Amanda Abbington and Strictly.

Yes, watch the video up-thread a little, about 11.30 mins in. What he allegedly said to go along with it is also shocking, and the implication it wasn’t a lone incident (not that just once wouldn’t be horrendous.)

wtf?!

I think there are some people (you only have to look at this thread) who would find a reason they’re her fault. But many more of us are with her. She’s brave and I salute her.

She did let out an expression of shock when Amanda explained that one of the upheld complaints was grabbing his ‘erection.’

The interviewer had rather a stern affect, she was either going out of her way to appear not to give AA an easy ride in the interests of journalistic integrity, or she actually wanted to minimise AA's negative experience at the BBC.

Victoria Derbyshire was the interviewer and (if memory served me well) always conducted interviews as though she was a normal person.

But since being elevated (joke) to newsnight she has become very arch, and to my mind endlessly looking for a "gotcha" moment.

I dont know if this is just her having done interviews for so long, being an ordinary human being seems like a long time ago, or whether in the no doubt cut throat world of the BBC senior presenters she was desperate to be kept on once it being clear newsnight was going to be whittle down to little more than a political chat show.

She did do 2 very straight to camera presentations about Huw Edwards long before it all became clear what had been going on, as though she felt the BBC really was not doing the right thing. So the interview with AA may also have been that. To expose BBC failings.

I did find the way she conducted the interview strange, as it had a direction but to those of us watching it wasn't clear.

But also agree that AA response to what was happening is believable, because no woman would think this normal, let alone in the context of a family show, the producers are the BBC and so on.

But that bit about meeting the other women and all crying.

I think it is such a horrible but good example of how even after Me Too and so on, so many women experience it, and yet ther is still that element of surely no man is going to behave that way. And of course for many, the fear that in whichever area of work it is, as a woman you dont want to get the label "difficult". The description always says to me, this is a woman calling out male dominance. But men dont see themselve that way too often they think they are the victim because of course men's natural behaviour it to them, men, natural. ie the normal order of things.

Did anyone watch the tv series Douglas in Cancelled. Raised so many questions, particularly about women working in the media. https://www.itv.com/watch/douglas-is-cancelled/10a4088

It indicates shock, doesn't it? Really, there are that many men out there who are like that?

Bloody hell. She should come on here.

like J. K. Rowling saying she could paper her house with the number of threats she had.

Maybe these women actually need to publicise them? I'm sure most viewers would be utterly appalled at the length to which these men will go to to frighten women

In most offices, a man grabbing his crotch and saying to a female colleague "I want to fuck you now" would be a sackable offence. Absolutely remarkable that the BBC didn't act on Abbington's complaints as soon as she made them.

(Though maybe not that remarkable, given what we know about the BBC.)

By chance, I happened to catch most of the Newsnight interview.
I know next to nothing about Amanda Abbington, I have never having seen her on telly, I do not watch Strictly, and I haven't been following this thread on MN.

I found her account of being sexually harassed in the workplace, and how she dealt with it, very convincing. I can't see how anyone could defend that behaviour, and I could understand that it was so shocking that she initially went into a 'WTF-just-get-through-this-unbelievable-behaviour' kind of shut-down. But I understand she did complain to the BBC at an early stage?

The interviewer had rather a stern affect, she was either going out of her way to appear not to give AA an easy ride in the interests of journalistic integrity, or she actually wanted to minimise AA's negative experience at the BBC. It was hard to tell, but she sprang Sarah Vine's article on AA without the 'I know this is hard but some people will say....' intro that's common when interviewing people recounting painful experiences.

It was odd when her follow-up question to AA talking about the death/rape threats she, and her daughter, had received was 'How many?' - a strange question, unless she wanted to establish that it was just one or two online cranks; or on the other hand wanted to give AA a chance to explain the huge scale of the online abuse she has received.
AA's weary reply o 'Oh, hundreds' was very telling, and I think I heard a surprised 'Really?' in the background from the interviewer.

It's not often that the Daily Mail underplays things, but watching that Newsnight interview it seems thieir deacription of 'a crotch grab' may be one of those rare occasions.

And the fact that GP says the upheld complaints were 'not serious' is very telling. He thought - still thinks - that showing off an erection in the workplace is OK.

