New Consulting Firm Offers Unconscious Harassment Training
FIDI, SAN FRANCISCO — Seeing an opportunity in the wave of sexual harassment allegations sweeping Silicon Valley, a new diversity consulting firm is now offering unconscious harassment training to venture capitalists and tech executives.
In the last few months, dozens of women have come forward with stories of being sexually harassed or assaulted by powerful men in the tech world. Many have kept quiet about their experiences fearing retribution from the firms or colleagues affiliated with their harassers — until now.
But while some people see the situation as a crisis, Diversitas Consulting sees an opportunity. Partner Ryan Ferris noticed an interesting trend. “In almost all of these cases of sexual harassment, the harassers didn’t seem to notice that they were exhibiting behavior that would be harmful to their future careers.”
One client sought the help of Diversitas after being publicly shamed for inviting his female co-worker to a threesome. When Halting Problem contacted him for comment, he told us, “I don’t clearly remember the events of that night, but I am convinced that I did nothing wrong. And besides, that girl was coming on to me anyway.”
Diversitas Consulting’s new program is aimed at making privileged men in Silicon Valley aware of their behaviors — such as making aggressive sexual advances or initiating inappropriate physical contact — in order to prevent them from having to make embarrassing, half-hearted Medium apology posts in the future.
The program draws heavily on lessons from unconscious bias training to make clients cognizant of their behavior. Diversitas initially had difficulty appealing to its clients’ sense of morality, finding that many could not understand that harassing women was wrong. However, the program has found greater success in changing their clients’ behavior by appealing to their sense of cost efficiency, arguing that curbing their harassment was cheaper than having to hire expensive lawyers or PR firms when the truth inevitably came out.
“Evidently we’re a long ways away from the day where a woman in tech doesn’t have to worry about being sexually harassed,” said Mr. Ferris. “But with this training, I think we’re really embodying the true spirit of Silicon Valley. We’re protecting the careers of powerful men, we’re preventing women from being harassed, and we’re making a buck while doing it.”
