TREND WATCH: What’s Happening? Sexual harassment and assault dominated the news cycle in 2017—so much so that Time named “The Silence Breakers” Person of the Year. The issue’s newfound prominence is the result of a perfect storm of high-profile celebrities behaving badly combined with tectonic generational shifts in the workforce. Everyone is wondering what impact #MeToo will have on the law, businesses, politics, and society.
Our Take: Most Americans agree that sexual misconduct is a widespread social problem—but are less certain what to do about it. “Zero tolerance” sounds good, but how could it be enforced? To those on the political left and right, the issue is seen as a litmus test of deeper grievances (about patriarchy or cultural decline). In fact, the political middle is best positioned to bring about practical change. Going forward, the Democrats plan to use #MeToo to their advantage in the 2018 and 2020 elections—which may or may not help them.
Time capped off 2017 by naming “The Silence Breakers” Person of the Year, recognizing the women and men who have come forward with stories about sexual harassment and assault. The nationwide reckoning on sexual harassment began in October of last year in the wake of accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Since then, a torrent of new allegations has surfaced, toppling the careers of dozens of powerful men as millions of people have come forward to share their stories. Those behind this #MeToo movement have launched a global conversation, one the magazine’s editor-in-chief called “one of the highest velocity shifts in our culture since the 1960s.”
Early on in 2018, sexual misconduct has hardly faded out quietly, with the list of alleged offenders growing longer day by day. How will policymakers address this issue? And how will the public discourse handicap the 2018 and 2020 elections?
Let’s find out.
WHAT AMERICANS ACTUALLY THINK ABOUT SEXUAL HARASSMENT
#MeToo’s huge visibility rides on a broad social consensus that harassment is a serious and pervasive problem: In a new Pew poll, a solid majority of Americans—regardless of gender, race, education, or political affiliation—said they consider the issue of sexual misconduct “very important” for the country. Two-thirds believe the recent allegations “mainly reflect widespread problems in society,” while barely one-quarter attribute them simply to “individual misconduct.”
What’s more, most Americans have no illusions about just how “widespread” the problem is. In another Ipsos/NPR poll, about 70% of both men and women said they agree that most women have been sexually harassed at some point at their lives. Asked to guess the percentage of women who have ever personally experienced harassment, people offered guesses averaging about 65% (women averaged 69%, men averaged 60%). That compares to 59% of women who say, when asked, that yes they have personally experienced sexual harassment.
Americans also agree that the climate of opinion on this issue has recently been changing. When asked by Ipsos/NPR, people agreed that—compared to five years ago—reports of harassment are less likely to be ignored today and that women are less likely to be risking their careers by speaking up. More significantly, 78% of men agreed that, “Now, I am very cautious about what I say or do in a group setting.” Half of these men (39%) “strongly agreed.”
WHY NOW?
Why have the floodgates opened now? To some extent, the moment may have been triggered by the circumstances of Harvey Weinstein’s misdeeds. Those who stay quiet about harassment often fear retaliation or being blamed. But the star power of Weinstein’s accusers clearly emboldened victims to speak up who otherwise would not have done so. Their resolve was further strengthened by social media, which offered a sense of safety in numbers. The road for #MeToo was perhaps also paved by the recent and astonishing spectacle of an iconic celebrity (Bill Cosby) and a U.S. president (Donald Trump) being publicly charged by multiple female accusers.
Yet there is a deeper, generational dynamic behind this timing. On the one hand, the past decade has seen the entry into the workplace of a new generation of Millennial women. These Millennials were sheltered from abusive treatment as kids, were taught by their (Boomer) moms that they would be respected for their achievements in the workplace, and actually expected that the system would protect them from predators. On the other hand, they have been entering an informal, anything-goes work culture put in place by Boomer and Xer managers who tend to believe that employees who don’t like it are free to vote with their feet. Here we see the mismatch. The rising generation of workers was looking for responsible mentors. Older generations of workers were looking for transactional opportunities.
Generationally, then, #MeToo was a perfect storm waiting to happen. It is revealing that many of the worst offenders (certainly Cosby and Weinstein) had been victimizing young women for decades, going all the way back to the 1980s. But until recently, nearly all these victims had been Xer or Boomer young women who were none-of-the-above on the Millennial checklist. We know this from interviews: They had not been sheltered as kids; they had little expectation about “fairness” in the workplace; and they never expected that the law or public opinion cared anything about their welfare. So they seldom spoke up, despite the fact that, around the victimizers, “everybody knew” what was going on.
CHANGES IN THE LAW
While Americans are united in considering sexual misconduct a serious social problem, addressing it is a difficult challenge—with polls reflecting a great degree of contradictory attitudes even among the same respondents.
