I was 18 or 19. He was much older, and a very, very senior manager in a global charity. He forced his tongue in my mouth. I remember the feeling with technicolour clarity.
But then I remember convincing myself it didn’t happen, couldn’t have happened. I remember carrying on and shoving the memory away for many years. I never told anyone because he was so senior, and I felt I’d put myself in that position by trying to cultivate a professional relationship that, at the time, I thought was important to my career.
And to be honest I was flattered that he, a guy with an illustrious career and an amazing job, had taken a professional interest in me; I felt this was just something I had to put up with. It took me a long time to let go of that feeling. I worked with him subsequently, and tried to stay in touch. When I did let go, guilt filled the hole. Guilt about not speaking up, and about maybe putting other women at risk by not telling anyone.
I’m telling this story now because it is vitally important we recognise that sexual harassment happens in the voluntary sector too. We don’t exist independently of the scandals rocking Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the modelling world and more. These men exist in whispers and rumours in our networks. In fact, they are real, normal, everyday people with whom we all come into contact, in some cases more than we would like.
More recently I have worked with men who, while not physically threatening, have made it viscerally clear that I am beneath their estimation purely because I am a young woman and have done the same to female colleagues. Female friends from across the sector tell the same story. I should not have to work twice as hard to prove that I am just as good because these individuals work to undermine me, but this is a reality.
I have been lucky to have fantastic (sometimes male) managers to whom I can turn, but I have also worked within organisations that don’t embed values of equality and challenge from the top down. It is difficult to speak up in these environments, because the very process of keeping going is so exhausting in itself. This kind of insidious misogyny is part and parcel of an organisational culture that does not protect women who face abuse, and that does not support them to challenge the existing power structures that allow it.
I’m telling this story because I have not seen it told yet in the voluntary sector. I think if we do not tell it, and challenge the conditions that allow it to happen, we run the risk of complacency.
Just because we work for organisations in the business of “doing good” does not mean that we do no wrong. We need to make sure our boards and management structures include and enable a multitude of voices so we can create working environments that challenge the misogyny, ableism, racism, homophobia and other products of power structures dominated by straight white men. We need to make sure that in all charities, however large or small, there are practices that allow us to call out abuse, harassment and toxic masculinity. We need to make sure managers have the skills to support their staff appropriately, and the support themselves to escalate issues further up the chain.
I am still relatively early in my career, but I hope to run charities in the future. This has always been my ambition, and I won’t be shaken from it. As a leader I hope my experience, and reflection on the experiences I hear, will help me to create organisations that truly embody cultures of equality, challenge and support. In the meantime, I hope telling this story will help others to take up that challenge.
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