CMoore (#5) makes some good points, but then resorts to sarcasm, which demeans his basically good arguments.
The entire mess we now find ourselves in regarding all this, comes down to many men AND women in positions of power and responsibility, BOTH not accepting responsibility for their actions, and not displaying the critical thinking skills and the maturity (which they may not have to begin with) to set the standards of their conduct in the workplace. Fortunately in the latter two businesses I ran, good conduct policies were in place and these enabled rational decisions to
In my long careers in media, as a photographer and an architect, I have had to deal with many such situations in the workplace, which were by and large most unpleasant to try to resolve. In many cases the parties involved were often less than truthful in their accusations, counter accusations and arguments and no end of hidden agendas small and large became evident and had to be resolved.
These situations usually involved a lack of critical thinking by the parties involved. They weren't at all pleasant and a monumental waste of valuable work time in arbitrating and resolving the conflicts (which were almost always deeper than only the sexual misconduct) without having to take any draconian actions such as dismissals. In almost every case one or both parties involved were resentful and resigned not long after, sadly but truthfully to everyone's relief.
Some (mostly government and large corporations) employers have definite policies regarding sexual exploitation by ALL staff, and have appointed staff to appropriately enforce these by ensuring that ALL employees, land male, are aware of them and guide themselves by them. Unfortunately, many small businesses are run as in-house petty dictatorships by their owners, particularly in family businesses where kin folk without any particular skills or talents in anything get given senior positions and then act as if the employees are their servants or slaves or even playthings.
We need look no further than in politics (in the USA and Australia but by no means only in these) to find noteworthy and even blatant examples of power being abused in sexist or exploitative ways. Also of a prevailing "it's okay, they have money/power and so are above the law" attitude to the abuses of power etc etc etc that are being done.
The is entirely too much "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude being displayed in what has become a very serious issue. It now seems obvious to most intelligent people that it IS broke and it's high time we took positive steps to fix it. even if it means demolishing and rebuilding entire systems and removing serial offenders at the top.
MattKing (#6) has written a sensible explanation of the too-overused term "alleged".
chip j (#7), respectfully assuming that you are not an alcoholic who feels threatened by this discussion, would you please explain (sparing us the F-expletives, which demean and denigrate what if anything you were trying to say) just you meant by your post? What you wrote provided little if anything meaningful to the debate and rated only an Australian Bogan Alert citation.
