Studying Harm with McKensie Mack, Caroline Sinders, and Yang Hong

Strong Feelings

It’s no secret that the shift to remote work during COVID-19 has been stressful and isolating. But for many, the online workplace has also led to increased harassment, hostility, and harm.

McKensie Mack, Caroline Sinders, and Yang Hong are co-authors of a new report from Project Include all about harassment, harm, and hostility in the remote workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included data from almost 3,000 survey respondents as well several first-person accounts of how remote workplaces can exacerbate harm. The report aims to provide not only a comprehensive picture of the trauma faced by various groups of tech professionals but also tools for companies to correct harm and become more trauma-informed.

There are a lot of ways in which, for example, trans women and non-binary people experience transphobia in the workplace, and it's not considered to be harassment. And I think it has a lot to do with the ways in which we define what harm is. And so in our work, especially, the fact that trans people are nearly twice as likely to have experienced gender-based harm than their peers, the fact that Black non-binary people, Black women are nearly three times as likely to experience race-based harm in the workplace as their peers, it tells us a lot about the ways in which gender impacts how people are experiencing harm in a workplace and how it amplifies that experience.

—McKensie Mack, CEO of MMG and co-author, Project Include report

We talk about:

• Which groups have been disproportionately affected by remote work
• What we mean by “harm” and “harassment”
• What harmful workplace practices look like, and how workplaces can become more trauma-informed
• Strategies for how to handle or intervene in a harmful workplace

Plus: in this week’s You’ve Got This, Sara talks steps for using your privilege to speak up against a toxic work environment. Ask yourself: what are the harmful behaviors that you've been tolerating in your team or in your company? What's stopping you from speaking up about those? Is it that you are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing? For all this and more, head over to https://www.activevoicehq.com/podcast.

Links:

• Project Include Remote Work Report
• McKensie Mack
• Caroline Sinders
• Yang Hong
• Pods and Pod Mapping
• Against “Feel Free To Take Some Time if You Need It”
• adrienne maree brown on principled struggle
• Active Voice