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Here's today's question: What are your boundaries for appropriate touch in the workplace? How do you deal when your boss, client, or coworkers touches you inappropriately, makes you feel uncomfortable, or generally creeps you out? Where is your personal line to get HR involved versus deal with it yourself by using a witty comeback or avoiding that person or situation again?
I recently heard a young woman speak about how, during her work in her 20s as a lobbyist, she often would get long, grabby hugs from men she was trying to lobby or otherwise work with. After a lot of these hugs, she finally devised a comeback for one of the repeat offenders: “Aww, it must be my lucky day — today I got the kind of hug you give your wife!” He never attempted it again.
Afterward, when I spoke to another woman in the audience about the “uncomfortable but not necessarily sexual” contact that women, particularly young women, often face in the workplace — from both men and women superiors, coworkers, clients, and others — we laughed about weird, uncomfortable touches we'd gotten over the years… The aforementioned grabby hug. The weird shoulder “pet” when someone tries to touch you to emphasize something but their hand lingers and does a kind of petting motion. That clammy handshake where they somehow find a way to massage your hand. I filed it away as an interesting discussion for here on the blog.
I was reminded of it this weekend as I read Neil deGrasse Tyson's response to the recent sexual abuse allegations against him; some are saying a lot of his behavior might have fit in this category. There's more to the story, and I don't know him or the women accusers, but I thought portions of the accusations, even from his own descriptions of them, sounded like they would be great illustrations for this post.
From the two less serious allegations, first in 2009:
A colleague at a well attended, after-conference, social gathering came up to me to ask for a photograph. She was wearing a sleeveless dress with a tattooed solar system extending up her arm. … I was reported to have “groped” her by searching “up her dress”, when this was simply a search under the covered part of her shoulder of the sleeveless dress.
And then from a 2018 incident (this was only part of the situation — and again, we're quoting his defense):
… I never touched her until I shook her hand upon departure. On that occasion, I had offered a special handshake, one I learned from a Native elder on reservation land at the edge of the Grand Canyon. You extend your thumb forward during the handshake to feel the other person’s vital spirit energy — the pulse. I’ve never forgotten that handshake, and I save it in appreciation of people with whom I’ve developed new friendships.
Just to reiterate again: I'm not trying to second-guess Tyson's account or the women's accounts — I don't know him or them, and I hope truth will out, whatever it may be. I just thought that his own tellings of “awkward but not inappropriate” behavior were more illustrative than a clumsy phrase like “grabby hug” or “massagey handshake.”
So let's discuss: What are the boundary lines for appropriate touch in the workplace? How SHOULD you respond when someone crosses a line? At what point do you come up with a witty comeback; at what point do you need to loop in a supervisor or HR? When does it cross the line from “awkward dude needs to be put in his place” to “abuse of power from a superior” or “hostile work environment”?
Pictured: Deposit Photos / photographee.eu.
desigirl
Aaand this is why I belive that the boundaries for touch in the workplace stop at a brief handshake!
anon
Exactly!
east coaster
Handshakes. Discreet high-five after you win a trial. That’s it.
Pants
Has anyone ever tried the American giant casual ponte pants? They show up constantly in my FB feed and they look like everything I dream of in a yoga pant – thick ponte, flattering, comfy, etc. But only available online, so I can’t try on. Any experiences, good or bad?
Maudie Atkinson
I have them. I like them, but I don’t love them. They aren’t as sturdy as my beloved J.Crew “any day” ponte pants, though the American Giant ones have the advantage of being less legging-like than the J.Crew ones. The fabric being thinner and stretchier than the J.Crew makes the American Giant pants feel a little less dressy than I wanted them to be, but I they work well with a tunic or otherwise over-sized top and loafers on a more casual day.
Anonymous
Agree with above, except I love mine. Find they are better for casual wear, for me.
Architect
I would love if colleagues, clients and vendors would just shake my hand. A real hand shake. Please don’t just shake my finger tips. I don’t want to receive a weird hug from anyone. Is that too much to ask? Sigh
Davis
+1
Yes! Don’t assume you’ll break my hand. Be a normal person and shake my hand, but absolutely nothing else.
Anon
Yesssss hate that.
