Prior to arriving at last year’s Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Annual Convention and Expo in Denver, FormFree Chief Operating Officer Claire Weber methodically went through a pre-arrival checklist.
Bring enough business cards. Arrange as many one-on-one meetings with important contacts as possible. And, yes, don’t forget to warn her new female colleague about the sexual harassment she’d likely encounter at the gathering.
“I got straight to the point: At this conference one or more of the following will happen—you will be spoken to inappropriately, looked at inappropriately, touched inappropriately, have comments about your appearance or clothing made, have inappropriate invitations extended to you,” Weber wrote in an article on MBA’s website.
“One way or another, you will be treated as a sexual object instead of a business professional,” she warned. “You have FormFree’s and my full support to reject any of this without question. It is not okay under any circumstance.”
The fintech executive’s warning may seem overreaching, but hours after the convention started she said she was forced to intervene to stop an influential industry professional from harassing the employee she’d warned. Even though Weber had anticipated such boorish behavior, she still felt shocked and was unsure how to react.
“This is the insidious nature of these interactions. This man was, after all, very powerful and…What would happen if I said something?” Weber questioned herself. “Would it make him uncomfortable? What if he retracted business?”
Much of the recent publicity regarding sexual harassment has centered on alleged predators in Hollywood, the media and in Congress, but a recent survey by MBA indicates sexual harassment also is a big problem in the real estate and finance industry. MBA surveyed 2,000 of its female members on sexual harassment.
Of the nearly 14 percent who responded, 75 percent reported they’d experienced at least one work-related sexual harassment incident. The survey also found younger women were more likely to be targeted for harassment than their older colleagues, as 87 percent of respondents reported incidents while in their twenties, and 56 percent reported experiencing incidents in their thirties.
According to the survey, the most-frequent type of harassment was inappropriate comments, and the most-frequent setting for the harassment was the office. More than 50 percent of respondents reported at least one incident involving inappropriate touching, and slightly less than half of the women surveyed said they experienced unwanted sexual advances.
“Women provided a wide range of examples of inappropriate comments from remarks that were played off as a joke to specific comments about body parts, sexual innuendos and name calling,” Marcia Davies, chief operating officer of MBA and founder of mPower, the association’s networking group for women, told The Title Report. “This behavior is unacceptable, disrespectful and it demeans the amazing contributions women make every day. It needs to stop.”
A mere 8 percent of the women who said they’d experienced sexual harassment reported the incident to human resources; and only 20 percent told anyone in their chain of command.
“Unfortunately, a common theme of not being supported or believed by management contributed to why women chose not to report the incident. In fact, some women said that they were blamed and their comments were dismissed after reporting the incident,” Davies said. “With today’s focus on #MeToo, I sincerely hope with this heightened awareness, leaders across our industry will take sexual misconduct incidents seriously and act immediately to support the employee who was impacted.”
Weber said she decided to speak out to prompt leaders of the mortgage industry to take steps to make sure women are respected.
“My greatest hope is that I will never again feel compelled to have a conversation like the one I had with our employee again,” Weber wrote.