Isn't that the way it's always worked? A friend who works at a university told me how male professors always leave the door open when they are talking with female students in their offices. They can easily ruin your life... just like that.
Having worked in a French university, around 2005-2010, we actually received an explicit memo that male should not receive female students in their office without a third person being there.
The way I heard it is less that "they" (the women) can ruin your life as that other people might infer something untoward which would be bad for both of you, but yes.
The other option is to have glass walls for offices instead of opaque ones, but that requires having some foresight in building architecture.
Rape and sexual assault come to mind, since that's what happens far more often than blackmail for petty ends. Plenty of studies have shown how bunk your claim is. It is a sexist conspiracy theory.