Miss
My boss does this and it’s so hard to deal with. He touches the small of my back to “guide” me. He “helps” me out of costs and jackets. He goes for hugs way too often. He puts his arm over the back of my chair when he sits next to me. He pouts that I don’t confide in him. It all adds up to me being uncomfortable around him. He doesn’t do this to the men, but there’s nothing so overtly sexual that I can call him out so instead I do my best to avoid being too close to him. That’s hard because it’s a small office and we do things like get coffee and lunch together where if I stayed in my office I’d miss on networking. He is a big name and well respected in the community and is a great boss in other ways so I’m pretty much stuck protecting myself and avoiding him as much as possible until he retires (lucky for me that should be in the next few years). But it makes me frustrated and angry that I have to put up with it.
Vicky Austin
Commiseration. I hate people like that who waltz along the line and have no clue.
Unicorn?
I don’t think dudes like this have no clue. I think they know exactly what they are doing.
Torin
+1
Miss
Yep, I think he knows exactly what he’s doing but would act like I’m being crazy if I called him on it.
Ellen
He sounds like a lecche. At least my manageing partner does NOT like to touch us. The worst he used to do was to stare at me, but now he is MARRIED to Margie and has a child with her, so I do not feel like he looks at me in a sexueal way, which is a good thing. I think that all men who touch (even causally like Frank) ought to be called out on it so they will stop doeing it. FOOEY on men that need to touch us to get their jollie’s, as Dad says. Dad never did anything with any women stateside, he says, which leads Mom to believe that he was busy as heck trying to impregnate alot of women behind the Iron Curtan while he was stationed there b/f I was born and before Glazznost and Perestroika. I hope I do NOT have to many half brothers and sisters, but she says it is likeley, given his LIBIDO in those days.
Anonymous
I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I prefer a quick and casual “fake” hug to a handshake. I’d rather touch someones sleeves/have them touch my sleeves then actually have full on hand contact. Obviously this assumes no cheek kiss or attempt thereof with the hug.
Anonymous
Agreed. I’m sure this varies with geography, but I find a handshake to be quite formal/cold. The kind of hug you describe is more appropriate for someone you know well, even at work. You definitely have to know your audience though. If I’m not sure, I tend to do the two-handed handshake thing.
Small Firm IP Litigator
I work in CA, but am not American. Where I am from, a hug and air kiss on each side of the face is the norm, particularly for two women. I find a handshake for someone I know well terribly cold, but get that it is the social norm in the US, and go with that until I know someone well, and then just use judgment.
As for creepy things men do, it is so context dependent. Some hugs are creepy, some aren’t. Some older men I work with will often help me with my coat/hold the door for me/open a car door, in a completely non-creepy way. However, I cannot think of any context when anyone besides my husband touching the small of my back is appropriate.
Abroad Anon
I’m in Latin American now and I HAAAAATE the air kiss/cheek touch. I’m not your friend. I just met you. Or I work with you. Or you’re the client. Argh. I’d much prefer the cold/formal handshake. It’s business – stay out of my personal space. (For the record, I grit my teeth, smile, and air kiss..cultural norms and all that, but it totally skeeves me out.)
Anom
I’ve gotten the awkward hug and cheek kiss from European (German) colleagues visiting. But it’s never felt at all like it’s crossing the line. The hug is arms only, and the cheek kiss pretty much just air. It’s all about context, I guess. Personally, i’m happy with a firm handshake. Leave my hugs for non-work social settings.
pugsnbourbon
At a conference, a colleague and I went in for a hug (hugs are widespread in my field) – only I wasn’t expecting him to also do a cheek kiss and I turned my head waaaay too far.
He full-on kissed my ear. Oops.
Germphobe in Chicago
Side topic–Can we do away with servers giving handshakes when you get to the table? All I can think about is that the germs of everyone in the restaurant are on that poor person’s hands. And I wash my hands before eating but not many other folks get up to excuse themselves to do that. Just icks me
Then again, I hate the obligatory handshake before meetings, too. Actually, that’s almost worse because I can’t wash my hands as subtly no matter how much I want to.
DCR
wow, I’ve never had a server try to shake my hand. This happens to you a lot? In Chicago?
Anonymous
I have never seen this handshake from a server. It seems inappropriate and unnecessary for many reasons, including hygiene.
