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I don't disagree. I do think your earlier characterization ("She has the opportunity to introduce a status hierarchy that benefits her [women are morally superior and intrinsically more valuable and worthy of protection and provision than men] to counteract one that doesn't [he's the boss, she's a temp]. So she does it.") is overgeneralizing. My defense here (Not all women) has the potential to become caricature, so I'll leave that there.
I also would be firmly in this woman's corner if
a) My wife were in her corner, as I trust her instincts to be pretty exactly the same as mine in these regards or
b) if the details were different, i e. he asked not just her birthday but the year of her birth, plus her number, or her cup size, or anything that is obviously past the zone of friendly (even partially flirty) office chat.
In other words claims of harassment have their place even in my world of tolerance for men being manny and a general relaxed atmosphere the preference.
As I thumb this out the high school kid on the 5:03 am train across the car from me has his head lolling back in contented slumber with his right hand unconsciously down in his pants, presumably cupping his balls. To my immediate left a guy I used to see every morning in a blue jumpsuit and a red flashlight baton tucked in his bag (i.e. not necessarily Einstein on his way to the library) has reappeared and is muttering sweet nothings to himself absent-mindedly. Two dudes are unconsciously (?) manspreading so that the aged woman who gets on halfway to my stop (we just passed that halfway point) cannot politely sit down. All this neither here nor there but I felt the need to give an account.
I think psychologically this is easily explained.
He was awkward. He did something that was slightly out of the ordinary and that felt weird, which made her uncomfortable. If it made her uncomfortable, he made her uncomfortable, which means he is a [bad person]. "Creep" is the closest thing that pattern-matches to [bad person] in this situation, therefore it must have been sexual harassment.
You can argue until you're red in the face that this isn't logical or doesn't pass the reasonable man (sic!) test. The fact remains that she felt uncomfortable. And then we reason backwards from there.
Don't let me put words in your mouth, but I think that while what you are implying (her, whoever her is, discomfort level should not be the sole falconer guiding our flight) is reasonable, there are in fact circumstances that exist where she would be be justified in feeling discomfort. And thus justified in making a complaint. True?
Depends on what we mean by justified (are there gettier cases for emotions?), but I would even say that she is justified to feel discomfort in the case you presented. The question is what everybody else should do about it. My suggestion would be: nothing.
And it's not even like nothing happened! He put her in a slightly uncomfortable situation. Whether that should be punished by bringing in the big gun of sexual harassment allegations is the matter, really.
But to answer my interpretation of your question: there is a level of discomfort that warrants intervention by third parties. The most effective would probably be another man taking him aside and giving him the good ol' "dude, not cool".
Alas, melady hath suffered a slight. Her honour must be avenged. Which is to say, men and women working together will produce these kind of situations. The West has recently undertaken the experiment to solve it by giving women a metaphorical gun and the licence to kill. Let's see how it'll work out.
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