The dam has burst and HK will be better for it

As the year ends and awards are doled out for the most influential people of the past 12 months, the impact of the “#Me Too” campaign, with its promotion of greater openness about the reality of sexual harassment, has become clear. The aim is for women to put up their hands and admit they have been victims but, frankly, there might as well be a campaign titled “Amazingly enough, not me” which would find very few eligible to sign up. This is not for one moment to belittle the courage of those, like local sportsperson Vera Lui Lai-yiu, who have come forward and told their stories but rather to underline what a very common experience this is even if it is one that we have been too embarrassed to talk about. Anyway, the dam has burst, the torrent of stories is flooding out; the world will not quite be the same again. In Hong Kong terms, a comparison could be made with the revolution in the 1970s which rendered unacceptable the bribery and corruption which had previously been accepted as a regrettable fact of life about which nothing could be done.

We are witnessing a social phenomenon of great complexity and consequences which deserves serious study but in this short piece I will pick out just three aspects.

First, the spotlight has shifted from victim to perpetrator. It has been customary for girls as they grew up to take as one of their responsibilities learning how to avoid dangerous situations, meaning not only dark paths late at night but also untrustworthy men and the situations in which they might make themselves vulnerable to such men. Inevitably, there would be misjudgments along the way and the women could only pray that the price of those mistakes would not be too high. And, if something went wrong, all too often the victim would blame herself for her foolishness in having allowed it to happen.

Second, terms like “sexual harassment” and “sexual abuse” can cause confusion by being attached to a wide range of conduct. In fact, there is a spectrum. At the most serious end are physical sexual assault and rape, almost certainly more prevalent than realized as a result of underreporting due to the victims’ sense of shame. At the other end of the spectrum is what Americans term “creepy uncle behavior”: the over-familiar hug, the risqué joke, the inappropriate compliment. Do these more minor “crimes” matter at all? It depends on the context. What may be shrugged off as misguided silliness at a family party is not so harmless in a work setting. Women who, surely reasonably, expect to be given equal opportunities to progress in their careers are subtly undermined by remarks that may be wrongly defended as harmless banter. Backchat

Third, there are many men who are not comfortable with these developments. Ever since the earliest stirrings of feminism and the fight for equality there have been occurrences of backlash, some of them truly hostile and unfair. In modern societies, girls take for granted their freedom to enjoy a good education, to vote and to compete in the working world yet the battles for these are recent and the glass ceiling is far from being shattered. The “#Me Too” campaign, though, is stirring up increased male ambivalence toward the advancement of women. In fairness, there should be some sympathy for the male predicament. Genuinely guiltless men may now wonder about how innocently intended remarks will be interpreted. When conversations that took place many years previously can suddenly be produced as evidence of misconduct and consequences can include loss of jobs and reputation it is hardly surprising that they may begin to fear the possibility of witch hunts and malicious accusations. It may also indirectly harm women if, as a result of this new nervousness, they are excluded from the social and informal occasions that are, in fact, essential in building peer acceptance for advancement in senior corporate level.

How, then, buffeted by these currents of pain and emotion can we move forward to a positive place? It is not something that women should expect to do on their own. It could be argued that if universal principles of equality, integrity and respect for all regardless of gender or social position were lived out as often as they are talked about these problems would never have arisen to the extent that has actually occurred. The Women’s Foundation (www.twfhk.org), on whose board I sit, has an established program called “Male Allies” set up to engage men in the advancement of gender equality within their organizations and more broadly across the Hong Kong community. This is already a significant initiative but it, and others like it, will have an important role to play in the days to come as the turmoil of this year is, it is to be hoped, transformed into change for the better and a fairer society that will, in the long run, be of benefit to all.