Sex Pests by Industry

[PickledPony]

Not sure if this is unreasonable but I’m wondering what people’s experience of sexual harassment by industry is. Gregg Wallace is another man in a long line of men from the BBC/TV that has been outed for his vile behaviour towards women. I get the impression that the BBC is particularly bad for recruiting these sorts of men and tolerating a culture of harassment. I’ve worked in a few different jobs and I would say that my time in local government was the best for cracking down on sexual harassment, there were lots of policies in place and any crude comments/ behaviour was not tolerated. I imagine the worst work places are the police/fire service/armed forces (male dominated, ‘respected’ and powerful) but am happy to be told that I’m wrong.

I don't think it's the industry as such but a culture of acceptance. With Russell Brand for example, assistants were procuring women for him to have sex with from audiences.

With Al Fayed everyone knew he was a predator and he even arranged gynecological tests for his victims. Staff, management, Drs even the police facilitated him.

Savile was called a 'nonce' by hospital staff who let him roam free on the wards.

High society were aware of Epstein's predilection for underage and trafficked girls. Weinstein was renowned as a sexual predator.

The reason these people got away with what they did was because they were allowed to get away with it; people colluded with them.

Dominique Pelicot arranged for the abuse of his wife for a decade. For ten years around a hundred men, some who raped his wife a few times, knew what he was doing. Other men on the website he was on knew about it but no one told the police.

Until that changes they're going to continue to come out of the woodwork.

I've also worked in a few different areas and my impression is that industries where there are famous or powerful people with disproportionate clout are where the problem is most likely to arise.

So your going to get a lot of it in any showbiz type situation. Academia also has its 'big names' who are known to be arseholes by those in the know. Any privately owned business where the owner is untouchable is potentially problematic.

By contrast places that are relatively low status and where people, even bosses, are replaceable tend to end up with more of a culture of mutual respect and professional behaviour because noone is too big to get away with bad behaviour. Big chain retail companies for example.

I think there are three key elements.

1. The age of the industry. The IT industry in the 80s and early nineties was a nightmare. Lots of small, new companies, all run by men, most of which didn't have HR departments. Women were fired for getting pregnant, sexually assaulted, on a daily basis.
2. The % of the workers who are women. There is some safety in numbers.
3. The desirability of the industry - some people will tolerate a lot to get into acting, modelling, fashion etc

But really, until the 2000s, the male generation that were managers, thought they had the right, and needed to see some prosecutions, before it got through to their tiny brains that they didn't.

I was financial services in the early 90s. I’ve had sales managers who thought it was okay to stick their hand down my front after a few drinks, twice male colleagues have tried to break into my hotel room (one got a key card made up from reception and let himself in) just lots of general disrespect for women, comments, exclusion.

It’s so much better today

Politics. Perhaps not so much local councils but it seems rife at government and party level. That’s inline with @throughthewoods post. She made points I’ve not thought of before and makes a lot of sense. Although one exception I think would be hospitality at general public level. There are a lot of average men whose misogyny increases with every drink.