How to Handle a Woman

How to Handle a Woman
by Howard Youngerwood

Reflect for a moment on a recent ruling by Italy's highest appeal court that fondling a female employee "constitutes a sexual act" and, therefore, a criminal offence. Nothing very surprising about the decision to our English eyes until we realise that the employer did not deny the acts; far from it- he asserted that what he had done was normal behaviour -"I only touched parts of her body that were covered by clothing. I cannot see that there is anything to condemn in that". And it needed the appeal court to disabuse Italian males of this notion of normative behaviour.

Only slightly less worrying for women was the report in The Times about the orchestra director who recently insisted that his female musicians did not wear underwear as it "spoilt the line of the dresses", and who wanted to carry out an inspection to ensure compliance with his directions.

Which all leads to the unhappy conclusion that, in the workplace, women are likely to be the subject of sexual harassment, whatever they do. For men, the dividing line between acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour, between admiration and ogling, between attention and harassment may be a narrow one but it is essential to know where the boundary lies.

Male responsibility is clear but there is, however, an allied, and very sensitive problem, which most sensible men prefer to avoid discussing, namely - what of women's responsibilities in this area? A recent episode of the TV series Ally McBeal featured a female employee whose skimpy clothes and flirting led to an action against the male employer for sexual harassment on behalf of other female employees, outraged at the employer taking no steps to curtail this behaviour. He claimed that if he had told the girl to dress more appropriately, then she would have sued him for sexual harassment - it was a no win situation. The girl admitted that she was using her sexuality to achieve power over men and that that was her right. Now the trouble with asserting rights is that we tend to abandon common sense and also to forget that there may be competing rights to consider, as well as duties and responsibilities towards others - a problem which will be particularly relevant in the context of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into English law. Any female clearly should have the right to walk half-naked in any street in the country without being molested, just as I should have the right to walk down a dark street at night flourishing a large amount of cash without fear of attack, but rights cannot always be considered in isolation from other factors.

Which raises the awkward question of the extent to which we should seek to safeguard sensitivities in this area by promulgating rules . One example-should men tell women how to dress? But employers do it - even Rabbis do it! In most cases, I suspect, men emerge looking rather foolish from the encounter. I recall long discussions in the Crown Prosecution Service as to the need to ban female staff wearing jeans as compared to trousers and the need to precisely define jeans. I could see disaster coming and so we ended up with staff, who had formerly worn jeans to move office files, now wearing micro- skirts(the term "micro", as with stereo systems, being quite inadequate to describe the power emitted by the garment!). So, we must not only consider the unexpected ramifications of laying down rules, but question whether rules will ultimately serve any real purpose. It is fascinating and instructive to refer to the Bible on this topic. The Bible is certainly very strict in forbidding immorality and in specifically forbidding certain types of conduct, but it is also significant to note what is not specified - the gaps. You will not find specific guidance as to many aspects of behaviour between the sexes, which persuades me that there are matters in life which should not be subjected to legal rulings, but, rather, should be the subject of advice and, in particular, decided upon by individuals using their common sense as well as ethical sense. This allows for variation as well as for different standards being adopted at different times.

Modern religious youth have clearly reacted against the permissive society, with its emphasis on sex rather than love, by adopting strict standards of self-restraint which is essentially praiseworthy. The principle which governs their attitude is that of "modesty", a word which only appears twice in the Bible. The term has been interpreted as restricted to questions of female clothing, but the Hebrew word "modesty" is not directed to clothing. Proverbs describes modesty as a form of wisdom and intelligence, whilst the Prophet Micah speaks of the need for man to walk "modestly with your God". The Rabbis added that we could learn true modesty from observing the cat. Which makes it absolutely clear that we are not talking of clothing but, rather, of an ideal which should affect our whole lives. Judaism is a religion which tries to elevate our behaviour- we can make mundane activities, if not holy, then at least ethical.

And is this not the most satisfactory answer to the dilemma of relationships between the sexes, whether in or out of the office. Not to become legalistic over every aspect of human behaviour, but, rather, to combine common sense with a modest attitude in everything we do, to inculcate respect for others as individuals and to understand that rights cannot be considered in a vacuum.