Latest / Career Identity + Growth Conversations for Professional Women: Exposing the Hidden Reality / 058: Who Does the System Protect? When Harm Meets Power

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058: Who Does the System Protect? When Harm Meets Power · Career Identity + Growth Conversations for Professional Women: Exposing the Hidden Reality

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Before we begin today, we want to make sure that
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you know that this conversation includes topics around sexual assault, drugs,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and trauma. Please take care of yourself as you listen.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the recent Cornell case and
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: we may also talk about the Brock Turner case from
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Stanford a decade ago. One of these matters is still
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: under active investigation. We're not here to decide criminal guilt
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and we're certainly not going to be able to cover
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in depth everything that needs to be said in a
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: single podcast episode. We're here to examine what happens around
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a case like this because the systems around harm tell.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Us about power.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: At Cornell, a former student, if you haven't been following,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: has filed a civil lawsuit alleging that she was drugged
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and sexually assaulted by fraternity members in 2024. The New
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: York Attorney General has now been appointed special prosecutor. In
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the Brock Turner case in 2016, there was a criminal
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: trial and a conviction. These are not identical cases, and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: that difference matters. What connects them for us is the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: question underneath. When serious harm enters a system, who and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: what does that system move to protect? Today, we look
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: at universities, criminal justice, and employment as different systems with
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: different powers. We want to ask a harder question than
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: whether a policy exists, and that is, where does the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: disruption land? Whose future becomes morally vivid? And what do
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the consequences teach everyone who's watching?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Sandra, for introducing that. And this conversation is
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: part one in a series of conversations we're going to
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: have around this topic. If you want to be notified
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: of future conversations, please follow and subscribe where you're listening
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: so that you can get the latest. information. Sandra, I
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: want to start by separating something we often collapse. A
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: university process, a criminal investigation, a court, and an employer
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: are not the same system. More on that in a minute.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: They use different standards. They have different responsibilities. Instead of
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: only asking, did the system work? I think we need
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: to ask which system doing what for whom? And I
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: like the question that you asked before, which is who
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: ends up on top of the power pile after all
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: these systems do their thing. And oh gosh, I started
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: brainstorming systems last night and I came up with even
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: more systems than we were initially talking about.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Annette, sometimes I sit here and I think, am I
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: really shocked? I start to realize there are things that
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: are distressing, but I'm not really shocked. And I think
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: what I'm shocked about is the fact that I'm not
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: shocked that this is happening. I have not been sleeping
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: well all week. Part of it, of course, is I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: have two young adult males in college right now. They're
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: third-year students. I have seen the backstory on some of
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: these things. I have had conversations with my boys about
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: what's going on at school. I have a high school senior, female,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: who is evaluating colleges for next year. So this is
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: hitting from multiple directions, not to mention that for me personally,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I also work with women who have experienced these things
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: sometimes in young adulthood, sometimes in childhood, oftentimes in the workplace.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And Sandra, that's the part that's really been staying with
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: me too, is all of the stories that we're seeing,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: all of the brave women stepping forward and saying, this
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: also happened to me. This was my situation, making Jane
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Doe feel less alone.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I think that's good to see, but I also think
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: that's why we're not surprised. And this repeated exposure that
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: we get, media, social media, TV, news, we just see
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: it so often, it becomes normal. less shocking. And somehow
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: this story has been horribly shocking to me. You and
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I talked about that off the recording earlier. I'm super
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: shocked by this. It feels, I don't know if devastating
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: is the right word. It's not personally devastating. I feel
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: devastated by the level of expectation. And you and I
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: first started this podcast talking about the invisible labor that
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: women do What I'm thinking about is the invisible labor
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: we carry just around being a woman. So forget about
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: like the household tasks that need to be done. The
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: family needs to get here, there, and everywhere. I'm thinking
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: about those things where when we get out of the car,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: did we park under a light? Are we somewhere safe
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: to begin with? Should we go to this part of
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: town at this time of day? Who are we coming with?
