Judgy McJudgypants

And I don’t mean me.

How’s this for a loaded headline on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald today: Employers brace for wave of copycat sex claims.

I guess ‘She made it up to get money and now other women will make it up to get money too’ was too long.

Keep in mind that Mark McInnes admitted he behaved inappropriately when he resigned, and only disagreed with a couple of minor things in the sexual harassment case, so Kristy Fraser-Kirk clearly didn’t make it up.

Some of the letters of demand also appear to mirror the legal strategy pursued by Ms Fraser-Kirk’s lawyers – claiming multiple breaches, including breach of contract, discrimination, and breaches of the Fair Work Act.

Oh, please. That’s like saying a defamation case is a copycat action because someone else has previously sued for defamation.

It is impossible to say whether these are cynical ”copycat” claims or a sign there are many women who have shared Ms Fraser-Kirk’s experience.

Impossible to say, but that hasn’t stopped Paul Bibby and Eli Greenblat (two blokes, by the way, but I’ll get to that in a minute) from saying it. It also clearly shows that they didn’t even bother to do any research for this story. A quick Google search reveals there were 75 sexual harassment cases in 2009/10, but that only 16 per cent of people who are sexually harassed brought any form of action (from a story in their own newspaper, by the way). They could also have done some basic journalism and gone to the Australian Human Rights Commission website for a factsheet on sexual harassment. The first line of this factsheet reads:

Despite 24 years of legislation, sexual harassment is still alive and well in our workplaces.

There’s also this from a national survey in 2008:

Around one in three women in Australia aged 18-64 have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime. The majority of sexual harassment continues to be experienced in the workplace (65%).

But no, apparently it’s impossible to say that women are sexually harassed at work.

It seems the quote from Jennifer Neilsen, law at Southern Cross University, has gone over their heads:

”This was a very powerful and influential person whose position was terminated because of his behaviour – that’s a strong message,” Dr Neilsen said.

”My only concern is when people start blaming the victim – turning their attention from the inappropriate behaviour of Mr McInnes to the question of how Ms Fraser-Kirk made her claim. It takes a very brave woman to step forward … but if you have the media attacking her for that decision other women will view the process with fear.”

Yet if no other women launch high profile sexual harassment cases, the view will be that sexual harassment at work clearly does not happen. Because somehow this one woman is supposed to represent all women, in a way that never happens to high profile cases involving men. Paul Hogan’s tax case didn’t make everyone declare that all Australian celebrities who live overseas have unpaid tax bills. All male actors haven’t been tarred with the Matthew Newton brush.

In some of the newsrooms I’ve worked, there’s been bra snapping, arse grabbing, male colleagues who stare at your boobs all day, male colleagues who only talk to your boobs, rating the hotness and fuckability of female colleagues, women told what they can and cannot wear because men might be distracted by a knee, men pulling their female colleagues onto their laps (who said Mad Men was set in the past?), and I’ve been called a fucking slut because I didn’t clean up the kitchen after everyone dumped their dirty plates after lunch. And I’m not talking about things that happened 20 years ago – I’ve been a journo for less than 10 years. With this sort of harassment going on in their own workplaces, it’s pretty easy to see why the reporting of sexual harassment cases is clueless, and always attacks the women.

Like poking a wound

I’m a glutton for punishment. Not only did I read the Sam de Brito column on Sunday, and Brian Holden’s anti-women rant yesterday, but today I read Miranda Devine’s piece in the SMH: Nobody died, so why is she demanding a king’s ransom? I know, I must be nuts.

The start is actually quite funny, with gems such as:

Now Abbott is no better than a rapist. What an insult to a family man who is anything but anti-women.

That’s right, Devine thinks Abbott is anything but anti-women. Oh, how I chortled.

It is just this kind of hysterical overreach that is behind the $37 million sexual harassment lawsuit launched against David Jones by its former publicist, Kristy Fraser-Kirk, 27. By claiming that absurd amount, she has lost credibility. The sympathy and respect she earned from her initial dignified and private handling of the case flew out the window. She is no longer seen as a victim but as another litigious, gold-digging, high umbrage woman egged on by lawyers using feminism to advance a personal cause.

Devine is conveniently ignoring the fact she also uses feminism to advance her personal anti-feminist cause. And is “high umbrage woman” another way of saying “high maintenance and without a sense of humour”?

But this is what it boils down to:

Playing up your victimhood rather than getting on with life invariably makes for an unhappy life.

