Katie* is one of three female paramedics who have shared their experiences of being “hounded” for sexual favours in return for passing training, getting a promotion or simply keeping their jobs.
Although these remarks were often dismissed as “jokes” or “banter”, Katie says, occasionally it shifted into a “monumental” abuse of power.
“Handjobs. Blowjobs. They were obsessed with blowjobs,” she says.
Once I made a mistake with a patient, and a colleague tried to blackmail me into having sex with him. It was horrendous. When I told him no, he said, “watch your back, because I could rape you”.
I don’t know how you change this culture. When posters saying “We Do Not Tolerate Sexual Harassment” were put on the doors in the ladies toilets, a man crossed out the “Not” and drew a penis next to a woman’s mouth.
I am not directly familiar with the UK system but from everything I have seen, it has the same problems:
The defense against rape accusations is “she was a slut”. And when things are this institutionalized? You can get plenty of people who will gladly attest that the plaintiff came onto them too because they know that if the dominoes start toppling…
And in the off chance she gets justice AND comes out with any dignity? She is not officially on the industry shitlist because that would be wrong… But her career is more or less over. Because the rapists don’t want to hire her for obvious reasons. But even the “normal” people will be wary of “What if she decides something we do is bad?”.
No. The key to shit like this is to get the public shining a light on this first. Rather than going into a dark room and randomly spraying a bit of bug spray.
I remember coworkers talking about metoo and saying things like that or “what if she decides to report me for something <insert mundane action>”.
I always responded with “if you ever have to wonder if an action could be reported to the police, than maybe you should not do that, and if you are worried that a woman will report you, don’t hang out with that person”.
I never understood how this ever could be a worry.