To not know what to do about inappropriate sexual behaviour.

[Seenthelightnow]

I did post this in Chat last night but it's slipped off the first page and I am keen to get some responses so apologies for duplicate post.
I’m a paramedic, often working on my own obviously going into peoples homes. Virtually every week I experience some sort of sexually motivated behaviour. It ranges from the ‘ do you fancy a fuck.’ ‘would you like to hold my willy while I have a piss’ to physical grabbing and touching. That’s not even counting the elderly patients with dementia.
It happens to us all and we just extract ourselves from the situation and laugh it off but it frequently makes us feel uncomfortable and sometimes unsafe.

It wasn’t until recently when I saw a young, gay, male crewmate being propositioned by an elderly ( not dementia) patient in the most sexually explicit way, and how upset it made him feel, that I realised how much we normalise almost constant sexual harassment and assault when directed at women. Talking to my gay colleagues the above seems to be much less common.

Why is it that men, mainly in the 20-50 age range seem to think it’s amusing to make women feel uncomfortable and unsafe when we’re simply doing our job and is there anything we can do to prevent it or to feel safer?

Btw I have nc’d for this but have been around since 2007.

[Pumperthepumper]

That's a really interesting article. I'd never thought about the power balance in the Harvey Weisnstein case in that way.

[ArcheryAnnie]

ShatnersWig you seem so hellbent on pitching this as a "women do this too!" situation that it's very clear you don't get it. Of course some women harrass some men. Nobody disputes this. But to imply that there's any kind of equivalence, either in numbers or in the structural power that the harrassers hold, is disingenuous in the extreme.

[Witsender]

Of course some women do it too. But as much? And with the background of societal
and physical imbalance ?

It is such a cliché that this conversation has to happen yet again.

[LondonNicki]

Hi - so shocked at your post and haven't read the responses but my job is to investigate these cases at work so I would urge you to submit a formal concern under your organisations formal process.

Nine of what you way is acceptable and you don't need to work in that environment. Any organisation should have appropriate procedures to file a complaint. Please do that.

[Fidoandacupoftea]

Bloody sick perverts. I was horrified to read your post OP and even more worried to see how normal it is for many posters. Record it and walk out, surely this a threat to you. Surely nobody saying this is at deaths door.

[blanklook]

Some police officer/security staff now wear some camera on them (gopro type of stuff?)nowdays. Would that be an option for paramedics too?

This absolutely, or some form of recording. Plenty of publicity beforehand before it's rolled out, plenty of publicity on behaviour that will no longer be tolerated, so no-one can use the 'banter defence'

Come to think of it, the general standard of behaviour these days leaves more than a lot to be desired.

[chestylarue52]

Try a couple of well practised and easy to repeat phrases

Either

You're not allowed to talk to me like that

Or

You're not allowed to touch me

Depending on the transgression. Repeated firmly, whilst going about your professional duties.

[chestylarue52]

@archeryannie

(I remember when I was quite young, being SO DELIGHTED by an older friend's response to being told she was a "humourless feminist" when she would not put up with this sort of thing. Her response "yup! No sense of humour at all, none. Now fuck off." The idea that you didn't have to be defensive about not having a "sense of humour" about these things was an absolute revelation to me.)

This is so so wonderful I'm going to steal it 😊

[Wingedharpy]

Have just skimmed responses OP, but agree with LondonNicki, you MUST report these incidents to your line Manager and encourage ALL your colleagues, both male and female, to do likewise.
Your ambulance trust surely will have a policy regarding lone workers?
It comes under Health and Safety at work and your employers have a duty to risk assess this sort of thing and keep you safe.
Employers will be happy to turn a blind eye if no-one reports.
Sorry you are experiencing this sort of treatment while trying to do your job.

[GnomeDePlume]

It is about power. It is about asserting dominance. I can say/do this and you can't do anything about it.

[sodastreamlover]

Sadly that is too true... Interesting article.

We might not be celebrities or even be powerful but if more people report this shit then we make ourselves more heard.

I've only ever once reported a boss with wandering hands in the 90s but I wish I'd done it more often. There were also comments bordering on lewd. Not that the hands stopped and I still had to work with him. He was 20 years NT senior and I was vulnerable in other ways that made the Bajaj e if power quite shocking really.