Davos 2018: When it Comes to Harassment, ‘Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant”

As I joined global leaders across government, academia and business at the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s annual convening in Davos, Switzerland last week, one mantra quickly became outstandingly clear: sexual harassment-- and the policies, people, and social norms that enable it-- are facing their day of reckoning.

The rallying cry for diversity that has dominated industry conversations caught new fire after each high-profile allegation of misconduct over the last few months, igniting movements like #MeToo and Times Up.

And Davos—ironically a gathering sometimes criticized for a scarcity of female voices and its elitist perspectives -- seems to have found secure footing in this public-driven demand to demolish the status quo around inequality and harassment.  For the first time in its 48-year history, the 2018 summit was chaired entirely by women—standing in stark contrast to CES just two weeks prior.

But talk is talk, and the question remains: just how long and loud do we have to scream “Me Too” before the reverberations actually break that glass ceiling?

The discussions last week did highlight a few avenues to enable systematic change:

Make Room for Women in Positions of Power

There’s a reason perpetrators are described as predators—they’re almost always in a position to wield power—physical, professional, social—over their victims.

“There are some default tendencies that define men and women and one of the biggest is that men tend to take more risks, be more aggressive and they tend to sexualize things,” argues Dacher Keltner, a Berkley Professor of Psychology who joined me on a WEF panel at Davos discussing Gender, Power and Stemming Sexual Harassment. “If you give a man power, those default tendencies will be more expressed. Women tend to be more collaborative, cooperative, empathetic. You give them more power, studies show it will amplify those prosocial tendencies,” says Keltner.

Although women make up 52% of the workforce in the US, they hold only 20% of board seats and 6% of CEO spots at Fortune 500 companies.

The presence of women in high positions is also seen as the most crucial step in clearing the climate of fear and intimidation that so often prevents victims from coming forward.

Educate. Train. Discuss. Repeat.

As a society, we have to re-learn where that line is before we know when it’s been crossed. It’s why the Ad Council is proud to partner with actor and producer David Schwimmer and writer and director Sigal Avin to launch this week a series of PSAs, called #ThatsHarassment, that empower victims and bystanders to speak out.

 “For me, the biggest achievement of '#ThatsHarassment’ is giving harassment a face,” Avin said. “Taking what some consider “a grey area” and making it clear, will minimize the phenomenon.”

The campaign also encourages employers to use the films for training to proactively address and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. In partnership with National Women’s Law Center, there’s a digital toolkit, downloaded at NWLC.org/ThatsHarassment, that includes “10 Ways Your Company Can Help Prevent Harassment in the Workplace” as well as a Discussion Guide for employers.

Show That This is a Human Problem, Not a Female Problem.

If it’s just women fighting for women, we’ll never gain ground. Men are an essential piece of the equality equation.

For many years, I was working to help sway public support for marriage equality and our work reached  a critical inflection point when our straight allies joined us in this effort . It couldn’t just be gay people advocating for “gay” rights—we had to invert the conversation and make it about all humans advocating for equal rights. That shift and that framing was a crucial part of our success.

And it’s about time business, government… the world… wakes up: what happens when you leave half of your talent, creativity and brainpower behind? Who suffers? Is it women, or is it everyone? I challenge someone to find the data that shows how much harassment is costing us, economically, each year that we make women feel unsafe at work, that we demoralize and demean them.

The public tide is building to be a fast and powerful current—one that promises to derail any perpetrator in its wake, regardless of the established power and patriarchy he might have behind him.

As more and more individuals come forward, it’s essential that business, nonprofit and government leaders work together, that we fully leverage this watershed moment of momentum and support, and that we create the systematic change that will end sexual harassment once and for all.