Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook exec speaks truth about power and sexual harassment

Sheryl Sandberg is right about the need to redress the power imbalance as one part of the remedy for sexual harassment

“It’s the power, stupid.”

That’s Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg synthesizing for the masses — via Facebook, naturally — her take on the seemingly ceaseless revelations of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Maybe Sandberg has hit on something. Maybe it’s time to battle the imbalance of corporate power with political campaign-style tactics. Maybe a slogan should be part of the strategy.

It worked well enough for Bill Clinton in the ’92 election. Campaign strategist James Carville’s sound bite — “It’s the economy, stupid” — was shorthand for inequality in America and proved effective in focusing the mind of the electorate. We remember what a big win it was for Clinton.

We also recall the Carville slogan was a deft way to deflect the chilling evidence around the candidate’s own relations with women.

So let’s not go there.

But Sandberg is to be commended for taking to Facebook Sunday, laying down her thoughts and prescriptions for urgently addressing a behavioural crisis. “We need systemic, lasting changes that deter bad behaviour and protect everyone, from professionals climbing the corporate ladder to workers in low-paid positions who often have little power,” she wrote. “We need to end the abuse of power imbalances due to gender — and race and ethnicity, too. We must not lose this opportunity.”

The COO was bound to come in for criticism given her privileged perch as a member of the corporate elite. (“Stop pretending you are a regular person!” read one response to her post. “Shut up!”) But she makes herself relatable by recounting her own journey. “Like almost every woman — and some men — I know, I have experienced sexual harassment in the form of unwanted sexual advances in the course of doing my job. A hand on my leg under the table at a meeting. Married men — all decades older than I — offering ‘career advice’ and then suggesting they could share it with me alone late at night. The conference where a man I declined leaving a dinner with came to my hotel room late at night and banged on my door until I called security.”

Here’s the power piece: “I didn’t work for any of these men. But in every single one of these situations, they had more power than I did. That’s not a coincidence. It’s why they felt free to cross that line.”

Fighting back has cost women careers and opportunities. Stories of this type mount daily. In the wake of these revelations, Susan Fowler’s experience sounds less and less astounding.

You may recall that Fowler was the Uber engineer who wrote of her experiences at the frat-boy ride-hailing company in her blog. Day One on the job Fowler received a string of chat messages from her boss, explaining that he was in an open relationship. Fowler wrote: “He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn’t help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with.”

Fowler reported her boss’s behaviour to human resources. “I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man’s first offence, and that they wouldn’t feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking to.” Upper management made a point of telling Fowler that her boss was “a high performer” — the standard response when protecting misbehaving corporate stars.

That “first offence” defence was a lie, as it turned out. Other women subjected to the same come-on from the same manager were told the same thing.

Sandberg is right when she says we have arrived at a critical moment. “Sexual harassment has been tolerated for far too long in the halls of government and companies large and small,” she writes.

The remedies? Sandberg has a set list, including clearly stated policies and principles; a commitment to treat all claims seriously, urgently and with respect; a process that is fairly and consistently applied for victims and the accused; reinforcing the importance that all employees have a role to play in keeping the workplace safe.

Directives such as those are only effective if the people at the top make it so. Ultimately, the most important cultural change is one Sandberg has been championing for years: having more women with more power.

“It wouldn’t solve all the problems we face if more women were in power,” she writes. “But one thing’s for certain: many fewer people would be groped and worse while trying to do their jobs. And that would be a major step in the right direction.”