Sexual harassment: time for a bit of perspective

Immediately prior to the Eastleigh by-election, the meeja was making a big stink about sexual harassment by Lord Groper, a hitherto completely unknown Libdem politician. It appeared to have no traction with the electorate whatsoever.

 

However, the press seems to have got its teeth into a running topic, so we are bound to hear much more about it.

 

We are asked to believe that there is a widespread culture of groping, unwanted sexual invitations, and obscene remarks, which has grown in recent years. If correct, this raises a number of questions as to how this trend has developed. Perhaps it has always been a feature of office life, but if so I never came across a single incidence in a very long career.

 

Part of the reason may be that men have lost their former respect for women due  (amongst other reasons) to the rise of feminism and ‘equality’ that encourages the more stupid of the male species to believe that you can treat a woman as ‘one of the boys’,  a culture of sexual promiscuity, the behaviour of some women who taint their sex with constant foul language and fashions that in earlier times would only be seen on a hooker.

 

Perhaps one answer is for these inadequate men to grow up and for women to be a little more ladylike.

 

Some of the conduct by men is almost beyond belief, such as posting around the office the face of a woman employee superimposed on a porno pic. This was an out-and-out case for instant dismissal.

 

Current scandals at the BBC point to a gross management failure. Women who have complained of sexual harassment or discrimination have been paid-off subject to gagging orders, to the extent that they are not even allowed to disclose that a gagging order even exists. One can be pretty certain that there have been many similar cases in other organisations.

 

An yet it should be very simple to stamp out. One case of instant dismissal for gross misconduct, which would not carry compensation, and the problem would probably quietly disappear.

 

Some perspective is needed.

 

The women complaining about Lord Groper were not shrinking violets, 18-year old filing clerks. They were tough, educated women of the world. The press has tried to compare it to the Savile scandal. To link sexual assault including rape of under-age girls over 3 or 4 decades with conduct that amounts largely to misbehaviour is an obscenity in itself.

 

One simple fact seems to have been ignored; touching a person on the genital area or breasts is the crime of indecent assault.

 

 

And finally………

 

A friend has a small factory that employs 20 men and one woman.

 

One morning she told him that she wanted to complain about sexual harassment.

 

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked,

 

‘There isn’t any!’ she replied.