Debby Dougherty––Predatory Behavior in The Workplace

Past evening I attended the speaker event of Debby Dougherty at the Marshall school of Business. She is a professor for communication at the University of Missouri. The topic of her presentation was sexual misconduct at the workplace. Her main focus was on what causes this damaging behaviors. When we thing about sexual aggression, we should not only think about only "offender" and "victim", but we have to take into account the surrounding environment. The conclusion of her research is, that such behavior is fueled by the underlying culture of certain organizations, and how these reflect the macro-sociological image of society.

To start out the presentation she named a lot of examples of sexual predatory behavior which made  the news recently. Sadly our campus was recently involved in such affairs. Together with us––the audience––she analyzed the environment of the school. We realized that there are many factors on our campus which are favorable to such behaviors. The most dangerous attitude that somebody can have, is to "normalize" sexually predatory behavior.

The case at USC is also a perfect example for the damages this kinds of behaviors can have––social, monetary and health. The school has to pay 230 million USD in damages (for now) to the victims. In addition it has to implement costly control structures to monitor future activities. But the biggest damage cause is to the victims––they suffer psychological and physiological damages which often take years to heal. Some victims suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is common among veterans. Thus, the effects of these experiences can be similar to experiencing a war.

The main takeaway for me, was that sexual predators are hidden in plain sight and that we often idealize them in some sort of way. At the same time, every woman thinks she is strong enough to  withstand a predator, but in reality you never know until you are in the situation. This is why other women often do not believe the stories they hear.

For me this topic is gaining more and more importance. In high school we had talked a lot about it, but I never realized how present the issue is until I came to college. If I hear such stories I feel anger and frustration in me because I cannot influence the social culture and I cannot change other people. Even professor Dougherty didn't really have a solution to address the problem on the large scale. I left the event with a bitter feeling in me.