Our World in 2017

ISSUE#1193 | January 2017
EXERCISING LEADERSHIP
NEW EUROPE: OUR WORLD IN 2017
Page-38
www.neweurope.eu
Shattering the filthy
by Alexandros Koronakis
The Editor , New Europe.
glass ceiling
BELGIUM - BRUSSELS
Humanity has never evolved as quickly as it
has since the Second World War. Though
in biological terms our species’ evolutionary
process is one that scoffs at the counting of
millennia, the evolution of our societies has
been exponential in pace. The new generation
stands for equality and the resented by the ‘oldguard’
movement of political correctness.
In the 2016 Presidential Elections in
the USA, more people voted for the female
candidate than the male candidate. In the same
year’s race for UN Secretary General, there were
a total of 7 female candidates put forth and 6
male candidates. Nevertheless, men won
both those contests and today there are less
than 20 incumbent female heads of state and
government in the entire world; certainly the
glass ceiling is not broken, but it is beginning
to crack.
People are speaking more openly than ever
about gender equality. Movements against
discrimination based on gender, race, religion,
sexual orientation, and anything that seeks to
divide human beings into unequal groups have
a voice louder than ever before.
Yet the scourge of sexual harassment
remains rampant in the workplace.
In the 21st Century, large corporations,
governments, and organisations are making
great strides into codifying acceptable
behaviour, but no matter how much progress
is made, the worst of humanity will always lie
with the individual.
Indeed, reality is not unsoiled. At work,
where by definition power relationships are set
by single individuals in a top-down manner, it is
difficult to ensure a level playing field.
The worst of what is left of the glass ceiling,
is the sometimes subtle, and sometimes blatant
sexual harassment. And while it is not any
individual phenomenon that led to the creation
of this glass ceiling, but it is a large factor in what
keeps it in place.
People have been kept from rising on the
professional ladder because they were not
forthcoming enough with romantic or sexual
advances of their managers or more senior
colleagues. And that’s a best-case scenario.
It is the commonplace practice in larger
organisations of moving the victim of sexual
harassment to a different position after they
have made a complaint. In fact, HR will often
advise against filing an official case, warning
that “it’s your career that will be in jeopardy”.
Sometimes, the victims are fired, or just see their
contracts not renewed; “Too much of a troublemaker”
someone will say by the water-cooler
when asked why. This makes matters worse and
adds to the suffering, as the initial trauma is not
recognised, creating a secondary trauma.
More difficult than that? A person is sexually
assaulted or raped, and is directly threatened
by the offender that they (usually she) will lose
their livelihood if they says a word. She spends
the next years of her life facing that person
every day in the workplace, battling anxiety
and depression.
These scenarios not only trivialise a very
complex issue, which includes facets of the
legal framework, family values and upbringing,
religious teachings, and social evolution; they
also do not dwell into many different types of
abuse and oppression including sexual violence.
There are certainly many more qualified
people in this world to write about this issue,
indeed I cannot pretend to understand what it
feels like to be a victim of sexual harassment in
the workplace, traumatised by someone I have
to face daily at my job. But I wanted to speak out
because I’ve heard so many hard and disturbing
testimonies over the years that I have only just
began to understand how complicit I am. . I have
sat idly and participated in locker-room talk
without thinking of its far-reaching, not trivial
consequences, and I could certainly have been
more sensitive to discovering such situations
and dealing with them adequately.
Statistically, between one in two, and
one in three women have experienced sexual
harassment in the workplace depending on
which study you read. That glass ceiling sure
is filthy. Many, don’t even know that what is
happening is inappropriate when it is on the
lower end of the spectrum.
Many have offered a shoulder to lean on and
given advice to the victims who have come to
them with their troubles; we have all spent an
hour listening to a friend in need haven’t we?
Yet most of these cases are never spoken
of. There is a shame and endemic silence that
surrounds those on the receiving end of such
behaviour. Most victims are too frightened
to speak out and of being ‘slut-shamed’. “It is
your fault he groped you, you shouldn’t wear
those short skirts to work,” has long been an
acceptable response in our societies.
And then – after listening to a friend recount
such a traumatic experience – what do you do?
Back to the office after your lunch break to
snicker at a joke about a colleague’s “slutty nails”,
because of course “She must do more than just
type very quickly…”
For years society has brushed comments
like that off. Locker-room mentality has been
perfectly acceptable.
It was over a decade ago that Donald Trump
found himself talking about women on a bus:
“You know, I’m automatically attracted to
beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a
magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when
you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do
anything.” … “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can
do anything.”
Donald Trump’s private moment with
Billy Bush was really not as shocking as media
portrayed. Why? Because that sexist and macho
rhetoric is far more commonplace in society
than women think; exemplified by the fact that
it has not deterred Trump from being elected
to President of the USA. This behaviour is in
the home, at the bar, and in the workplace. It is
endemic misogyny brought about by millennia
of patriarchy that has been internalised; women
can be misogynists too or come to believe they
‘deserve’ it.
With the world divided by only 3.57
degrees of separation, the people who talk,
touch, grope, traumatise, and damage women
in the workplace and beyond are already in our
daily lives. We know them. They are part of our
contacts lists, and more often than not they are
also friends, drinking buddies, or members of
our reading clubs or sports teams.
We have all seen enough, and even
participated, or just said nothing.
It’s time our countries’ leaders, our
companies CEOs, our organisations’ directors,
managers, employees, and everyone who has
seen their colleagues behave inappropriately,
stop participating and tolerating this behaviour.
PHOTO CREDIT - JULIAN BURGESS/FLICKR
Ultimately, our companies, organisations,
and society suffer too, but that should not
be the motivation for putting and end to this
behaviour; it should be equality, it should be the
human individual, it should be common sense.
All of us who have stood by, and either
watched, suspected, tolerated, or ignored
behaviour of sexual harassment in the workplace
need to stop take a long hard look within and
simply do better.
The first time a friend talked to me about
how her boss was sexually harassing her, I didn’t
think much of it as she seemed to be okay. “Don’t
worry about it,” she said, “I’m dealing with it as
best I can by minimizing contact, but he and his
boss are buddies and I can’t really report it – it
would end up costing me my career.”
It’s been many years since that first
friend’s confession; it has also been many
more confessions from many more friends,
acquaintances, and even strangers since then.
While the victims of such behaviour are not
just women, they do make up the vast majority
of cases and it is to them that I have referred
within this article though the victims are do
not just fall into this category. It is also men
mistreated by men and women, and women
abused by other women too. Trans people are
found to suffer the most from violence. And the
list goes on and on.
All victims of such harassment deserve to
not be put in such a position.
No one deserves to see his or her life ruined,
slowed down, or just nudged in the wrong
direction because of sexual harassment.
How many stories have you heard? From
friends? From family? From loved ones? I have
heard too many.
It is not a matter of ‘if’ the glass ceiling will
break, but ‘when’.
It is time we took it upon ourselves as
individuals to be the ones to shatter the glass
ceiling; cleaning out the filth along the way.