Some leaders on the left, like New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, are calling for a zero-tolerance approach that comes down hard on all cases, whether it’s verbal harassment or rape. To support her position, she can turn to the Ipsos/NPR poll, in which 86% of all Americans (including 82% of men) agree that “a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment is essential to bringing about change in our society.”
Zero-tolerance, however, is unlikely to work if you cannot easily identify the vice you are fighting. And here we can already see a problem: The same poll reveals that a majority of Americans (59%) agree that “it can be hard sometimes to tell” what sexual harassment is. It’s also unlikely to work if the vice is an incorrigible aspect of human nature. Revealingly, a large minority (roughly 44% of both men and women) agree that “it is inevitable that men will ‘hit on’ women at work.” Complicating the picture still further is the fact that large majorities of Americans believe that, in charges of sexual harassment, both the accuser and the accused “should be given the benefit of the doubt.” Huh? That’s sort of a zero-sum game, isn’t it?
We might infer from these figures that the public strongly favors zero tolerance of sexual harassment when it is blatant or extreme. Fine. But as a matter of federal law, that may not be much better than how the Supreme Court currently interprets Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. According to the 1986 Meritor case, sexual harassment must be both “severe and pervasive” for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to seek action against employers. More recent Supreme Court decisions have made seeking redress difficult even for victims who do meet the high Meritor standard. And these precedents and procedures pretty much set the pace for all legal action—state, local, and civil.
In the wake of #MeToo, it is likely that interpretation of the law will shift to reflect a clearer and less permeable line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Possibilities? The EEOC could require employers to better inform workers of what constitutes harassment. Courts, possibly with the aid of new state or federal legislation, could invalidate workplace NDAs and forced-arbitration clauses when they concern harassing behavior. A real bombshell would to be to strip away the confidentiality of "sealed" settlements—on the argument that such settlements essentially constitute obstruction of justice.
This shift in turn may get a boost from generational turnover—with young people (along with women and nonwhites) tending to draw a harder and stricter line. Surveys from YouGov and Reuters/Ipsos found that Millennials are less likely than their elders to consider it acceptable to tell dirty jokes, wolf-whistle, place a hand on a woman’s lower back, or comment on their attractiveness. Younger men are more likely to agree with younger women about what’s okay and to say that recent stories had made them rethink how they act around women.
BROADER SOCIAL CHANGES
Beyond legal reform—which pretty much everyone agrees is a blunt instrument—most Americans are hopeful that broader social changes may make sexual harassment less pervasive than it is today. These hopes may be usefully described by political ideology: Left, right, and center.
On the left, sexual harassment is often seen as symptomatic of deeper injustices—such as a male-favoring patriarchy built on “systemic” maldistribution of power. This explains why progressives lean toward zero tolerance (since there’s no tolerating social injustice). It also explains why their favorite talking points on harassment often start with policies having nothing to do with harassment per se—such as finding ways to hire more female executives, strengthening parental leave, and guaranteeing higher wages and new benefits for low-wage workers. In the words of former Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley in The Boston Globe: “Unless there is fairness for women in education, government, nonprofits, and the corporate world, [#MeToo] will potentially be a flash in the pan.”
The right is clearly less passionate on the issue of harassment. But when conservatives do weigh in, they also tend to regard it as one part of a much larger but very different social problem—namely, cultural decline in general and the decadence of Hollywood in particular. Some social conservatives in fact are ready to rethink the whole sexual revolution (not that they ever liked it much in the first place). In their telling, Hollywood’s casting-couch culture, along with its glorified equation of male sexuality and power, comes into the crosshairs for creating a destructive definition of masculinity that attracts alpha males everywhere. Conservatives believe it helps their case that so many of the high-profile exposes feature Hollywood and media celebrities—and that the information industry as a whole leans so heavily to the Democratic Party.
Both sides will probably score a few wins in the years ahead. The left will likely succeed in persuading the courts to move toward stricter harassment enforcement standards. And the right will likely accelerate Hollywood’s recent shift toward less edgy and more family-friendly content. Hollywood will go along in no small part because plenty of Democrats as well are insisting (witness #MeToo’s “Survivor March” Hollywood) that Tinseltown rethink its whole value system.
Yet the most significant changes will not be sweeping steps led by the left or the right, but rather smaller and more practical measures carried out by those in the political middle. Elected officials in both parties, for example, are pushing new rules and laws. Lawmakers and staff in Congress are now required to undergo annual anti-harassment training. This is in addition to proposed legislation that would require offending members of Congress to be named and hold them financially liable for any settlements against them. In Chicago and Seattle, hotels must provide panic buttons to employees who work in guests’ rooms alone. And at least six states are considering laws that would make nondisclosure agreements in cases related to harassment unenforceable.
