Anti-harassment

On Tuesday I spent the morning at an anti-harassment seminar for work. No, I hadn't done anything to prompt them sending me to it. It was required of all employees. I think our new Human Resource Director is working on adding to her accomplishment list. No actually, I do know of a few instances at work where there have been problems and more than a few employees could really benefit from some reminders from the trainer.

So as I sat there I kept thinking about instances where I have felt harassment or other forms of bullying and intimidation. Not surprisingly most have not occurred in the workplace. I am rarely at my office, I work from home, part-time and deal with a pretty limited group of co-workers. But I have definitely felt harassment, bullying and intimidation in both the Girl Scout arena (where the bylaws and Girl Scout Law strictly forbid it yet it happens all the time) and in the completely unregulated homeschooling society.

Let's have a show of hands, who here has felt intimidated by a group of homeschoolers who all share similar religious beliefs that are different from your own? Either in person or online? Yep, I thought so most of us. Who has actually been put down either verbally or online because you disagree with someone's religious views? Let's expand it to differing homeschool styles? Or even differences in parenting styles and beliefs?

Yep, it happens constantly. If this were a workplace, that would all be illegal. At least the differences in religious beliefs, which I think we can safely extend to the creation versus evolution debate. I didn't ask the trainer but I'm pretty sure parenting styles and homeschool styles are not protected classes by law. I think he would have looked at me like I was a freak if I'd asked.

Have you ever sat through a homeschool park day or group meeting and not said a word because you disagreed with the beliefs the others were expressing? And how about when the others have been criticizing and belittling things that you do believe in? Have you done the little weak laugh when everyone else in the group was making fun of someone, because you really didn't feel up to standing up to them on that particular day? Have you ever left a homeschool forum because you were insulted or bothered by the negative comments being made about your religious, personal, homeschooling, or parenting beliefs? If so, you my friend have been the victim of harassment.

One big thing that was discussed was my company's zero tolerance for retaliation. You cannot retaliate against anyone for making claims against you. (I'm assuming this puts an end to my original plan if I were ever the victim of sexual harassment in the workplace. I intended to punch the offender square in the face and march straight to the office of one of the managing partners and tell him to keep his employee's paws off me. Well, I still might do it if the situation ever arises. It will be worth being fired over.)

Have you been left out of public homeschool events because of a personal dispute with someone about styles or beliefs? Fewer hands this time, but I'm guessing that's because we've chosen not to associate with those that have offended us. I have had holes bored through me with eyes after disagreeing with someone. I've been banned from a homeschool website that I had said I was willingly leaving because I found the other members' statements not only hurtful and mean but downright filled with hate and bigotry. (She didn't have to ban me, I had said I was never returning.) I guess we've pretty much figured out our own way of avoiding retaliation, we avoid the harassers.

Harassment occurs all the time in our homeschooling world. What kind of lesson are we teaching our children? We say one of the reasons we choose to homeschool is that we want to control what sort of social situations our children are exposed to. Then we expose them to this. You would think that since we are such a minority in society that we would be more supportive of each other. Yet we are not. We go past the simple lack of encouragement into the realm of intolerance and hatred. It is a real shame we can't put personal beliefs aside and get along better. Especially if we are doing this for the reason we say we are. For the children.