I recently attended a "Predatory Behavior in the workplace" seminar at USC. This discussion was led by Dr. Debbie Dougherty from the University of Missouri. Overall, this seminar really opened my eyes to how common and dark this issue really is in our society. Dr. Dougherty defined what inappropriate behavior in the work place is and used key examples to emphasize how recurring this issue is. She started off the presentation by defining predatory behavior as a disease and listed out notable known organizations today infected. It was shocking how long that list truly is. What Dr. Dougherty highlighted was that she made that list in "under 5 minutes."
Dr. Dougherty then went into the traditional approach our society commonly takes when addressing sexual harassment. She spoke about how this approach is overly simplistic and focuses only on the perpetrator and the target. She talked about how our society has normalized sexual harassment by thinking that it is just a problem between two people when in reality it is a multilevel phenomenon. Dr. Daugherty spoke about how this issue is tremendously overlooked and predators often hide in the background. To highlight how overlooked this issue is, she had us all point out everything in the room that was red and then write down everything that was green.
In addition to how in the background the predators are, Dr. Daugherty also pointed out other common traits including heroic qualities. All in all, I really learned a lot from this seminar. I truly had no idea how common and mistreated this problem is. It gave me a clear understanding for what to look for as I enter the work place in the near future.
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