Misguided missiles on all fronts

Before you tell me I have some overly charitable, even pathetic inclination to give someone the benefit of the doubt, I will tell you that's what I've done and do so anyway. If you know me, you'll know it's not my automatic default. I've made many determinations into bullying and sexual harassment over the years in which I was quite confident the behaviour was conscious and intentional, even if that was irrelevant to my findings. In this domain, intent is irrelevant. It is impact that counts. And so it is with our current Head of the Defence Forces who would probably prefer to skip this week and move on quickly after recently addressing new ADFA recruits and warning them about the 4 A's in minimising the risk of being preyed upon - imbibing Alcohol, being Alone, being out After Midnight and yes, being Attractive!

General Angus Campbell is most likely totally sincere when he says he wants his young recruits to be safe. Goodness knows the predatory threat is real in a culture where so many sexual assault and bullying charges have been made and in an organisation where there is likely to be a huge 'dark figure' as we say in criminology of unreported rapes, assaults and other gross abuses of rights threatening physical and psychological safety. This is years after Former Chief of Army David Morrison's famous speech in 2013 to his military in the wake of the Skype Sex Scandal that occurred in 2011. We want things to be different. We need things to be different.

Harm minimisation is not a new concept. We've always told our kids not to experiment with substances either at all or when they have no idea what's in them, not to cross the road without looking both ways, not to leave a drink unattended on a table at a nightclub. But for the current head of our military to counsel new recruits to avoid being preyed upon by being out after dark, drinking and being "attractive" as apparently they all are, is just tone deaf to the extreme in 2021.

Having said that, judging by his choice of words, he has gone to some effort not to single out women. He has acknowledged that any attractive, stay-out-late alcohol imbiber may be vulnerable. And so those who have jumped up and down today about 'slut shaming' and 'victim bashing' of women are just as careless and assumptive as he is. Yes, the vast majority of perpetrators are men just as the vast majority of those who make sexual harassment complaints to the jurisdictions are women but let's please nuance the dialogue. Yes, we must change the culture of institutions like the ADF. Yes, we must raise boys and educate men, Anthony Albanese, to respect everyone but so must everyone. We must educate every chance we get about consent, conscious and unconscious bias, casual sexism and objectification.

If any one of my four children walked through a dimly lit park in the middle of the night (after 10 beers or no beers), I'd be at my wits end for their stupidity. Fundamentally, I think we desperately want to believe that bad things don't happen to good people but that's la la land. I'm all for harm minimisation but how we communicate these messages about where the responsibility for safety lies is critical in helping reshape culture and conversations. General Campbell and those who misquoted him after he misspoke do us no favours even if they all mean well. And we have the right to demand more from someone who holds such a lofty and influential position and who would be expected to show good judgment in any critical incident situation, including one he has seemingly now created.

Leanne Faraday-Brash is an organisational psychologist, speaker, coach and media commentator. She is Principal of Brash Consulting, a Melbourne-based practice specialising in organisational psychology, organisation development and “workplace justice” (Equal Opportunity, ethics and employee relations). Leanne is the author of “Vulture Cultures: How to stop them ravaging your performance, people, profit and public image” published by Australian Academic Press. Leanne can be reached at www.brashconsulting.com.au