I can't remember the last time I saw a woman groped or harassed at work, it's been years. Or heard the girls mutter about some manager or colleague who was a bit too hands-on. And that change is a good thing. I'm sure it still goes on though, but in more subtle ways.
Wish I could say the same.
In some parts of western Pa I think time has stood still since the 50's.
That sucks.
So HR departments don't give a sh1t?
I remember seeing it and hearing about it a lot in the 80s and 90s. All my jobs in Australia since then I've never seen or heard any sign of that sort of thing going on. I guess it used to be something that would go on brazenly and people would say "oh yeah, that guy, he's a member of the Wandering Hands Society" and swap stories about who was getting harrassed by who. Has the dynamic where you are changed? Is it more covert, are people less able to speak openly about it? In the past at least people spoke openly about it, even though nothing ever got done about it.
At my last job I remember helping the secretary carry some heavy stuff to her car. We were chatting, I was talking about my wife, I guess I do that with ladies I don't know very well because I'm worried that if I make small talk about other stuff it might sound like I'm trying to chat them up. And this was the first time I'd actually chatted with her. She was fairly attractive, Indian (subcontinent) or mixed Indian and skinny with huge implants. She asked if she could give me a hug and she gave me a really good squeeze, it felt like hugging a really skinny person and having a couple of over-inflated basketballs in the middle. It was a bit weird and if I went around asking girls at work if I could give them a hug I'd expect to get into a lot of trouble with HR. But yeah, the dynamic is completely different when it's the female initiating physical contact, there's no sense of pressure for it to lead to something else or threat or danger or anything like that like sometimes there is when it's the other way around.
The other time was when a really good friend asked if he could give me a hug on his last day at work. He was very gay, about my age though so he didn't talk about his love life like younger gay guys tend to do these days (and no problem with that, it's just a generational thing). He was about a quarter of my size and it was very platonic. I really like that we live in a time where it's not a big deal any more, at least not here in Sydney (there were a series of jokes doing the rounds a few years ago: "you know you're living in Sydney when...." and one of the funnier ones was "you know you're living in Sydney when your hairdresser is straight but your plumber is gay".)
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot about the company I worked for in the 2000s. A guy tried to Harvey one of the trainers when they were both working at a client site in Europe. This was in 2002. She told me about it a couple of years later and before she even said anything I knew who it was, the guy was an extremely intelligent high-functioning sociopath, initially charming but a major sneaky @sshole.