The Australian ad industry is saying #metoo – but what can we actually do?
As the #metoo posts continue pouring in from the Australian ad industry’s females, Emma Heath, founder of copywriting consultancy Words by Nuance, considers what action can be taken to end ad agency harassment once and for all.
When the #metoo campaign started flooding social media this week, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one out there who felt depressed – and at the same time, wholly unsurprised. For those who haven’t heard (or who have seen the #metoo hashtag and wondered what it means) this viral campaign was triggered by this recent business with Harvey Weinstein, a powerful Miramax studio executive who’s been outed for his alleged revolting behaviour towards countless women in Hollywood.
In the wake of these allegations, celebrities and normal people everywhere took to the internet to share their own experiences of sexual harassment and assault, with the goal of demonstrating how wide-spread this problem really is.
I guess this was shocking to some, but I bet I am not the only one who thought, “well, derr.”
After a decade in the ad industry, your chance of escaping some form of sexual harassment is slim to none. Like showbiz, it’s an industry rife with dodgy goings-on; a world where the lines between professional and personal are constantly blurred. A world where meetings can reasonably be expected to happen in smoky bars; where girls jump out of cakes at agency birthday parties, and where requests for ‘massages’ are all too familiar.
just saying.
that’s what you took from this?
Emma, you’ve made a lot of good points here. However, you have somewhat missed the point when you say things like “lines between professional and personal are constantly blurred,” and “usually, i[harassment is] unclear.” Sexual harassment is never okay, not in a professional context, and also not okay in a personal context. How unclear is that?
As you said, the Weinstein allegations are what kicked off the most recent #metoo wave – and what he did was not unclear in any way. Sexual harassment and abuse isn’t about “sex” – it is about power: those who have it and abuse it, versus those who lack the power to protect themselves from that abuse.
The only reason to categorise “professional” harassment differently from “personal” harassment is to understand the heightened power differential. It’s unlikely that these women would have given Weinstein the time of day if it weren’t for the fact he was in a position of power over their careers, so they felt it was their “job” to tolerate him and try to please him. To walk away was to lose their career.
In a male-dominated industry like advertising, men control most of the power. Both official power, such as holding management roles, and also social power – in our society with double standards, where women are judged quickly and harshly, men have power to damage reputations just by spreading rumours that a woman is a bitch, slut, frigid, crazy, incompetent, slept her way to her position, etc. Men believe men more than they believe women. And they are the powerbrokers.
So, there are men like Weinstein who consciously abuse their power, and enjoy degrading and humiliating women. Sometimes this will take the form of sexual harassment and abuse, but there are also other ways to degrade and humiliate women too. In a professional situation women can’t just walk away from it, because it is their client, or boss, or colleague – and when women do speak up, they are often punished for that too.
But there are also other men, who abuse their power without realising it. Because while they do have power (privilege) they don’t acknowlege it or think about it consciously. These are the men who might *think* they are just having some fun, and its just a drunken misunderstanding, but they are none the less abusing their power. It’s men who are too busy looking at a woman’s breasts to notice the look of discomfort on her face. Men who are too busy thinking about what they want for themselves to consider what she wants (or doesn’t want). Men who don’t educate themselves on the female experience, to understand how women from childhood know and fear the danger that comes with men. Men who read that last sentence and automatically think “not all men!” Men who think that when a woman laughs at their jokes, its because they’re really funny.
Luckily, there is also another kind of man. One who doesn’t think harassment is “unclear” or that the “lines are blurry.” They care enough about women to actually listen to them, they understand that women are fully formed human beings that have more than one function, they respect a woman’s right to say no, and they pay attention to women’s body language so they can tell when a woman is uncomfortable, scared, disgusted, or stressed by a situation, and when that happens they be a good friend. Not only do they refrain from harassing women, in both professional and personal environments, they also STAND UP for women, and tell those other men to STOP harassing and abusing women.
The question for men is: what kind of man are you?
It’s all happening only because not everyone has daughters