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When a woman sought justice on harassment, the Lords closed ranks

Jasvinder Sanghera has spent her life fighting sexual abuse. But the upper house has shielded Lord Lester from punishment writes Kate Maltby in The Guardian

 

Jasvinder Sanghera: “How can I suggest that victims of sexual harassment and bullying should complain to the Lords? I don’t want them to go through what I’ve been through.”


When the #MeToo movement hit Westminster last year, some didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Those of us who had put our names to complaints of sexual harassment were presented as over-privileged women operating in elite institutions: if we were miffed by the odd indecent proposal, or the occasional lunge from a politician, perhaps we needed an education in real suffering. 

No one can similarly accuse Jasvinder Sanghera of being sheltered when it comes to sexual violence. At 14 she ran away from home to escape a forced marriage, sleeping rough at first. Her sister Robina was less lucky. At the age of 24, Robina fatally set herself on fire after being told the family would disown her if she walked out on her husband’s physical violence. Since her sister’s death, Sanghera has spent 25 years campaigning against sexual abuse in traditional communities. Her charity, Karma Nirvana, helped make forced marriage overseas a criminal offence.

Last week, Sanghera outed herself as the woman who had made a complaint of sexual harassment against the Lib Dem peer Lord Lester. She would have felt like a “phoney”, she says, if she had continued campaigning against sexual violence in the family while allegedly tolerating harassment in the workplace.

Sanghera claimed that, while lending his support to her work, Lester had groped and harassed her and eventually promised: “If you sleep with me I will make you a baroness within a year”. He allegedly threatened to retaliate when she refused. Lester strongly denies all the allegations, though an investigation by the Lords’ commissioner for standards found against him. That investigation has since been scrutinised by two committee reviews, both of which again found against Lester. Overall, two law lords, two former lord chancellors, the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and 15 other peers have examined the case and ruled in Sanghera’s favour. But according to Lester’s friends in the House of Lords, this isn’t good enough.

As soon as the last appeal failed, Lord Pannick, a respected QC who is a close friend and supporter of Lester’s, launched a media campaign to discredit the investigation process in which he had just participated – including making the astonishing claim that Lester should have been allowed personally to cross-examine a woman who had accused him of sexual assault. Pannick’s campaign against Sanghera’s credibility read like a textbook case of establishment mobilisation: a column in the Times, where he is a regular columnist, and an appearance on the Today programme, where he called Sanghera “vague and contradictory”. There are, he alleges, errors or discrepancies in her memory. No doubt there are, at a distance of 12 years. But crucially, six witnesses gave evidence that Sanghera had confided in them about the alleged harassment at the time.

In his newspaper column and on the radio, Pannick drew our attention to a friendly note that Sanghera had inscribed to Lester in a copy of her book, after the key incident. Yet on neither occasion did Pannick acknowledge that Sanghera had been heavily questioned by the commissioner on this point, as she had been on every “challenge” made by Lester’s team. Sanghera’s side of the story is that Lester had requested the inscription at a large public setting “at the front of the queue of around 100 people”. She was still reliant on Lester’s help for her policy campaigns. She repeatedly told friends at the time that she still felt uncomfortable. But from Pannick’s media interventions, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a smoking gun that had never been put to Sanghera in the investigation.

It is profoundly depressing that after a year of public discussion about sexual harassment, educated men still claim not to understand the pressure women feel to show harassers that there are no “hard feelings” . A female barrister at Pannick’s own chambers had the guts to point this out on Twitter, writing last week that: “I was sexually harassed by a Crown Court judge whom I spent a week work shadowing. At the end of the week I not only thanked him profusely for the opportunity, I actually sent him a Fortnums hamper to show my appreciation. Such is female socialisation in the 21st Century.” Harvey Weinstein’s victims were famously photographed grinning with him at parties.

The #MeToo movement has often been accused of disrespecting due process. Yet last week we saw a woman vindicated by an established process, and still denied justice when the Lords refused to pass a sanction against Lester on the grounds that it doubted the results of its own process.
Peer after peer turned up in the Lords on Thursday to swear that they had known Lester for donkey’s years and that he wouldn’t harm a fly. In court, an admission of lifelong friendship with the accused would immediately lead a juror or adjudicator to be recused from the case. Only in the House of Lords, it seems, does being a mate of the man in the dock particularly qualify a chap to try his case.

Many in the Lords were concerned that this case had been tried “on the balance of probabilities”, instead of “beyond reasonable doubt”. But the former is the civil law standard used in any employment tribunal: Lester was facing suspension from a job, not a jail sentence. In rejecting that standard of proof, the Lords has shown that it expects to be held to lower professional standards than any other place of employment. This cannot be right. If the Lords feels its own procedures are not fit for purpose, it must accept that modernisation is likely to be tougher, not easier on it. The Lords should be careful what it wishes for.

Shobhaa De explains all what you wanted to know about #MeToo

Men Only: Inside the charity fundraiser where hostesses are put on show

Madison Marriage in The Financial Times

At 10pm last Thursday night, Jonny Gould took to the stage in the ballroom at London’s Dorchester Hotel. “Welcome to the most un-PC event of the year,” he roared. 

Mr Gould — who presented Channel 5’s Major League Baseball show — was there to host a charity auction, the centrepiece of a secretive annual event, the Presidents Club Charity Dinner. 

The gathering’s official purpose is to raise money for worthy causes such as Great Ormond Street Hospital, the world-renowned children’s hospital in London’s Bloomsbury district. 

Auction items included lunch with Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, and afternoon tea with Bank of England governor Mark Carney. 

But this is a charity fundraiser like no other. 

Auction lots included a lunch with foreign secretary Boris Johnson and former England cricketer Ian Botham. 

It is for men only. A black tie evening, Thursday’s event was attended by 360 figures from British business, politics and finance and the entertainment included 130 specially hired hostesses. 

All of the women were told to wear skimpy black outfits with matching underwear and high heels. At an after-party many hostesses — some of them students earning extra cash — were groped, sexually harassed and propositioned. 

The event has been a mainstay of London’s social calendar for 33 years, yet the activities have remained largely unreported — unusual, perhaps, for a fundraiser of its scale. 

The questions raised about the event have been thrown into sharp relief by the current business climate, when bastions of sexual harassment and the institutionalised objectification of women are being torn down. 

The Financial Times last week sent two people undercover to work as hostesses on the night. Reporters also gained access to the dining hall and surrounding bars. 

Over the course of six hours, many of the hostesses were subjected to groping, lewd comments and repeated requests to join diners in bedrooms elsewhere in the Dorchester. 

Hostesses reported men repeatedly putting hands up their skirts; one said an attendee had exposed his penis to her during the evening. 

WPP, the FTSE 100 advertising conglomerate, sponsored a table at the event as it has in previous years. Martin Sorrell, chief executive, was not present this year — though he has attended in the past. 

Andrew Scott, its chief operating officer for Europe, hosted the table in his absence. Other table sponsors included CMC Markets, the UK-listed spread betting company, and Frogmore, the London-based real estate investment business. 

