Who am I blaming and WHY?

Now, more than any other time in history, before more blood is shed and more crimes against humanity are perpetuated, we must ask ourselves why victims of hateful acts are often blamed for the harm inflicted upon them? While not all of us 'go there' (thankfully)in blaming victims, as a response to hateful and harmful acts of violence, assault and bullying, there remains a portion of our society that appears to believe that victims of malignant and brutal behaviour, somehow have a part to play in the harm inflicted upon them. Unconscious and conscious biases, such as these, are far more prevalent than what we realise and are the fixed mindsets of those who lack empathy, who lack understanding, knowledge and facts and who have an inability to perspective-take. They are the people who are fortunate enough to never experience the extent of harm inflicted upon such victims and appear to use this privilege as some moral high ground or platform to provide a subjective and ill-informed narrative about why the victims, somehow deserved or had a part to play in the harm they received. I'm done with it. You should be too.

My first experience of this dangerous fixed mindset occurred in an all-boys school when I reported an incidence of sexual harassment by two Year 10 boys. They boys had carved a wooden, phalic-like object (you get my drift, I'm sure) and on presenting this to me in front of the class, suggested I 'try this out for size'. On reporting this to the DP, I was told 'it was not a DP issue' and that I ought to go and find one of the 'Brothers' to talk to about the incident. Distressed, in tears and shocked, I sought the help of the most down-to-earth and approachable 'Brother' on staff to report the incident too (sorry to say, but I wasn't exactly spoilt for choice...) The Brother's response was to say that this had happened to another young female teacher some years before - 'but she did wear short skirts and make-up'. It took some convincing on my behalf for the boys in question to receive any sort of consequence. I assured myself that this had to be a one-off life-event to be experienced by me and nothing like this could happen again. I was wrong.

A few years on and now a middle leader in a school, I was writing my school reports in the teacher work room. An older male teacher came up behind me and began to massage my shoulders. 'You look so tense Marni'....'You work so hard'....'Let me take your stress away' he said. His hands worked their way over my shoulders and on to my chest. Initially frozen to my seat, I soon broke free and fled the common area. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to be sick. I was frightened. After some searching for a senior leader, I found a female DP, expecting her help, protection and assistance. On reporting what had occurred she told me 'You have got it wrong'...'He is a professional'.....'He wouldn't do that'....'You are exaggerating'....'You have misunderstood him' and an outright dismissal of my complaint. This man went on to harass two more women on staff with both women feeling isolated, unsupported and their complaints marginalised. No body did the right thing by me nor the other women. Some months later, I received a promotion and left the school. It couldn't happen to me again, I told myself. I was a mother, a wife and I drove a people-mover with a baby-car seat in the rear.

It did. Years on. Grander scale. More wretched. More brutal. More inhumane. Utterly cruel. Calculating. Tactical. There are no words. I cannot write about it. The words and images are reserved for my nightmares: my flashbacks and when dark-haired men, unassumably walk towards me on the street. Not for your consumption, good people. And like so many others before me, the judgement and bias came. 'She asked for it', "she wore red stilletto's', 'she rates herself', 'she flirts', 'she wanted attention', the men and women narrated from their comfortable seats. One female bystander even added, on hearing of the incident, 'He flirts with me, compliments me on my perfume and you don't see me complaining'. None of these people who sat in the cheap seats ever asked themselves, I am certain, WHO AM I BLAMING AND WHY? They never once paused, reflected nor looked inward to explore, with curiosity or some semblance of mindfulness, why their default setting was to blame the victim and not look to the pattern of behaviour of the perpetrator. Beyond my own experience, I have found both solace and sadness in hearing the stories in women in workplaces I have interviewed for my research, women harassed, bullied and assaulted and left branded by the scorn of others; blamed and 'accused' by those very people who ought to support them, protect them and hold the perpetrators accountable....and at the very least, conduct a procedurally fair investigation. It's .101 'how to be a decent person/employer/leader' is it not?

We have a long way to go in removing the mindsets that blind us, the biases that limit our understanding and vastly diminish our ability to show compassion and kindness. If we are to be kinder, more empathetic and seek to understand rather than to judge, then we must learn to perspective-take, we must listen in order to understand and we must learn to navigate our relationships with other humans far more mindfully in our workplaces, our families and our communities. We are being shown time and time again, that this is the only way forward yet we are so slow and sluggish to respond. We must invest in cultivating these behaviours in schools, in our communities and in our workplaces. We must start.

#weisme #metooiswetoo #betterworldbetterpeople #thisisnotwhoweare