture and a set of values where you do not tolerate a toxic culture of harassment and that people who are employees in the company have a place they can go to safely report harassment incidents, where they will not fear a culture of retaliation and that actual people who are committing harassment will be held accountable." To change this dynamic, Kapin says human resource departments need to go beyond anti-harassment workshops because that alone won't solve the problem. It hasn't been set up to protect employees." "HR has traditionally been set up to protect the company from liability. "That is so significant, and I think the problem is that people who work for companies don't feel that they have HR departments that are truly looking out for them," she says. This ongoing silence, Kapin says, is due to women not having faith in their employer's response method, with 67% of women saying they do not have a lot of trust in how their company will handle harassment allegations. Roughly 45% of female tech employees who have experienced harassment say they reported the incident to senior leadership, a decrease from the 55% who reported these incidents in Women Who Tech's 2017 survey. In fact, Kapin says that while the movement has given some women in tech the courage to speak out and take action against their harassers, the lack of accountability in the industry has also led other women to remain silent. If anything, there are pockets of harassment that have actually gone up." "But," she explains, "on a mass scale, harassment has not gone down. Shareholders' response to Rubin's situation, Kapin says, was a direct result of the #MeToo movement's impact. Earlier this year, Alphabet settled that lawsuit by agreeing that executives will no longer receive severance or be able to amend their stock sale plans while under investigation for sexual misconduct. In 2019, shareholders filed a lawsuit against Google's parent company, Alphabet, for allegedly covering up and mishandling sexual misconduct cases including the allegations against Rubin. The company gave Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, a $90 million exit package when he left the company in 2014 following accusations of sexual misconduct (Rubin has denied any wrongdoing). When you report harassing conduct, your employer may take steps to investigate the allegations and resolve the issue before your boss violates the law.As a result of the #MeToo movement, Kapin says we've seen more cases of sexual harassment come to the forefront, forcing companies to take accountability for the issues they have long swept under the rug. Still, some employers, including the Department of Labor, have policies that prohibit harassment in the workplace. Regardless of whether your company has an official complaint process, unless the harassment violates civil rights laws, it isn't illegal. There may be a policy stated in your employee manual. If talking to your boss fails to get results, find out if your employer has a written policy for dealing with harassment in the workplace. Suggest ways the two of you could improve your working relationship. He could be under a lot of stress and or having a string of bad days. Be courteous and consider that maybe your boss isn't necessarily targeting you but is merely venting his frustration. Remain calm and avoid coming off as confrontational. Let him know you do not appreciate his bullying or inappropriate conduct toward you. Approach your boss directly before talking to someone else.
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