The Problem

Sexual Harassment Prevention ("SHP") training, at least as currently deployed, is not only morally, ethically and philosophically reprehensible, but as a practical matter it's both ineffective and counter productive. At least, as far as minimizing sexual harassment is concerned. In short, it's foolishness. It is typical of a whole class of "Social Justice Warrior" causes that take me a bit off the topic of SHP trainings specifically in what follows.

The Useful Idiots

The truth is that the forces behind the mandates for SHP programs aren't motivated by concerns about sexual harassment at all - not even a little bit. There are 2 groups promulgating this agenda, both with ulterior motives:

1.  Corporations, whose primary concern is avoiding legal liability - proof positive that there are just too damn many lawyers in the world. Corporations have the secondary motivation that they hope it will gain them "image points", or good will, with their customer base. Its a naive hope, but I'm sure they have it.
2. Politicians, whose primary motivation - as always - is power. They are successfully achieving this by pushing just such "social justice" insanity (which I mean literally, as in, disassociated from reality - see "Gender Identity"). These causes allow them to become more and more intrusive in the lives - and thoughts - of individuals and in the operation of corporations. Of course, they share the naive "virtue signalling" hope of garnering votes with people who are so intellectually stunted, morally handicapped, ideologically motivated or just plain too unthoughtful to consider the effects of these policies. 

The Monsterous Motivation

But then of course there are the monsters who originally fabricate this nonsense. The choice of the word "monster", while arguable not literal, is well chosen. It is certainly true in the colloquial use of the word as a horrible, terrifying and nightmarish reality. The division and strife inherent in presenting any population as two groups that must inherently be at odds, in this case male and female, and then stoking disunity is terrible enough. But the motivation is much, much worse. This is a bastardization of Marxist class theory. Socialists (i.e., communists who have not yet drawn their weaons) realized that class envy in America could not be used to stoke revolution, because our economy was just too inherently fair and financial mobility here was far too great.

Eventually they realized that they could use other divisions besides financial class. This thought process & decision to switch the chosen horse of division is pretty clearly seen in some of their own writings, which I regrettable do not have the patience to find, but you could start with Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals". Racial tension, gender discrimination, etc. are nothing but cleavers meant to separate and inflame. Social engineering such as "Sexual Harrassment Prevention Training", not to mention school level indoctrination of transexual, homosexual, etc. behaviors, are intentionally divisive. It is the primary goal to be divisive, as a prerequisite to social upheaval and eventual government overthrow. 

A friend pointed out the distinct pattern in how and where BLM and Antifa chose to riot this past fall. The criterion was not how horrible the event allegedly justifying a protest was; it seemed quite the opposite. For example George Floyd, the robber, forger and drug addict now appearing in wall murals with angel's wings, was a lifetime criminal, sometimes an armed and violent one, But his death was quite likely the result of unjustified force (See On The Arrest & Death Of George Floyd) and hence easily controversialized, despite the likelihood that his own lifestyle made it inevitable. But deaths of innocent children sparked no riots. Why? There were several such events, each far more heinous than George Floyd's death by any objective and virtually any subjective standard. But because such cases are universally recognized as tragic and abhorrent, they cannot be made controversial - indeed, they evoke primarily sympathy and support for the surviving family - and so they were ignored. George Floyd's death on the other hand, and fictions such as "hands up, don't shoot" are easily used toward terrorist goals... and also align nicely with media goals for circulation, clicks & eyeballs.

So in Floyd's case, as in all such cases, the criteria was that the event could be made controversial, i.e., divisive, and drummed up to a fever pitch based in this case on poor police behavior, which was the unnecessarily prolonged knee on his neck. Discussing Floyd's character or the context of the arrest was strictly forbidden in the press, and the ban was (and is) strictly enforced there and online, as is always the case. This is not out of concern or respect for the dead; to prove that to yourself, just look at their level of concern and respect for the shop owners whose livelihoods they destroyed, the citizens they literally beat and sometimes killed, the entire neighborhoods they quite intentionally, repeatedly and methodically terrorized. Concern and respect were, and are, completely absent. Theirs, the BLM/Antifia terrorist Marxists, is pure and malevolent evil. A horrible and ugly truth, but unavoidably obvious.

Well, that's easily enough to prove my point, from which I've actually wandered far astray, so I'll stop there before I start to say what I really think.

The Facts About SHP Training

Some relevant quotes from Sexual Harassment Prevention Training research and articles:

1. "Why Sexual Harassment Programs Backfire", Harvard Business Review, key quotes:
   • "When companies institute this kind of training, our study revealed, women in management lose ground."
   • "[after implementation] the representation of white women in management drops by more than 5% over the following few years. African American, Latina, and Asian American women don’t tend to lose ground after such harassment training is instituted—but they don’t gain it either. "
   • "Research shows that it actually makes men more likely to blame the victims and to think that women who report harassment are making it up or overreacting."
   • "What about men who are prone to harass? The reason we make training mandatory is to reach those men. Does training help them, at least? No. Research shows that men who are inclined to harass women before training actually become more accepting of such behavior after training."

This study did find, however, that manager trainings were significantly more effective than broad based employee training. The reason for this is obvious; managers will be responsible for enforcing policies and laws, to which attach legal responsibility. Their training must remain tethered to reality and some objective standard. Their trainings are therefore more productive.

2. "When workplace trainings can backfire", CNN:
   • "some leave these mandatory trainings feeling blamed, isolated or angered." 
   • " 'A lot of men just feel wrongly accused or on-the-spot,' says Mitch Keil, founder of Dignity Awareness,"
     Thank you "Captain Obvious" :-) That's just one reason that forcing it upon all employees is foolish.
3.  "Sexual Harassment Training Doesn’t Work. But Some Things Do." New York Times:
   • "At best... that type of training succeeds in teaching people basic information, like the definition of harassment and how to report violations. At worst, it can make them uncomfortable, prompting defensive jokes, or reinforce gender stereotypes, potentially making harassment worse. Either way, it usually fails to address the root problem: preventing sexual harassment from happening in the first place."
   • "That’s because much of the training exists for a different reason altogether. Two 1998 Supreme Court cases determined that for a company to avoid liability in a sexual harassment case, it had to show that it had trained employees on its anti-harassment policies... training protects companies from lawsuits." 

Some common sense and a reasonable understanding of human nature make this very predictable. But the extremism of "SJW"s makes them very susceptible to "single factor analysis". That is, focusing exclusively on some (often truly bad) thing as an issue so unjust and so truly horrible, that it must be eradicated at any cost. This extremism excludes a weighing of other factors such as side effects, including unintentional consequences, costs both human and financial, etc. Most of all, it prevents any actual thought that:

1. These actions may make things worse, as is so often the case
2. The thing they seek to eradicate is likely an unfortunate part of human nature that needs to be minimized and controlled, but may not be fixable in any meaningful sense of the word.

In summary: SHP training is just one symptom of a horribly evil; incredibly harmful trend of foolishness, often collectively referred to as "Social Justice" issues, and usually easily recognized by their inherent conflicts with reality.