# Hot Take: Dr Enya Doyle on retiring 'inappropriate'

- **Episode:** [154](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/154.md) (2024-12-17)
- **Type:** hot-take
- **Tags:** workplace-language, inappropriate, expert-advice
- **Time:** 21:09–32:07 (start 1269s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/154?t=1269](https://truthliesandwork.com/154?t=1269)

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[21:09] Leanne Elliott: Welcome back. As regular listeners will now know, every week we ask a workplace expert for their hot take on the world of work. We want bold insights, we want surprising predictions, we want unpopular opinions. We don't want anything soft, we want something spicy. What is going on in the world of work? What is broken and what is coming next? This week's hot take could not be more timely, actually. This is completely accidental, um, but it worked out well. Our hot take comes from Dr. Enya Doyle, an anti-harassment consultant. The floor is yours, Dr. Doyle. I am Dr. Enya Doyle. I am an anti-harassment consultant. I work with values-based companies all across Europe to prevent and manage harassment. So I spend a lot of time talking about sex and things that shouldn't happen in the workplace. And that's what I will be talking about today. So let's, let's just crack straight on with it. What is your hot take? My hot take is that we should retire the word inappropriate. when we're talking about sexual harassment and sexual violence. There have been a couple of people in the press recently. Greg Wallace and Mohamed Al-Fayed have been in the press, and that's brilliant
[22:28] Al Elliott: I really—
[22:28] Leanne Elliott: I'm really glad that we're covering this and that it's getting public recognition. But one thing that has been really irritating me is that it's been described as inappropriate behaviour. So I hate— I hate the word because it mainly means that it's not suitable or proper for the circumstances. So that's the definition of inappropriate, which means that we're trying to imply that it's unprofessional to put your hands on somebody in the workplace or to sexually harass someone at work. The kind of implication there that it would be acceptable on public transport or in a bar or in a hotel room, when in reality, if we actually think about what sexual harassment is and what sexual violence is, They're not acceptable anywhere. There's no space or place where they are actually acceptable or tolerable. So I think that is, that is rule one. I think one of the main reasons that, as an expert who has spent a lot of time in this, and my PhD is on sexism, so I've spent a lot of time researching this, and I've spent a lot of time also with victims and survivors and people on the receiving end of this behaviour, is that it completely minimises the impact. of it on them. It minimizes the harm. I spend a lot of time with my clients talking about the long-term mental health impacts, the long-term physical health impacts, the long-term impacts on career progression for people that experience harassment and sexual violence at work and also outside of work, but particularly at work. So it completely diminishes their experiences by calling it inappropriate. Inappropriate is like a breach of social etiquette, right? It's like, okay, you are using your phone scrolling on Instagram during a work meeting. That's inappropriate. That's tedious. That's annoying. Please, can you pay attention? I'm trying to get your attention here. Breaches of social etiquette are using the wrong fork at a fancy dinner. Tedious for some people. Some people find it annoying. For others, it's just like, okay, stop being so dramatic. It's just a fork. Whereas sexual harassment and sexual violence is not just a breach, a trivial breach of social etiquette and using inappropriate means that we treat it that way. The third reason, the final reason that I hate it is because it completely dilutes accountability for the people who— well, for 3 different sets of people. One, most importantly, for the person that committed the behaviour who has sexually harassed or sexually assaulted someone. It becomes a, oh, naughty Greg, oh, silly whoever. It's just one example of their behaviour. They'll never do it again. They've never done it before, which we know in all of these cases. It's not that they've done it once and now they're in the press, or they've done it once and now the police are at their door. It's that it's usually repeated behaviour. The second is that it dilutes accountability for the institutions. If something is tedious, If something is like a bit inconvenient, you're not going to prioritize it. You're not going to overhaul your entire management structure. You're not going to bring in experts. You're not going to top-down address it. You're not going to sack someone for it because it's just a bit tedious that it's happening. So it takes that accountability away. And the third person— set of people that it takes accountability away from are all of the witnesses. And all of these news stories They've been described as open secrets. It's an open secret about Harvey Weinstein and the 2016 #MeToo movement. Open secret. Mohamed Al-Fayed, open secret. Luis Rubiales and the Spanish football team, open secret. Greg Wallace, open secret. And in all of those cases, bystanders and witnesses didn't report it because it was trivial, because it was, that happens. It's part of the job. You come to expect it. It's just being a woman in the workplace. It's just being someone who doesn't have power in the workplace
[26:20] Al Elliott: Yeah
