Amanda Abbington and Strictly.

[PriamFarrl]

I never watch Strictly, but it seems that her being on it is causing some conflict.

I did a quick look but couldn’t see a thread.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/tv/strictly-come-dancing-fans-divided-27466760?fbclid=IwAR1iNqoQHvU6tlsap3W1iWz7oG81Sp0Qimp81rzzd5XAU9fB4NLm_LgE47w_aem_AWkW94vOg0i7vw4ncasDUMNwbDACoxFIhz_Dsisy4LT9Nv0k-aEB-k7pqbT5hptMzeU#ll00z8fhy5yfgk5qz3

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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

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

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

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.

wtf?!

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.)

Abbington is being put in an impossible position. On the one hand, people are saying that her tears and distress show she's not a very resilient person, and she should have been willing to accept it as banter and just get on with the job. On the other hand, when she says that for a while she did try and get on with it, people seem to think that demonstrates she wasn't really upset by it.

And this is why women so rarely complain about sexual harassment and bullying - because however they respond, they are told they are in the wrong.

I can't help wondering what would have happened had AA just walked out after the very first incident of harassment. The BBC probably would have tried to spin it as something else - injury, prior commitments or something, and she would have been leaned on to go along with that.
The real reason would have emerged - these things always do - it would have hit social media, and, I suspect, AA would have been called a crybaby and subjected to online abuse anyway.
A woman's place is in the wrong.

The Sarah Vine bit was horrible, I had to skip through it. And what a bizarre article to write without actually knowing what was in the report.

And this is why women so rarely complain about sexual harassment and bullying - because however they respond, they are told they are in the wrong.

Yes it's always... "why didn't the women speak out at the time - if they'd come forward sooner they might have helped prevent others from being abused".

This is why.

A woman's place is in the wrong.

That sums it all up perfectly.

There is no way to not compound the trauma for women, and I would bet on my life that Amanda would have known that and was still brave enough to step forward.

I believe her. Also watching some of the dances back on video made me feel very uncomfortable given her evident distress in the interviews. Especially the Salsa in week two. As she said there are 200 hours of footage. If there was nothing to see I suspect the BBC would have released it. Awful!!

There was a bit when they were up in the Clauditorium, I think it was the week before she left, where he was pawing at her, I think it was her shoulder, and she reacted so viscerally, like get the fuck off me! I noticed it at the time and it all makes sense now.

It was obvious in the Newsnight interview how traumatised she is.