Coyote Blog

18 months ago, I got a lot of cr*p for this post, including from my wife:

I never meet with young women one-on-one any more. If I am interviewing a young woman for college, we meet in the Starbucks rather than my office. I try to meet with sales people via the web rather than face-to-face, but if a young female sales person does show up at my door and I really must meet with them, we do it downstairs in the lobby and not in my office.

I do not know if Kavanaugh is guilty or innocent at this point of a range of alleged actions that range from boorish behavior to attempted sexual assault. Like most folks I await their testimony tomorrow, but perhaps unlike most folks I have a lot of experience trying to adjudicate he-said-she-said conflicts (in the workplace and with customers) and I am reconciled to the fact that we may never be certain of the truth.

What I do know is that having many prominent people in the media and in the highest levels of government claim that a woman's accusation, without any other due process, is enough to convict a man and destroy his career and reputation just proves to me that my policy is absolutely justified.  Because even if Kavanaugh's accusers are absolutely correct and honest, the next one's may not be, especially if we establish a rewards system for public accusations of this sort.

My wife tells me I am being incredibly unfair -- how can young women ever advance and get mentored if every male business executive (and males still dominate the c-suite) takes this attitude?  Well, let me give an analogy.  Let's assume that in reaction to years of abuse, young female actresses made a pact or formed a union. In doing so they agree to never meet with a male director or producer alone.  Many directors and producers could reasonably complain that they weren't threats, and this action unfairly punishes them by making their jobs harder.  The women would reasonably retort, "perhaps, but as long as the rules are such that if we get assaulted in that room then we have absolutely no recourse for justice -- under these rules we aren't going in to the room.  Sure, it may only be a small percentage are predators, but we can't know who is who until after the damage is done."

Would anyone think this was unfair?  Perhaps they might be accused of overreacting -- and I am willing to accept that maybe I am over-reacting as well.  But I worked 3 years in a refinery, wearing a hard hat and eye protection every minute of that time, and I don't remember anything ever hitting my head or my glasses.  But that does not make these things irrational precautions.