A seating plan for last week’s event seen by the FT listed those due to attend as including well-known British business figures such as Philip Green of Arcadia Group, Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones, and Ocado boss Tim Steiner. 

Financiers on the seating plan included Henry Gabay, founder of hedge fund Duet Group, and Makram Azar, the head of Barclays’ investment bank’s Middle East business. From the world of politics were Nadhim Zahawi, newly appointed undersecretary of state for children and families, and Jonathan Mendelsohn, a Labour peer and party fundraiser. It is not clear whether those listed all turned up on the night. 

The comedian David Walliams was the host for the evening. Previous attendees have included Michael Sherwood, a former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Poju Zabludowicz, a Finnish real estate billionaire and Conservative party donor. 

Current and past supporters provide a roll call of British wealth and business influence: patrons include high-end developer Nick Candy; former Formula 1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone; and TV presenter Vernon Kay. CMC Markets founder Peter Cruddas is also a regular attendee. 

The event has a laudable fundraising aim with prestigious prizes offered for auction. During the three decades The Presidents Club has been running, it has raised more than £20m for charity. Thursday’s event alone raised more than £2m. 

The organisation’s charitable trust has two joint chairmen: Bruce Ritchie, a Mayfair property developer who founded Residential Land, and David Meller, from the luxury good specialist Meller Group, who also sits on the board of the Department for Education and the Mayor’s Fund for London. 

But the auction offers a hint of the evening’s seedier side. Lots included a night at Soho’s Windmill strip club and a course of plastic surgery with the invitation to: “Add spice to your wife.” 

The accompanying brochure included a full-page warning that no attendees or staff should be sexually harassed. The glossy auction catalogue distributed to attendees during the evening included multiple images of Marilyn Monroe dressed in revealing, tight dresses. 

The nature of the occasion was hinted at when the hostesses were hired. The task of finding women for the dinner is entrusted to Caroline Dandridge, founder of Artista, an agency specialising in hosts and hostesses for what it claims to be some of the “UK’s most prestigious occasions”. 

At their initial interviews, women were warned by Ms Dandridge that the men in attendance might be “annoying” or try to get the hostesses “pissed”. One hostess was advised to lie to her boyfriend about the fact it was a male-only event. “Tell him it’s a charity dinner,” she was told. 

“It’s a Marmite job. Some girls love it, and for other girls it’s the worst job of their life and they will never do it again . . . You just have to put up with the annoying men and if you can do that it’s fine,” Ms Dandridge told the hostess. 

Two days before the event, Ms Dandridge told prospective hostesses by email that their phones would be “safely locked away” for the evening and that boyfriends and girlfriends were not welcome at the venue. 

The uniform requirements also became more detailed: all hostesses should bring “BLACK sexy shoes”, black underwear, and do their hair and make-up as they would to go to a “smart sexy place”. Dresses and belts would be supplied on the day. 

For those who met the three specific selection criteria (“tall, thin and pretty”) a job paying £150, plus £25 for a taxi home, began at 4pm. 

The backgrounds of the dozen or more hostesses met by reporters were varied: many were students, hoping to launch careers as lawyers or marketing executives; others juggled part-time jobs as actresses, dancers or models and did occasional hostessing work to make ends meet. 

Upon arrival at the Dorchester, the first task given to the hostesses was to sign a five-page non-disclosure agreement about the event. Hostesses were not given a chance to read its contents, or take a copy with them after signing. 

At first, hostesses were assembled in the Dorchester’s Orchard Room, where a team of hair and make-up artists prepped women for the evening ahead. During the pre-event preparations, some of the women new to hostess work sought advice from those with more experience. The feedback was mixed. 

A number of the hostesses seemed excited about the evening ahead. It was a fun night, they said, especially as — unlike most hostessing assignments — you could drink on the job. 

One experienced hostess acknowledged that a portion of the men were likely to be “arseholes”, but said others were “hilarious”. “It really depends on the luck of the draw,” she added. 

Others were more apprehensive. One woman who had last worked at the event five years ago sighed to herself: “I can’t believe I’m here again.” 

Towards 7pm, during a staff buffet dinner, Ms Dandridge entered wearing a smart black suit and gave a briefing; she said if any of the men became “too annoying”, the hostesses should contact her. 

Hostess uniforms were distributed — short tight black dresses, black high heels and a thick black belt resembling a corset. Once dressed, the hostesses were offered a glass of white wine during the final countdown to their entrance into the ballroom. 

As the 8pm start time approached, all of the hostesses were told to form two lines in height order, tallest women first, ready to parade across the stage as music began to boom across the venue: “Power”, by British girl band Little Mix. 

Entering in twos from opposite sides on to a stage positioned at the front of the ballroom, hostesses presented themselves to the men before walking towards their allocated tables alongside dinner guests. This continued until all 130 women were spread across the room. 

With the dinner properly under way, the hostess brief was simple: keep this mix of British and foreign businessmen, the odd lord, politicians, oligarchs, property tycoons, film producers, financiers, and chief executives happy — and fetch drinks when required. 

A number of men stood with the hostesses while waiting for smoked salmon starters to arrive. Others remained seated and yet insisted on holding the hands of their hostesses. 

It was unclear why men, seated at their tables with hostesses standing close by, felt the need to hold the hands of the women, but numerous hostesses discussed instances of it through the night. For some, this was a prelude to pulling the women into their laps. Meanwhile champagne, whisky and vodka were served. 

On stage, entertainers came and went. It was soon after a troupe of burlesque dancers — dressed like furry-hatted Coldstream Guards, but with star-shaped stickers hiding nipples — that one 19-year-old hostess, recounted a conversation with a guest nearing his seventies: who had asked her, directly, whether she was a prostitute. She was not. “I’ve never done this before, and I’m never doing it again,” she said later. “It’s f***ing scary.” 

According to the accounts of multiple women working that night, groping and similar abuse was seen across many of the tables in the room. 

Another woman, 28, with experience of hostess work, observing the braying men around her said this was significantly different to previous black tie jobs. At other events, men occasionally would try to flirt with her, she said, but she had never felt uncomfortable or, indeed, frightened. 

She reported being repeatedly fondled on her bottom, hips, stomach and legs. One guest lunged at her to kiss her. Another invited her upstairs to his room. 

Meanwhile, Artista had an enforcement team, made up of suited women and men, who would tour the ballroom, prodding less active hostesses to interact with dinner guests.

Outside the women’s toilets a monitoring system was in place: women who spent too long were called out and led back to the ballroom. A security guard at the door was on hand, keeping time. 

At 10pm, the main money-raising portion of the evening got under way: the charity auction, where the lots on offer ranged from a supercharged Land Rover to the right to name a character in Mr Walliams’ next children's book. 

Richard Caring, who made his fortune in the retail sourcing business before scooping up a long list of London’s most fashionable restaurants, including The Ivy and Scott’s, rounded off the money-raising portion of the evening with a successful £400,000 bid to place his name on a new High Dependency Unit at the Evelina London children’s hospital for sick children. 

