Here we are

Further revelations in recent weeks show that vile attitudes towards women are deeply entrenched. Fiona Barber sighs deeply.

Here you are. You’ve almost made it; you’re very nearly a lawyer. You’ve worked hard at uni and are a top performer. Your excellent grades and great work ethic earn you a sought-after summer internship at a prestigious Kiwi legal firm, with the possibility of a job when you’ve finished the last year of your law degree. All those years of hard graft are paying off. What you don’t know is that a booklet which includes your photo has been passed around the firm – and, reportedly, some senior male lawyers refer to it as the summer “menu”, reducing you to an item to be picked over. And that you – or one of the other young female interns – will be sexually preyed upon at work social gatherings.

Here you are, a 17-year-old American snowboarder performing at the pinnacle of your sport, the winter Olympics. You pull off gravity-defying manoeuvres in the women’s halfpipe event and win the gold medal. Despite your gobsmacking athletic achievements you are described by a radio show host as a “little hot piece of ass”.

Here you are serving drinks at a posh London charity event attended by leading figures from the worlds of business and politics. Throughout the evening you are pawed by those attending the Presidents Club men-only event. Some of these captains of industry thrust their hands up waitresses’ skirts; one exposes himself.

Here we are in 2018 trying to figure out what is going through the minds of these men when they decide their vile words and actions are acceptable. Nothing, I’d venture, because in their worlds that’s just the natural order of things, isn’t it?

If the masters of the universe want something, they take it. It is their God-given right. If they want to run the rule over a female athlete and share their wink-wink, nudge-nudge conclusions, why ever not? If they want to grope the young women serving them drinks, what’s the problem? Everyone else – including pillars of society – are doing it. Besides, those waitresses were wearing short, tight dresses. What did they expect?

The #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns are making progress but it’s depressingly clear that no matter how much public education goes on, some men still believe they are above such trifles as the law and common decency. That women are, first and foremost, for their sexual gratification and it is simply what they are entitled to.