The age of Benny Hill has no place in the modern workspace

Reading about the most recent challenges the establishment is facing on its behaviour towards women, the revelations on the Chair of Tesco allegedly grabbing someone's bottom, on the face of it might be taken as a harmless slightly childlike approach to interacting with colleagues. However, for the person who has their bottom grabbed it feels very different.

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I remember the event as if it was yesterday. It was the second year of the Ethical Businesswoman of the Year awards, and having won the award in the first year, I was invited back to give the award to the next winner.

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It was a lovely event at a fantastic venue in central London, loads of good feeling and great women.?Whilst I was talking to a couple of my colleagues, the CEO of a trade association came up to me and felt my bum.?Initially I thought it might be a mistake.?When he did it again, whilst cheerfully chatting away I realised it was not a mistake.?

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Anyone who knows me, knows I am relatively outspoken. However, I've always had a delayed response to either an insult or a put down, especially when it comes out of the blue.?Many times, at school I remember thinking through some insult or other, and wishing 'I'd just said... '

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I remember being outraged internally as this guy essentially humiliated me in front of my colleagues, acting as if it was an accepted and perfectly normal way of interacting, as he chatted happily away.?Crucially for me, I felt undermined just before I was about to go on stage, to hand over an award celebrating ethical women in business.?Ironic hey.

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A grabbing of someone’s bum on the face of it could be thought of as of relatively light-hearted, but this is a view from the dark ages.?In my experience women as well as men, can dismiss it as not important enough to do anything about, driven either because they haven’t experienced it or indeed that they have, but just put up with it (a whole other blog!).

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Whether it is physical or mental humiliation of women in public, it undermines their ability to fulfil their right to be part of society.?It takes away their confidence and isolates them to the point it’s just too exhausting to bother.?When I talked about this to an ex-colleague, he said that a friend of his, a corporate lawyer in the city, had just got so fed up with being physically and mentally harassed, she just gave up.?One less female lawyer.

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A couple of years ago, I attended a CBI dinner for businesses in the southwest, with CEO and entourage of the CBI attendance.?The group were essentially all senior men.?Getting a word in edgeways felt like a scrum at a bar at half time and felt like I was stepping back in time to a place when women were frowned upon for speaking in public.?Worse than that, one of my colleagues and one of our advisors at the time, had a chuckle about me having to make a fuss just to be heard.?

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Diversity of thought is not a 'nice to have' or a 'tick box' exercise.?It is fundamental to the future success of our society.?If we do not listen and hear our wider community then eventually, we will become irrelevant, like the CBI and the Chair of Tesco.?I am lucky that these two incidents that directly affected me have been relatively isolated, and my experience of the wider energy, innovation and financial sectors is a grown-up approach to equality, that doesn't linger in the age of Benny Hill.?

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But we need to keep working on it.?Grabbing someone’s bum is not harmless, and refusing to allow women to speak threatens our freedom of speech.?We need to keep trying to do better, and holding those who are careless with their words and actions to account.