I call them the six D’s: Dismiss, Disparage, Disconcert, Dissemble, Discriminate, and Dishearten. In the following excerpt from my book, Savvy Women: Gaining Ground at Work, I explore the third D: Disconcert.

Disconcert

To Disconcert is to make you uncomfortable. Many of us have encountered disconcerting attacks when we find ourselves in a situation where we are a threat to others. This generally comes in the form of finding our vulnerabilities, and pushing on them.

When Shirley’s company reorganized and brought another woman in as her manager, the new woman was threatened by Shirley’s strong connections and experience within the division. She launched multiple tactics against Shirley, including withholding information and keeping her off key teams. Then she would pull Shirley aside and tell her “Your colleagues are worried about you,” – refusing to provide further details on who had said what. According to Shirley, “It was crazy-making. I had never in my career gotten that kind of negative feedback, and there was not enough detail for me to refute the claims.”

Working Mother Guilt

When I was up for a promotion years ago, and my manager wanted to give it to my male colleague, he pushed back on me by honing in on my “working mother guilt”. He thought that if he pushed hard enough, explaining that the job would require long hours and travel and an inability to accommodate my children’s schedule, I would drop my application rather than choose between work and family. Details from this story are in Chapter 12 of Savvy Women: Gaining Ground at Work.

‘Mad Men’ is not just historical fiction

Blatant sexual harassment and innuendo still exists in some workplaces. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission summarizes the laws on harassment:

“It is unlawful to harass a person because of that person's sex. Harassment can include "sexual harassment" or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person's sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.”

When Karen first started working in HR at the automotive group, she was amazed at the amount of sexual harassment that was tolerated – and sometimes encouraged. Salesmen surfing pornography on the showroom floor, men making sexual and suggestive comments to female coworkers, excessive profanity, etc. In this type of environment, it would be nearly impossible for a woman to be comfortable or to advance her career

Serious Discomfort

Two days after starting her job, Karen was called by one of the managers at a dealership to investigate a sexual harassment claim. She and her director, Susan, headed to the dealership together.

They sat in the manager’s office and waited while he brought in the young woman. She walked in, looking a little jittery, eyes looking at Karen and Susan and then away as she took a seat. She was young, maybe twenty, smooth dark hair pulled back into a low ponytail, slim except for the bulging belly she seemed to be protecting, arms wrapped around and cradling it with her small hands. Susan smiled at her reassuringly.“

June, I understand you had a problem here. Can you tell us what happened?”

June looked up at her manager, face reddening, and stammered, “Well, John over in Sales said something that made me uncomfortable. He’s done it before, you know.” She looked back down at her hands, caressing her belly, and gave a little shudder.

Karen took in the situation, and then asked the manager to step outside and give them some privacy. She leaned forward to the pregnant girl, and asked, “To the best of your recollection, can you tell me exactly the words that he said?”

June’s face reddened more deeply, and she wrapped her arms around her chest then her brow furrowed as she brought back the exact words. “He asked me, ‘When are you going to get milk in your boobs?’ And then he said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll see when you have spots on your shirt - then I’ll know.’” June’s eyes filled and she rocked in her chair a little as she said it. She looked away.

“Thank you for telling us,” Susan said to her. “It was right to bring this to our attention. We will take it from here.” Karen left to speak to the manager, while Susan stayed to talk further with June. 

Defending and Denial

When Karen walked outside, she found the General Manager and CEO laughing together. The General Manager was making light of the situation. “Oh, sexual harassment - he doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just being funny. You know John’s one of our top salesmen, right? He’s been with the company for years.” The CEO nodded. “I know. Good guy. Maybe not the smartest, but you know how these things are.” The two of them shook their heads a little, smiling.

Karen interrupted. “You know you could lose your dealership over that, right?”

The men stopped smiling and looked at her.

“You have someone under 21, spoken to by a man in that manner, you know about it, I know about it. You have to do something.” She turned to the CEO. “And I’m not referring to just this one store. You could lose your whole dealership over this. If you want to do battle for this guy and risk your whole dealership, that’s your business, but you need to know what you are risking.”

The CEO swallowed hard and glared at Karen. “Uh, I need to fire him?”

“Yeah, you need to fire him,” Karen responded.

It all piles up

It’s easy to see how uncomfortable such a comment would be for June. This is classic harassment, whether it was meant that way or not. It creates a hostile work environment.

Not everything is so obvious. If you find yourself uncomfortable by what someone is saying or doing, pay attention to what is happening. It may be a tactic to disconcert you – take you off your game.