Katie* is one of three female paramedics who have shared their experiences of being “hounded” for sexual favours in return for passing training, getting a promotion or simply keeping their jobs.
Although these remarks were often dismissed as “jokes” or “banter”, Katie says, occasionally it shifted into a “monumental” abuse of power.
“Handjobs. Blowjobs. They were obsessed with blowjobs,” she says.
Once I made a mistake with a patient, and a colleague tried to blackmail me into having sex with him. It was horrendous. When I told him no, he said, “watch your back, because I could rape you”.
I don’t know how you change this culture. When posters saying “We Do Not Tolerate Sexual Harassment” were put on the doors in the ladies toilets, a man crossed out the “Not” and drew a penis next to a woman’s mouth.
This sounds like grounds for a lawsuit, not a news article. Make them pay (literally) for being assholes.
The rape threat should have been reported to the police when it happened imho
Doing via media won’t get anything done. If the org is really this bad, they are covering up and adjusting as we speak.
You can’t fix this shit via court of opinion. Pests don’t care.
The rape threat should have been reported to the police when it happened imho
There’s a better chance of that happening nowadays vs as little as a year ago. And “reporting” often bears a trauma of its own.
Five, ten years ago?
Buried.
There would still be a record of incident even if pigs do nothing.
Criminal accusations purely based on a story will never resonate with public since anyone can make accusations for any reason…
And then the reporter can enjoy their retaliatory unemployment and blacklisting, probably.
I am not directly familiar with the UK system but from everything I have seen, it has the same problems:
The defense against rape accusations is “she was a slut”. And when things are this institutionalized? You can get plenty of people who will gladly attest that the plaintiff came onto them too because they know that if the dominoes start toppling…
And in the off chance she gets justice AND comes out with any dignity? She is not officially on the industry shitlist because that would be wrong… But her career is more or less over. Because the rapists don’t want to hire her for obvious reasons. But even the “normal” people will be wary of “What if she decides something we do is bad?”.
No. The key to shit like this is to get the public shining a light on this first. Rather than going into a dark room and randomly spraying a bit of bug spray.
“What if she decides something we do is bad?”
I remember coworkers talking about metoo and saying things like that or “what if she decides to report me for something <insert mundane action>”.
I always responded with “if you ever have to wonder if an action could be reported to the police, than maybe you should not do that, and if you are worried that a woman will report you, don’t hang out with that person”.
I never understood how this ever could be a worry.
The defense against rape accusations is “she was a slut”.
In which jurisdiction?
In 1999 I had to work on site at a client’s London offices in order to prep them for Y2K. Never before or since have I seen such blatant misogyny nad sexual harassment at the workplace. Every office and every location I went to it was the same.
That experience deeply influenced my decisions when I decided to open satellite offices in London and Ireland and we have never had an incident.
Culture starts from the top.
Just out of curiosity, what are your policies regarding sexual misconduct/harassment?
Male colleagues would even walk around the crew room with their penis sticking through the zip of their trousers and their pockets turned out. They’d swing it and sing Nelly The Elephant.
Holy shit is there a word for when you recognize that something is completely and undeniably reprehensible, but also completely fucking hilarious if you remove the problematic context?
Like, I would do this to my wife. Scratch that, I’m gonna do this to my wife and she’s gonna think it’s funny.
But, obviously, don’t do this to your co-workers, or really anyone that hasn’t given you prior consent to swing your dick around…
My gender sucks.
The number of arsehole men is too damn high. Whenever I see or hear these stories my blood boils.
This is the real reason that women were brought into the general work force.
No… Real reason is so they are making the rich money and families have to consume more.
This is just poorly socialized likely older “men” being sex pests.
