Qual, not quant
It may be a bit heretical to say this here, but I don't agree that peoples' feelings are not a basis for any kind of policy or decision. We make decisions based on other peoples' feelings all the time.
While the article is about quantitative reporting of the percentage of people who feel bullied or harassed, the feeling of being bullied or harassed is a qualitative thing. If only 1% of the sample had experienced the feeling of being bullied or harassed, that remains a serious issue for that 1%, even if quant analysis says that it's only 1% therefore it's not a problem. And for anyone who is tempted to write off qualitative analysis as just bad science - imagine how much more wonderful work just one Alan Turing could have done if he hadn't been bullied and harassed into his grave.
What we are dealing with here is people's feelings, and until someone invents SI units for harassment, bullying and discrimination, we need to deal with this on a qualitative level - which means having strong policies in place, but also acknowledging and addressing peoples' individual fears and experiences.
If someone perceives my interaction with them as harassment, the fact that I'm not (in my own judgement) harassing them lets me off the hook for feeling bad about it. But it doesn't mean that their feelings are silly, or that there's no reason for me to change my behaviour - if I can make a tiny effort to understand what lies behind their feeling, and change the dynamic (for example by crossing the street to avoid walking behind a lone woman), then I'm cool with doing that. Importantly, changing my behaviour is not an admission of being a perp, or acknowledging that someone who doesn't know me is correct to consider me a potential perp - it's just being considerate.
Of course this isn't a cure-all - some people are genuinely paranoid (ie they have an illness), and even when folks have good reasons for feeling the way they do, the dynamics can be very complicated - as in the argument about womens' space which has been taking place between younger trans woman and older feminists.
But we all get plenty of opportunities to act locally and quietly to allay peoples' everyday fears, and to support people who are on the receiving end of bad shit, or who are scared. The world will be a better place if we take those opportunities when they come along, without getting all ariated about who is right and who is wrong.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
