The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday dismissed suggestions that a culture of tolerance for sexual harassment had enabled such figures as its former managing director to exploit lower-ranking women. Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director this week after his arrest and indictment on charges that he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid.
"The fund's policy on harassment, including sexual harassment, is strict and consistent with best practices," IMF spokesman William Murray said. Murray was reacting to a story in The New York Times that detailed the low representation of women in IMF upper management and quoted current and former female employees describing their vulnerability to sexual harassment.
"It's sort of like 'Pirates of the Caribbean': the rules are more like guidelines," Carmen Reinhart, IMF deputy director for research from 2001-03, was quoted by the Times as saying. "That sets the stage, I think, for more risk-taking."
Other former women employees told the Times that they wore pants instead of skirts to discourage sexual overtures, and complaints about harassment were dismissed by their superiors. In 2008, within months of joining the IMF, Strauss-Kahn himself had a relationship with a Hungarian IMF economist, Piroska Nagy, that drew public attention. In a letter to investigators, Nagy described herself as "damned if I did and damned if I didn't."
An independent investigation carried out by an outside law firm found that Strauss-Kahn had not abused his power. In an email to staff, he did admit an "error of judgement" while denying he abused his power. Under its old rules, the IMF held that intimate relationships between supervisors and subordinates "do not, in themselves, constitute harassment."
That rule was out of step with most US law, which in recent decades has given women - and men - more rights to challenge sexual overtures in the workplace by their superiors. As a sign of updating its corporate culture, the IMF on May 6 - just eight days before Strauss-Kahn's arrest on charges of sexual assault against a hotel housekeeper - adopted a new code of conduct.
The new policy specifies that intimate relationships with subordinates "are likely to result in conflicts of interest" and must be disclosed to IMF authorities. In his statement, Murray said that the workplace described by The New York Times was "not the fund we know and work in." "Is it a perfect place? No. But this report creates an impression of institutionalised harassment and disrespect. That is not the case. Harassment is not tolerated in the institution," he said.
The new policy, he noted, makes clear that harassment constitutes misconduct and triggers disciplinary actions, up to firing. He noted that the new policy is consistent with "best practice, including in the United States." Under the new standards, a close personal relationship between a supervisor and subordinate "must be reported and resolved, usually by reassignment of one of the individuals," he wrote. Before his arrest, Strauss-Kahn, 62, was widely seen as the front-runner to become the Socialist candidate in next year's French elections to unseat French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative.