Female Yahoo! exec accused of sexual harassment by female employee

Yep, the FHM is at this very moment seizing up and spitting out inky black diesel smoke, the kind that makes you want to cover your face with a wet cloth and hit the deck, for if you don't you'll pass out due to O2 deprivation and roll off the side of the ship when the next wave hits.

OK, here goes. At once, it's entirely possible not only for women to sexually harass others of either sex, just as men can do so, but like men they can do so in a way that is statutorily defined so that it's fit as a legal case. A harasser can target ppl of their own sex, the opposite sex, or transgendered ppl. It's an EOE, as well as being blind to who the target is. Not too much different from death and taxes, with that last being questionable if you're a big-ass multinational company with really good accountants/tax attorneys. But I digress. :)

So is the Y! exec possibly guilty? Sure. But is it also possible her accuser is lying? Also, sure. Generally I tend to lean on the side of the accuser (regardless of the genders involved) if the following is true: 1. There is little for the accuser to gain aside from getting the harassment stopped and wanting to see justice served. Gaining just compensation for the mental anguish is included, most especially if a civil tort and not a criminal charge is all the relief the accuser can pursue, 2. The length of time involved was reasonably limited if the alleged period of harassment was more than a single improper advance or even a couple, provided it was not ongoing, 3. There seems to be as little cooperation in the activity as needed to fulfill the alleged harasser's demands, and 4. The accused can show that failing to comply would have resulted in significant hardship/inconvenience vs. minor/temporary. All that aside, even if none of the above is true, a person attempting to or succeeding at coercing another into a sexual rel'p is always wrong. What my list above is just what I use to make sure my tendency to believe the accuser at least initially is justified. An accuser who has something significant to lose, esp. personally, by going public, also makes me lean toward believing them.

All that said, I am skeptical of the accuser's claim. Here's why: 1. The rel'p she says she was coerced into lasted by her own admission if not a year than almost a year. That's a long time to put up with being coerced into a sexual rel'p. 2. They lived together. That is pretty strange. Unrelated ppl who met recently wherein one has coerced by threats of employment termination to live with the other and then the alleged victim not only complies but remains for a year is pretty out there. But couldn't the alleged victim have just done then what she has now: Gotten a lawyer? Possibly you may say she was new to the US, but I'm pretty sure China has lawyers too, and that they also have laws vs. sexual harassment. But if for some reason they don't, she could have discussed the issue with other expat Chinese in the area, of which there are many in Silicon Valley. 3. She has a lot to gain by pursuing this suit. CA juries are notoriously unsympathetic w/ big corp'ns, even if the corp'ns are in the right abt something, so suing one often at least yields a pre-trial payout even if justice isn't served. This is pretty well-known in Cali.

My own suspicion is that this was a romantic rel'p that ended badly and now one person wants to mess with the other. I could be 100% wrong though and admit I only know what the article says, so my suspicion re the issue is from partial info. and absent knowledge of any details betw. the parties involved. So by no means is it my final opinion, just my initial belief.

Lesson 1: Don't fish off the company pier. It can get you into embarrassing situations, regardless of whether you're the angler or the fish.
Lesson 2: If the accusation be false, know that leveling false accusations is gender-blind in any given combination.
Lesson 3: If the accusation be true, know that anyone can exploit a position of power over anyone else in this fashion. It's an EOE.