# Defining harassment vs. sexual assault and the St. John's Ambulance campaign

- **Episode:** [175](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/175.md) (2025-02-27)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** harassment, sexual-assault, definitions, campaign
- **Time:** 34:10–49:08 (start 2050s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/175?t=2050](https://truthliesandwork.com/175?t=2050)

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[34:10] Al Elliott: Let's stick with this idea because I've got one question here at the end, which I thought was, was kind of on the face of it almost a bit sweet, but also, oh, I can see why it'd be weird. So, this person wrote, I have a young female employee who reminds me so much of my daughter. I often give her advice about wearing heels and lipstick. For client meetings, just like I would for my own daughter. Someone said this could be harassment, but I'm helping her career. What am I doing wrong?
[34:39] Enya Doyle: I think that the kind of, the, one of the things that we haven't really spoken about is like the actual definition of harassment. Um, and we're, we're thinking about unwanted behavior. We're thinking unwanted behavior of a sexual context, maybe, but also doesn't have to be. And we're kind of engaging in this in a way that's like, okay, why are you— what are you suggesting? Are you suggesting to this junior colleague that the only way that they'll be able to succeed is if they wear lipstick with a particular client? Because if that's what you're saying to me, then you're saying that the only way that I'm succeeding, the only reason that I'm here is as a piece of physical meat. So I'm being offered up to our client as an attractive person. And unless you are in sex work, there's very little reason for that to be the case. Why have you hired me? You've hired me so that I can be the pretty one that comes in that does modeling. It's like, well, I'm not here— like, I'm a senior analyst, or I'm a senior salesperson, or whatever. I'm very competent at my job. I have all of the skills and requirements. I've done all of the training, and yet you're reducing me in this space to being lipstick and heels. And that's how often it comes across when there's very well-meaning— like, the daughter part of this is a really key part of this, of like, you're giving that advice to your daughter. And there's a backwards kind of way of going forwards with this, which is that we appreciate that the systems are kind of flawed. And so, what we tend to do is teach people how to play the systems rather than tear down the systems. So, instead of saying to the client that is likely to treat your female colleagues with more respect if they're kind of Western notion of attractive, instead of doing that, and instead of the second option, which tends to be the case, is we'll just send male colleagues to this meeting instead because he's a bit of a sexist pig and he's a bit of a misogynist. And he's really attracted toward junior women. So, then you send men instead. That's also not the solution. The solution is readdressing your relationship with this client, telling the client that you'll no longer be tolerating this behavior from him, and you really respect and have hired really eminent and excellent people who are brilliant at their jobs, and they won't be dressing in any particular way for you because that's not their job. Their job is to provide you the analysis. Their job is to do that financial merger. Their job is to advise you on X, Y, or Z. And so, like, if you don't like that, you can find another company, but we'll not be working with you, rather than taking the vulnerable person in that situation and asking them to change or asking them to play a game that is very, very based on them being sexualized and that being the most important part of the engagement
[37:41] Al Elliott: So let's say that you, that someone is a, uh, 21-year-old male or female, very good looking. Um, and they're in a sales job
[37:52] Enya Doyle: Mm-hmm
[37:53] Al Elliott: Um, some might argue that they are going to close more sales than someone like me who's a bit overweight, middle-aged. So are we, is that an, is that fair? Should they be using, you know, should they be backing off and going, oh no, I'll put frumpy clothes on because I don't want, I meant frumpy as in both genders because I don't, do you know what I'm trying to say out there? I can, I can see someone coming and going, well, hang on a minute, Dr. Doyle, there is another side to this
[38:19] Enya Doyle: Yeah. What about the hot people?