It was a moment of respite for the women, most of whom had been allowed to return to the Orchard Room. Some were excited to have been offered jobs by men in the room. Others had been offered large tips, which they had been obliged to decline. One woman struggled to re-apply her eyeliner. “I’m so drunk,” she said apologetically, blaming tequila shots at her table. 

The women filed back into the ballroom at 11pm for the final hour of the main event, which would be followed by an “after-party” elsewhere in the hotel. 

Most hostesses had been told they would be required to stay until 2am. One was told that this final leg of the evening offered a chance to drink what she wanted and seek out those men she found “most attractive”. 

The after-party was held in a smaller room off the main lobby at the Dorchester, packed tight with guests and women. 

According to the 28-year-old hostess, while men danced and drank with a set of women on one side of the room, a line of younger women were left seated on a banquette at the back of the room, seemingly dazed. “They looked shocked and frightened, exhausted by what had happened,” she said. 

Meanwhile, in the centre of the room, Jimmy Lahoud, 67, a Lebanese businessman and restaurateur, danced enthusiastically with three young women wearing bright red dresses. 

“You look far too sober,” he told her. Filling her glass with champagne, he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her in against his stomach and declared: “I want you to down that glass, rip off your knickers and dance on that table.”

In a statement the Dorchester said it had a zero-tolerance policy regarding harassment of guests or employees. “We are unaware of any allegations and should we be contacted we will work with the relevant authorities as necessary,” it said. 

The Presidents Club said: “The Presidents Club recently hosted its annual dinner, raising several million pounds for disadvantaged children. The organisers are appalled by the allegations of bad behaviour at the event asserted by the Financial Times reporters. Such behaviour is totally unacceptable. The allegations will be investigated fully and promptly and appropriate action taken.” 

Ms Dandridge of Artista stated: “This is a really important charity fundraising event that has been running for 33 years and raises huge amounts of money for disadvantaged and underprivileged children’s charities. There is a code of conduct that we follow, I am not aware of any reports of sexual harassment and with the calibre of guest, I would be astonished.” 

None of the trustees of the charity provided a comment for publication. 

Harvey Goldsmith, a former trustee, said he was “gobsmacked” by the accounts of sexual harassment taking place at the event. “I’m totally shocked to be quite frank,” he said. 

The BoE said: “The Bank of England did not approve any prize for auction on the occasion described nor would it have for that organisation under its guidelines for charitable giving.” 

Mr Walliams declined to comment. 

Mr Caring said he “was not aware of any of the alleged incidents”. 

Barry Townsley, a well-known stockbroker and lifetime president of The Presidents Club who helped to set up the charity, said he had not attended the dinner for a decade. He added that it was previously “very nice and civilised” and a “mild-mannered charity”. “What goes on now is not my business,” he said.

Why employers ignore abuse complaints

Michael Skapinker in The Financial Times


“We all knew about it! We. All. Knew,” Vicky Featherstone, artistic director of London’s Royal Court Theatre, said of the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the film and theatre industries. 

People felt that, as long as it was not happening in their rehearsal rooms or their theatres, they weren’t responsible, she told The Guardian. “I just can’t believe that we’ve all colluded,” she said. 

Allegations of sexual abuse by top executives are rarely a surprise to those who work for or with them. So why does it take a newspaper investigation or a small number of brave individuals to uncover what so many on the inside already knew? 

First, complaining is like leaping off a cliff on your first sky dive. Once done, there is no going back. And the risks of it going wrong are huge. Those who complain are usually, at best, ignored. Otherwise, they are often crushed by the superior force of the organisation’s lawyers and drummed out of the industry. 

In many years of talking to whistleblowers and complainants about corporate abuse, I have not met any who emerged undamaged. The problem with my skydiving analogy is that skydivers have a far higher chance of landing unscathed. 

An allegation of abuse or harassment threatens not just the managers concerned but also the way the organisation sees itself 

And sexual abuse is only one aspect of organisational harassment. There are other ways managers misuse their power, such as systematic bullying and victimisation. 

When people do speak up, organisations usually fail to respond or hit back at the complainants, alleging, for example, that their performance has been poor. 

An allegation of abuse or harassment threatens not just the managers concerned but also the way the organisation sees itself. All enterprises have a purpose, an ethos, what we have come to call a corporate culture. Suggesting that mission is flawed threatens not only the organisation’s leaders, but its employees too. 

We devote most of our waking hours to working for our organisations. If someone suggests that everything we are doing is built on managers’ nefarious behaviour, what does it say about us that we are putting up with it? Those who speak out often find that their fellow workers prefer not to know. 

When those who complain get nowhere, “a subtle complicity evolves among the other employees”, an article in the Academy of Management Executive journal said. That complicity compounds the other employees’ shame at not speaking out, and makes it less likely that they will do so in future. 

Analysing “deaf ear” syndrome, the article, by a group of academics at the University of North Carolina, compares companies that close ranks against complainants to narcissists “who need to maintain a positive self-image and engage in ‘ego-defensive’ behaviour to preserve their self-esteem”. 

If the misbehaviour does come out, the article says, the damage to the organisation is often extensive — in compensation payments, the departure of senior employees and reputational damage. 

Does the recent flood of allegations mean people will be more willing to speak up? 

Well, that Academy of Management article appeared in 1998, nearly 20 years ago. It followed a string of sexual abuse scandals at Mitsubishi, the US Army and the US branch of Astra, the pharmaceuticals company that is now part of AstraZeneca. In the biggest settlement at that time, “Mitsubishi agreed to pay $34m to several hundred women who had alleged unheeded claims of sexual harassment over a period of years”, the article said. 

Yet here we are again, with serious allegations against, among others, Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of the Weinstein Company, and Kevin Spacey, former artistic director of London’s Old Vic theatre. 

Will things change? Will those who suffer abuse be readier to speak up, and are managers more likely to believe them and take action? One can hope so. But organisations’ drive to protect themselves and their own self-image will not go away. 

Real change would require independent third parties that people can report to, and impartial hearings. With trade union membership falling and access to legal representation increasingly out of reach of ordinary people, complaining remains as daunting a first step as ever.

How do Non Disclosure Agreements Work?

Shannon Bond and Jane Croft in FT


Many of the women who have spoken about sexual harassment by Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood film producer, signed non-disclosure agreements. Such agreements have been criticised for being a tool used by the wealthy and powerful to silence victims. 

What is an NDA? 

An NDA is a legal agreement signed between two parties to share confidential information or to keep trade secrets private. They are widely used in the business world, such as in mergers and acquisitions, where one company receives sensitive financial information about a business it wants to buy. 

“The original legitimate point of a non-disclosure agreement is for people to talk about business ideas together and make sure someone does not run off and start their own venture,” says Robert Ottinger, founder of the Ottinger Firm, a US employment law practice. 

NDAs are also used in employment settlements so that workers cannot speak about events that happened during their employment, such as sexual harassment. 

