The Sisterhood
SEXUAL HARASSMENT IS NOT A WOMEN’S ISSUE. MEN NEED TO LEARN TO BEHAVE AND ACT PROPERLY.
Solidarity is crucial to oppose sexual harassment #MeToo
Just to get this out upfront, #metoo. And everyone that I spoke to, all my friends, especially of my age group of middle-aged women had at least one #metoo story. Some, like myself, had several stories that they had just pushed to the back of their mind, pushed out of the way to allow them to get on with their lives. I was, like everyone else, taken by surprise by the sudden god almighty wonderful vomiting up by women of all ages of their #metoo stories. Of the sudden calling out of men from across all sectors of society. It was a wonderful feeling. A palpable sense of excitement, a race to chime in with tales, support and encouragement. To be part of this moment of a very vocal part of women standing together to say, ‘no, no more, it is not ok to behave like that, we don’t accept it.’ It was moving, it was supremely humbling and it made me think about mine and the previous generation’s reaction to sexual harassment by men — at work or outside it.
I have always been a feminist
From the moment my political consciousness started to form in my early teens I knew that anything less than parity wasn’t acceptable. My best friend and I, both pretty blondes with turned up noses, termed ourselves ‘The Snubba Nose Sisters’ and our stated motto with boys was ‘grind the bastards down, use ’em and abuse ’em’. This of course never happened; we were both hopeless romantics who got destroyed when fairly useless teenage chaps rejected us or broke our tender newborn hearts. But we had the tough language we knew we should use, hard won for us by feminists of the past generation.
We would never think of complaining or making a fuss about men acting inappropriately. As cool intelligent feminists it was our job to not be affected by the bad behaviour of men towards us. It was our job to get over it, be tougher than them, get on with carving out whatever career path and life that it was that we wanted. I only told friends of one occasion that I was attacked by a very wealthy powerful boss and their reaction wasn’t shock or anger but shrugged resignation.
The problem was very much ‘the sound of one hand clapping’. Who would we tell that could make a difference? One friend who was sexually harassed by two men she was working with in the Labour Party, and who she had firmly rejected, was then taken aside by them afterwards to warn her not to say anything because no one would believe her. The next week a woman higher up in the party had a drink with her and told her that she didn’t need to sleep her way up the ranks—even though that was precisely what she was not doing. She watched the young men she worked with get mentored and championed by men higher up whilst she, one of the brightest and most brilliant minds I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing was left. This is all clear in hindsight but of course when it happens there is a lot of uncertainty and gaslighting. I see now, thanks to the brave stand made by women younger than I, often against men with more power over their careers than ever affected me, that our reaction of ignoring what happened to us was in fact allowing the wrong behaviour by men to continue.
#MeToo Movement
By contrast one of my younger colleagues response to the #metoo movement was to propose a counter movement for men to own the problem as theirs and to use the hashtag #dontbeadxxx. What this brought to my attention was that the #metoo movement was unwittingly still framing endemic sexual harassment as a ‘women’s issue’. It’s like the way that by using the term ‘race issue’ we frame it as meaning ‘other than white’ as if ‘white’ isn’t a race with its own cultural constructs and issues. The way that sexual harassment works also plays into racial stereotypes. I cannot speak for the interplay between sexual harassment and race for women of other races so here is my example. As a white woman working and playing in India the assumption has always been that because I was white I was ‘loose’. This super annoying and insulting assumption has been played out over and over again in many ways, some seriously damaging and impactful on my life, over the course of my 25 year relationship with a country that I love. Even today, at 45 and married for 12 years with two children, a dog and two goldfish, I find myself in having to do the ‘duck and twist’ move with a few Indian businessmen of my generation. It is exasperating as they now seem to think that I should be flattered by their pathetic lunging and pawing.
I am learning from the brave women who kicked off #metoo that it is not my responsibility as a feminist to tough it out and ignore the bad behaviour but to call them on it, even though it might jeopardise the work. This is not something that is solved overnight and, let’s be very clear, sexual harassment isn’t a women’s issue. It is a male issue. Men need to start to listen properly, to pick up on what is happening between them and the women rather than what they would want to have happen and that rejection isn’t a threat to their masculinity. Basically, the men of this world need to just #stopbeingadxxx.