Headline Scandals Obscure Pervasive Harassment

Venture capitalists blacklisted, Uber CEO resigns, Fox News heavies forced out – all welcome news for women in the workplace, but news that serves to obscure the ubiquitous nature of gender discrimination, according to fivethirtyeight.com. While scandals like those referenced above get headlines, thousands of other cases of sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination, such as failing to promote women or paying them less than men, get much less attention, and rarely result in firings. Many cases involve women in low-wage industries who lack resources to fight back. EEOC studies find that 70 percent of people who experience workplace harassment never talk to a supervisor or manager about it. In a recent poll, a quarter of all respondents said they had witnessed the harassment of a colleague.