“What is absolutely de rigueur in our business these days is the employer pays you money and you will never say anything about it again,” says Kathleen Peratis, head of the sex discrimination and sexual harassment practice group at the New York law firm Outten & Golden. 

“They’ve been used more lately to hide people’s dirty secrets. The consequence is the public never knows,” Mr Ottinger says. “We sign settlement agreements every week, and you can’t tell anyone but your spouse, your accountant and your lawyer.” 

How secure are NDAs? 

NDAs are legally binding. However, once confidential information enters the public domain, there is a question as to how an NDA could be enforced. 

“If the information is something very, very bad, such as allegations of sexual harassment against an employer, there is a public interest argument that this should not be covered up,” says one UK employment lawyer. “If other women who have not signed NDAs suddenly start speaking out then there is a question of whether the information is still confidential or has now entered the public domain. If it is now deemed as public, an employer would be unlikely to succeed in the courts if they sought damages against someone who has breached an NDA.” 

Ms Peratis says clients have recently asked about the consequences of breaking their confidentiality agreements. “What I say is, you made a deal. If you choose to violate that deal, you are at risk of having this guy demand what the contract allows him to demand. But I also tell them, if you’re the first to come out with this your risk is high. If you’re the third or fourth, your risk is not so high.” 

In the UK, lawyers reject the idea that there will be a flood of parties breaching NDAs in light of the Weinstein case. However, there is a possibility that the use of gagging clauses may be curbed, particularly in the UK public sector, which have historically been used to stop workers flagging safety concerns. 

What is the legal position for an employee who breaks an NDA? 

In both the UK and US, an ex-employee can be sued for breaching a confidentiality agreement. A company can seek damages from the former staff member and can try to claw back all or part of any financial settlement. In the UK, they can also seek an injunction preventing the former employee from speaking out again. 

Paul Quain, partner at GQ Employment Law, says UK employment settlement agreements usually have a clause in the agreement that allows ex-employees to speak out about confidential information if they are “required by law, HMRC [HM Revenue & Customs], any regulatory body”. 

This means that an ex-employee would be able to speak to UK lawmakers at a parliamentary select committee hearing, to UK tax investigators or to the UK financial regulator despite having signed such an NDA. 

In the US, NDAs cannot lawfully prevent people from reporting claims to law enforcement and government agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or responding to a subpoena. 

US federal law does stop “employers from preventing employees from their right to engage in what are called ‘concerted activities’,” says Maya Raghu, director of workplace equality at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington. “That can include restraining or preventing employees from discussing sexual harassment complaints among themselves. That can be an unfair labour practice.” 

How does an NDA differ from a non-disparagement agreement? 

Non-disparagement agreements are more specific than NDAs and mean that both parties (such as an employer and employee) agree not to make derogatory or adverse statements about each other. 

Are the numbers of NDAs increasing? 

Mr Quain says the number of NDAs has been increasing since the 1970s and 1980s as companies have become more concerned that sensitive information could be leaked. “It may be that companies started to get their fingers burnt and confidential information was made public. They are now pretty standard in employment settlement agreements,” he says. 

Ms Peratis recalls the first time she saw such an agreement mooted, about 40 years ago. “I said to the lawyer on the other side, ‘Ah, you want silence. That’s going to cost you a little more.’” 

Today, she says, “no conversation like that ever occurs any more because it is absolutely expected that with every single employment settlement agreement there will be a confidentiality agreement . . . Anybody who says these days I am not going to agree to confidentiality is not going to get a deal.”

Top Australian surgeon advises female doctors to allow sexual harassment to get ahead

Lucy Clarke-Billings in The Independent

A senior surgeon has triggered controversy after telling junior female doctors to go along with sexual abuse at work for the sake of their careers. 

Australian vascular surgeon Dr Gabrielle McMullin drew criticism for comments made at the launch of her book - Pathways to Gender Equality.

Speaking in an ABC radio interview after the event, she said she encouraged women in her field to protect their climb up the professional ladder by “complying with requests” for sex.

The Sydney-based surgeon said sexism is so rife among her colleagues, young women should probably just accept unwanted sexual advances because speaking out would tarnish their reputations.

Dr McMullin, who studied medicine in Dublin, Ireland, said she stands by the comments she made on Friday but that her advice was “irony”.

"What I tell my trainees is that, if you are approached for sex, probably the safest thing to do in terms of your career is to comply with the request," she said after the launch.

Her shocking comments triggered angry reactions from sex abuse and domestic violence campaigners, who claimed her remarks were “appalling” and “irresponsible”.

Dr McMullin told ABC's AM program the story of Dr Caroline Tan, a young doctor who won a sexual harassment case in 2008 against a surgeon who forced himself on her while she was training at a Melbourne Hospital.

Dr Tan didn't tell anyone what had happened until the surgeon started giving her reports that were so bad they threatened the career she had worked so hard for.

But McMullin warns complaining to the supervising body is the 'worst thing' trainees could do.

“Despite that victory, she has never been appointed to a public position in a hospital in Australasia,” she said. “Her career was ruined by this one guy asking for sex on this night.

“And realistically, she would have been much better to have given him a blow-job on that night.”

Dr McMullin's comments have been roundly criticised by others in the medical profession and in women’s rights groups. 

But she said many people had thanked her for speaking out and some had come forward with more appalling stories of their experiences.

She said her critics had misunderstood her stance.

"Of course I don't condone any form of sexual harassment and the advice that I gave to potential surgical trainees was irony, but unfortunately that is the truth at the moment, that women do not get supported if they make a complaint," she told the ABC.

"And that's where the problem is, so what I'm suggesting is that we need a solution for that problem not to condone that behaviour.

"It's not dealt with properly, women still feel that their careers are compromised if they complain, just like rape victims are victimised if they complain," she said.

One victim, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing her job, told the ABC she experienced years of sexual harassment from a senior surgeon.

The victim said if she revealed her identify, she would not be considered a safe person to work with.

"If you complain... you'll be exposed, you'll be hung up to dry, you won't be able to work," she said.

"You'd be seen as a liability, that's my opinion. You absolutely would be seen as a liability moving forward.

"It's well and good that the legislation and laws say x, y and z but that wouldn't happen in practise. It would be unlikely to."

Kate Drummond, chair of the Women in Surgery committee at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, disagreed with this suggestion.

"I think we have robust processes, not only through the college for the trainees but also through the workplace," she told the ABC'S The World Today's program.

"I mean, these are people who work in hospitals and there are clear workplace processes to deal with these kinds of problems.

"And so I think there are parallel processes that we would encourage people to use and also to take the support of people like those of us in the Women in Surgery committee and we're very happy to strongly support these people."

Ms Drummond said there had been less than one complaint per year to the Women in Surgery committee regarding sexual harassment.

Sexual favours at work: A menace nobody talks about

Tanuj Khosla in the Times of India

The topic of sexual harassment at work has again come to fore in recent times thanks to Tarun Tejpal. Flick to any news channel, you are likely to come across a panel discussion on the same (only displaced by one on elections). Reams have been written on the subject and how the guilty gets away more often than not while the victim lives with trauma and stigma for years to come not to mention damage to her career.

