In response to the landmark Respect@Work report, the government has announced it will fund sexual harassment education and training programs for a wide range of people, from school kids to professionals and judges.
On the surface, this seems like a good thing. But overlaying harassment education in environments and workplaces that are already hostile can sometimes make sexual harassment worse, leading to victim blaming, increased inequality and backlash.
Victim blaming
No one thinks that sexual harassment training is for them, so it’s easy to see how mandatory training can be viewed as a waste of time. The men who are most likely to harass are also the ones least likely to see its value. Early US studies have shown that while sexual harassment training may increase knowledge and awareness, it made men less likely to respond to sexual harassment and more likely to blame the victim.
Many men who have completed sexual harassment training think women are overemotional, weak and passive. It reinforces their sense of superiority — the very stereotypes that can make women the target of harassment in the first place.
These effects of training can create a backlash. After all, you wouldn’t have to do it if women weren’t “oversensitive” and incapable of standing up for themselves or taking a joke!
Studies even indicate that when diversity training is conducted by a woman or a person of colour, the backlash is worse because the trainers are seen as less competent.
Box-ticking
Over the past decade and more, many well-meaning organisations have been trying to prevent and respond to sexual harassment through three key measures: policies, training and grievance procedures.
They have been advised to do so for compliance with the law in employer guidelines by the Australian Human Rights Commission, and the Federal Court has backed this up. If employers do not have this holy trinity of compliance, they will be liable for the behaviour of their harassing employees.
But what this leads to is box-ticking. Money may roll through the human resources department and businesses may stick their names on a generic sexual harassment policy, but there’s no meaning attached to these measures.
The training that is rolled out is mandatory, standardised and online, with multiple-choice questions. More ticking of boxes. And the harassment continues.
Evidence-based solutions
So, what’s the solution? Training run by senior white men, further reinforcing their authority and emotional superiority? Trainers that exhort their mates to be nice to their oversensitive lady colleagues in case they overreact? Tell the jokes in private, hire other men who “fit” the culture and keep the harassment rates low by hiring fewer women?
There is a better way. A key phrase in the Respect@Work recommendations needs to be burned into our brains when it comes to sexual harassment education and training: it should be evidence-based. While we don’t know exactly what will prevent sexual harassment (and the government should fund some Australian research), there is what I call a “research-informed” approach.
A research-informed response tells us we need policies and training that are authentic, backed by management and fit the values of the organisation.
A policy that presents sexual harassment in its three aspects — an issue of equality, violence, and workplace health and safety — can still emphasise the most institutionally meaningful of these (sadly, the gender-neutral workplace health and safety aspect seems to garner the least hostility).
The trick is to connect it to your own industry and workplace. An IT start-up? “A positive, safe workplace culture fosters innovation.” A financial services firm? “Our customers need to engage with an organisation that highlights integrity.”
Training on the policy should then connect to these values. It should be clear that it is supported through leadership. It should be in-person and interactive and reinforced in multiple ways over time. It should be anchored in principles of non-discrimination.
And when it comes to who should deliver the training for maximum impact? Let’s have senior men doing what they need to be doing right across society — and in Parliament — now: standing alongside, and backing up, a woman who delivers the message with her own authority.
Karen O’Connell is an associate professor in the law department of University Technology Sydney and previously worked at the Australian Human Rights Commission.
I agree that training of this sort needs to be overwhelmingly focused on the positive. You don’t train people not to drop the ball, you train them to catch it.
…and shaming boys for the behaviour of their ancestors isn’t going go work either. The hot heads in the debate need to be thanked and politely ushered out of the room so evidence based solutions can be discussed by those who seek solutions rather than a fight.
Perhaps training young females before the finish highschool, how to defend themselves from harrassment sexual or otherwise, in school, uni, or the workplace–or any place really.
The only thing I have to thank my father for is showing me how to react to sexual assault, either coming from behind or frontal. I used his teachings twice to stop rape, of course that fact that I was furious that some male would dare to try helped heaps. So, ladies and girls, when some twit tries rape, or even touching he is not entitled to, you don’t get scared get enraged. It does not matter if you end up having to leave a job instead of him, make sure why you’re leaving is clearly understood by all immediately.
