I know too well why young women don’t stand up

AMY Taeuber’s awful harassment story will be heartbreakingly familiar to many people. And one of them is me, writes Caroline Marcus.

WHAT’S most heartbreaking about former Seven Network cadet Amy Taeuber’s story is how familiar her story would sound to countless other Australians.

That the young woman could be dismissed shortly after making a complaint about harassment is the very reason so many people — and, in my observation, young women in particular — are petrified of standing up for themselves.

They know they risk becoming a pariah or wrecking their career.

Taeuber endured ongoing harassment from a senior reporter in her Adelaide newsroom, whose constant disparaging comments eventually became too much for the 27-year-old to bear.

The much older man relentlessly belittled her over her appearance, her single status (as if that’s a crime at any age, let alone a mere 27) and her voice.

She spoke to her manager, who encouraged her to make a complaint to the network’s news director.

But a few days later, it was Taeuber who was shown the exit.

It’s only thanks to a leaked phone recording of a meeting called by HR and her news director, broadcast last week by the ABC’s 7.30 Report, that the public now knows how the young woman was treated after refusing to accept what should constitute inexcusable behaviour in any workplace.

The support person Taeuber brought to the meeting was forced to leave the room and the young reporter was blindsided with a series of allegations she’d never heard before — including that she’d bullied another cadet — and informed she was being suspended immediately.

They even tried to march her past the person she’d made the complaint about on the way out, but she refused.

Amy Taeuber at work for Channel 7 in South Australia. (Pic: Supplied)

“I feel like this is humiliating me for making a complaint in the first place and it’s really disgusting,” Taeuber can be heard saying in the recording.

It later emerged HR had trawled through her emails and singled out one in which she joked about wanting to “destroy” a fellow cadet after an innocent prank.

Her so-called victim had been completely unaware he was the subject of bullying claims.

When he found out that he had been drawn into the matter, he demanded the allegations against her be withdrawn.

Management told him to butt out of the matter.

Taeuber filed a claim for adverse action in the Federal Circuit Court alleging she was subject to a retaliatory investigation in which colleagues had been asked to “dig up dirt” on her and her social media accounts were hacked.

She eventually settled with the network, but is now working outside journalism and fears she will never return to the industry she worked so hard to get into, with the black mark against her name.

Unfortunately, I know from my own personal experience how traumatic and isolating workplace harassment can be.

I’ve agonised over sharing my own story today out of concern for the personal cost it may have: will it limit my future career prospects? Will it cost me more friends than the ones already lost?

But I weigh that up against the thought of all the other young women — and men — who may be struggling through something similar, feeling helpless.

Something needs to change.

In my case, I was initially targeted simply because I held different views about politics and the world to an older and more senior male colleague at a former workplace.

I hadn’t wanted to make a formal complaint about his behaviour.

Amy Taeuber, one of triplets, is pictured with her sisters Sophie (centre) and Kate (right). They are working together on a documentary about fad diets. (Pic: Tom Huntley)

For one thing, I didn’t want to be seen as a “victim” — hey, I’m hardly a snowflake — but also because I was concerned that I might cop similar consequences.

But ultimately, I was forced to take some sort of action.

After attempts at mediation failed to work, he was told by management to “tone it down”.

But the harassment only escalated into brazen antisemitism.

This included plastering his work station next to mine with vile cartoons depicting Jews as Hitler.

One even referenced the Holocaust stating: “Your 70 years of special treatment are over.”

He was well aware I was Jewish and my family had survived the Nazis in Eastern Europe.

I had even confided in him during our mediation sessions that my beloved grandmother, who had sought refuge with my father in Israel after the war, was dying.

It wasn’t until my boss returned from leave after being away over the several weeks this was happening that action was finally taken. Only then was this colleague was given a formal warning.

I can tell you it was easily one of the most difficult and lonely periods of my life.

More than two years later, after I’d already left the organisation, this same person was charged with a serious and particularly vile criminal offence for which he was later convicted.

Sadly, hostile workplace behaviour seems to be if not indulged, at the very least excused in many industries.

It’s rife even in the field of law, where the offenders should theoretically know better than anyone the hefty lawsuits harassment can attract.

One young female lawyer tells me how she was sexually harassed by a senior male colleague and didn’t even make a complaint.

Yet she found herself called into a meeting with HR and somehow getting blamed for it.

Her case was akin to a rape victim being told it was her fault for wearing a skirt.

Ultimately, the problem for corporate Australia is ignoring workplace bullies or trying to cover their tracks is like sitting on a ticking bomb.

Eventually, it explodes and when it does it can take many more down with it.

Caroline Marcus is a journalist with Sky News.

@carolinemarcus

Originally published as I know too well why young women don’t stand up