However there is another workplace menace that never gets the same print space or even mind space for that matter – use of sexual favours to rise up the career ladder.

Before I proceed any further, let me clarify that this topic has nothing do with the incident at Tehelka. I am as disgusted by Tejpal as everybody else and I hope that he pays for his deeds.

With that ‘disclaimer’ out of the way, let us come back to this phenomenon that happens often but is seldom discussed.

Pick any industry, media, banking, education etc., all of them have their version of ‘casting couch’.

Unfortunately there are no laws against this as the relationship is ‘consensual’. No one talks about the trauma and frustration faced by deserving employees whose career growth is unfairly stalled because they chose to keep their pants on. They suffer dual humiliation from the boss and his ‘pet’ and are saddled with HR mumbo jumbo in the name of explanation for denial of promotion/opportunities. I am sure that most readers would know at least one person who has suffered this fate.

What compounds this problem is that the existence of these clandestine relationships can’t be proved and organizations are only too happy to look to other way as long as results are being delivered. Employees treated badly have little recourse and it is not uncommon for them to lose their drive and motivation.

However this weapon of ‘sleep your way to the top’ is not only used by women alone. There is no dearth of young men willing to be ‘toy boys’ in the hands of their female bosses. Even providing ‘spouses’ to bosses is something that is not completely unheard of, as sick as that is. 

The first move towards initiation can be made by either party. In some cases, a senior manager with a ‘roving eye’ is all the invitation an aspiring junior needs. Conversely in many organizations, top bosses choose management trainees to serve on their team based on how the level of flirtations and accidental ‘free-shows’ they received during the orientation program. In cases of lateral movement or inter-department transfers, necessary ‘feedback’ is taken from fellow partners in crime.

In conclusion, corporate world is far from fair and many idealistic individuals get a rude reality check once they enter it. While I don’t have any statistics to back my claim, I am certain that the menace of using sexual favours for career advancement is as if not more rampant as sexual harassment at workplace. Unfortunately for many, it doesn’t get the attention that it deserves.

------

Pritish Nandy in the Times of India

The tosh men speak when accused of sexual misconduct always makes for funny reading. The reason is simple: Most men think it’s their birthright to sexually prey on women. They are brought up to believe that’s what all men, if they are real men, do. It has been said in a million ways, in books, songs, popular movies and yes, repeatedly in advertising, the most persuasive foreplay of our times, that when a woman says No, what she actually means is Yes.  

Not only men say this. Women do too. That there’s no woman ever unwilling for sex; all they need is a little persuasion. Perhaps Mae West was just being her usual witty self. But men, I suspect, have largely taken the advice to heart. Different men ofcourse look at persuasion differently. So while someone may clobber a woman on the head with a baseball bat and drag her to his bedroom, another will drop a 4 carat solitaire in a champagne flute. It’s just a difference of technique, not intent.

There’s no real difference between the guy who sneaks flunitrazepam into his date’s Bloody Mary when she goes for a quick loo break and the one who clumsily gropes an unwilling woman in an empty lift in the hope it may lead to something more exciting. It rarely does. A grope remains a grope. A groper, just a groper. He never quite graduates beyond that. But the most tragic figure of all is the pigtailed Romeo in the corner office flaunting his authority all day long and then, when the sun drops, tries to lunge at his juniors. That’s not seduction. It’s crass power play.

If our flamboyant editor has done what he is accused of, his crime would list in the last and most despicable category. But my intent here is not to tar him. There are enough people around to do it. My concern is that at some stage an actual trial must begin. It must assess the evidence coherently and come to a just conclusion. Currently we are putting the cart before the horse. While the truth may look obvious, facts have a curious habit of flipping themselves. So till the case is heard and justice dispensed with, it may be a good idea to stop playing a lynching mob. 

Discussing and dissecting every salacious detail of the alleged crime also rarely helps the victim. She has been brave enough to come out and seek justice. Probity now demands she gets it quickly. Without the BJP or the Congress trying to muscle in.  

As for Tejpal, he has shot himself in the foot. His journalistic career, always overhung with too many unanswered questions about his ethics, is as good as over. So is his life, as he has known it till now. Charges of rape, even when unproved, are not easy to live with. They are neither forgiven nor forgotten easily and even in jail, such convicts are often welcomed with a sound thrashing and flick knives.

Much of this, I believe, could have been averted if Tejpal had simply apologized to the victim and offered himself for trial. His flamboyant letter, where he claimed to be lacerated by guilt and offered to recuse himself from office for six months was so offensive in its tone that it enraged even those who were ready to give him some room for doubt. The florid language and cheeky tenor of the letter set everyone off. Purple prose from a rape accused is the last thing one expects. But no, he didn’t stop at that. He kept bombarding the hapless victim with more such messages. Without the slightest hint of remorse.

Tejpal may think he’s Christian Gray. That’s what he tries to sound like as he seeks recourse to every ridiculous subterfuge to hide the simple truth from himself, that the girl just did not want him. His messages, laced with arsenic and delivered with the flamboyance of a local pizza boy denied his tip, killed the possibility of any sympathy that may have come his way. Slighted stalkers are known to do stupid things. But nothing can be stupider than his attempts at correspondence. They were not just inapt. They are inept.

The 88-year-old Narayan Dutt Tiwari, caught in an equally embarrassing situation, that too in the Raj Bhavan, got away by simply lowering his head and keeping his silence. No explanations. No purple prose. No stupid heroics. The man may not know when to zip his dhoti. But he sure knew when to zip his mouth. Tejpal could have taken a lesson from him.

How did sledging become a sign of manliness?

Michael Jeh in Cricinfo 

It's hard to compete with messages that say real men don't walk away from a fight © Getty Images

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The bubble. It's a buzzword in sport today. This morning I attended the media launch of a new book called Bubble Boys, by Michael Blucher, a prominent Brisbane identity in the sports media community and a respected mentor to many elite athletes, especially when it comes to the matter of brand perception and image management. The author ruefully claimed that the book was seven years in the making and out of date within ten minutes! He was referring, of course, to the Michael Clarke sledging incident and its impact on the Clarke brand. (Incidentally Clarke's previous manager Chris White was also at this book launch, a wise, decent man whose advice might serve Clarke well right now.)

Picking up the Australian, I then read Gideon Haigh's excellent piece, which also refers to the bubble, this time in reference to Jonathan Trott, and is proof that the best cricket writers need not necessarily have played Test cricket. A quality writer who has distinguished himself in the Test arena, Michael Atherton, added to my enjoyment of the morning newspaper with his erudite and informed perspective, made more poignant by his first-hand experience of playing (and being sledged) at this level. He cautiously chided all parties involved, reminding them that at the end of the day, this is still sport and it behooves us all to not lose sight of that amidst all the trash talk. 

