Challenging Harmful Behaviour: The Power of Awareness and Speaking Out
Director’s Blog- Originally posted on LinkedIn on December 3, 2024 by Managing Director Lisa Charlotte Davis
I’ve been reflecting on Gregg Wallace the last few days. I mean, haven’t we all?! I’ve seen some absolutely fantastic responses from male allies and “women of a certain age” who have taken to the waves to protest!
In reading the extract below this morning, my thoughts turned to the lovely young men we engaged with at Northumbria University on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women as part of a focus group with Cassandra Jones –
“Kirsty Wark, the former Newsnight host, described how when she was a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef in 2011, she complained to the production company about the show’s co-presenter Gregg Wallace. She thought a sexualised monologue he delivered early one morning on set was so ill-judged that it made her angry, and worried that staff on short-term contracts would not feel able to object.”
Awareness and the Power of Perception
We shared statistics with the young men that absolutely blew their minds:
- 86% of 18-24 year old women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public space (UN Women UK).
- 9 in 10 girls have experienced sexist name-calling or been sent unwanted explicit pictures or videos (Ofsted).
Comments in the room indicated their realisation that, if this was the prevalence, there must be men they knew who engaged in such behaviour. They were a little foxed that they hadn’t seen it or realised it, which very much marries with Ofsted’s finding of a huge disparity in perceptions of prevalence between boys and girls.
What also became evident was their lack of awareness of the impact of “low level” behaviour on women and girls. And this is where Wallace dismissing “women of a certain age” and Wark’s determination to speak out for those who didn’t feel able to is relevant.
Our Weaving Stories teen participants have flagged the extent to which the drip-drip of so-called “low level” behaviour and “banter” creates a backdrop in which sexual abuse takes place.
It’s not that you “can’t say anything to women these days.”
But we do need more men to switch on their spidey senses and notice the “banter” that might actually be deeply uncomfortable for women, or indeed feel threatening when, on the receiving end, you just don’t know what that unchallenged “low level” behaviour could lead to.
Kudos to Kirsty Wark for using the greater confidence of her status as a “middle aged woman of a certain age” — or, we could also say, a respected, established professional — to protect those who silently, uncomfortably, put up with deeply inappropriate stories, questions and physical displays.
Image credit: Bettie Hope Hanley commissioned for our What’s All the Fuss About? art-filled newspaper