Women let down by an ill-fitting suit

The silence of feminists on the David Jones lawsuit mocks sexual harassment victims

THE news that a publicist for David Jones, Kristy Fraser-Kirk, is suing the august retailer for $37 million for sexual harassment by her former boss, despite the fact her career didn't suffer during the period she was complaining of harassment, has been greeted by everything from incredulity and outrage ("she's dreaming!") to the sniggers and sniffs of the fashionistas at DJ's latest event. Those women seemed rather on the side of the alleged harasser, Mark McInnes.

Most of the commentary has concentrated on the size of the claim. However it is not just the size of the claim that bothers me. It is the principle of the monetary compensation in this case.

No one deserves the humiliation of sexual harassment, but what right does Fraser-Kirk have to this kind of monetary compensation when it seems that not only has she, the so-called victim, come out in front, but she hasn't lost any money so far?

Even accident victims have to prove that they have.

One mother eight months pregnant with her sixth child who was knocked over in the street by a truck and broke her arm couldn't get compensation for anything except pain and suffering because she didn't earn anything. Her workplace was her own family, so she was worth barely $7000, never mind $37m. Industrial accident victims who lost their sight or incurred brain damage would receive only $231,000 or $50,000 for extra pain and suffering.

If Fraser-Kirk had been an actual sexual assault victim, raped by a stranger as she walked home from work, she would not have been able to make this claim.

But do I detect an eerily clanging silence from certain quarters? Where are the feminists who were the architects of the laws regarding sexual harassment in the workplace? Cringing in embarrassment, I hope.

Why don't we hear any of them speaking out against this claim, which completely negates the serious moral presumption underlying sexual harassment laws: that sexual harassment can have lifelong, damaging effects on a young person's career?

I believe the feminists should be outraged about this case because Fraser-Kirk is using a system which was meant to remove harassment, protect the vulnerable and redress the imbalance of power that sexual harassment is really about, to make a huge monetary claim.

So far we haven't heard anything about that. No, instead, to the mystification of most of the populous, certain po-faced feminists had an awful lot to say this week about the use of an innocuous phrase by Tony Abbott, which even I use to shut up my nagging kids. But never mind about Abbott. How can No Means No, which we are told is a sacred anti-rape mantra for the feminists, be taken seriously by the public at large, especially men, when women themselves appear to exploit the system meant to protect them?

I do not doubt Fraser-Kirk was subject to unwanted sexual overtures. Although there is always some debate about the difference between unwanted sexual overtures and real harassment, women know the difference. Mere unwanted sexual overtures are usually uncomfortable, sometimes infuriating, sometimes comic. They can often be dealt with by a firm wrist slap to a wandering hand.

But real harassment is different. It is usually very subtle, it can happen without any overt sexual assault, it completely poisons the workplace and permeates relationships.

It is about the harasser having power over the victim, which can have devastating results. I know because it once happened to me. I once was a very young and naive woman whose lack of response to the sexual overtures meant her whole career and reputation was threatened with sabotage by a vindictive senior colleague.

Not only was that harassment but now it would be serious harassment that might deserve sizeable monetary compensation.

However in this case I believe the irony is that the only person undermining Fraser-Kirk's career and reputation is Fraser-Kirk. After all, McInnes's reputation is in tatters. He has been outed as a sleazebag, and what is more he is the one without a job, having been forced to resign and skip town.

So having outed and seen off her former boss, while she was still in secure employment, the power tables were turned. The harasser was exposed, his career over, at least for now.

But it seems that redress of the power imbalance may not be all Fraser-Kirk was about. Now she may have a reputation with some: as a litigious money grabber, no matter what spin she puts on it about her concern for "victims of bullying" or her proposal to donate punitive damages to charity.

Sexual harassment is a serious moral issue about power and control, but this week the Fraser-Kirk claim has exposed the moral timidity of the sisterhood who have been so vocal about it.

Rather than call this action against David Jones what it is -- an unprecedented claim for money, a use of the system in a way that detracts from the real effects of major sexual assault and harassment -- feminists have remained silent, unwilling to target one of their favourite causes, even though by their silence they betray and diminish that necessary cause.

Fraser-Kirk's lawsuit will not advance the cause of expunging sexual harassment from the workplace, because it does nothing to help the truly powerless.

Rather the excessive claim corrupts that cause, reducing the impact of sexual harassment to a simple monetary formula of how much you can get for what particular nasty. But instead of saying that, they blathered obscurely about Abbott and rape. Do you really wonder that people can't take them seriously any more?