The thing is, we have seen GP’s side (reports of some of his comments and his own statement) but nothing comparable from AA (ie we have no idea whether she used sexualised or belittling comments, whereas we know he did).
GP himself said that ‘the most serious’ allegations were not upheld. Leaving aside the question of how exactly one decides what is more and less serious, this obviously means that he acknowledges that on his ‘side’ there were incidents/comments that have been found unacceptable. He defends himself by saying that as a teacher he gets ‘frustrated’, I know, but again the issue of whether that makes his behaviour ok is a different discussion.

Amanda Abbington interviewed on newsnight - starts at about 11:37 minutes in Newsnight - Amanda Abbington Talks to Newsnight - BBC iPlayer

Remain in denial. Give over yourself.

You'd probably have GP hung, drawn and quartered by now!! I totally abhor the comments he allegedly made, especially the "fuck you" one which is beyond disgusting, but I would like to see them set in context.

I disagree. I think that is a load of bullshit, and only demeans women.

Even-handed? Give over. I will leave it there with you as I don't believe we'll find middle ground and I suspect it a boring read for other contributors to the thread.

Yes because you were deliberately not looking in your desperation to criticise my effort to remain even-handed, given that full details are not in the public domain.

Hang on a second, nobody said that any banter was acceptable did they? It's extremely foolish in this day and age, mindblowingly stupid!! Just that some of us who are more realistic can see how the situation might have arisen. None of the others made a formal complaint either?

Why can't it be a situation where both of them were to blame for being inappropriate?

If it's the case that AA complained every week, then it's totally on the BBC for not dealing with it robustly at the time. Which is something that is a failing in line managers all too often!

So, if a colleague made a sexually inappropriate remark to you, what would you do?

Make a formal complaint, as AA did.

some sort of karmic justice theory, that its okay that a woman who may have breached acceptable behaviour should be punished.

Just-world fallacy. If they can convince themselves that it was her fault, they can believe it won't happen to them. Doesn't work, of course.

Oh sorry, I missed where you were seeing both sides.

Yes, all of this.

Do some of you just not grasp the power structures?

They either benefit from them or benefit from not threatening them.

There's actually no point in talking to some of these people. They just are incapable of seeing that there are two sides to every story, and they stoop as low as they can to make those of us who can see that, feel bad. I'm not remotely bothered by the lack of comprehension.

So, if a colleague made a sexually inappropriate remark to you, what would you do?

Well done on the admirable self control though.

So on a forum that is meant to be feminist, ie having a least a basic understanding of the power structure of the patriarchy, a woman is being blamed for having made formal complaints about a male professional she was paired with was acting inappropriately.

Fairy tale notions that if you indicate to a man he has gone to far he will just stop is, would be if it wasn't so serious, hilariously.

Not forgetting that once AA complaints went public other women came forward and said they had experienced the same. ie the BBC already knew he was a problematic participant and failed to act.

Do some of you just not grasp the power structures?

Week by week the BBC was in fact monitoring and agreeing he had gone too far, but that didn't (this is the BBC that covered up for Huw Edwards) mean they told him to start behaving inappropriately.

What is so grotesque (and all this was said earlier in the thread) is that this is a family show, meant to be early evening entertainment, and yet the BBC let egotistical males behave like throwbacks to some medieval past.

The BBC are on one level the primary culprit because they indulged a work climate that was misogynistic.

And even if AA used banter, again in the hierarchy of a male dominated work place, it does not compare to the banter of a man who is cossetted by an exploitative employer.

I dont care if she did "banter" whether to try and fit in, because she does with friends, or whatever. In an unequal work place she is not the problem.

Women being forced to behave in a manner that men think is "natural" are women working in a position of less power in a male dominated workforce.

This is the same as those who say women are asking for it because they dress up for a night out.

Only in men's head would this be "true" and it is beyond belief that apparently a bit of horse play going a bit far in a work place isn't really a problem.

Far from being a discussion coming from a feminist perspective this thread seems to have drifted into some sort of karmic justice theory, that its okay that a woman who may have breached acceptable behaviour should be punished.

This is a workplace issue.

The BBC failed to ensure a safe enviroment for those taking part in a family show.

And as they have done in other shows allowed men in one of their shows to think they were beyond criticism.

On the basis of the BBC failure I think the show should be cancelled.

You need to go back to Maths class. 6 out of 16 is not the majority!! 😂

And nobody can answer your questions because we don't fucking know!

Someone who swears liberally in public is hardly going to rein it in while in private.

I swear liberally on social media. The worst thing I've ever said at work is 'oh bother'. And I doubt I've even gone that far more than a handful of times. I've certainly managed to retrain myself from making sexual comments to any colleagues - including those who harassed me.

Yeah you need one.