me too

In the early 1990s, I worked as an advocate in a women’s health information centre. My supervisor was a lesbian and a radical feminist. Her manner and aura were gruff, and she didn’t “let anyone in”. However, I came to respect her intellect and value her opinion.

One day I heard her ranting on the phone about Helen Garner betraying The Cause.

‘How dare she be an apologist for that patriarchal pig?’

The man in question was the Master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.

‘It’s the students who are the victims.’

I craned my head towards the conversation and gleaned the gist of the story: at an end-of-year function, the Master had allegedly “groped” a female student on the dance floor. Sometime later both she and another female student reported him to the police, who then charged him with sexual assault. He was cleared by the courts and the police were ordered to pay his costs. Nonetheless, he was forced to resign his position, his reputation and career in tatters. No other university would touch him.

Decades later, Helen Garner’s name came up in a writers’ group I’d joined.

‘I hate that woman, she’s despicable. I don’t know why people rave about her books.’ This utterance came from a former high-school teacher. She was a married woman when she had had an affair with the married Principal of her school, but it was she who had been pilloried as a “scarlet woman”.

Her comment regarding Helen Garner was relegated to my subconscious and stored away until I saw Garner’s book, The First Stone, in a second-hand bookstore. I was curious to know why this woman was so reviled by feminists. I took the book home and read it in four sittings.

It was apparent to me that Helen Garner’s story was driven by her leaning towards investigative journalism. Perplexed that an alleged grope on the dance floor had led to a court case, she had delved deeper into the events leading up to the charges. Her desire to present a balanced picture drew the ire of the feminist fraternity.

To understand the stance of these feminists, one must consider the milieu in which the events took place. The second wave of feminism in Australia began during the 1960s with the confrontation of legal and social double standards, as well as workplace discrimination and sexual harassment. At the same time, feminists worldwide began a push for female sexual freedom. Three decades later, two female students at the University of Melbourne reported that the attentions of the Master had made them feel uncomfortable and worthless.

Garner gives her opinion about the students’ reaction to what she considered a “low-level” of sexual harassment. She attributes the escalation of the complaint to a court proceeding to the delay of an appropriate response by Ormond College, and failures of the College’s complaints’ process. Garner asserts that the pursuit of legal action – over the Master’s behaviour – was fuelled by an embittered women’s movement.

I understand how women who were devotees of The Cause felt frustrated that men in power made uninvited sexual advances, “in this day and age”. But the feminists’ belief that if you weren’t with them you were against them, detracts from Garner’s quest for truth. In her efforts to understand their reasons for pursuing legal action, she made several approaches to the two students and to their feminist supporters. These supporters then accused Garner of harassing the students. They treated her as a pariah for wanting to clarify why, after such a protracted period of silence, the students had then taken such “strong” action. Garner also wanted to uncover the basis for the students’ reporting they had “feelings of worthlessness”, as a result of the alleged harassment.

As I read Garner’s book and her revelations regarding her own experience of sexual harassment, my mind was cast back to the 1970s and the 1990s when I experienced harassment at the hands of three men in positions of power. It wasn’t physical, but it was improper. I was paralysed on all occasions and couldn’t speak up for myself. I felt powerless, but not worthless.

Early in the 1970s, I had been employed for two years as an actuarial clerk with a large insurance company. By day, I was working fulltime to support myself, while I pursued tertiary education studies in the evenings. My supervisor, a recently appointed actuary – let’s call him Michael Gormless – made advances towards several of the office girls. He attempted to flirt with me at our office Christmas party, despite my boyfriend being present. The day the organisation broke-up for Christmas holidays, I inadvertently found myself alone at the pub with Gormless. He continued flirting and wouldn’t let me leave until I promised to have lunch with him after the holiday break. The fact that he was married with two young children seemed immaterial to him.

In a quandary, I knew I had to deter his advances. I needed help and enlisted the office girls in my plan.  The day I returned from the holiday break Gormless leaned over me and breathed in my ear, ‘Ready to go to lunch, beautiful?’ I replied I would get the others. To his chagrin, I’d invited all the office girls. I feigned innocence but didn’t escape his wrath – he made my life at work a misery, castigating me every day. To escape his “humiliated rage”, I resigned. In those days there were no channels through which I could report his inappropriate behaviour.

One situation in the 1990s occurred at a leading women’s hospital in Melbourne. As part of my Master of Health Sciences, I’d been seconded to the administration department of the Medical Division. As special projects officer, I had to work closely with the director, let’s call him Dr Clem Ogler. After I’d completed three of his “pet” projects, I moved into the patient advocate’s office to collaborate with her in writing a complaint procedure for patients. When it was in its final draft, I requested the deputy director of the Personnel Division – a male – to set up a meeting with Ogler, to negotiate the next project.

The three of us sat at a round table in a small meeting room. Ogler sat opposite me. I asked him what project he’d like me to work on next. He put his hand under the table, made a stroking movement and grinned as he said, ‘I was thinking of you as I was soaping myself up in the shower this morning.’

I froze. The deputy director of Personnel said nothing. I returned to the patient advocate’s office, and the Patient Advocate remarked that I looked pale. I told her what had happened. She encouraged me to report Ogler to the Centre Against Sexual Assault (CASA), which was affiliated with the hospital.

My meeting with the head of CASA was fraught. She urged me to make a formal complaint so she could block Ogler’s impending appointment to CASA’s committee of management. I agreed to make an informal, anonymous report. My position compromised; I resigned. However, the cat was out of the bag and further instances of Ogler’s sexual innuendoes were revealed. These had been going on for years and had been tolerated. To my knowledge no disciplinary action was taken against him – sexual harassment policy did not exist in the workplace, at that time.

After leaving the hospital, I took a consulting position with a Division of General Practice. On my day off, I cycled to the office to collect my pay cheque. The director – a male – looked my Lycra-clad body up and down and asked me to turn around so he could see my backside. I gave him a steely look but didn’t comply. He came up to me and stood in my space, towering over my 157 cm height. I snatched the cheque from his hand and left. Thereafter, he gave me a hard time, and did not renew my contract. I told my friends about his conduct, but there was no formal channel to complain.

I’ve never found this behaviour flattering. It wasn’t physically sexual, but it was sexual harassment, nonetheless. And, yes, it made me feel uncomfortable. Today, with my understanding of psychology and emotional intelligence, I know that there are a significant number of males in positions of power who have narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissists have undeveloped emotional intelligence regions of the neo-cortex; their predatory behaviour comes from their reptilian brain. They are pathetic excuses for men, and they are the ones who are worthless.

Three decades following the publication of Garner’s book, the emergence of the ‘Me Too’ movement is exposing the men who have used their positions to sexually harass women. Perhaps, back in the 90s, if those young University students had felt empowered to confront the Master of Ormond College, the legal action against him may not have occurred. Instead, they may have confronted him about his inappropriate behaviour, or “kicked him in the balls”, as one male academic from Ormond College suggested when interviewed by Helen Garner.

One hopes that in today’s culture of awareness, women will not fear retribution in reporting such behaviour. Hopefully, we won’t need the emergence of vigilantes – like Carey Mulligan’s character in Promising Young Woman – to re-program those males whose cognitive wiring hasn’t evolved.  The movie sends a word of warning to predatory males: be afraid, be very afraid.

©Cecile Ravell 2024