Occupational Power Structures & Sexual Harassment

On the subject of sexual harassment and abuse I was asked to clarify when is verbal harassment just verbal. I am not sure it’s the right question; let me explain.

This is a quote from the SHM today on the subject of Sydney surgeons and their private school ways:

“..surgeons routinely told her she was a “dumb bitch”, and that women were “f—ing useless” and men should be hired instead…On one occasion, a consultant surgeon told her to “get some knee pads and learn to suck c–k”, which was laughed off by colleagues who were present…She said that a senior colleague inappropriately touched her on several occasions and that she was ostracised after she rebuked him.”

(odd that in the 21st century that the herald can’t print ‘fucking’ and ‘cock’, don’t you think? Part of the problem maybe?)

Reading between the lines, the blokes in these type of professions can get away with this behaviour (for now) because they control the actual power structure within these professions, which are self-contained pyramids controlled by old blokes with bad attitudes. Many of the well-paid trades, medicine and law come to mind, have such self-governing structures – partnerships, societies and regulatory bodies – that bequeath status and position.

The key indicator is how many real decisions get made on the golf course or at the club.

This is very different to the corporate world where actual performance eventually catches up with even the most well-connected misogynistic areshole. And also where corporate embarrassment through the wrong sort of publicity can hurt sales, especially in the B2C corporations. It’s not perfect, and certainly not as good in the B2B world, but its getting better all the time, with feedback loops to root out issues.

Fundamentally, the corporate senior mangers are more focused on their greed than preserving some old world structure. It’s one unexpected upside of excessive senior management remuneration in the corporate world.

The solution we currently have for sexual harassment within the opaque pyramid professions is a complaint structure that backfires on the victim, whether that harassment is verbal or physical.

In fact, if it is just verbal then the complaint is seen as trivial and caused by the victim’s lack of tolerance or humor.

But then the attacks may ramp up slowly and the victim becomes the proverbial frog in boiling water, slowly being tested for tolerance without complaint.

So in many ways these verbal attacks are just as dangerous as physical attacks, simply because they can foreshadow them.

In other cases the attacks remain verbal. Their function is to keep the women down at the bottom of the opaque pyramid otherwise the fear is that too many will get to the top and they will change the pyramid structure. They only want one or two well-behaved women, who have passed the ‘test’, at the top-end of pyramid – they need these for appearance’s sake.

And ‘change’ is what these bastards fear most. You can tell this by the type of professions they go into; where there is little change, where you can learn everything, where there is no unexpected risks, and where you can be safe that you will retire with money in your bank account so long as you played the game as it should be.

The best solution to solving sexual harassment in these old-school professions is to bust open their power structures. Destroy their partnerships, societies and self-managed regulatory authorities. Expose them to extreme organisational change.

My root cause analysis says ‘occupational power structures’. Destroy these and we may be a long way towards solving the problem of sexual harassment in these professions.