Your coworkers are not your friends

In praise of formal workplaces

Co-workers.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Images courtesy Ikon Images / Alamy Stock Photo)

As the #MeToo movement swelled throughout the fall and winter, many Americans paused to gawk at a curiously related sideshow: the brief spate of articles about men pondering how they should behave on the job to avoid accusations of harassment in this new hyper-aware reality.

The men in question seem to be perfectly sincere. They are not asking about the obvious cases; they know they cannot assault their colleagues or command an underling to perform sexual acts. Their concern is at the margins, the sort of behavior that might be misinterpreted with damaging results for all involved.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.