[38:21] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[38:22] Enya Doyle: Mostly hot
[38:22] Al Elliott: Those poor hot people. Yeah. They've got such a rough ride in life
[38:26] Enya Doyle: It should be a protected characteristic. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's probably the, like, the funny reaction to it. The serious reaction to it is that we know that's, that's true. We know that men over 6 foot get paid more than men under 6 foot. There's lots of research to back that up. So yeah, hotter people do tend to do better. If you look at estate agents, for example, they all tend to be very sprightly, very attractive people. And that's intentional in the same way that the intentionality of business models like cabin crew, the way that they've historically gone through, there's a very intentional sales part of that. And yes, you are more likely to buy If you think of kind of going into Rolex or you think of going into big brands that are like, we are about beauty and we are about very minute details, obviously that needs to apply the whole way through their business model. And if you're thinking about selling things that are pretty, you're obviously going to have a preference to having people who are pretty sell you the things that are pretty. But once we appreciate that that's the case, there's also an element of like, okay, well, Like, is that the business model that we're going to— like, is that the hill we're going to die on? And loads of companies are like, yeah, like, that's our, that's our sales model. What are you going to do about it? Because it's not a protected characteristic. Like, being ugly isn't a protected characteristic. Being middle-aged and fat isn't protected. Like, okay, fine. You're not being discriminated against in the work— in the workplace in a very specific way. No, we can break it down into, is this sexism? And a lot of the times there are far higher expectations of women, even attractive women in the workplace, to use their attraction in a way that doesn't sit well with them, rather than a lot of men being like, I'm going to use my kind of sexiness to win you over. And that being an active thing that they choose to engage in. That's not to say that there aren't lots of women who know that they're really hot and know that they can sell you something because they're really hot. But thinking about it, kind of going back to the daughter angle and reversing the daughter angle, what would you say if your daughter came home and said, my middle-aged boss told me that I need to bring heels into work tomorrow? You'd lose your mind. You would absolutely lose your mind that another man was giving your daughter kind of sexualized advice about how to get on at work, most likely. So, there's probably people, there'll definitely be people who'd be like, No, if it's good business advice, it's good business advice. And I guess on that note, going back to the same thing that I said to you at the start, is, are you only giving her advice on what she wears to these things, or are you giving her actual business advice that makes her better at her job? In terms of the minutiae of the detail, in terms of her becoming a manager one day, in terms of her doing her job better. Like, what sort of advice are you giving to her male colleagues about that interaction with that client? Versus the information that you're giving to her, because that's where we get into this being sexist territory. And this is where we get into it being a, hmm, I think you might just be giving her sexualized advice rather than giving her good business advice
[41:41] Al Elliott: By the way, people over 6 foot, men over 6 foot earn more. Is that what you said?
[41:45] Enya Doyle: Yeah
[41:45] Al Elliott: That's incredible. So higher earners are literally higher
[41:49] Enya Doyle: Yes
[41:50] Al Elliott: Yes
[41:51] Enya Doyle: I love it
[41:51] Al Elliott: I love it. Okay. So, um, here's a bit more of a, of a less sort of shocking one. Well, it may, depends who you are. Our casual office includes swearing. A new employee seems shocked. Do we really need to change our entire culture for just one person?
[42:06] Enya Doyle: The short answer is yes. The long answer is, again, thinking about the kind of low bar here and going back to kind of earlier conversations, you don't absolutely have to swear. It's not an innate thing. It's not a kind of human rights violation for you to not be allowed to swear around people who find it uncomfortable for whatever reasons. And it doesn't have to be a blanket kind of no. You can still swear with your friends. You can still swear with the people that you work with that are really close to you. But kind of basic decency is that that person doesn't love that, and so you're not going to do it. I think an example of this, like before we started, Al and I were sharing our common love for some swear words, as is often the case before one records a podcast. And one of the things that I often think about is when I worked in a school, I am a very sweary person, but I would never swear in front of the young people because obviously we're practicing good behavior and we're supposed to be modeling that behavior. And lots of my colleagues would be like, And you don't swear in front of the children. Like, have you ever seen me swear in front of the children? No, because I have self-control. And that's the thing. Like, you don't have to swear in front of your peers. You don't have to swear in front of the new members of staff. And it's not a human rights violation. It's just basic decency. You can swear elsewhere. You can swear at home if you're happy to do that. You can still swear with those people. You can still send them messages that have swear words in them if you want. But, you know, thinking about the impact on that other person, and that they will recognize that you are again trying, like it's something that maybe you do a lot. And the office culture has changed, whether you're a growing team or you've just replaced someone else. This is a kind of— this is one of the dances of diversity is, yes, we do sometimes have to change parts of our culture when we have new people coming in. And as long as we're all in agreement, then Everyone feels safe and confident here to do their jobs, then you can swear later
[44:18] Al Elliott: Let's move on to another one, which I genuinely, I want to really want to hear your answer on this because this, this is from someone who I think works in manufacturing. It says, I have to demonstrate safe machine handling, which requires physical contact, e.g., moving someone's hands to a specific place on the machine. How do I avoid a harassment claim?
