How difficult is it to know how to treat people with respect? #MeToo

I am angry. I'm writing this hoping it will make me feel less angry.

I realised last night that the anger has been growing - ever since the Weinstein story broke - and the last straw was this:

Disgraced former defence secretary Michael Fallon telling a female BBC reporter that sexual harassment was “acceptable” 10 or 15 years ago.

No, it wasn’t. It was never acceptable. Why is that even something that needs to be said?


The same evening, Newsnight decided to run a special programme about men, women and power. So they had on it:

• 15 men
• 4 women
• Nobody in power.

Two of the men were on the side of the “experts” (ie the women’s side). One of them said he didn’t believe in the patriarchy, and it was all our fault for coming into their workplaces and confusing them. Or something. The other one had flowers in his hair. Which was nice.

The men on the other side seemed to be random blokes. I don’t know where they got them from, or whether they were intended to be representative.

So what did these men have to say?

It’s about how women present themselves. NO IT’S NOT. (That’s me, shouting at the telly.) In the old days, you could have a laugh and put your arms round someone. DID YOU EVER ASK? Men can’t decide how to behave because they weren't taught how to treat women with respect. USE YOUR BRAIN.

There’s been a lot of words written about this already. Some of it has been good.

It’s really not that difficult, says Gaby Hinsliff in The Pool. “Enough of pretending that men and women are actually this stupid; enough, too, of always putting the onus on women to make life easy and smooth for everyone else, rather than on men to interrogate their own behaviour.”

It’s actually fairly simple, says Jennifer O’Connell In the Irish Times. “The line between flirting and harassment is not, in fact, that blurry at all. Flirting is a bit of fun. Harassment is behaviour likely to make the person on the receiving end feel harassed.”

I didn’t want to add to all the words but I just want to say this.

To the men on Newsnight, and on Twitter, and in the newspapers. Start thinking, and stop making excuses.

To the family member who took photos of me and my friends sunbathing aged 15. We did not give you permission.

To the same man, who kept trying to grope me and my sisters when we were teenagers. No, you were not “being naughty”. You were being a perv. (And, yes, I did speak to someone. And no, I wasn’t believed.)

To the young man I snogged at a student party, who seemed to listen when I told him how far I would and wouldn’t go, but who followed me home anyway. Did you think I didn’t mean it? I don’t play games.

To the man I worked with who bullied me, and then insisted on a hug to show we were still friends. We weren’t. And I did not say you could touch me.

To the man at a gig who pressed up against me from behind even though the crush was at the front, and I was at the back. I have a right to enjoy music and be left alone.

Recently, to the men on the next table at the pub quiz who, when our team won, shouted – and kept shouting – obscenities. Porn language: not shouted at us, or to us (they weren't brave enough), but aimed at us and to us. Don’t go out in public if you can’t behave yourself. (And yes, I did speak to someone. And they said they couldn't do anything because “they are too drunk”.)

To the men who abused and assaulted my sisters, my niece, my friends. We are people, not objects. You don't own us.

To all the strangers who’ve stood too close, shouted crude words, made me uncomfortable and unsafe in places I used to like being… all the ones I’ve forgotten because it happened so often it became normal. This is my world too. Get used to it.