Bubble Boys takes a balanced look at the pressures, both internal and external, perceived or real, that elite athletes have to now contend with. My professional life is centred firmly in this space, so I have some insights into bubble boys and it is with some caution that I offer my opinions on the fall-out from the Brisbane Test, conscious of my own personal leanings but not oblivious to the hard-nosed realities of modern warfare, which is what this Ashes series threatens to descend into unless both teams and the media change the mood.

For some, the series has come alive. For me, some of the joie de vivre has died. The cricket was high-quality but I prefer my sport, no matter what the stakes are, to be served in more genteel fashion. I expect the inevitable vitriol from some bloggers, but the tone of their response may just underscore the point I'm making - that sometimes players, media and fans lose sight of the raison d'etre of sport. If this is sport, it doesn't push my buttons, despite my proximity to and familiarity with the bubble boys.

The fact that England have now withdrawn into their shell and refuse to engage with the media is a sad indictment of where things are at. The media played its part in creating this siege mentality, especially the Brisbane tabloid that refused to name Stuart Broad in its reports. The players' behaviour in refusing to talk to the press makes a lie of their claims that sledging never affects them. Clearly words hurt. Or are they only impervious to on-field sledging? That the Ashes media coverage has descended into a race to the bottom, with players hiding behind headphones, is schoolboy stuff. It's like being sent to Coventry in some Enid Blyton boarding-school story.

Clarke is the ultimate bubble boy. Often misunderstood, carefully image-managed, groomed for the captaincy at a young age, living in a goldfish bowl (replete with supermodel female partners), reputation damaged by some team-mates, and now suddenly facing a new reality that is both ambrosia and arsenic. On one hand, his behaviour at the Gabba has been described as unbecoming of an Australian captain; on the other hand, his much-maligned reputation as a pretty boy, a metrosexual (whatever that is supposed to connote, presumably negative, as described in yesterday's Australian), a brand that hasn't resonated with the VB-swilling public - unlike how those of AB, Tubby, Tugga and Punter did - has now apparently been transformed: from pup to mongrel. And according to many, this is apparently the best thing for his image. It took a threatening expletive and a sanction from the ICC to get him into that club! His fantastic batting wasn't enough for us?

It's a concept that I struggle with personally, but I daresay I'm in the minority. I find it disturbing that we equate manhood and toughness with what we've just seen from the captain. The captain no less.

I've always been a Clarke supporter thus far, but not this time. The other main protagonists, Jimmy Anderson and David Warner, splendid cricketers both of them, played their part in the drama, but does that surprise anybody? Brand consistency they call it.

One of the programmes I run is called A Few Good Men, and it is aimed at getting the good men of sport (and there are many) to take a leadership role in confronting the growing problem of violence in society, specifically violence against women. To think that the national cricket captain is being praised in some quarters for enhancing his brand with a threat to someone to expect a "broken f***ing arm" just speaks to the hopelessness of trying to start a counter-revolution that flies in the face of what our sporting leaders are promoting, even if only in the context of a sporting sledge. It's hard to compete with messages that say real men don't walk away from a fight (the Australian rugby league coach implied as much recently when his star player was involved in a punch-up at the World Cup in Manchester).

Michael Vaughan was quoted today as saying that the Lillee-Thomson era was much worse, so there's nothing to worry about. That doesn't really address the core issue of whether we think it is edifying to watch our cricket stars behave like hooligans or not. Just because it has been worse in times gone by doesn't necessarily make it right. The penalties may vary but a wrong doesn't become a right because it's less bad.

Many people not familiar with the environment of professional sport shake their heads and wonder how this sort of behaviour can occur in what is effectively a workplace. Some of the invective hurled by both teams would constitute workplace harassment in most cases. At best, it would be seen as abysmal etiquette to colleagues or competitors. Yet in sport these bubble boys proudly sing the national anthem, represent their countries, are heroes to kids (and cash in handsomely for that), and then reckon that the rest of their behaviour can exist in a moral vacuum. Maybe sport does live in a bubble after all, and so do all those who work in this special industry

My ten-year-old son posed a question to which I had no definitive answer. It was in relation to a Powerpoint slide I use in my work on respect for women that goes something like this: A male librarian says, "We've agreed to put the magazines which are degrading to women out of the reach of children", to which the female librarian says, "I see. And how old do they have to be before degrading women is all right?" In the context of recent events involving verbal and physical violence, my son wanted to know about the shift from being told not to sledge, not to use foul language, not to threaten opponents, to these things suddenly being perceived as a positive sign of manhood. In junior sport, all of these are frowned on. Judging by the endorsement of the new, more masculine, Michael Clarke, my son wants to know when you go from being boy to man, where the sins of boyhood become the proud tattoos of manhood. The only answer I could offer him was that in our family there was no invisible line.

Leadership is turned upside down when grown men are excused for behaviour that would earn a young cricketer a suspension. We expect so much of our boys but should they display those same decent qualities in adulthood, society demands we burst that bubble. Bubble boys indeed!

Women on Kerala buses

 
O. J. JOYCEE in The hindu

   

TOPICS

IndiaKerala
social issue

The experience of Ms. Sunanda Pushkar at Cochin airport might have shocked the nation and triggered a hurricane of discussion on the harassment of the celebrity. But I do not think that most women in Kerala will be startled by the episode, for this is a routine treatment meted out to them in their daily life, especially while commuting by public transport, particularly in private buses. Frustration, anger, fury, repulsion, nausea and a whole parameter of emotions have been expressed by women in Kerala, who are generally known to be intelligent, educated and practical. But no serious action has been taken against the miscreants, for one reason or the other.

The situation was no different 25 years ago, when I joined a college in Kerala for a PG course. The weekend trip home, 28 km away from the hostel, was a nightmare. Thanks to the reduced fare for students, the buses plying on the route will not stop at the designated stop when the crew see students on the wait. And so we have to run for some distance behind the bus. If you are fortunate enough to race and catch the bus, there is another obstacle waiting right on the footboard — the doorkeeper, a being created exclusively for buses in God’s own country. This being has no female equivalent, or at least I have not seen one, and is aptly christened, kili in Malayalam or ‘bird,’ apt for the whistle he blows in anticipation of a stop, or as and when he likes; it can also signify a lot of other stuff that blossoms in his weird imagination at the sight of a skirt, sari or churidhar or even a frock. This being will not get off the footboard but will stand back a wee bit, very reluctantly, and savour the moment as women are forced to brush past him as they board the bus.

No, no that’s not the end. Inside the bus, you encounter another creature, the conductor. This man will not receive the money from your hand: instead, he will take it, nay, squeeze it out of your hand, and return any change in the same way, with a double squeeze. Still not the end. Even if there is not even an inch of space inside the bus, he will scream at every stop, “Get back there. There is enough room to play football.”

If you are the obedient kind and make your way back, you have had it. There are many wolves waiting there hungrily for you. They will pinch you here, there and everywhere, till you scream in pain. Remember, you have to scream in Malayalam, “Aiiiyyyyoooooo” and not in English, “Ouch!” because men in Kerala are proud of their language and culture!