E
ditto — live in chicago but have never experienced this server/water handshake
Anonymous
Handshake. I received one hug from my (male) boss when I achieved a big accomplishment. It didn’t weird me out, but I’ve worked with him forever and he is apparently a unicorn who is socially appropriate to everyone, regardless of gender. It was appropriate for our relationship.
MagicUnicorn
“You extend your thumb forward during the handshake to feel the other person’s vital spirit energy — the pulse.”
Ugh, no. DH used to do things like this to me because he thinks it is intimate and s e x y. I find it viscerally repulsive, even coming from him, and have nearly taken his hand off in reacting to it. Thank god he took the (not at all subtle) hint and stopped.
nasty woman
There’s also a lot of ego in an action like this with a person you don’t know very, very well. What was the chance that this other woman knew about this special handshake that this oh so special man knew about because he was special and mystical? Probably next to nothing. Would she have perceived the specialness of this action? Would she have interpreted it as a genuine attempt to sense her vital spirit energy? (eww.) No. She’d be put off, understandably. But he didn’t care how she would perceive it, he did it because he wanted to do it. This was for his benefit, not hers.
It boils down to men’s failure to respect women’s autonomy, boundaries, and perceptions. He wants to be able to determine whether his behavior is acceptable because of what *he* meant by it, irrespective of how it made her feel. A woman’s experience of a man’s behavior isn’t what matters to him, or men who push boundaries like this. It’s his experience of his behavior that counts. This is, IMO, one of the biggest disconnects that prevents even #goodmen from grasping the issue of harassment. Ya know that old complaint that men have—- that if an attractive guy approaches a woman and hits on her it’s not creepy because he’s hot, but if an ugly guy hits on a woman, he’s a creep? Many men present this as a Great Injustice, a horrible double standard, where women are hypocritically deeming behavior okay in one circumstance but not another, when the only difference is how a man looks, and how are men supposed to know what behavior is okay if it’s totally subjective and up to a woman’s whims!?? Actually, it’s not an arbitrary distinction at all. Men who make this ‘argument’ are completely ignoring the woman’s subjective experience and how she perceives the behavior. Simplifying here, but creepiness is unwanted attention. If the guy is attractive, a woman likes his attention. Therefore, it’s not creepy. There are men who REFUSE to understand this and don’t believe that women should be able to determine whether behavior is wanted or unwanted.
Unicorn?
Well said!
Anonymous
re: your first paragraph: I’ve read his apology and that handshake thing to me seems really blown out of proportion. Not the fact that it made her uncomfortable, but that it was sooo obvious and he had to know it would. They worked together for months, had endless conversations about private matters, she offered hugs frequently. So it can be assumed that they are on some friendly basis. There is a difference between ‘hey work-friend, let me show you this Native American handshake I learned’ and ‘hey stranger I just met, let me creepily feel up your arm without providing context’.
Torin
I feel like in addition to the context of knowing the person well, it makes a difference whether he explained to her when he did it. It really wasn’t clear to me from his explanation. Just doing it with no explanation reads as creepy to me.
nasty woman
I don’t really understand your second sentence, Anonymous– are you saying that he should have known it would have made her uncomfortable? In any event, to be clear, I would not choose the handshake as my hill to die on and frankly wouldn’t see it as a big deal, personally. I don’t know a lot about the specific allegations. Did he explain to her at the time what he was doing? It’s still weird even if they know each other and all the sudden he starts touching her in an odd way if he didn’t clue her in. I just feel like his explanation displays the myopic, self-centered attitude that underlies a lot of worse behavior.
Anonymous
no, I meant that although it made her uncomfortable, from their previous history it’s conceivable to me that he assumed it wouldn’t.
Yeah, I guess I totally assumed he explained the handshake, and didn’t just suddenly do a weird thing while staring deep into her eyes. But his statement wasn’t very explicit on that point.
Anonymous
“It’s fine if I think you’re hot and creepy if I think you’re ugly/too old” is a terrible place to draw this line. Men are not wrong about this. This is a terrible standard for women to set.
Anonymous
No, women are under no obligation to find any man attractive or want special attention from any of them. There isn’t a baseline of entitlement here. There’s no question of fairness or of criticizing a woman’s standards, because no one is owed any of this.
