Power and ponytails

From the ongoing unfolding issue about the Prime Minister's ponytail pulling, specifically in the case of Amanda Bailey, there's one little bit I want to write about a bit more, and it comes back to this quote from The Nation interview with Patrick Gower.  (Quote taken from the transcript here).

Gower: Yeah and when you when you accept that you got it wrong, do you accept that you misused your power?Key: No because I didn’t intend to do that, it was the opposite, I intended to try and be in a much more informal sort of setting so that I put people at ease and we could have a bit of a laugh and a bit of fun so it’s really the opposite.

So Key is saying that the repeated ponytail pulling was the opposite of an abuse of power.

What would the opposite of an abuse of power be?

To me, it would be empowering, it would be giving up your power to someone else.  

If I were being generous, I'd interpret this as Key thinking that by engaging in verbal "banter" and "horse play" and "mucking around" with staff in a cafe he was effectively making it clear he is on the same level as them, an equal; that the staff should feel they can josh him in the same way he joshes them.  Key has given the impression he was wearing his Prankster Casual John Cap at the cafe, and had firmly removed his Prime Ministerial Top Hat.

That seems to me incredibly naive, at absolute best, for the following reasons:

1. The presence of security guards, there with Key because he is the Prime Minister
2. Both the Prankster Casual John Cap and the Prime Ministerial Top Hat are invisible; only John knows when he has changed hats.  
3. There's a strong argument that the Prime Ministerial Top Hat can never really be removed entirely, certainly while he's in New Zealand and amongst the people he is primes inter pares (first among equals, which is where the name Prime Minister came from)
4. Key has been Prime Minister for over six years now, he is by no means an inexperienced newbie in the role who has made a rookie mistake of forgetting about his day job
5. Even if you accept that the Prime Minister was not being Prime Minister at the time, and that this was somehow able to be clearly understood by the people around him, there is still the significant power imbalance between customer and staff in a hospitality/service environment.

I've written the above points just focusing on the verbal interactions.  Because when you add in the touching, which was unwanted, repeated, and didn't stop even when he was challenged on it by a number of people around him, it really becomes impossible to defend these actions as somehow empowering, somehow the opposite of an abuse of power.

To be Prime Minister of a country and so unaware of the cloak of power and privilege you wear even when you are sleeping seems disingenuous at best.  Key possibly needs to make a choice here - is he being stupid by putting this line forward, or is he lying?

Finally, when he did apologise directly to Bailey, eventually, what did he give her to express his sincerity?

A symbol of his own power; two bottles of wine named and labelled for him, bearing his name and possibly his image.

The arrogance of the third term?  Or the ongoing deliberate and convenient ignoring of his own power which means he could, by his definition, basically never abuse his position.  

Amanda Bailey is a legend, or victim-blaming, protector of the powerful

John Key needs a way to stop this story of creepy harassment, now.  It's become a big deal, with even the usually friendly reporters finding his behaviour unacceptable.  The National Council of Women and the Human Rights Commission agree this is plain sexism.  He's even become the source of a "weirdest moments" story in the Guardian.

But what to do?  There are other photos of him touching women and girl's hair.  Many National Party men, and friends of National Party men, also seem to have problems with sexual harassment.  Is this a big enough deal to seriously undermine John and the National Party?

But phew, rape culture.  It's easy.  You just blame the victim.

It's been working for years.  It will not only discredit this particular woman, but it will make sure any other women are less likely to come forward.  Makes the abusing of the power - in all kinds of ways - so much easier.

But how?  If he tells the media who the young woman is, says she's just trying to make a name for herself, makes her out to be exaggerating or lying, he might look even more like a bully.  Hell, he's already tried pretending it's not a big deal by calling it "horsing around" and no one seems to buy it.

But phew, he's got close friends to do it for him.  Time to give Herald reporter Rachel and David a call, and see what they can do. Luckily, he has their numbers on speed dial.  Rachel's been a good friend over the years, and a few discreet tips about the pesky waitress should sort this out.

David Farrar and Rachel Glucina.

Today, in the nick of time, Rachel Glucina has her story up.  Makes Amanda Bailey sound a little grasping, out to get John Key.  Names her, gives details, shows her picture, says where she works.  Opens it up nicely to the threat of more intrusion in her life if she doesn't go away.

But Ms Bailey doesn't go away.  She comes out swinging, dammit, and tells the world, again, her side of things.  She says Rachel Glucina lied to get the story.  Didn't give her name or her occupation.  That, interestingly, breaks the journalist code of ethics, which might just be sackable.  Is it just me, or does victim blaming get harder, the more we hear from victims?

Make no mistake, this little attempt to make John Key's creepy harassment go away is just as revolting as any kind of victim blaming, with a huge dose of power thrown in.  How many people have their own personal reporter set to do their bidding immediately a negative story about them comes out?

It's going to backfire, because those of us who don't think touching people when they don't want to be touched is a joke are going to keep saying so.  It's going to backfire, because the work of Nicky Hager has exposed the way this entitled, abusive National government operates, playing fast and loose with the media.

It's going to backfire, because Amanda Bailey is a legend. 

