Why don't people complain at the time?

[Workingman]

Why wait years, even decades, to bring about allegations of bullying, inappropriate language or sexual "assaults"?

There has been an avalanche of such allegations in recent years and I am wondering why the victims waited so long.

Had they spoken out at the time they could have spared later victims a similar fate.

I find it all a bit unseemly.

[Kaz]

Frank, with all due respect, coming from a female POV, in the past this kind of stuff went on all the time, and women were supposed to laugh it off, warn each other about the boss/family friend/colleague/vicar (long story!) with WHS aka wandering hand syndrome. It was a seaside postcard style joke.- Unless of course you were on the receiving end.

We were powerless to do much about it, if you did complain you were a troublemaker, or"lesbian" Then in recent years suddenly things were coming to the fore, women were being taken seriously - it gave others the courage to do the same.

What's unseemly is that these men felt entitled to behave like this.

[Suff]

What's unseemly is that these men felt entitled to behave like this.

Exactly Kaz.

The problem is those of us men who do not do this kind of thing and don't listen to conversations about this kind of thing, are mostly separated from the size of the problem.

Just by general conversation these predators can tell which men are amused by it and which aren't. They don't talk aobut it around us. However we do hear from time to time and I've been aware of it for a long time.

The main issue I have is that all of this pouring out does not seem to make women stronger or more able to cope knowing that they can get justice when this happens. From what I can see it makes them more fragile and brittle and looking for offence which they can then use to accuse.

This is part of the reason so many young men are simply not interested in dating, finding a partner or getting married.

Frankly it's a mess. I don't condone or suggest a move back to what went on before. But what we have today is equally not working.

[Kaz]

You're absolutely right, Suff. Decent men like yourself and Frank just don't come across it. I honestly don't know of one single woman who hasn't been harassed or worse in her lifetime, myself included - and from listening to my daughter, niece and their contemporaries it seems to be getting worse.....

[Ally]

Exactly spot on right Kaz!

I wasn't going to participate in this but I will.

When I lived in the UK I had a smashing wee part time job.
No names will be mentioned but the boss was a big name in the town.
His family had huge connections to some VERY famous people who I met as part of it. I'm talking royal family connections too.
Saying this is relevant to my story.

Basically the boss took a shine to me.

In no way did I encourage him. It was a slow build up to his advances which, looking back naively, I was hoping he'd get the message that I wasn't interested in him one iota.

Over the course of six months he became unbearable.

But here's the rub.

Anyone who knows me knows I take no bulls*it.
I do not suffer fools.
I'm as straight as a die and say what I mean.

But I loved my job and felt too scared to tell him exactly where to go.

I felt I'd be the office trouble maker.
I was too afraid to say anything to my darling husband as he'd have gone charging in there like a demon and God knows what the result would be.

Because he was such a big cheese in our town I was frightened it would all go wrong and end up in the papers as gossip fodder.

He had to go to York for a business trip and asked me to accompany him.

No. I immediately handed in my notice. I actually walked out there and then.

I sat crying in my car at the unfairness of it.

I had to lie to Don when I got home making some excuse about missing the children whilst at work.

To this day I've never spoken a word of this to anyone.

Even typing this now, 29 years later, I have tears in my eyes and I'm shaking.

Sometimes, wrongly of course, sometimes it seems easier to keep quiet.

It seemed that way in my case.

[Kaz]

That was brave, dear Al ((((((((x))))))))

Exactly how it was.

[Workingman]

Ally, what you did was courageous and I admire you for it, I once did similar, but ours are not the same as the ones I am talking about.

I am referring to repeated incidents in larger organisations such as big business, the civil service, entertainment etc., with multipe victims over time. If some of the original and early victims had reported these offences they would have saved others from the same fate later down the line.

There is quite a list of perpetrators such as Pritti Patel, Braverman, Al Fayed and now D'Acampo where dozens claim to have been abused in some way. There are many more.

I just cannot understand why the first two or three did not report at the time. It honestly baffles me.

[Kaz]

Oh Frank, really? Proving our point, and what’s more getting in a bit of victim blaming

[Workingman]

Kaz, we are not talking about the post war period or the 50s, 60s or 70s when things were much different. We are looking at times from the 2,000s onwards with much stronger employment protection. And it is not just a female problem, even though many want to see it that way, men get abused as well.

Imagine that your daughter or son gets abused because the previous seven or eight "victims" never complained or reported such and just let things go. Puts a different spin on things, eh?

I'll leave it at that.

[Kaz]

I think we should, but to be very clear I would never judge anyone afraid to come.forward - I would always lay the blame firmly where it belongs. On the man concerned.