Anonymous
Fair, but you don’t get to go out to drinks with one of your supervisors and then report another one to HR merely for making the invitation. Nor do you get to accept a warm embrace from one and then report another to HR for doing a side hug at the annual retreat.
Anonymous
This seems like a reasonable perspective from HR or management who want to outline guidelines of acceptable behavior for everyone to follow to stay out of trouble whatever is going through their heads.
But it’s not reasonable for the guy who wants to touch a woman who doesn’t want to be touched to act as though e.g., a hug is either categorically acceptable or categorically unacceptable. Making it about the hug and not about whether the other human being is comfortable or not (or in a position to express discomfort or not) is disingenuous.
Anonymous
In my experience, men are much more aware of what is appropriate and inappropriate in terms of touch in the workplace than in terms of what they say. Even the densest man can understand a bright-line rule that only handshakes are acceptable, even if he’s clueless about why it’s not okay to ask me what my husband thinks about the fact that I travel for work or to comment on how the fact that I’m not fat made my presentation more effective.
That said … I hate all touch in a professional context. I don’t like handshakes, I don’t like the way *I* end up feeling somehow aggressive when I initiate the handshake that I assume is required but the man on the other end is hesitant about shaking hands with a woman (happens frequently), and I don’t like the way women I’ve met a few times in a professional context want to hug me. It’s all just so icky and awkward.
Unicorn?
Right. If a guy claims he doesn’t know what’s acceptable, look to see if he’s hugging (or whatever) men. How about people he perceives as peers? How about people he perceives as superiors?
Anonymous
Does NDT not realize that in trying to defend himself he is just digging himself deeper?
Anon
I thought his defense helped and sounded reasonable (the whole bit, not just the part Kat quoted). I still think I would have been uncomfortable with his behavior and avoided him in the future or spoken up, but I wouldn’t publicly accuse him of sexual harassment.
Anonymous
I agree that under the circumstances, it was probably handled as good as it could be handled. I read his response as ‘here is why these encounters seemed innocent from my point of view, but I apologize for harm that I’ve done’. I wrote above that the handshake to me seems to be not on the same level as pushing up someone’s sleeves, not to mention the rape/drug allegations. It’s just weird to me how we are focusing on that handshake the most.
Torin
I can only recall one weird uncomfortable touching incident: I was sitting in the courthouse waiting for the jury to deliberate. The only people in the courtroom were the attorneys for both sides (so probably 6 people in a fairly large room). It had been a few hours, so I had kicked my shoes off and put my feet up on a bench in front of me. Outside counsel, a man in his 70’s, to my woman in my early 30’s, came and sat down next to me and _tickled my feet_. At the time I was so startled, all I did was take my feet off the bench and put them on the floor. This was a couple of years ago. I still work with this outside counsel on other cases and I really, really, really wish I had said something. It made me incredibly uncomfortable. I didn’t find it sexual in any way or threatening, but I did find it inappropriate demeaning, and I just cannot conceive of a universe in which he would have done that to a man.
I occasionally hug coworkers I have known for a very long time if something big happens. But mostly? Handshakes and only handshakes. And not weird pulse finding ones either.
Anonymous
Was it weird? Sure, although I feel like taking off your shoes and propping up your feet in court is a little strange too.
Torin
No judge present, time of day was approximately 10 PM. No it wasn’t the most professional thing I could have done, but thanks for criticizing my behavior as though it’s relevant to his.
Anonymous
Yeah, wow. I’m not a lawyer, but based on what you describe, it seems like it would be akin to my being barefoot in a late night meeting with clients in finance, and I can’t imagine you thinking that’s appropriate. Not that he was either, but maybe it was a passive aggressive way of telling you to put your feet down and put your shoes on?
Torin
Are you suggesting that it was OK to be weird and inappropriate if he was trying to correct my behavior? I hope you’re not. It doesn’t matter anyway because if that was what he was trying to do, he could have used his words. But it wasn’t. He made a cooing noise as he did it, as though I were a baby, and laughed after he did it because he thought it was a funny joke.
I’m not going to respond to any other comments on my behavior here. I acknowledge it wasn’t the most professional thing I could have done, and actually I probably shouldn’t have done it. But the point of telling the story was to discuss a situation in which a man was weirdly touchy in a work context, not to discuss whether it’s cool to take your shoes off at 10 PM in a courtroom where no judge or jury is present and you’ve been waiting for a verdict without being able to leave for 6 hours. I’m not even remotely interested in the latter discussion.
