Are Meetings the Perfect Place for Sexual Harassment?
Photo Credit: Attendees at a conference for the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Flickr / NCDOTcommunications
Skift Take
The jury is still out on whether tweaking events can eliminate sexual harassment incidents — maybe that’s too easy of a fix. But if the better answer is communication and education, is the meeting industry providing that support?
If ever an industry appeared perfectly suited to provoking sexual harassment, it would be meetings and events.
A witch’s brew of ingredients — attendees being away from home, hotel environments, and free-flowing alcohol at no cost to the drinkers — seems to create the ideal environment for incidents that run afoul of the #MeToo movement… right?
Not necessarily. There are countless examples of people overstepping their bounds while at an event, but alcohol and late night parties aren't always to blame. Human nature, as we know, needs no excuse to exert itself.
“There is a real problem with people thinking that things only happen in ‘the dark alley’ or at events where drinking occurs,” s
