Concluding her article 'Have we become paranoid about sexual harassment?' (WISENET Journal, July 1995) Frances Edwards congratulates Helen Garner for being brave enough to open up discussion of sexual harassment and feminism in her book The First Stone. She also invites further discussion on the issues she and Garner raise.
We take this opportunity to make a contribution. Our comments should be read against the information that neither of us is a young woman. We are more than a decade ahead of Helen Garner.
First, Edwards' assertion that Garner's book opened up the issue of sexual harassment for discussion is extraordinary as for decades there has been agonising controversy and public comment, not to mention substantial research, on discrimination including sexual harassment.
Neither Garner nor Edwards seems familiar with this material nor really clear about the distinction between sexual harassment and mutual enjoyment of 'normal sexual tensions' which is a commonplace and perfectly acceptable element in a range of social interactions.
Nor is sexual harassment simply nerdish behaviour on the part
of men towards women.
It is a form of discrimination expressed in repeated and unwelcome
sexual advances. When underpinned by relations of power, it is
particularly offensive and damaging. Of course, it need not be
heterosexual and there are instances where men complain of harassment
by women, but overwhelmingly, and reflecting the power structures
of society, it is men who sexually harass women.
Garner's book is a well written account of her own reaction to the Ormond College case: the trouble is that its flavour gives credibility to those who would trivialise complaints about sexual harassment, especially those made by young female students. The latter became the target for criticism in Garner's story, not the Master who allegedly harassed the women.
Universities and their colleges are hierarchically structured, saturated with masculine cultures, and there is no doubt about the position allocated to students in such structures. Garner gives inadequate weight to these hierarchies and to the grossly unequal relation between a master and a student, which is likely to be even more exaggerated if that student is female. Indeed she seems to underrate the traumatic experience of alleged sexual harassment (however 'non-violent') by a person holding a duty of care over students and in a position of power to influence their careers.
We do not dispute that there is a range of difference between sexual harassment in the workplace without rape or other kinds of physical violence and rape itself, as Edwards (p.13) and Garner (p.221) note. The point we wish to make is that all these behaviours depend on the assumption that men have some kind of sexual right over the use of women's bodies and therefore all are unacceptable. This aspect of gender power relations does not receive adequate attention by either Garner or Edwards.
In The First Stone, Garner laments the fact that today's young feminists have turned puritanical and punitive when harassed by men, and Edwards seems to accept this criticism, if only partially. Yet the young Ormond women who finally took the matter to the police did try other avenues first, which neither Garner nor Edwards detail. Initially, what the two women wanted was an acknowledgement that the incident had occurred, an apology for it, and procedures instituted at the College to ensure it did not recur. They got nowhere. Their attempts to have the matter dealt with discreetly and sensibly within the College were thwarted by College Council and other authority figures.
Taking the matter to the police was a last resort and, given the legislation covering sexual harassment, why shouldn't they have done so if all their other efforts had failed? After all, sexual harassment is illegal and the young women had every right to invoke the legislation covering it. Formerly, when no such legislation existed (in our youth and Garner's) this was not an option. Moreover it is plain that dealing with the matter on an individual and private basis has done nothing to eliminate this behaviour.
Public condemnation associated with the legislation has been necessary to expose the practice of sexual harassment as socially unacceptable. Did any of our slapping of faces or sharp words help other women? In any case, why should women be expected to shoulder the responsibility of controlling inappropriate sexual behaviour of men? There is a good argument to make that the Ormond women acted not only reasonably but with integrity and a sense of social responsibility. As Dr Jenna Mead, a supporter of the two students at Ormond, said of the incident:
One of the things nobody seems to understand about this case is that when you go to the police and make a complaint, the police don't just say, "Right, for sure, we'll charge the guy". They investigate it thoroughly. In going to the police those young women were invoking a very stringent test of their own veracity. Now the criminal code has the reputation, rightly or wrongly, of not being particularly sympathetic to women. It was a very courageous act. The Age 6 April 1995.
