There are a lot of ways to measure the costs of sexual harassment. Add up the lost wages, missed professional opportunities and personal damage done to the people who are victimized on the job. Tally the costs of internal investigations and the severance packages paid out to big names who are fired for misconduct. Try to estimate the lost productivity and potential that are byproducts of a workplace where certain stars are so big and powerful that their worst behavior has to be tolerated or mitigated.
But for all the damage assessed in the two months since reporting by the New Yorker and the New York Times kicked off a wrenching national confrontation with a diseased culture of sexual entitlement and sexual violence, it doesn’t seem like we’ve found the cost that would be painful enough to force companies and cultures to change.