One wonders what pleasure is derived from pinching others. In all probability, these masochists are those who strongly advocate sari. A Malayalam beauty should be wrapped up in the five-and-a-half-yard material. And that is the last outfit you should opt for the Battle in the Bus. In the course of the bus ride, as the vehicle picks up speed, be prepared for when the jarring sudden brakes throw your body forward, the wolves in the back will be on your back, and the sudden release of the brake will boomerang you back.

If you are a novice, by this time you, your sari, bag, footwear, and all other paraphernalia will be in a state of hotchpotch. In brief, for an average Kerala woman, commuting by bus is a painful ordeal.

Voyeurism of all kinds is rampant in literate Kerala. You will be unabashedly ogled and stared at. It is as if scopophilia is the birthright of the male. Use of foul language and abusive remarks are generally swept aside and condoned as comparatively harmless. But what has astounded me the most is the passivity of the average Kerala woman. And if there is somebody who has summoned up the courage to protest, she will find herself a lone diminutive David against Goliath, the sarcastic crowd. Frustration, anger and fury are not going to solve the problem. Passivity amounts to indifference and evasiveness. Ensuring safe use of public transport by women must be a priority of the State. The privacy of complainants should be protected. What is most important is a general change in the attitude of society that should be more supportive and respectful of women.

Is India the Worst place for Women?

Why is India so bad for women?

Of all the rich G20 nations, India has been labelled the worst place to be a woman. But how is this possible in a country that prides itself on being the world's largest democracy?

• 
• • Helen Pidd
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 23 July 2012 21.00 BST

Video of a woman being attacked in Guwahati, Assam, has sparked outrage in India.

In an ashram perched high on a hill above the noisy city of Guwahati in north-east Indiais a small exhibit commemorating the life of India's most famous son. Alongside an uncomfortable-looking divan where Mahatma Gandhi once slept is a display reminding visitors of something the man himself said in 1921: "Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex (not the weaker sex)."

One evening two weeks ago, just a few miles downhill, a young student left a bar and was set upon by a gang of at least 18 men. They dragged her into the road by her hair, tried to rip off her clothes and smiled at the cameras that filmed it all. It was around 9.30pm on one of Guwahati's busiest streets – a chaotic three-lane thoroughfare soundtracked by constantly beeping horns and chugging tuk-tuks. But for at least 20 minutes, no one called the police. They easily could have. Many of those present had phones: they were using them to film the scene as the men yanked up the girl's vest and tugged at her bra and groped her breasts as she begged for help from passing cars. We know this because a cameraman from the local TV channel was there too, capturing the attack for his viewers' enjoyment. The woman was abused for 45 minutes before the police arrived.

Within half an hour, clips were broadcast on Assam's NewsLive channel. Watching across town, Sheetal Sharma and Bitopi Dutta were horrified. "I was fuming like anything. There was this horrible, brutal assault being shown on screen – and the most disturbing thing was, the blame was being put on the woman, who, the report emphasised, was drunk," says Sharma, a 29-year-old feminist activist from the North-East Network, a women's rights organisation in Guwahati. "The way it was filmed, the camera was panning up and down her body, focusing on her breasts, her thighs," says Dutta, her 22-year-old colleague.

When the police eventually turned up, they took away the woman, who is 20 or 21 (oddly, Guwahati police claimed not to know exactly). While NewsLive re-played pixellated footage of her attack throughout the night, she was questioned and given a medical examination. No attempt was made to arrest the men whose faces could clearly be seen laughing and jeering on camera. Soon afterwards, the editor-in-chief of NewsLive (who has since resigned) remarked on Twitter that "prostitutes form a major chunk of girls who visit bars and night clubs".

It was only a few days later, when the clip had gone viral and had been picked up by the national channels in Delhi, that the police were shamed into action. By then, Guwahati residents had taken matters into their own hands, producing an enormous banner that they strung up alongside one of the city's arterial roads featuring screen grabs of the main suspects. Six days after the attack, the chief minister of Assam, the state where Guwahati is located, ordered the police to arrest a dozen key suspects. He met the victim and promised her 50,000 rupees (£580) compensation.

The damage was already irreversible. Most Indians know full well how tough life as a woman can be in the world's biggest democracy, even 46 years after Indira Gandhi made history as the country's first female prime minister in 1966. But here, caught on camera, was proof. And in Assam – a state long romanticised as the most female-friendly corner of the country, largely thanks to the matrilineal Khasi tribe in Meghalaya. The nation was outraged.

"We have a woman president, we've had a woman prime minister. Yet in 2012, one of the greatest tragedies in our country is that women are on their own when it comes to their own safety," said a female newsreader on NDTV. She went on to outline another incident in India last week: a group of village elders in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, central India, who banned women from carrying mobile phones, choosing their own husbands or leaving the house unaccompanied or with their heads uncovered. "The story is the same," said the news anchor. "No respect for women. No respect for our culture. And as far as the law is concerned: who cares?"

There is currently no special law in India against sexual assault or harassment, and only vaginal penetration by a penis counts as rape. Those who molested the woman in Guwahati would be booked for "insulting or outraging the modesty of a woman" or "intruding upon her privacy". The maximum punishment is a year's imprisonment, or a fine, or both.

As a columnist in the national Hindustan Times said of the attack: "This is a story of a dangerous decline in Indians and India itself, of not just failing morality but disintegrating public governance when it comes to women." Samar Halarnkar added: "Men abuse women in every society, but few males do it with as much impunity, violence and regularity as the Indian male."

Halarnkar then offered as proof a survey that caused indignation in India last month: a poll of 370 gender specialists around the world that voted India the worst place to be a woman out of all the G20 countries. It stung – especially as Saudi Arabia was at the second-worst. But the experts were resolute in their choice. "In India, women and girls continue to be sold as chattels, married off as young as 10, burned alive as a result of dowry-related disputes and young girls exploited and abused as domestic slave labour," said Gulshun Rehman, health programme development adviser at Save the Children UK, who was one of those polled.

 Women travelling on a bus in Chennai, southern India. Photograph: Gustafsson/Rex Features

Look at some statistics and suddenly the survey isn't so surprising. Sure, India might not be the worst place to be a woman on the planet – its rape record isn't nearly as bad as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, where more than 400,000 women are raped each year, and female genital mutilation is not widespread, as it is in Somali. But 45% of Indian girls are married before the age of 18, according to the International Centre for Research on Women (2010); 56,000 maternal deaths were recorded in 2010 (UN Population Fund) and research from Unicef in 2012 found that 52% of adolescent girls (and 57% of adolescent boys) think it is justifiable for a man to beat his wife. Plus crimes against women are on the increase: according to the National Crime Records Bureau in India, there was a 7.1% hike in recorded crimes against women between 2010 and 2011 (when there were 228,650 in total). The biggest leap was in cases under the "dowry prohibition act" (up 27.7%), of kidnapping and abduction (up 19.4% year on year) and rape (up 9.2%).

A preference for sons and fear of having to pay a dowry has resulted in 12 million girls being aborted over the past three decades, according to a 2011 study by the Lancet.