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Who's leaving with us? Is everybody accounted for? This is
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: invisible labor of just being alive in the body of
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: a woman. And I can't imagine if all of that
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: was taken away from me. I can't. And that's why
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I think I'm sitting in such a devastated place.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: In this particular part of the conversation, we really wanted
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to address systems. And I think the system that you're
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: pointing out is cultural.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, very cultural.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: There's also a system around police and whether or not
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I am safe going to the police, whether or not
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I will be believed when I go to the police. Yes. What?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: continues to happen if I report this, if I don't
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: do all of those things.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then let's talk about the systems if you
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: choose to report an assault or something that's happened to you.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: And when I say report, like specifically about Cornell, we're
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: talking about reporting it to the police, reporting it to
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the university. But think about when something happens at work.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: and reporting it to your boss. Do you report it?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: What if you report it to a different system, an
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: HR system maybe? Yes, we all live with these big
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: overarching society expectations, that system, HR's system, reporting it to
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: your boss's system, reporting it to the university police versus
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the police police. And there are so many points of
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: failure along the way.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I honestly felt like came
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: as a big shock to me because I never stopped
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to consider it. And then as I sat with it,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: more came to mind. One of the articles that we
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: had traded earlier this week was around what happens in
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the case of a woman who is assaulted, goes to
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the hospital, and is administered a rape kit. The cost
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of the kit itself is covered, but the medical costs
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: associated with being treated for that visit are borne by her.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: So she becomes victimized again.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've been sitting with,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: having sat with that particular piece of information that I
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: don't think I really thought through before, is the cost
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: of the mental health support that she will need throughout
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: her lifetime. Who covers that?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Of course she covers that.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And healing from something like this, it's not something
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you go for six visits under an EAP program. This
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: is years of trauma therapy work.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It's lifetime work.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Yes. Right.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Because trauma doesn't show up when it's convenient.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: No. Right.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And you have really great healthcare. And oh my gosh,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I can go and I can talk to a professional
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: every week. No, trauma shows up when something strikes a
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: chord in you and says, this is the same thing.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: It's happening again.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We talked in one of the episodes recently around
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: noticing when somebody's having a trauma response. And one of
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the comments that I made was, if you are supposed
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to be mentally engaged and you notice that you are
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: now physically activated. That is a sign of trauma. Another
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: sign of trauma that I mentioned is when you're supposed
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: to be in your body. Imagine you have experienced sexual assault.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Now you are in a committed, consensual relationship trying to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: be intimate with your partner. You're supposed to be in
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: your body at that moment. And your trauma response is,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: oh no. So trauma isn't just you start to experience
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: things in your body that it comes out everywhere and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: every place. And you cannot anticipate all the different ways
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: in which you're going to be impacted by this trauma,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: any trauma.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I agree with that. And these systems don't make it easier, right?
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: The healthcare system here in the US, the way in
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: which we're getting treated, the underlying bias in the health service.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: care system that women are hysterical and that they're not
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: really experiencing what they're experiencing. These are things supposedly separate
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: from the systems that are dealing with a criminal or
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: a civil lawsuit, but really are they?
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: They have different things that they're trying to prove. They
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: have different bars that need to be crossed. I think
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the one other system that I want to put into
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: play here is what happens in the case of socioeconomic
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: In all of these cases, we've been talking about privilege,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a woman who can afford to go to medical for
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: medical support, a woman who can go and get mental
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: health support, a woman who can report death. these things
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: to the police and have even a small expectation that
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: something might be done in her perpetrators who have socioeconomic
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: status themselves. The fact that it happened in both these cases,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the fact that it happened at a university itself and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: not a local state or college or a local state school,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it was at an Ivy League school where there is
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of power and privilege and status that comes
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: with not just the name of the institution, but the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: parents that send their children. So What happens in the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: case of children, women who are not in positions of power,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: women who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, women for whom going to
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: get medical support exposes other potential issues or safety concerns?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Agreed. Yes. Those are all a lot of factors to
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: consider for sure.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I think the other part about all of this, of course,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: is how the school adjudicated the situation, what the legal
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: response was and what state laws apply and how it
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: might be treated differently in different states. The civil lawsuit
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: itself They're all parts of a legal process. One, at
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: least in the case of the school, is more of
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a disciplinary process. But the decision to not pursue and
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: adjudicate the case from the legal perspective, that's a criminal lawsuit.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: That has different statutes and different criteria than, say, a
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: civil lawsuit. We saw this even in the O.J. Simpson case. Right.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I think your point that you made at the beginning
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: is well clarified. What system are we talking about?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're all intertwined. They're barely distinguishable from one another.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And then we find that when the system fails, it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: a multi-system failure. And that is definitely, in my assessment,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: what happened for poor Jean Doe. She was failed by
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: multiple systems multiple times. And when she finally said, I'm
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: going to seek justice through a civil suit... That started
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: this chain of events that we're now currently watching. It
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: was the filing of that civil lawsuit that started this conversation.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Because also, Sandra, to note, this happened in October of 2024.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: So it was two years ago that she's been living
