#metoonz backlash misses point
When I was asked to join a team of journalists to work on Alison Mau’s #metoonz nationwide investigation into sexual harassment and assault, I said yes immediately.
I had been avidly following the Harvey Weinstein revelations and Tracey Spicer’s investigation into the Aussie media and entertainment industry last year. The movement reached New Zealand this year with accusations of inappropriate sexual behaviour at law firm Russell McVeagh and the sexual harassment scandal at the Human Rights Commission.
You’d think after all this, people would see the value in Mau’s campaign.
Of course, I expected to see some push-back, but naively did not expect people to question the validity of this type of journalism.
Mike Hosking last week accused Mau and Stuff of doing the campaign to generate clickbait based on ‘‘hearsay, rumour, innuendo, scuttlebutt – sleaze and gossip’’.
He also feared it would be trial by media ruining innocent men’s lives forever. Media commentator Janet Wilson agreed with him.
Then Al Nisbet’s cartoon in this very paper on Monday depicted a bunch of witches hungry for the blood of innocent men, their rage fuelled by hearsay, gossip and innuendo.
On social media, people expressed fears bum pinching would be put in the same ballpark as rape – because obviously people can’t tell the difference between the two.
At work, a senior male writer said he did not understand what the point of the investigation was.
Another one asked: ‘‘Is there a man on the team?’ and said he was worried about ‘‘balance’’. He’s wellknown in the office for insisting a woman play for the All Blacks and his refusal to work in all-male teams. So he’s not the hypocrite he might seem.
Others, including women, told me the project seemed disingenuous.
The backlash to the campaign so far just reinforces how much this investigation is needed.
It baffles me how some people constantly turn the focus on false claims when the statistics clearly show the bigger problem is underreporting.
NZ Police believe they are aware of only 10 per cent of sexual violence. Of what’s reported to them, 8 per cent are categorised as false complaints – which is lower than for many other crimes, according to Ministry of Justice (MOJ) data.
‘‘Most survivors do not report sexual violence because of fear, shame and beliefs they will be blamed. Cases in the criminal justice system are the tip of the iceberg,’’ Toah-Nnest’s guidelines for sexual violence reporting say. I don’t know guys, seems a bit like hearsay to me.
If the media only investigated events that had been through the justice system, then countless political scandals, child abuse within the church and accounts of fraud would never see the light of the day.
Most people applaud this type of journalism but suddenly when it’s about sexual harm, they get nervous and find endless reasons why the media should stay out of it.
Yet Mau made it clear the investigation would be thorough, following rigorous processes of corroboration and fact-checking – just like any other investigation. New Zealand’s strong defamation laws mean lawyers will be ‘‘looking over our shoulders at every step’’, she wrote.
Sexual violence affects one in three women and one in ten men, and the MOJ estimated that 1 in 20 sexual offences are committed by a work colleague.
The guidelines defines sexual violence as including ‘‘any [unconsented] sexual act, attempted sexual act, sexual harassment, sexual coercion and sexual contact with force’’.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is also under-reported. A US study found that 75 percent of 31 women working in male-dominated fields had experienced sexual harassment, but only 29 percent reported it.
If we look at the impact of the Russell McVeagh stories, it goes far beyond exposing alleged sexual assault, harassment and toxic culture at one law firm.
Former lawyer Olivia Wensley told me last week that when the stories first came out, she wondered why it was even news. She had accepted the sexist culture within the law industry as normal and inevitable. But after a while she realised what she had experienced was unacceptable and needed to stop.
It was one of the reasons she had left the profession and why she had told her younger sister not to go to law school.
The whole legal industry has been shaken by the stories, with the Law Society, universities and law firms reviewing their processes and many lawyers speaking up.
I can’t think of many stories this year that have had such a profound impact. That’s what motivates me to be part of this investigation.
I want my son to grow up in a world where diminishing, objectifying, assaulting and raping women is not tolerated. Where women feel they can report such abuse and get protection. Where men don’t make inappropriate jokes and grope women just because they think it’s funny without fearing any consequences.
This won’t happen overnight but the #metoonz campaign could make a small contribution to that change. And why anyone would not see that as a good thing is beyond me.