Mead's comments stand in stark contrast to Garner's irrational outburst in her book, namely that:
(For conciliation) A certain patience is required, however, and a basic optimism about the ability of people to learn and change. The Ormond complainants and their supporters ran out of this patience; or perhaps they never had it. Perhaps they never believed, in their rage and frustration, that anything other than brute force would blast a hole through the battlements of men's privilege. So they charged past conciliation into the traditional masculine style of problem-solving: call in the cops, split off the relevant nuances of character and context, and hire a cowboy to slug it out for you in the main street at noon, with all the citizenry watching. Garner: p.104-5
Although the Master was ultimately found not guilty by the courts on the basis of insufficient evidence, a subsequent Equal Opportunity Commission hearing produced both an apology to the young women from the College, acknowledging the women had acted honourably, and a financial settlement for them (see Mead, Republica 2, 1995:173 compared with Garner's comments about the EO report, p.183).
The College itself, in failing to deal with the incident expeditiously and fairly, inflamed the event. It would seem that those men in power who resisted acting properly on the complaint simply wanted to avoid facing the issue, avoid a scandal and hoped that the whole matter would go away. Although the treatment finally meted out to the Master may, in the eyes of some, have been disproportionate to the alleged crime, the treatment of the young women, including Garner's account, has itself been punitive.
Another of Garner's complaints reiterated in her book, namely that the young women would not talk to her, is extraordinarily naive, given her initial impetuous gesture in writing in sympathy to the Master of Ormond College when the story broke publicly. Why on earth should the young women have spoken to her? There was good ground for believing that Garner's bias could damage them further. As it is, both the young women and their families have no doubt been profoundly distressed by Garner's book and the publicity surrounding them that it has generated.
Garner's argument that a gulf now exists between older feminists and the younger ones who react decisively against sexual harassment does not hold up to scrutiny. There are older feminists, like us, who sympathise with the young women of Ormond and who are grateful that they could use the legal procedures they did. Criticism now should be directed at those men and women who fail to take sexism and sexual harassment seriously and who continue to blame those who complain about it. It is clear that more debate is necessary on these issues, but let that debate be informed.
I am writing about the article by Dr Frances Edwards commenting on a talk given by Helen Garner on Sexual Harassment. The article was very well balanced and, of course, there is a fine line between good humoured joshing and something more sinister.
A couple of my experiences may be of interest. The first took place on the London Underground in the rush hour. For anyone who has not been there, I strongly advise you not to bother. The trains are grossly overcrowded, and people are willy-nilly packed in, in full body contact with several others at any given moment. The Tube is well known for its gropers, and I remember an occasion where a man started groping me, getting bolder and bolder as time went on. I tried to move away but he wouldn't let me. He was also making verbal threats. Luckily I was near the door, and when I arrived at my destination I leapt off the train at the last minute, and was relieved to see him being carried away by the train. I was absolutely terrified.
However, I was put to shame not long after when a friend encountered the same situation. She had more confidence than I, and grabbed the man's hand and somehow managed to haul it over her head, saying, 'There is a hand on my body. It is not my hand. I wonder whose hand it may be?' The groper turned scarlet and shot off the train at the next station, to the applause of most of the passengers.
Her action turned a potentially nasty situation into a comic one, and probably put the groper off for life, whereas my cowardice merely left my groper confident that he had power over women, and could get away with quite unforgiveable behaviour.
The second incident was in some ways rather sad. At the University where I worked I used to say hello to one of the porters, and when I heard he was visiting my home town, I gave him the address of a quiet family hotel where he stayed. Unfortunately this man took my greetings to mean far more than I had intended. He insisted that he wanted to show me his holiday photos after work, and came up to my office to do so. I was nervous about this and asked my technician to give the man twenty minutes, and then call me on the internal phone to say that I was urgently needed. This was done, and the man went away. My technician thought the man was a poor sort chap, and no kind of threat to me, and he may have been right. But I was alarmed at the way he looked at me, as if he was trying to get inside me via the eyes. He made it a point to be always on duty when I was expected to visit his building - he was always there and I felt crowded. I still feel that this was a case of sexual harassment, but I also still have doubts as to whether I was over-reacting.
I think that this is the worst thing about sexual harassment. It is a matter of judgement on the parts of both people involved. It is also a very personal matter - some people are upset by events or remarks that others may just laugh at, or feel free to make other comments in return.
There is no easy answer to any of this, and harassment will continue until women are respected as genuinely equal - and that is still a long way off!