[26:20] Leanne Elliott: So we don't report it. So for all of those reasons, I hate it. What's your take on, on kind of the public's reaction to Greg Wallace? I think it's, it's what I say all the time, which is that we've been vastly undereducated. Loads, loads of people who are in the workforce, most of the people who are in our current workforce, weren't taught about these things at school and didn't listen to the training that they received, either because they didn't receive it at all or because it was not very good. Um, which is what I see in a lot of workplaces, is that people don't actually know what harassment, um, and assault is. So people don't know— people, when they use the inappropriate branch, they, they go into like, oh, people can't take a joke and it's cancel culture gone mad, um, and all of that sort of stuff. Now, that's not necessarily our fault that we haven't been educated. Um, I have spent a lot of time working to educate myself on this. I didn't wake up one morning and be like, I know everything there is to know about sexual harassment and sexual violence. So I think on the one hand, and it's not an excuse, we've been vastly undereducated about what it means and about its impact. I think to your point, re the double standards, I think for a lot of people, particularly around the class aspect of Greg Wallace being the kind of working man superhero, like being the presentation of the working man on social, like on his platform. There is an element that there are definitely far more people on all broadcasting stations, on all TV shows, in all companies who have not yet been held accountable for their behaviour, irrespective of their sex, gender identity, their age, their class, their sexual orientation. Irrespective of all of that, there are loads of people But that is not a reason to say that Greg Wallace should get off the hook for the behaviour that he's reported to have done just because other people haven't been held accountable
[28:17] Al Elliott: Okay, great
[28:18] Leanne Elliott: Who else? Who else do we need to talk about? Who else needs to be put under the accountability microscope? Because you're right. Like, if there are— if we're holding one person accountable, let's do the whole lot. Let's keep going. And what are the other solutions to to preventing harassment in the workplace, to educating people, putting support structures in place for victims, for witnesses. What expertise can, can you offer our listeners? I offer retainers for companies that are taking the long-term approach rather than the quick tick box approach. This isn't— this wasn't created overnight and these problems weren't created overnight and they aren't one-off events. And so it's not going to be a one-off event that solves it in the workplace. So I offer that as my main thing with companies. But I would suggest to those who are kind of working on it in the background and have a handle on it, and there are some companies that do, to think about the language that you use in your policies and the way that you talk about this with your colleagues. So using legal language instead of saying inappropriate, using words like unwanted. conduct, unwanted behaviour, which then puts the onus on it being something that wasn't wanted, using phrases like illegal or unlawful behaviour to describe it rather than inappropriate. And if you are talking about the kind of social opinion, so inappropriate is that we decide as a group of people whether that's appropriate or inappropriate, using a word that you already have, particularly companies that use zero tolerance policies, don't love. The idea of zero tolerance policies, although I hazard we don't have time to get into that yet today, but you already use words like tolerable. So, it's an intolerable action instead of inappropriate. We don't tolerate that here. We have a zero tolerance approach. You already use that language. Continue to use that language instead of inappropriate
[30:17] Al Elliott: Just a real quick note for those people who want to be on the show. Dr. Doyle sent us— sent Leanne a voice note, not only saying that she listened to the show, but also saying she'd like to be on the show. Not many people have done that. And in fact, we've had a couple of guests recently who've admitted to not even listening to the show. So guess where their interviews are going?
[30:37] Leanne Elliott: Hmm
[30:38] Al Elliott: Yes, in the, in the bin. Uh, but the point is that if you want to be on this show and you're listening right now, then, then there's a little free tip for you. And we'll watch. RIP your inbox, Leanne
[30:50] Leanne Elliott: Anyway. Oh, that's fine. Happy, happy to receive them. Happy to receive them. Yeah, um, I thought it was really interesting and very timely with what is happening with Mr. Greg Wallace in the news at the moment. Um, I must admit, I'd never really thought about it before, that inappropriate behavior wasn't a good term. But once Dr. Doyle kind of point— Dr. Doyle pointed out how the word inappropriate isn't really strong enough, it made complete sense. It is too soft for serious issues like harassment, like violence. We need to be using stronger terms to really reflect the severity of these types of behaviors. We need to be using terms like unlawful or intolerable. It really is the only way to reflect, reflect the harm. And as you know, as Dr. Doyle said, if we soften it too much, and it's a word that can be applied to so many other quite normal, non-harmful situations, it doesn't carry the weight we need. it to do. So now if someone says, oh, that was inappropriate behaviour, you go, all right, yeah. If someone says that was unlawful behaviour, you go, I'm sorry, what? Like, I want to know more about that. What do you mean it's unlawful? So I think, I think that's a really great point. Even just the semantics we use could be helpful in actually educating people on harassment in the workplace