A glance at the Indian media reveals the range of abuse suffered by the nation's women on a daily basis. Today it was reported that a woman had been stripped and had her head shaved by villagers near Udaipur as punishment for an extramarital affair. Villagers stoned the police when they came to the rescue. In Uttar Pradesh, a woman alleged she was gang raped at a police station – she claimed she was set on by officers after being lured to the Kushinagar station with the promise of a job.

Last Wednesday, a man in Indore was arrested for keeping his wife's genitals locked. Sohanlal Chouhan, 38, "drilled holes" on her body and, before he went to work each day, would insert a small lock, tucking the keys under his socks. Earlier this month, children were discovered near Bhopal playing with a female foetus they had mistaken for a doll in a bin. In the southern state of Karnataka, a dentist was arrested after his wife accused him of forcing her to drink his urine because she refused to meet dowry demands.

In June, a father beheaded his 20-year-old daughter with a sword in a village in Rajasthan, western India, parading her bleeding head around as a warning to other young women who might fall in love with a lower-caste boy.

This July, the state government in Delhi was summoned to the national high court afterfailing to amend an outdated law that exempts women (and turban-wearing Sikh men) from wearing helmets on motorcycles – an exemption campaigners argue is indicative of the lack of respect for female life.

But the story that outraged most women in India last week was an interview given to the Indian Express by Mamta Sharma, chairwoman of the National Commission of Women (NCW), a government body tasked with protecting and promoting the interests of Indian women. Asked by the reporter if there should be a dress code for women "to ensure their safety", Sharma allegedly replied: "After 64 years of freedom, it is not right to give blanket directions ... and say don't wear this or don't wear that. Be comfortable, but at the same time, be careful about how you dress ... Aping the west blindly is eroding our culture and causing such crimes to happen."

She added: "Westernisation has afflicted our cities the worst. There are no values left. In places like Delhi there is no culture of giving up seats for women. It is unfortunate that while the west is learning from our culture, we are giving ourselves up completely to western ways."

Her remarks caused a storm. As Sagarika Ghose put it in the online magazine First Post: "It's not just about blindly aping the west, Ms Sharma. It's also about the vacuum in the law, lack of security at leisure spots, lack of gender justice, lack of fear of the law, police and judicial apathy and the complete lack of awareness that men and women have the right to enjoy exactly the same kind of leisure activities."

The Guardian asked Sharma for an interview to clarify her remarks but our requests were ignored.

Maini Mahanta, the editor of the Assamese women's magazine Nandini ("Daughter"), believes the NCW chair's remarks are indicative of what she calls the "Taliban-plus" mentality that is creeping into Indian society. "In this part of the world, it's worse than the Taliban," she insists in her Guwahati office. "At least the Taliban are open about what they like and dislike. Here, society is so hypocritical. We worship female goddesses and yet fail to protect women from these crimes and then blame them too."

 Indian women, such as these three in Bawana, on the outskirts of Delhi, frequently come under pressure to abort female foetuses. Photograph: Gethin Chamberlain

Mahanta explains how traditions still cast women as helpless victims rather than free-thinking individuals in control of their own destiny. Brothers still tie Raksha bandhan or "safety ties" around their sisters' wrists as a symbol of their duty to protect them, she says. She complains, too, about the Manu Sanghita, an ancient Indian book that she claims preaches: "When a girl is young, she is guided by her father; when she is older, she is guided by her husband; when she is very old, she is guided by her son." She despairs of the cult of the "good girl, who is taught to walk slowly 'like an elephant' and not laugh too loud".

Even in Mumbai, India's most cosmopolitan city, women have been arrested and accused of being prostitutes when drinking in the city's bars.

Sheetal Sharma and Bitopi Dutta, the young feminists from the North East Network, complain that modern women are divided into "bad" and "good" according to what they wear, whether they go out after dark and whether they drink alcohol. "We are seeing a rise of moral policing, which blames those women who are not seen as being 'good'," says Sharma. "So if they are abused in a pub, for example, it's OK – they have to learn their lesson," adds Dutta, 22, who grumbles that young women such as herself cannot now hold hands with a boyfriend in a Guwahati park, let alone kiss, without getting into trouble with the moral police, if not the real police.

Many women agree the response from the Guwahati authorities shows they are blind to the root cause: a society that does not truly respect women. Instead, a knee-jerk reaction was taken to force all bars and off-licences to shut by 9.30pm. Club Mint, the bar outside which the young woman was molested, had its licence revoked. Parents were urged to keep a close eye on their daughters.

Zabeen Ahmed, the 50-year-old librarian at Cotton College in Guwahati, tells how she was out for an evening walk not long ago when she was stopped by the police. "They asked me what I was doing out at that at that time – it was 10.30pm or so – and they asked me where my husband was."

The fact that India has a female president – Pratibha Patil – and Sonia Gandhi in control of the ruling Congress party means very little, insists Monisha Behal, "chairperson" of the North East Network. "In the UK, you have had Margaret Thatcher – if you are being harassed by a hoodlum in the street there, do ask: 'How can this be when we have had a woman prime minister?'" she says.

Every Indian woman the Guardian spoke to for this article agreed that harassment was part of their everyday lives. Mahanta revealed that she always carries chilli powder in her handbag if she ever has to take public transport and needed to throw it in the face of anyone with wandering hands. Deepika Patar, 24, a journalist at the Seven Sisters newspaper in Assam, says city buses were notorious for gropers. "If women are standing up because there are no seats, men often press up against them, or touch their breasts or bottom," she explains.

In June, an anonymous Delhi woman wrote a powerful blog post detailing what happened when she dared not to travel in the "ladies carriage" of Delhi's modern metro. After asking a man not to stand too close to her, things turned nasty. Another man intervened and told the first to back off, but soon the two were having a bloody fight in the train carriage. Rather than break up the brawl, the other passengers turned on the woman, shouting: "This is all your fault. You started this fight. This is all because you came into this coach!" and "You women always do this. You started this fight!" and "Why are you even here? Go to the women's coach."

Speaking under condition of anonymity, the 35-year-old blogger says she had experienced sexual harassment "tonnes of times". "I hate to use the word, but I'm afraid it has become 'normal'," she says. "Like if you're in a lift, men will press up against you or grab you or make a comment about your appearance. It's because of this that I stopped travelling by buses and started travelling by auto rickshaws, and eventually got a car myself – to avoid this ordeal. When the metro was launched I loved it – it's an improvement in public transport, very well maintained, you feel safe. Then this happened and I was blamed."

By Thursday last week, the Guwahati molestation case had become even murkier. Police had arrested and charged 12 men with "outraging the public decency of a woman", and on Friday they charged journalist Gaurav Jyoti Neog of NewsLive with instigating the attack he filmed. Neog denies orchestrating the attack or taking any part in it, apart from filming it "so that the perpetrators can be nabbed". But police have forced him to give a voice sample, which has been sent to a forensic laboratory for analysis, to compare with the footage. The verdict is out on that case, but one thing is clear: 91 years after Gandhi urged Indian men to treat their women with respect, the lesson has yet to be learned.