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: with this, while many of the systems allowed the alleged
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: perpetrators to move on with their education and professional lives.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And in the case of Cornell, it straddles both. sides
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of a system. It's an educational system. Yes. With disciplinary processes.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: It is also an employer.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Yes. Can you imagine how the employees of Cornell are
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: feeling right now?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: There's a number of really fantastic articles that we have
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: traded about the perspective that Cornell professors are sharing with
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: respect to both their role as mentors, guides, teachers, educational
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: professionals dealing with these students, and also from the perspective
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: of as an employee, what does this say about my employer?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: What is the prevailing message? I was shocked this morning
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: when I sent you that article about how we even
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: talk about sexual harassment. Yes.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I saw that. And you know what, Sandra? We should
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: probably put together a list of resources just so people
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: can see the things that we've seen and maybe it
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: can expand their exposure to the topic in a different
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: type of way. If folks are not already on our
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: email list, you can join it at exposingthehenreality.com and then
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: we will send out a list of resources that you
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: can see the things that we saw. Many Instagram reels because... Obviously,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Sandra and I have a problem there, but lots of
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: really good people talking about it. Lots of good articles.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm not sure if you want to say something
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: about the book that was written.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, Sandra. So the book that you're talking about is
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: called Sexual Shakedown, The Sexual Harassment of Women on the Job.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Lynn Farley breaks the silence and opens the door. I'll
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: do this piece we highlighted. To publicly describe the systemic
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: patterns pattern of behavior they were fighting in Wood's case,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Farley introduced the term sexual harassment during a New York
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: City Human Rights Commission hearing that same year. What do
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: you think she was talking about? What institution was the
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: book discussing? Cornell University.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: It's shocking to me when I saw this this morning.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: The backstory is that one of the employees was being
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: sexually harassed by a professor. And when she quit from
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the stress of having to deal with this situation, she
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: was denied unemployment insurance. And so she sued because it's
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: actually your employer who tells the unemployment insurance agency. Right.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: The employer can sue. dispute or authorize the employment insurance
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: and so yes they have a chance to intersect themselves
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: into the middle of it or they can let the
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: claim go get it authorized and can you imagine if
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: that had happened and cornell had said pay the unemployment
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: claim and she had walked away with probably what she
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: needed to bridge the gap between leaving that job and
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: finding a new one we might not have had such a.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: There are times when I see articles like this and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I think 1975. I know for you that doesn't register.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: For me, it absolutely does. I remember how old I
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: was in 1975. I remember going to school. I know
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: what grades I was in. I know what we were
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: talking about. And so having grown up at a time
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: when these things are sort of like they've always been
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: in place and you realize, oh, no, I was born
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: before these things were in place. Yeah. It's shocking.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: And then it's still shocking that. regardless if you were
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: alive or not, over 50 years ago, we started identifying
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: these problems, which let's be clear, those problems existed way
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: before we started naming them and identifying them. But we
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: identified them. We had visibility. There were books written about them.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: So it was coming into the conscious. It was coming
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: into our society's system. And yet it is still wildly unaddressed.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: It's behavior that's allowed to continue. It's part of the
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: invisible burden.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering because there's a phrase that I keep coming
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: back to, Annette, and that is I keep hearing people
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: talk about promising futures. And we often become very alert
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: to the possibility that an accusation or a sanction or
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a conviction could alter someone's entire life. And the concern
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: is not meaningless. I mean, there have been a number
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of situations in which people have been accused of things
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that they have not done and they've paid a price
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: as a result of those things. But I think the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: important question that I keep coming back to is, why
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: is it that the future of the person that we're
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: least concerned about is the person who was actually harmed
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: in this particular case? Right.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: And can we talk about how that person's promising future
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: has already been impacted? Absolutely. Already been changed forever. Her
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: trajectory is different now in ways that she can't even
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: know or imagine.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: In ways that we can't even know or imagine. One
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: of the stories I saw this morning was about a
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: college cheerleader. It was the first time she was talking
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: about it. She told her story. She was drugged and
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: sexually assaulted by one of the team's players.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: She also had to leave college like Jane Doe, leave
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: her education behind, transfer schools, barely able– to function, diagnosed
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: with complex PTSD. And now on Sunday, when she sits
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: down to watch football, she gets to see that player
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: and his promising future unimpacted.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: And that is often when I see people coming to
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: the defense of one of these seven individuals that are
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: accused of assaulting this woman, that is often what I hear.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: They have promising futures. We don't want to harm their future.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: We don't want it to end up being a false
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: accusation and then do all this damage, except somebody's already
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: been damaged.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: That gets lost.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: It does get lost. It does get lost. And Sandra,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: that is because we live in a highly patriarchal society
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: where the systems are to support that power, that privilege,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: the status of those that already hold most of the power.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Can I introduce, at the cost of changing the direction
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: of the conversation, but can I introduce another system? That
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: is wildly cultural here in the US, which is, it's
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: none of my business. Talking about, you know, we have
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: to talk about that there were certain people that actually
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: physically hurt Jane Doe. But what about the system of
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: people that were saying, oof, none of my business. That's
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: not for me to handle. That's not something I want
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: to get involved in. And walking away, ignoring it. There
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: were supposedly 57 people in that Snapchat conversation. Seven people
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: named as aggressors. Where were those other 50 people?