Your solution reminds of, I think it was in Israel, the country was experiencing an epidemic of rape and (male) lawmakers proposed to the (female) PM curfews for women. To which the PM replied, “why not curfews for men?”
Maybe we should train boys before they finish high school to treat women with respect every human being should afford another human being instead of harassing and/or attacking them?
I agree that men need this training but the sad reality is that 4% of the population are sociopaths (and then there is a bunch of other drug, poverty and mental health conditions). These people aren’t going to be swayed by an hour long training course.
That said, we men must resist the temptation to use such people as an excuse not to look into our normalised bad behaviors.
The most important lessons from self defense classes are how not to get into bad situations in the first place…..while still living a full life. Buddy up, don’t get drunk, maintain situational awareness.
I wish i could convince the womens movement to stop shouting ‘victim blaming’ everytime a male tries to encourage PEOPLE to take SOME responsibility for protecting themselves. It turns off so many from their cause.
Remember what Dan Andrews did to the Chief of Police in the wake of the Eurydice Dixon murder? The Chief simply said ‘people should help the police by being mindful of their personal safety’ Dan threw him under the bus for victim blaming.
Telling women its ok to walk alone in places (that men would be reluctant to) because its their RIGHT makes me so angry and question what the womens movement is playing at. Are women just pawns for them?
We seem to be of a similar age cohort.
In the 60s I watched the difference between euroid and anglophone women when travelling in the Eastern lands.
I was never able to put my finger on why but the stark differences between they way the two groups dealt with the realities of those repressed societies was instructive.
I don’t understand why training should be tailored to a particular workplace. People are people wherever you go, or so I thought.
Primarily because there are different cultural and socio economic groups that are at different points in the journey to equality. How we speak to 20 something university educated professionals needs to be different to new immigrant manual labourers.
It teaches us to step back and ANALYZE about how best to solve the problem.
Its like the famous Deming cycle that project management and quality assurance is based on. You dont just act and then get frustrated why things aren’t improving – something i think the womens movement suffers from. You need to ‘plan, do, check, act’. Ie set some objective metrics, design some evidenced based interventions to improve them, implement, assess the impact and then adjust. Then you keep repeating this over and over again.
Training may not be a panacea but be simply a band aid solution or tick box (often an unthinking reflex) while workplaces require cultural change through diversity, not just gender.
Till we start seeing more diversity in politics, especially LNP, and also media, many will not understand the issues nor will they be exposed to learning and need to adapt culture.
This is especially so when backgrounded by importation of US GOP political culture with a resurgence in pale male patriarchy and privilege, well exemplified by Mitch McConnell et al. in US Congress.
Take the much read Australian Financial Review, as for instance.
The majority of the journalists and contributors are male and so the majority of all the front pages go in almost a ratio of 4 to 1 in males favour.
A female journalist who works for the AFR breaks a big story about rape, misogyny and a cover up in Parliament House.
And so, then it is her turn to be undermined and her character (supposedly difficult) and her credibility called into question along with claims of Samantha Maiden being an “activist” journalist, because, she covered the women’s March for Justice outside of parliament house.
Well we all know of a workplace in need of a clean and tidy up.
It’s especially relevant to political media (Sky AD is the extreme), the modus operandi in Oz these days managing ‘narratives’, but makes too many Australian men appear threatened, not just by women, but change and difference.
I agree. I have a passionate dislike for the right wing FUD mongers that fill the herald sun and Murdoch papers…but the left leaning media needs to look at their behavior too.
The ABC is a key institution in our democracy.
ABC online was my primary source of news for 15+ years but Ive since moved to SBS, becuase i got feedup reading polemics and endless articles about victims dressed up as news. The difference is so apparent. Varying view points presented in unbiased manner. Actual journalism. Pick a day and compare the two news article lists.
Unfortunately the ABC may have just given the LNP the ammunition they needed.
“Evidence based solutions” ….hallelujah!! And ‘the patriarchy’ not mentioned once. Articles like this is what Crikey needs more of if they want to capture and influence the mainstream and not just preach to the choir.