Sexual Harassment at Work Means No Real Friendship with Women

So there have been more reports in the media of women at work in the USA, the UK and, probably everywhere else, too, that women are being sexually harassed by male colleagues, superiors, and other men in their work environment. Further, attempts to report these incidents have been ignored, or else the women reporting have faced retaliation, being passed over for promotion, being threatened, facing disciplinary action or a range of other negative outcomes.

All of this is depressingly familiar. What more can I add that a plethora of female feminists have not already mentioned?

I would like to think that being a male feminist allows me to use my straight, white, male privilege to step in to help, perhaps in ways that a female feminist cannot access. A lot of women feminists, when asked how male allies can help the cause of women’s liberation, talk about men speaking up in men-only environments and confronting prejudice head on.

That’s a great idea, at least in theory; however, on a day-to-day basis, the opportunity to deliver a rousing speech in front of the board of directors about women’s rights or to rail against harassment is a rare chance indeed. Even if I was a manager myself, I might get that opportunity two or three times a year. What do I do on the other 362 days? I’m not even a manager, anyway, so that gives me even less chance of doing that. Plus, the idea can sometimes deteriorate into a “go and find a rapist to yell at” approach to male allyship.

A better way I have found is to start a conversation around the water cooler with one or two women about a feminist issue, typically the gender pay gap or unequal division of labour in the home. Then create a small group of committed women, which then expands to an office, then a department and so on up, with the male feminist using his privilege to normalize feminist thought, set the agenda in liaison with women around, and promote individual women, so that they head up work projects and are given greater responsibility over the burgeoning network of women feminists being established.

By far the most effective of these methods, in my view, is the normalizing tendency. By having one man willing to discuss feminist issues, this instantly creates an atmosphere where all discussion is welcome; plus, by starting small, with just one or two women, it can be largely innocuous at first, then build up slowly and organically from the fact that discussion is now possible in the first place.

What benefit accrues to the male feminist in return? Is this a pure altruism, doing it for the love of women only, with no return on investment? No way — it creates real friendship with women — one that can transform his life as he helps to transform theirs — a true partnership of equals!

However, this is something of a pregnant pause in this circular argument, since we must then ask why does sexual harassment even exist? How can men treat women in his way?

The fact is, its existence reveals that the men who perpetrate these acts have no real friendship with any women. Yeah, I guess he could be outwardly friendly, cracking jokes in the office, talking to women who work there reasonably normally, perhaps even joining them in after-work drinks or company social events. Being friendly isn’t the same as being friends, though.

Friendship assumes that you value the person whom you are friends with and that the relationship between you is important. You consider their feelings, make sure they are happy and endeavour to continue the relationship at its current level as long as possible.

How can all that possibly be achieved if these men engage in sexual harassment of women? These men DON’T value women, DON’T think their relationship with women is important, DON’T consider their feelings, DON’T care about their happiness and DON’T care if the harassment immediately ends the connection with that woman. They must therefore think that women are expendable.

All this has its root in a patriarchal attitude where men club together and where contact with women is minimized, where misogynistic behaviours are a show of bravado for other men to see and where “money equals power equals sex” creates a belief that women serves men’s interests; but I don’t have to tell you this. You know it already.

What IS revolutionary is that men, by embracing feminism, don’t stop harassing because they just learned that feminism says it’s bad. Rather, they stop harassing because their feminism creates a real friendship with women that couldn’t exist without it; and having now experienced that friendship, they are afraid of losing it. Women become valuable. They become a must-have in the man’s life.

Let’s hope that more men embrace feminism by watching how the male feminists in their midst forge real, long-lasting friendships and alliances with the women in their lives, and become inspired to do the same, so that sexual harassment can be destroyed once and for all and this world become a better place for women and their allies.

Originally published on Medium.

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