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: One of the most telling posts that you sent me
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: was a chat spam.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I listened to him, the Dunkin Donuts, my kids are
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: marketing geniuses guy.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I listened to him all the time and I had
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: not caught that video yet. And I think that's one
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: we absolutely need to link here in case people have
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: not seen it. Yeah. I think the point that he
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: makes is that all the pictures that we see of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: that Snapchat conversation were actually somebody taking a photo of
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: somebody's Snapchat phone.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. Knowing that they needed to, to preserve it, to
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: archive it. that later it would be important. But then two,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: to protect their own interests because Snapchat gives some sort
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: of notification that this particular chat's been screenshotted. And Sandra,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: you know what I asked myself? What if the notification
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: that this had been screen captured would have been enough?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: What if that's enough notice to stop what was happening?
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I can tell you that me personally,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: and this is my own problem probably, never had the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: feeling that getting in trouble or not having a particular
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: group of friends was more important than sticking up for someone.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: So I often was in trouble for doing something that
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: wasn't allowed, but was in the advocacy of a friend
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: or a family member. And I don't know if that's
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: something that we help people develop as young people to
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: adults or as adults in a work or professional environment.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm wondering if that's a competency that we can
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: help others develop and grow so that they don't often say,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: that's none of my business. I'm going to step out
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And that's such a complex issue. I know you and
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I had an offline conversation about sometimes these things get
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: reduced to simple, I wouldn't do that.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And I would never. And the reality is we really
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: don't know what we would ever until we're actually in it. Now,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: you and I can both point to situations where we
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: have been asked to do something or we have witnessed
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: something and we've both said, this isn't right. I am
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: not doing this when I'm being asked to do or
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: this is not right and I'm sticking up. So we
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: can point to situations where we have done what we
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: said we would likely do in those situations. And as
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I mentioned in one of our previous podcasts, it cost
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: me a job. I was let go from that employer.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: But I still believe that I did the right thing.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: And given another opportunity, I would do it again. Again.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Because I have to look at myself in the mirror
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: every day. Yeah. What I think is interesting in the,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it's not my, it's not mine to get involved. It's
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: not my issue. And I'm going to take us in
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a slightly different tangent right now because I want to
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: come back to this. Sure. Whenever I talked to my
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: children about situations like this and their dying, I always
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: said a couple of things. I want you to know
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that I am your safe haven. You can tell me
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: anything and I will listen because I didn't want them
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to think that they couldn't tell me things.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: So that's number one. Number two, I always said to them,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: if I find out about something and you did not
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: tell me, the consequences will be harder than if you
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: simply came to tell me. The implication being is, yes,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I am your safe haven. You may not walk away unscathed,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: meaning there may be consequences. But if I find out
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: about this later, the consequences will be greater. And what
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I always told them is a lie is an act
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of commission, meaning you do something that you know you
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: That is a lie.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: But a lie is also an act of omission, where
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: you failed to do what you knew you had to do.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So if you knew you had to tell me something
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and you chose not to tell me, that is also
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a lie. And so that brings me right back to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the situation. You're staring at a Snapchat. You're looking at
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: what that says. You have enough cognition to say, I
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: better take a photo of this. I've read recently that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try and say this politely. I read
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: recently that one of the alleged perpetrators is saying that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: he is not guilty because he walked in but did
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: not participate.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Yes. Again, none of my business, Sandra. None of my business.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I'm going to act out of this room. Yes. And
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I read an account of a woman this morning that
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: had a terrible situation happen to her when she was
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: in high school. And she said people were in and
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: out of the room. the whole time and no one
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: came to her aid. Not a one. I think this
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Cornell story, I think the trauma of Jane Doe is
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: resonating with so many people because we're seeing ourselves in her.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: We're seeing ourselves in past accounts of, it's none of
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: my business. I'm going to walk away. We're seeing our brothers,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: our husbands, our loved ones that are males in our lives.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And we're wondering what they would have done And then
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: we're seeing the overall systemic failure at the university level,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: at the police officer level, at the DA's office level,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: at the discipline hearing level. We're seeing all of that.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And then we're seeing the burden placed on the victim
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: to heal, fight to get her money back for her
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: education after she had to drop out that semester, the
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: medical bills that she's going to experience, the counseling and
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the therapy that she'll need, the care, the impact on
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: the rest of her life. And now something is shifting
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: and we're seeing people recognize that the burden is not
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: right and blaming the victim is not right. And the