Meanwhile, educators are moving to promote a culture of respect across genders and putting new emphasis on raising considerate men. Whether it’s through social-emotional curricula for Homelanders (see: “Children, Behave Yourselves”) or lessons on consent for Millennials, the traditional model of masculinity is giving way to more communicative, less aggressive norms. “A significant portion of our relationship advice is still focused on sex,” Sean Bean, editor in chief of Men’s Health, told Bloomberg Businessweek, “but as a culture I think the default used to be, ‘When in doubt, go for it! Hit the gas pedal!’ when it should have been ‘Hit the brake.’” Even MBA programs are making changes, with more professors integrating lessons on sexism and business ethics into the syllabus.
The newfound emphasis on respect is also showing up in human relations. Most large U.S. companies have had some form of sexual harassment training since the 1990s, but research has found that punitive-style policies are ineffectual at best and can even make harassment worse. Employers (often at the urging of Millennials) are now starting to train men and women together on the issue—as a vital step in teaching mutual respect. Employers are also emphasizing considerate behavior, scaling back on alcohol at office parties, and urging co-workers (especially male co-workers) who witness harassment to speak up—even as HR officials walk a fine line in trying not to extinguish workplace flirtations altogether.
Whatever they do, HR directors (realistically) expect that things will likely get worse before they get better. Indeed, most firms are already girding for future lawsuits: Between 2016 and 2017, the insurance firm Nationwide saw a 15% rise in sales of employment practices liability insurance.
IMPACT ON THE 2018 AND 2020 ELECTIONS
Because the Democratic Party by and large sees the #MeToo movement as “their” opportunity, the electoral impact of this issue will mainly hinge on the success or failure of Democratic leaders to take advantage of it.
To date, their energy has been mostly directed at aligning the party behind the #MeToo agenda by expunging purported harassers in their own ranks and by doubling down on “ZT” for all offenders. This effort, led by Senator Gillibrand, has led to the resignations of Al Franken from the Senate and John Conyers from the House; to stern warnings directed at Hollywood moguls; and to public support for President Trump’s female accusers. Early on, back in November, the Democrats hoped that a victory for Roy Moore in Alabama (accused of sexual misconduct with minors) would heighten the contrast between the two parties on this issue. Moore’s defeat on December 12, while a gaining the Democrats a seat in the Senate, took some of the steam out of this strategy.
So will this issue end up helping the Democrats in 2018 or 2020?
It’s a tough call. On the one hand, this is a “women’s issue” that most Americans take seriously—and Democratic leaders can confidently claim they’ve been siding with oppressed women on this issue for decades. That’s a plus. Also, the issue seems to be mobilizing large number of young Democratic women to become politically active. In the 2015-16 election cycle, Emily’s List reports being contacted by 960 women interested in running for political office. Since the 2016 election, they report being contacted by 20,000 women—half under age 45. Incentivizing young candidates to run and young voters to vote has long been a challenge for Democrats.
On the other hand, in an off-year election that forecasters say offers Democrats a good chance of historic gains, including capture of the House, it may be self-defeating for Democratic leaders to focus so energetically on their base. Firing up college-educated women who are already fervent #MeToo backers will do little to gain inroads into the non-college and male voters. Those are the voters that the Democrats have recently been losing to the GOP. Indeed, it may prove to be a liability by distracting Democratic leaders from articulating a strong position on wages, equality, infrastructure, health care, or governance that could resonate better with the voters they need to reacquire.
Furthermore, many Democratic leaders apparently assume that the public at large associates sexual harassment more with their GOP opponents than with them. There is no evidence to support this belief, despite the aggressive Democratic agenda on this issue. Democrats have obviously figured prominently in the recent victimizer exposés. And (according to Politico) when voters are asked which allegations by victims they find most credible, among a long list of alleged victimizers, President Bill Clinton leads the list. (In fact, a larger share of Democrats believe Bill Clinton is guilty than believe Bill O’Reilly or Roy Moore is guilty.) Clinton is a name that may still hang heavy over the 2020 presidential election—either because Hillary herself decides to run again or because a Clinton protégé (such as Gillibrand) decides to take the torch.
Sheer hazard may also end up favoring one party or the other. In the aftermath of Rep. Conyers’ resignation came the stunning revelation that there are 264 sealed cases of sexual misconduct that Congress has settled over the last twenty years (for $17 million in taxpayers’ money!) on behalf of both staff and lawmakers. No one knows who these individuals are, Democratic or Republican. But it is likely their identities will dribble out over the coming months. Will it end up tipping the House or Senate? No one knows. Let the die be cast.