Sexual harassment and the Nats

Julie has covered John Key's disturbing sense of entitlement in his local cafe, where he clearly feels he can treat a woman as his own personal property because she's waiting tables.  Not much more to say there.

I've lots more to say though about the patterns of behaviour from this National Government.

It's not the first time a National MP has been caught out treating hospitality staff with disdain.  When Aaron Gilmore resigned after asking bar staff "Don't you know who I am?" because they refused to serve him, John Key said it was "the right decision."

It's also not the first time sexual harassment scandals have bedevilled the personnel in this government.  Or even the second or third time.

First there's Michael Woodhouse, before he was even in parliament, telling the student press in Dunedin what he thought of young women:

"I love spring around here, it's bloody fantastic, the skirts were never this short in my day."

He was a 42 year old father of three at the time.  Now he's the Minister of Police, responding to the Police bungling of Roastbusters. 

Then there's Minister Richard Worth, serial sexual harasser, forced to resign after the Police began investigations into his behaviour.  John Key "washed his hands" of Mr Worth at the time.

Or what about Gerry Brownlee appointee to CERA, Roger Sutton, who had to resign after being found guilty of sexual harassment?

And then there are the allegations from Dirty Politics, about National Party pollster David Farrar organising parties for "National Party friends" which treated Young Nats women as potential "targets". 

It's almost like National Party men and friends of National Party men think women are playthings for their own amusement.  That it's ok to touch us when we don't want to be touched, text us when we don't want to be texted, call us when we don't want to be called, make sexual comments about us when we are walking around our campuses, and target us for sex when we are drunk (otherwise known as rape).  National Party men appear to think women at work - or anywhere else - are fair game for whatever they feel like doing to us.  Hell, John Key appears to think even little girls are on the menu for unwanted touching.

What's the answer to this blatant, entitled sexism?  To be fair, lots of the culprits have gone already.  But it's scarcely an individual issue when it's happening this frequently.  If John Key wants to show he doesn't condone sexual harassment, he might have to think about more than just his own apology, more than just curtailing his own behaviour.

He might need to change the culture in his party.  He might need to work out how he shows New Zealand women that he does have some respect for us.  He might need to stop presiding over a government so blatantly tilted towards the powerful.  And he might need to start keeping his creepy hands to himself.

It's PC gone mad, the Feminazis are winning!

Cross posted from my home site.

I’ve found it fascinating watching the men and women around me and on social media discussing a high profile case this week.

Roger Sutton resigned from Cera after sexual harassment claims were made.

There has been an overwhelmingly male chorus singing from a familiar song book. I may be being unfair to men, in that in most cases they spoke over the top of, or instead of women, so the women may have shared their view – I just didn’t hear it. These voices were at work, on radio panels (I’m looking at you RNZ) and on social media. The songs were “it’s PC gone mad” and “he is a really nice guy” “He is really well respected” “he is just a touchy feely guy”.

Most people are.                

 Very few people have their friends and colleagues spouting off to the media about what an asshole they are. Most people have a place where they fit in and feel at home. Most people have mates who think they are a good bloke, a top guy, a bit of a hard case.

It doesn’t mean that for some people they aren’t a danger, an unsafe person, a creeper, that person at work that you avoid. And just because your mother/colleague/wife loves you, doesn’t mean you aren’t a total asshole to someone else.

I would really like people to remember two key things.

      1)     It’s REALLY important to remember that safe is a movable line, and it is set by the receiver of contact, not the giver.

      2 )     Creepy out of line behaviour doesn’t happen because people are always sneaky. It happens because people are entitled and the people around them let it happen.

Here is an easy example of that movable safe line…

People who catch crowded commuter trains in Japan will feel safer with someone standing close next to them on public transport than people that commute on NZ trains. Your personal bubble is what you are used to, and it is often the same among people of the same living environs/culture. But even within a one similar group, not everyone is the same, and direct physical contact beyond a basic handshake should be carefully evaluated. People who have their personal safety violated in the past will not feel safe with hugs from randoms that might be seen as totally okay by the other 60% of the workforce.

As a self-aware professional, it is part of my job to assess how I interact with my colleagues just as much as I do my clients. I can easily go a day without physical contact and come to work for the next twenty years. Missing out on physical touch is nothing compared to the feeling of someone encroaching on your personal space and feeling like you are in a constant state of defence. People need to stop seriously thinking that their right to touch others as they see “normal” is equally important as someone else’s right to NOT BE TOUCHED WITHOUT ASKING.

Any sense that your way is the best way and people should just accept your behaviour involving their space and body is a massively entitled view. This is an especially odd view when you consider that most of the men I was listening to today were deeply concerned at their rapidly vanishing super important right to act how they choose at work. So they DO UNDERSTAND THAT WE HAVE RIGHTS.

Our right to feel safe just isn’t as important as their right to do what they want.

Heads up lads. You will know when the feminazis are winning, and it won’t be because you can’t harass us at work. It will be when you are held accountable for those actions and the population stops seeing you as a nice guy for it. I'm gonna add in an extra wish that the media ceases it's witch hunts of women who dare to complain.

It doesn’t seem that extreme to me. But then, what would I know?

Please feel free to fill in this survey – it is asking about your experience on both sides of the equation, so by all means, if you are feeling hard done by because someone has complained at work, fill it in.