Nearly An Argument

[poliphilo]

 Ailz was saying that when she was working in offices in the 1970s things went on that would now be interpreted as harassment but really weren't; a boss would lean over you, put a hand on your shoulder, help himself to a drag on your ciggie- and the guy she was particularly thinking about had been a tail gunner in Bomber Command and didn't know any better. An overfriendly boss, she said, was better than an officious one because you could give the overfriendly one an elbow in the ribs and he'd take it in good part.  And I was taking a hard line and saying sexual bullying is and always has been wrong. It was in danger of becoming an argument but we didn't want that so we left the past to stew in its own juice and agreed that whether morality is relative to time and place or Platonically absolute there's no doubt that powerful men taking advantage of their juniors is wrong now. We then went on to consider non-sexual bullying and agreed that that was wrong too but that it was going to be a while before behaving like Gordon Ramsey was considered completely unacceptable- and society still has a lot of growing up to do.

Comments

[sovay]

We then went on to consider non-sexual bullying and agreed that that was wrong too but that it was going to be a while before behaving like Gordon Ramsey was considered completely unacceptable- and society still has a lot of growing up to do.

I don't know about Gordon Ramsey, but Anthony Bourdain has been publicly reconsidering his own behavior (and in ways that look productive to me, not just showily navel-gazing), so that's really nice to see.

[poliphilo]

I used Ramsey as an example of a sweary alpha male who gets to bully people on TV. In the first draft I named Lord Sugar- who runs the British version of the Apprentice but took him out because I didn't think non-Brits would know who he was. There are too many shows that serve up humiliation as entertainment.

I like what Bourdain is saying in his interview. Too many of us get caught up in the culture of bullying and abuse- even though it makes us cringe. I think it takes courage to disavow your past in the way he's done.

[basefinder]

As recently as 2004 I had a boss who thought it was okay to walk up behind any of his workers, male or female, and give us the ol' shoulder squeeze. We all thought it was creepy, and joked about it, but I wonder now if anybody ever reported it as a form of harrassment.

Things have changed in my lifetime, for sure, but I think back to when I was coming of age in the Seventies. Even back then, it was wrong for a man to randomly grab a woman's butt (for example). We all knew it was wrong, though some did it anyway. Maybe more often back then, than now? But these guys that claim the old "I was brought up in a different era" excuse are just full of it. Norms can change, but Wrong in 1977 wasn't much different from Wrong today, forty years later.

[poliphilo]

Yes.

I guess we've raised our standards. We used to shrug and let them get away with it- but not any more.

[basefinder]

Agreed, the old "boys will be boys" excuse no longer cuts it.

About time.