Maybe 33% of practicing lawyers are women.
Hey, hey, everybody, did you forget to start the thread with “women’s bodies are public property,” again? Torin, spell check does not like your name and yes, it is always inappropriate for a male lawyer to tickle your foot or feet. No context exists where unwanted touching is your fault. Be well. The legal profession is pretty awesome for women.
Any other lady lawyers have the experience of a male coworker coming around your desk and leaning over you (like a creepy canopy) to “help” you with your computer?
Gluten Free
The problem is that taking the shoes off changes the dynamic. It can innocently be mis-read as a cue of I’m “goofing off/blowing off steam/relaxing a bit” here which changes the context entirely. It’s like you shot a spitball––a signal of the desire to deviate from professional norms. (No judgment from me on that–I actually think it’s a good thing to be human every now and then.) And he could be creepy–but he could just as easily be genuinely good-naturedly joking around with you. And, yes, I can see him doing that just as easily with a man. Or a woman to another woman. People get punchy after long days. The coochie coo noise like you would do with a baby only makes it seem more like he was just trying to lighten the mood rather than pushing boundaries of a sexual nature. People aren’t immediately agreeing with you because it’s not a clear push for power or any malice. It may be. But it could just as likely be bad judgment on identifying who is willing to shoot a spitball back.
cbackson
…I’ve definitely taken my shoes off during a late-night working session with clients, tbh.
KC
I’ve been on the receiving end of “awkward but inappropriate” from a “nutty professor” scientist. It came two years into working peripherally in collaboration, after one too many creepy sentiments about my boss and I looking pretty and similar ‘awkwardness’. It was a creepy-ass email that included an invitation for private lessons – I called him on it to let him know it was inappropriate, and he claimed awkwardness as his excuse. Regardless of intent, awkward scientists need to understand the difference between awkward and inappropriate. It didn’t end well – he now refuses to talk to me whatsoever, which has damaged my career by de facto excluding me from working on certain projects. And that’s the part that hurts the most.
Anonymous
As a sometimes-L&E lawyer, the part of NDT’s explanation that stuck out for me as actionable conduct was his statement to the woman that he was declining her offered hug because it might make him want more. That takes the conduct from basically innocuous and consensual/invited to a discussion of actual se*ual/romantic activity.
Jaydee
Yeah, he lost me there as well.
Anon
I had a former female boss who used to touch every one a lot (male and female, subordinates and her managers). I have never been touched so much at work. She would do things like holding my hand when she wants to explain something, putting her arm around my shoulder, rubbing my back, slapping my wrist and one day hitting on the back of a male colleague so hard that every one stopped what they were doing to see what happened(I work in tech with open office). It was so weird and I had to control impulsively retreating when she touched me as I felt it so uncomfortable.
Minneapolis
I am repeatedly subjected to the fist bumps and high fives from my SVP (I’m in banking). He has been here two years while I have been here six and the branch president about 20. All other employees are 2-3 years also. I work closely as both the president’s and SVP’s assistant so being perceived as “rude” to who will most likely be my next boss would be career killing. After thinking it had come to an end due to a long hiatus, I had to endure yet another decision that I couldn’t “leave him hanging” and had to return his immature, gross physical contact of a fist bump. I’ve tired of trying to convince myself that I’m the immature, unfriendly one and I finally thanked the president in our monthly 1-on-1 last week, “… for not making me fist bump or high five you.” His reply was “really? He does that?” to which I replied, “I don’t even touch my husband that much.” That got his attention and thankfully he followed up with, “yeah, you’ve got to be careful with that stuff…” I’ve worked with the president long enough to know that it will most likely get around to where it needs to and I’m sure he’ll inquire at our next meetings if it has continued. I just don’t want to touch the people I work with – is that so hard? And I’m tired of telling myself to quit being so sensitive to someone that’s obviously not doing anything outright that “wrong”. …. But it IS wrong. I don’t want to touch him – or anyone else. How does one tactfully convey that after what would be an awkward period of time (although he’s been here two years, this has only really began happening in the last year)?