By Eric B. Meyer
Most of you have probably seen or heard about Mean Tweets from Jimmy Kimmel Live!
That’s the segment where celebrities stand in front of the camera with smartphone in hand awkwardly reading the snippets of vitriol that Twitters users can spew about them in 140 characters or less.
The celebrities have a good sense of humor about it. And the segment is generally good for some LOL moments.
Well, the folks over at Just Not Sports took Mean Tweets to another level with #MoreThanMean tweets.
Online harassment still hurts
What Just Not Sports did was film male sports fans reading the tweets of other male Twitter users about sports reporters Sarah Spain (ESPN) and Julie DiCaro (The Cauldron).
Except, these tweets aren’t funny. They’re, yep, #MoreThanMean – they’re harassment.
And the video, which is incredibly uncomfortable to watch (there are points in the video where the men reading the tweets are close to crying), is designed to increase awareness about harassment of women in sports.
This low hanging fruit is rotten
As employment law evolves, our focus naturally shifts to more emerging issues like joint employers, persuader rules, FMLA/ADA interplay, and the upcoming changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime regulations.
But, you know what doesn’t evolve: sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
Sure, I don’t get many calls from clients about these topics. Presumably, they know how to address it when it rears it’s ugly head. And it will.
#MoreThanMean is a harsh reminder that misogyny isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
This was originally published on Eric B. Meyer’s blog, The Employer Handbook.