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: systems need to change.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: You know, there's an argument that I've heard that the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: undercurrent being this is only at the university level. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: it's because we're dealing with young adults. And the reality
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: is you and I both know this happens at work.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, it does happen at work. With adults.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Where men are sitting in all-male meetings and derogatory comments
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: are being made about female colleagues. Where people go away
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: on business trips and sexual harassment happens.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: It's not just the university.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It's the microcosm of what happens everywhere, every day for women.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: We don't often have light, funny conversations like the one
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: we had last session.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Or last week. Episode 57, yeah.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: We often have serious conversations, but these types of conversations
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: about topical stories, difficult stories like sexual assault, we often
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: talk offline about whether this is an appropriate topic for
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: our show. And in this particular case, we chose to
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: discuss it because it does happen at work. This is
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: part of the hidden reality that we want to expose
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: about the systems and how they operate around women and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: how we experience the world.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, you are 100% correct. And can I also point
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: out that the college, the university environment is often the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: training ground for professional behavior. We learn for the first
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: time how to act. in a meeting, how to conduct yourself,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: how to write a paper, how to present your ideas.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: And if the place where we learn those things teaches
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: us the same systemic failure that when we got into
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: the professional world, we're not even able to recognize it
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: because it's so ingrained that that's just how things are.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And that's what, in my opinion, needs to change. And
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: talking about it helps us recognize this is not normal.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: This is not safe. This is not where I should be.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: or this is not how I want to operate professionally.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Is this the way we want our world to operate?
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: One of the statements we have here that employers are
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: often making decisions before a criminal court has reached a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: verdict and sometimes even before charges exist at all. And
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that creates a real tension, fairness to the employee, safety
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: for other people, Organizational trust, legal risks, the fact that
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: doing nothing is also a decision.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: And many companies have a, I don't want to call
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: it a morality clause. It's not that, but it's usually
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: a human resources policy that's related to once you're employed
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: post background check. that should anything else come up, it
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: can risk your employment here. And that is actually happening
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: now with one of the Cornell seven, with one of
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: the seven.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Two of them.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, two of them now.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Two of them have been let go. Okay.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: So they've been let go probably from an optics perspective
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: for the employer as well. Yes. So we don't want
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: to be associated with... this name, that name. And we're
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: not going to say the names here on this particular show.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: They're readily available. You can go look them up. Anderson
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Cooper always did that. I don't know if you know that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: That's his policy. He never says the name of mass
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: shooters on his show. He focuses on the victims. And
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: so I don't think we want to give them any
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: sort of attention. But yes, now two of the seven
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: men allegedly being investigated for sexual assault have lost their
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: employment because the employer doesn't want to be associated with them. Yeah. Interesting.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And I also then wonder... What is poor Jane Doe's
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: employment situation? Is she even able to work? Or has
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: this trauma disabled her ability to even find work and
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: get work? I can't imagine what she's going through.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: So much to this story. And we're not done with
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: this conversation. We're just... we're just scratching the surface of
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a particular aspect of this story.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Agreed. So Sandra, what I think is different about this
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: conversation is we're going to go ahead and post this
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: episode as soon as we're done editing it. And then
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: we're going to post the second episode on Thursday with
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: our normal uploads. And then the third episode the following week.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: So this will be episode 58, 59, and 60, where
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: we're talking about This situation related to power, systems, privilege,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: and how it affects all of us, especially in the workplace.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So I hope that you'll come back and listen to
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the next episode. And again, if you subscribe to our
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: newsletter at exposingthehiddenreality.com, we will also have the list of
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: articles and information that we used to inform this conversation.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And we'd love to hear from you. So please comment
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: or respond to that email and tell us what you're
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: learning about this topic that might inform our future conversations. Yeah,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: that would be great.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: I think if as well, I'd love to invite any
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: men who have perspectives on this to share their perspective.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I have been
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: quite encouraged to see is the number of men that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: are stepping into the conversation and saying inappropriate, not right.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: This is not we want. This is not who we are.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. I've seen so many people come forward and that
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: is an amazing way I think the system can change.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Annette, thank you for opening up this conversation with me.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I know it's challenging for all of us to be
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: in this moment in time.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: I also find that the challenge is where the space
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: is created for the change. Yes. So yes, it's challenging.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: It's difficult. It's hard. But let's really push for change
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: to come from this so that the challenge is not
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: just suffering. Exactly. We'll talk soon. Talk soon. Thank you.