I’m sure women who have been raped, assaulted and harassed will suddenly slap their foreheads and say, ‘of course, if I’d just gotten on with my life instead of reporting the crime, then I wouldn’t be unhappy about the illegal thing that happened to me’.

That is not to say that Mark McInnes, 45, wasn’t a sleaze who got away with much more than he should have in the way of predatory, overbearing behaviour towards female underlings. And that’s not to say the David Jones’ board should not have known of the CEO’s proclivities, even if it didn’t know of specific sexual harassment, as it has said. If even half of what is in Fraser-Kirk’s statement of claim is true, McInnes deserves everything he got.

How very generous of you, Miranda, after that nice spot of victim blaming.

The worst Fraser-Kirk alleges of McInnes would have distressed most women but it should not ruin her life – unless she dwells on it.

Oh, no, back to the victim blaming.

In any case, comments by the designer, Alannah Hill, making light of Fraser-Kirk’s lawsuit, tell you how complicated sexual politics can be today, with some women evidently welcoming McInnes’s passes.

No, it’s not complicated at all. If someone says they’re not interested, then don’t grope them. And don’t keep asking them for sex. How complicated is that? Suggesting that because some women welcomed his advances so therefore he couldn’t sexually harass anyone is like saying that just because someone has had sex once, then they can’t be raped.

[Hill] has since apologised but her remarks demonstrate the divide between the women of Fraser-Kirk’s generation Y who refuse to accept disrespectful behaviour from men and the more laissez-faire attitude of older women.

Hysterical legal hyperbole does not help women of any age. Greedy lawsuits only damage women in the workplace by making male colleagues resentful and wary. In the real world, this is a severe handicap for women making their way on their own merits.

And here we are, back at blaming women for everything.

Yes, $37 million is a fucking shitload of money. But since laws against sexual harassment in the workplace clearly don’t work, and many people in management still don’t take the issue seriously, why not go for the colossal kick in the financial nuts? It might finally work.

He thought he was Don Juan? Well, that’s ok then

The Sydney Morning Herald has a bad case of the inappropriate Don Juans at the moment. On the weekend, the now-former David Jones CEO Mark McInness – who had to quit after someone complained about his sexual harassment – was described as A touch of Don Juan in the ladies’ department. And now this:
‘Don Juan’ HIV taxi rapist jailed: ‘I swear on my kids you are going to be shocked’

Firstly, what kind of shit headline is that?

And secondly, what kind of bullshit is this:

[Hassan] Nagi, a father of three from Bexley, who pleaded a chronic case of “Don Juanism” in court, will be eligible for parole in October 2018.

I’m sorry, what the fuck? Did his legal defence really rest on him having a “chronic case of Don Juanism”? If so, he should have fired his lawyer. I don’t know if “it’s not rape, it’s just surprise sex” is really a very good legal defence.

The victims, aged 31, 23 and 27, were raped after hailing Nagi’s cab at night. Two of them were heavily intoxicated after a night out.

Ah, they were drunk after partying so they must have deserved it just a little bit. Or else led him on so that he couldn’t help himself, what with his chronic case of Don Juanism.

The judge said while Nagi’s HIV status meant that the punishment he suffered would be greater, it was hard to quantify how much it should reduce his sentence.

That’s one way of looking at it. The other would be that his crime was greater.

Don Juan was a (fictional) legendary lover and seducer. Does this mean that journos/subs/editors at the Sydney Morning Herald believe that sexually harrassing employees, and raping customers and knowingly infecting them with HIV, is just lovemaking and seduction?

How to make $2 million

Sexually harass someone at work, and then quit.

At least, that’s the conclusion I’m drawing about David Jones CEO Mark McInnes quitting over “inappropriate conduct towards a female staff member”.

And of course, the hunt is on for the woman who was harassed: “unidentified staff member was 25 years old and works in the head office marketing department”.

Ah, a young woman. She’s probably hot. And asked for it. And in marketing. Well, we all know what those hot marketing girls are like. I can hear the journos salivating from here.

The company said Mr McInnes would not be entitled to any of his contractual rights relating to short term incentives or to any currently operating long term incentive or retention.

He will receive his statutory entitlements of $445,421 and a settlement payment of $1.5 million.

Mr McInnes said he would be overseas together with his partner for the foreseeable future.

Right. Make that ‘how to make $2 million and go live overseas to avoid the lawyers’.