Every woman I know has been sexually harassed
AND WHAT GERMAINE’S PEERS THINK...
BESTSELLING author Shirley Conran, 85, advised working women in her book Superwoman, that ‘life is too short to stuff a mushroom’. Divorced from Sir Terence Conran, she has two sons, Jasper and Sebastian.
DURING the Sixties, sexual harassment, and indeed sexual molestation, were everyday risks. Yes, people got fired — but it was the women, not the men. What I remember about the men back then is that they were always vicious in their punishment if they were turned down. And they had long memories. They would see that you didn’t get promoted, or were even demoted. A man in a rank above you found it easy to punish you for not giving in to him. And if you complained? No one ever took you seriously and nothing at all would happen except you may find yourself suddenly given a worse job to do. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, I led a group of women journalists in protests, sit-ins and demos for gender equality. We were fighting for equal pay and equal opportunities, and there was even a torch-lit march on Downing Street. Yet I haven’t felt the need to add my voice to the MeToo movement today. I don’t think the women behind it especially need my generation’s help — they’re getting on just fine by themselves. As for the French women who wrote that long-winded whine of a letter, well, they’re in a very lucky position: they are powerful and are perfectly able to make it clear to a man that they don’t want his attention. But that’s not the case for all women. It’s easier to see off unwanted advances when you’re rich and famous. Having said that, I’d be astonished if Catherine Deneuve hadn’t been sexually harassed or molested in all her years in the film industry — if she hadn’t had her knees touched, if we could put it as daintily as that. Every single woman I know has, at some point in her life, been sexually harassed. I suffered severely from it.
Is touching a woman on the knee a crime? I think touching anywhere needs to be forbidden as then it’s clear: a person must not touch someone else’s breasts, bum, big toe . . . anything.
If a man wants to make a sexual advance to a woman, he has eyes to signal and a mouth to tell her she’s beautiful or ask whether she would like a drink, to which she can respond as she pleases. He doesn’t need to touch to make his meaning clear. Touching may give an unattractive man a sexual frisson but annoy a woman who feels that if she objects, the man will say: ‘Oh, it was accidental’.
Fundamentally we should all have our own space and no one should invade it. And if a man engages in frottage on the Tube, then of course that’s wrong and women should jab back with their elbows, or better still, an umbrella. It’s actually very simple. If you try to touch a goldfish in a bowl, it will dart away to the other side. In my view, we should all be untouchable in our own space, just like the goldfish.
In any case, feminists have other battles on their hands right now. I think we should set our sights very firmly on the BBC and on big private corporations, where women are still not being paid as much as men for doing the same work.
It’s illegal, and I don’t know why people aren’t in prison for it. I find it hard to believe — and extremely depressing — that almost 50 years after our marches and protests, almost 50 years after the Equal Pay Act, our public broadcaster still doesn’t have parity of pay.