Charlotte Proudman

I assume CS completely failed to carry out a risk assessment on his own message, though. I wonder if he would have come up with possible twitter exposure, picked up by the media, report to his boss and report to the SRA?

The next man who thinks of doing what he did will no doubt be better informed of potential risk and make a different decision. Which is good.

She may well have conducted such an assessment JAPAB. The chances of her comments being found to be defamatory by a court are close to zero, so it's a possibility.

JAPAB as far I as I am concerned, if the comment was inoffensive, inappropriate & offensive because it is sexist why can't that be examined and discussed?

Contrast when Benedict Cumberbatch made the remark that included "coloured" to refer to an ethnic minority. As I recall he was pretty quick to leap on it, apologise for any offense called, and we could all go back to our lives (hopefully) a little more wise and aware.

I think if the guy who was even aware his comment was politically incorrect, had done similar and even fallen on his sword and urged people to not lambast Charlotte Proudman. We could have all had a collective chat about it, and resolved to make society that little bit more comfortable for women, we could have chalked up a win.

But instead we are all engaged in a communal character assassination on a woman who only stuck her head up above the parapet to point out something that isn't fair.

LieselVonTwat
I daresay she knows the difficulty in proving injury. I'd still be wary of it myself even if I did a risk assessment and concluded that in a particular case I could publicly asset such and such insufficiently evidenced accusations about an individual and get away with it. Call it personal ethics, call it what you will.

I'm sure if Carter Silk cares to sue for libel, Proudman would be up to the defence....

You may also like to consider which statements apply specifically to CS and which are more general, when you are giving him advice.

I love it when non-lawyers prattle on about defamation. She doubtless knows enough about the law in that area to realise he'd not have a leg to stand on, even if he were stupid enough to bring a case.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist
So, you are objecting on the basis that you have imputed imputations of male thoughts to us; under the assumption that it's the assumed motivation rather than the consequence that's the issue? Whereas we've explained, rather repeatedly, that the motivation of the man is neither here nor there.

I am not assuming anything particularly. When people make statements such as:

"The eroticisation of women??s physical appearance is a way of exercising power over women"

"It's yet another example of men thinking they have the right to say these things to women, completely uninvited. It betrays their own ridiculous thought patterns that a) women's purpose is predominantly decorative and b) men have the right to treat them as such."

"His behaviour is, to me, indicative of certain unpleasant underlying preconceptions about women and their value to him."

"It wasn't a compliment, it was a power play. A compliment is designed to make someone feel nice about themselves. A power play is designed to put someone else in their place, which is inevitably below the power player."

etc, are they or are they not making reference to the (believed) thoughts, motives, attitudes, intentions and agendas, behind the action?

You might consider the intention of the actor to be neither here nor there, only the effects of the action, but other people, including Ms Proudman herself, are happy enough to make assertions about the intentions behind.

If I was in the legal profession I'd be wary about making potentially libelous comments about a named individual in public. By all means complain about their action being offensive, inappropriate, unwanted, and argue for its bad effects. But asserting malevolent motives, or using terms like 'sexist men' (which to most people speaks of internal attitudes even if you personally would mean something else by it), well as I say, if I were a barrister I'd be wary of it when I have insufficient evidence for them.

I'd like to take a moment to deconstruct from a male perspective what the guy said. Ok he didn't say anything obscene, but there is something that is definitely not cool here.

You have an interaction with a woman in a professional context, and you find her attractive. Making any comment whatsoever about her appearance is aggressive and here's why:

Putting it in an everyday context say you are shopping and a woman is at the checkout. Even if you haven't been crass you've already put her in an awkward position. Anything that she does that qualifies as a rebuffing, can also be construed as rude. So ok she smiles awkwardly and "takes" the compliment, well now she's just led you on.

That isn't to say you can never talk to a woman, my first date at the tender age of 15 came about from casual chatting with a girl at a newsagents. We bumped into each other when she wasn't working, and hit it off. Even at a young age I'd worked out not to open conversations with women by bringing up their appearance. I'd expect a 50 odd grown ass man to have a bit more class to be honest.

Bringing it back to the matter in hand, same deal. What choice does she have between so called rudely rebuffing him, and accepting the advance? Tis true many women have canned responses in their arsenal like: "You like the photo? Thanks my boyfriend/fiancée/husband/girlfriend/wife is a professional photographer". However why in all honesty must we all play this lame ass game in the first place? Oh right a woman instigated all this by attempting to make a professional contact?

Any number of women hacks could churn out columns for the DM if Sarah Vine or Amanda Platell didn't want to do this. I'm sure they are keenly aware of it.

To be fair to the DM and God forgive me for even wanting to be fair to that awful rag I don't think they had to try too hard to get Sarah "Mrs Pob" Vine to write awful things about any woman. She seems to revel in her hatred of her sex.

They should be, BigChoc, but certain firms and people have very vested interests in maintaining the status quo, which is often racist and sexist. It's kind of why I don't have a problem with CP going public - it's what needs to happen to effect change. Anything less can and does get swept under the carpet all too easily.

And yes, you'd've had more luck than me - apparently as I'd suffered no actual damages from the racism, I had no cause to complain. And re. bullying, all I could do is 'ask them to stop'. And so they get away with it, time and again.

It is so depressing that some - perfectly intelligent - women automatically minimise what the privileged man did, then concentrate on finding fault with the woman's reaction.

We should be analysing what ACS did and how to educate males not to behave in this way.

I can only hope that if we defend CP for standing up, then defend the next woman and the next, that eventually it won't be risky to complain.
Maybe next century it will rarely be necessary to complain.

That's interesting, NiNo Racism and bullying should always be unacceptable.
Being mixed race, I might have had more luck. At least now - I was certainly regarded as a troublemaker at school in the 1960s, for complaining of racist bullying.

I don't know of him or his firm. I have 100% faith the board in my firm and the managing (male) partner would have, had she complained direct to them and/or the Law Society.

Do you have faith that his fellow partners would have berated him without the publicity, Lass?

She could have used the screenprint blacking out the identifiers as a " here's one I got today-am passing it on to the SRA"

She could have made the point generally, with no names, for activism. Would this have reduced its impact, without the example that was so blatant, from such a 'pillar' type person.

I don't think it would have reduced the impact and she could have continued the targeted personal approach. The carpeting he will (hopefully ) get from his fellow partners and possibly the Law Society would then not be tempered with any shred of consideration of his public humiliation.

I think it was, Ego, it was her third message that week or similar!

I would not want to retain a law firm whose partners would blacklist a barrister or advocate because they disapprove of how she dealt with a sexist approach from a work contact. It would be useful if more partners in law firms would express their opinions on this point so we could know who to avoid.