Katie* is one of three female paramedics who have shared their experiences of being “hounded” for sexual favours in return for passing training, getting a promotion or simply keeping their jobs.
Although these remarks were often dismissed as “jokes” or “banter”, Katie says, occasionally it shifted into a “monumental” abuse of power.
“Handjobs. Blowjobs. They were obsessed with blowjobs,” she says.
Once I made a mistake with a patient, and a colleague tried to blackmail me into having sex with him. It was horrendous. When I told him no, he said, “watch your back, because I could rape you”.
I don’t know how you change this culture. When posters saying “We Do Not Tolerate Sexual Harassment” were put on the doors in the ladies toilets, a man crossed out the “Not” and drew a penis next to a woman’s mouth.
This sounds like grounds for a lawsuit, not a news article. Make them pay (literally) for being assholes.
The rape threat should have been reported to the police when it happened imho
Doing via media won’t get anything done. If the org is really this bad, they are covering up and adjusting as we speak.
You can’t fix this shit via court of opinion. Pests don’t care.
There’s a better chance of that happening nowadays vs as little as a year ago. And “reporting” often bears a trauma of its own.
Five, ten years ago?
Buried.
There would still be a record of incident even if pigs do nothing.
Criminal accusations purely based on a story will never resonate with public since anyone can make accusations for any reason…
How many monsters have been put away where after they are convicted, we hear about the years and years of countless reports? Creating a “record” punishes the victim more than the criminal, and victims can be blacklisted if they are “difficult to work with.”
I’m with you that it’s better to report it, but we shouldn’t be blaming victims when they would rather not. We should be creating an environment with minimal barriers to reporting in order to protect victims from shame and retaliation.
And your solution is?
Teaching male children that sexual harrassment and rape are wrong.
That involves persuading their parents they should care. Note I said persuading, not teaching. They know damn well it’s wrong and they don’t care as long as they can get away with it.
I think their point is that going to the media might have been the best option.
Edit:spelling
What result did it achieve?
I really don’t get how going to media is better than going to the police lol
But it is their decisions to make.
Well, the result is yet to be seen, the article was only published today.
And then the reporter can enjoy their retaliatory unemployment and blacklisting, probably.
Probably true,
I am not directly familiar with the UK system but from everything I have seen, it has the same problems:
The defense against rape accusations is “she was a slut”. And when things are this institutionalized? You can get plenty of people who will gladly attest that the plaintiff came onto them too because they know that if the dominoes start toppling…
And in the off chance she gets justice AND comes out with any dignity? She is not officially on the industry shitlist because that would be wrong… But her career is more or less over. Because the rapists don’t want to hire her for obvious reasons. But even the “normal” people will be wary of “What if she decides something we do is bad?”.
No. The key to shit like this is to get the public shining a light on this first. Rather than going into a dark room and randomly spraying a bit of bug spray.
I remember coworkers talking about metoo and saying things like that or “what if she decides to report me for something <insert mundane action>”.
I always responded with “if you ever have to wonder if an action could be reported to the police, than maybe you should not do that, and if you are worried that a woman will report you, don’t hang out with that person”.
I never understood how this ever could be a worry.
In which jurisdiction?
In every jurisdiction with misogynist judges.
Judges do fuck shit but I doubt they like having their court cases over turned for failure to supervise counsel who violate rules of evidence.