Are these sexual harassments? It feels to me most of the things she defines as such are simply flirting and asking someone out, which I don't think should be banned in a company.
Sure, the guy who kept touching her after she asked to stop should have and can probably be deemed and harassment and the man who grabbed her ass definitely did harass her.
But all the others? I mean the worse one appears to be one guy who called her at 4 in the morning once, sure that's inappropriate, but I wouldn't deem it an harassment.
It's sad that she got panic attacks from this.
One shouldn't feel bad while working, on the other hand however people should still be allowed to flirt; how else are you going to meet a companion?
At SpaceX, we're told we can change the world. I couldn't, however, stop getting sexually harassed. https://www.lioness.co/post/at-spacex-we-re-told-we-can-change-the-world-just-don-t-try-to-stop-the-sexual-harassment
@sojournTime
Yes, definitely HR was not doing a great job and should have done something to help her and her colleagues to have a better experience.
I do not agree with you, I don't see how sending a message over Instagram to ask a colleague out could be considered harassment.
Sure, if someone did so persistently that would be unpleasant; but receiving a message once doesn't really create any kind of problems to you: you can simply say no and go on.
This is my opinion; why would you classify that as harassment?
So I think context matters in this case. In my opinion, the fact that she was getting messages once the pandemic hit probably indicates she did not willingly share her Instagram with these people. Thus, it seems like a bit of an invasion of privacy to simply just message her out of the blue on a platform she did not share with you. Think of it as having your phone number publicized without your consent.
Again, context is key. If she verbally shared her Instagram with them, then maybe I wouldn't classify this as harassment. But based on the context, it seems like she didn't.
@sojournTime
Sure, I imagine she did not share her Instagram account with them.
I would still not consider this harassment.
Regarding the privacy invasion: as far as I know on Instagram you can mark some stuff to be public and other to be seen to only people you select (at least, I think it is so).
I wouldn't see an harassment to have my phone number shared with one person that wants to get in touch with me, while I would disapprove of publishing it for anyone to see with my private information attached, but this is not the case.
If someone I didn't give my phone number to calls me to invite me on a date, I might accept or reject the invitation.
I may think about how this person obtained my phone number and maybe have a laugh imagining how that happened, but I would not feel harassed.
I don't see what's the harassment there.
As long of course they don't insist in calling me repeatedly after I told them no, but this is not the case.
@rastinza
The fact that people were messaging her over Instagram to ask her out is kind of excessive. Also, the fact that when she met with HR, they hadn't heard of any of her incidents despite reporting them almost immediately after they occurred. That's a big red flag for HR, especially for a large company like SpaceX.
I know flirting is a delicate line to toe, but it seems like all of these incidents crossed a line. These incidents definitely fall under harassment, at least in my opinion.