[44:42] Enya Doyle: By not harassing whoever you're bossing. That'll be one way
[44:46] Al Elliott: Thank you very much
[44:47] Enya Doyle: I think the first thing that I would say is it wouldn't be a harassment claim. It would be a claim of sexual assault. Not to kind of increase the fear stakes here, but harassment is usually not physical. It's usually verbal. So if you're putting your hands on somebody's body without their consent, Then you're likely to be straying into a completely different legal territory. So, that's the first fear part of it
[45:16] Leanne Elliott: You're welcome
[45:18] Enya Doyle: The second bit of it is that it reminds me of a recent campaign from St. John's Ambulance. I don't know if you've seen it, the It's Okay to Save My Life. They basically find, St. John's Ambulance find that a third of people are kind of worried about giving CPR. to a woman because they're afraid of getting a claim of what they think harassment. And again, I say again to you, that would be sexual assault if that's what was happening. But the key part of it is that it's unwanted. So it's okay to save my life. Everyone would be like, I want you to save my life. There are very, very few people in very, very few— I'm not even going to go into the reasons why people might not want you to do that if it's a stranger on the street. Most people will want you to save their lives. Most people will want you to perform CPR. We'll deal with the consequences later. Like, break my ribs, go for it. But there's this kind of fear of like, okay, I can't touch you without your consent in that way. And that extends to the kind of workplace risk. A lot of the companies that I work with, when I do risk diagnostics with them, this is the sort of thing of like, if this comes up all the time, If this is a key part of men's jobs, if this is a key part of people doing this job, is that they have to touch someone else. So, we've got chiropractors, we've got singing teachers, we've got loads of different people that are like, I'm going to put my hand on your body now in order to do this thing, and I don't want to be accused of something. For the managers, for the senior leadership, is looking at how you actually prevent this. So, is there a kind of sheet that you need to put up, which is like, this is what is required in order for this machine to be performed on safely. So you'll be required to be touched in this way. This is what it looks like. This is what's normal and usual. If you find that uncomfortable, if you've got any concerns at all about it, here's where you go to. And that's right beside the machine. And that's an example of the kind of preventative practice of it. And the other thing is, if it's you and you're like, I have to touch you, then being really clear in your communication of, this is what I'm going to do now. This is how long it will last. I won't be touching you anywhere else, and I don't want to touch you for any other reason other than for the safe performance of this machinery. And then you're being really clear about where you're expecting to touch them, why you're expecting to touch them, how long that's likely to last. And importantly, if they want you to remove your hands from their body, when that might be safe to do so, or when that wouldn't be safe. So, if you say, I'm feeling really uncomfortable, and they're like, we can't turn the machine off for another 5 seconds, then they know that before they get into it. So, they know that before you start. The kind of prevention of all of this is not in going, I just can't touch anyone these days. It's in, okay, well, I'm going to be really clear with you about what's going to happen. You won't, you shouldn't expect to feel my hand on your bum. You shouldn't expect to feel my hand roll down your hands. I will put my hands specifically where you can see them, where you can touch. And also, we're being recorded. It's on CCTV. Just so you know, there's a CCTV camera there. I'm aware that it's there. You're now aware that it's there. Here we go. Everyone's really clear and transparent. Do you have any questions? And then you let the other person give you the question— questions. There are loads of things that we have to do in the workplace that we have to do safely, but loads of it is really poorly communicated. And that's where all of this becomes a, like, I'm going to be cancelled and/or sued and/or have a criminal case against me. All of that could have been prevented