Editor’s Note: This is the fourth post in a series of posts written by members of the AASLH Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment Task Force. You can read the previous posts in the series: Small Museums and Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment by Joan Baldwin, Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment and the All-Volunteer History Organization by Anne W. Ackerson, Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment in Museums: What Boards Should Know by Jennifer Van Haaften, Through the Lens of Experience: Witnessing Gender and Sexual Harassment in Real Time by Veronica Gallardo
By Bethany L. Hawkins, CAE
Like many people in our field, I fell into my first leadership role. I worked at a historic house museum in Middle Tennessee since I was hired as a docent during high school. I worked there through college and was promoted to full-time as the Administrative Assistant. The Executive Director planned on retiring, and I was chosen to take her place. I was in a public history master’s program at the time (with a B.A. in history), but nothing had prepared me for being the boss. Like most of my graduate school colleagues, I had no training in budgeting, marketing, and, especially, human resources. I learned on the job with help from workshops offered at the local Center for Nonprofit Management and trial and error.
Addressing gender discrimination and sexual harassment was the farthest thing from my mind. We were a small staff, three full-time and four or five part-time. The full-time staff were all female with a couple of male part-time docents. I reported to the Board of Directors as we were a 501c3 organization.
Now, more than twenty years later, I can see where my naivety left my staff open to discrimination and harassment. I clearly “didn’t know what I didn’t know.” I am pleased to help lead AASLH’s Gender Discrimination Sexual Harassment Task Force whose role is to help AASLH develop training and resources for those, like I was, who are leading organizations (especially small ones), and “don’t know what they don’t know” about this serious topic.
I want this post to provide resources to executive directors who want to make their organizations safe for all their employees. Those who want to do the right thing but are not sure how to get started.
So, for an employer, what does it mean to prevent gender discrimination and sexual harassment? It starts with having clear policies dealing with behavior in the workplace. For history organizations, these policies should also be applied to all volunteers, including board members.
Here are some steps to get you started: (For more information, see Ackerson, Baldwin, and Hawkins, “Preventing and Addressing Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment in History Organizations,” History News Vol 78, #3, 2023: 12-16.)
- Have your board or other governing body approve a policy against unlawful harassment and intimidation.
- Create a whistleblower policy and have the board or other governing body approve it.
- Provide and require training for all employees to educate employees and managers in preventing and addressing workplace discrimination and harassment. (Many states have their training posted online that you can access for free.)
I also want to remind you to think about additional policies and procedures to address harassment from visitors. When we held a listening session at an AASLH conference, a young woman talked about giving a tour of an historic house with a man alone. The man made her feel uncomfortable with some comments and gestures, but she felt like she had to stay with him through the tour so she wouldn’t leave him alone with the artifacts. She said she did not feel like she had permission to leave. Addressing these issues in your employee handbook and docent training could save someone’s life. It also lets your employees know that they are more important than the artifacts.
I think this is especially important in historic house museums. As I noted at the beginning of this post, I started giving tours at a historic site when I was a teenager. The site sat on 168-acres with the home and gift shop in the middle of the property. We were isolated with no visible neighbors. It took me a while to notice, but whenever I had to give a tour to a man alone, or a couple of men, my older co-worker made it a habit to come up and sweep the porches or get something out of a closet. This was not a policy, but she made it her practice so the visitors would know I was not alone and vulnerable.
If you are ready to get started on this important work, I suggest getting Technical Leaflet 303: Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment Policy Rubric. It is free to download and will lead you through a list of performance indicators to see where your organization is doing well in this area and where it needs improvement.
Dealing with this topic can be scary. Board members may not want to discuss it thinking it would never happen in your organization, or that you are borrowing trouble. But, as the executive director, it is your responsibility to advocate for your employees. This is one area where you cannot take no for an answer.
Bethany L. Hawkins, CAE, is the Vice President of AASLH. She can be reached at [email protected].
