Old Man Surgeon

A female vascular surgeon in Sydney made the mistake of saying that sexism is so rife among surgeons in Australia that young women in the field should probably just accept unwanted sexual advances because coming forward could ruin their careers.

By ‘accepting’ unwanted sexual advances she meant; sucking it up, not complaining to some authority, and probably telling the bloke to get stuffed, with some cutting humour.

This practical advice has outraged the politically correct types, especially those that earn a living off campaigning for ‘equal rights’. I can feel their pain. Actually ‘equal rights’ is a misnomer – what they are campaigning for is legal intervention into every goddamned corner of our lives just to ensure there is not one whit of unfairness left.

For some women, early in their careers, they have not the emotional armour to survive such sexual advances. For them the path of complaint and official processes makes sense. Often though, if they knew what this entails they wouldn’t enter into the process. But it does have a side benefit of toughening them up, eventually.

On the other hand, the surgeon’s advice is meant for those who just want to get on with their careers and who have no desire to becomes martyrs to a cause. These are the women that are born with the emotional armour required to deflect sexual advancement from old blokes.

Neither party in this dispute is right or wrong; it’s horses for courses. It’s just a shame that neither party can accept this. The campaigners against unfairness are most to blame. They are the victims in this story; they have little humour, little emotional armour, and as a result they generally wish to force their position down everyone’s throats whether we want it or not.

More the shame that the missing person in this missive, the old bloke surgeon, is so emotionally undeveloped as a human being that he feels the need to energize his sense of self worth by exercising power in sexual advances, careless and uncaring of the impact upon another soul. A life wasted right there, old man surgeon.

End Note; if the unwanted sexual harassment tips over into the physical then the old bloke needs to be outed. It’s a different situation entirely to sexual advances of the verbal category, and this needs to be made clear in any debate on the subject.