Yell, Run and Tell

As teachers, parents and carers we think we do a good job of telling children what to do if they feel they are in danger. Someone in a car stops and tries to get you to get in - yell, run and tell. You are bullied at school - tell a teacher or an adult at home. Someone touches you in a way you don't like - again, tell a grown up.

It's good advice. But somehow us adults don't seem to be following our own advice when it comes to safeguarding ourselves.

The latest, but certainly not the last, revelation in a long list of sexual assaults tells of a woman playwright who was invited to a 'do' at 10 Downing Street where the prime minister was present and found herself in the position of having her breast groped by a total stranger, who just happened to be 'a government official.' She left. She didn't tell anyone. She didn't make a fuss (no yelling) and she didn't tell anyone who could have done anything about it.

I suspect there are many reasons for her silence. First, there's shock: plenty of people will consider it an honour to be invited to 10 Downing Street and being groped is not something you expect to find on the agenda. Then there's embarrassment: just exactly how are you expected to react to this? Is this your fault? Have you somehow sent out wrong signals to this creep? Then there's confusion: if you want to complain, just who do you complain to? Taking it to the police may seem excessive.

We need to understand that the people who are - finally - complaining about sexual misconduct in the workplace, whether it's in a film studio or parliament or an ordinary everyday workplace, are simply completely out of their depth in this situation because they lack protocols and procedures that would protect them.

The victims are not all female and they are not all young. And, whatever certain men may think, they're not all man-haters or 'feminazis.' What they always are is junior to the small group of predatory men who want to exploit them. That's why they are chosen as victims.

It seems to me to be laughable that so many adults are so concerned about paedophilia but can manage to dismiss sexual misconduct as 'banter' or 'horseplay' or just the ordinary everyday give and take of the workplace. Equally disappointing is that the only organisation I can find that has advice on how to deal with sexual harassment is the TUC: 

https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/SexualHarassmentreport2016.pdf

I say disappointing, because so many workplaces now have no trade union representation so advice is hard to come by. And even the TUC admits sexual harassment is hard to prove if someone manages to get it to an industrial tribunal.

So maybe we need to use the approach we recommend to children: yell, run and tell.