What the #MeToo Movement Revealed About Workplace Culture with Tarana Burke

Thank you for having me, and I actually really appreciate that you would have this conversation in your line of work because I think that it is a necessary conversation and no matter where you are on, on the supply chain.

[laughs]

Well, I, it's absolutely necessary in every single industry, and of course, supply chain companies are very global in nature.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, we're shipping things from all over the world.

Yeah.

And this is, again, a problem that unfortunately is global as well.

I am delighted to have you here.

We're gonna have a very serious, interesting conversation with you for something that is still a problem, and it shouldn't be in our society.

And so we're really all trying to help raise awareness and, of course, trying to end sexual and gender-biased violence.

Something that I read while I was getting ready for our conversation, Tarana, is that, and I think you said it at some point, you said that sexual violence is a community problem and, and therefore it deserves a community response.

And so-

Yeah

... that's so powerful 'cause usually we just don't talk enough about this.

We don't talk enough about this at our house.

We don't talk about this at work.

It's one of the issues that I say is sort of bastardized, right? It's because it's individualized so much, right? When, when people hear about sexual harassment or, or any form of sexual violence, they tend to think about the normally two individuals or the, the person who caused harm, the person who was harmed, and sort of isolate them to whether there's services for the person who was harmed and accountability for the person who caused harm.

But we take ourselves out of it, right? Most people take themselves out of the conversation like, "Well," even if you are sympathetic to it, you know, it's like, "Well, I hope that person gets what they need, and I hope that person gets what they deserve," and we feel disconnected from it.

And I think we have to think about this type of violence the same way we think about any other type of violence, right?

Absolutely.

If there was a, a person who was shot, for instance, for, you know, God forbid, I think people feel more connected to that.

They think, "I wanna be safe in this-"

Mm-hmm

... community, in this workplace, whatever," or, "We can't live in a society that has this, this kind of violence," right? People on a baseline have that sort of reaction, and we should have that same reaction when we hear about sexual and gender-based violence because we all play a role.

Absolutely, and now we're ready.