At work the other day I read in one of the tabloids about a current court case where one employee of a fairly high profile company was in the process of suing another/the company for sexism after having their bottom slapped/fondled on several occasions.
All very fair and reasonable and after the high profile resignation and sacking of the two sky sports presenters this type of issue is one which is high in all our minds and I'm sure many other women will have read the first lines of this post and thought 'Good on her for taking action.' But would your reaction be the same if you had also read that the employee taking action was a middle aged man, and the party accused is a 'older' woman who according to said tabloid article has a near 40 year work history all of which is unblemished by any kind of trouble?
Interestingly enough my reaction initially was that he ought to man up and stop whinging like a baby. But then again why should he? If it was a woman making the complaint not one person would give it a second thought, it's as though women aren't considered able to sexually harass a man in the work place. But why not, we claim this is the era of equality, but I wonder if we're ready to truly accept that our innocent actions could well be percieved as such as serious issue by those who are on the receiving end of them?
I would never condone the behaviour of those two sports presenters, but in a culture which does very much focus on masculinity and is hugely male dominated like top class football is it any surprise that jokes about women will abound? It is perhaps unfortunate for those two that they made their comments in an environment where they could be recorded and leaked, I wonder if the same would have happened to two female presenters talking about an unusual male presence in a predominately female sports arena.
Telegraph
Daily Mail
The comments on the mail article as always makes for interesting reading.
