Sex assault is for the police, not podcasts

iN Her new book, Wendy Joseph QC writes of the sexist treatment and sexual harassment she endured as a lawyer in the 1970s.

Why didn’t women of her generation do more to combat it? ‘it didn’t occur to me that i could or should,’ she said. ‘in a male-dominated world, i allowed myself to be dominated.’

How well i recognise that mindset, which continued for a few decades afterwards. Harassment from men, sexual or otherwise? We would shrug it off and get on with our careers.

yet the generations of young women who came later refused to put up with such nonsense — they were right and we were wrong. it is thanks to them that men today think twice, three and four times before laying an unwanted hand on a female colleague. Workplaces are safer and better places for it, and it is all thanks to these women’s efforts.

yet sometimes i think it has gone too far the other way. Comedian Katherine ryan, pictured, has revealed how she confronted a colleague on a popular television programme because she believed him to be a sexual predator. Why? Because somebody told her.

Meanwhile, her podcast co-presenter Sara Pascoe revealed that she had reported a celebrity to a tV channel after receiving a phone call from a viewer who claimed to have been raped by him.

Hang on, let me get this right. Neither of these women were personally assaulted by these men, nor witnessed any assaults by these men, but acting on hearsay — and a single phone call, possibly anonymous — they reported them by name? then talked about it later on a broadcast, in the kind of tones that suggested they were richly congratulating themselves on their actions? i find this all very disturbing.

if they believed a serious assault had taken place, they should have gone to the police. More importantly, so should the women who claimed to have been assaulted in the first place.

Sexual assault is not a branch of the entertainment industry nor an opportunistic way of boosting your profile and credentials when you have a product to sell. Sadly, sometimes that is exactly how it feels.