Stop talking to women!

Are you in possession of a penis? The toxic male ones I mean, not the nice feminine ones the ladies are sporting these days. If so, stop right there you bastard! You could be sexually harassing women without even knowing it. Thank God for Bristol City’s (steady on) ‘If it’s unwanted it’s not OK’ posters, which are here to give every Y-chromosome smuggler a good slap in the face.

Yes, social media was awash yesterday with these delightful monstrosities, festooning the pavement in that fair city. Such information is clearly needed, when you consider the inveterate Lotharios we produce in our corner of the world. If you haven’t seen them, tied to lampposts like Ukrainian looters, you don’t know what you’re missing:

The posters are part of a broader Bristol-wide Women’s Safety Charter launched earlier this month, a snip at almost £300K. Included in the litany of ‘unwanted’ degenerate behaviours, are the cardinal sins of ‘flirting’, ‘compliments’, ‘jokes’ and ‘attention’. These crimes are accompanied by the alarming statistic that ‘97% of women in the UK have been sexually harassed’.

The statistic originates from last year’s UN Women report on UK sexual harassment – one of the most shameful pieces of confirmation bias, scientific illiteracy, and emotive language I have ever had the misfortune to read.

Let’s take the headline claim that ‘97% of women in the UK have been sexually harassed’ – this is disingenuous: the actual figure quoted in the report is 71%. The ‘97%’ is achieved by massaging the highest reporting group (18-24 year olds – 86% of whom consider themselves to have been sexually harassed), because only 3% of them ticked ‘not having experienced’ any of the types listed (presumably there was a ‘don’t know’ option).

These figures are still worryingly high of course, until you discover how the report defines harassment:

There can be differences between official and commonly used definitions of sexual harassment. Although the consensus is one of “unwanted behaviour”, the specific acts included vary. From “unwanted conduct of a sexual nature which has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment” (Equality Act 2010, 2010) to “anything that makes you feel uncomfortable” (Transport for London). Most definitions necessarily refer to the subjective experience of the individual concerned, e.g., was the individual made to feel unsafe, humiliated, or intimidated.

So they’re setting the bar punishingly high at ‘unwanted behaviour’ – ‘anything that makes you feel uncomfortable’. Quite apart from the fact that ‘anything that makes you feel uncomfortable’ means anything – this places considerable pressure on our would-be Romeo, whereby he must know a priori that his joke / compliment / attention will be well-received by any unsuspecting Juliet.

To give you a sense of how superficial the UN Women report is, here are three of the top four forms of sexual harassment reported by women surveyed: wolf-whistling, staring, and comments or jokes.

Such sensitivity is not representative of the broader population, judging from the multitude of women who welcome such attention, and the many surveys which do not corroborate UN Women’s findings. YouGov for instance, canvassed opinion on wolf-whistling back in 2017, revealing that only 23% found it sexist, while 56% thought it was harmless fun.

Another issue is the prejudice of the language used. Throughout the 6,500 words of the report, the noun ‘survivor’ is used seven times. This would be appropriate if we were talking exclusively about violent rapes, but not when the term is sufficiently demeaned to include ‘survivors of indecent exposure’.

Another inconsistency of the report is how the women themselves react to the ‘sexual harassment’ listed. When it comes to failure to report, we might expect this to be motivated by ‘fear of retaliation’ or ‘loss of anonymity’. Instead, the most common reason for not reporting harassment (almost 60%) was the victims themselves ‘not believing the incident was serious enough to report’.

Gerrymandering the boundaries of sexual harassment to include perfectly normal behaviour, is not only unethical, it is immoral. And the quest for ever-higher percentages is thinly-veiled by subheadings like ‘How to incentivise reporting’.

Instead of a report, this is a propaganda exercise – one with far-reaching consequences. As UN Women confidently state, this research has been seen by 1 billion people online. How many of those are women unduly alarmed by non-harassment; and how many more are men, increasingly fearful of female interaction?

This is a fear we are clearly meant to feel. In-line with UN Women’s call for further education, night time Economy Advisor at Bristol City Council, Carly Heath, wants to ‘improve’ public understanding of what constitutes harassment. To that end, 1,000 of the city’s night-time workers will get specialist training in recognising and managing the behaviour – this is essential, if you insist telling Cynthia in Accounts she looks nice constitutes harassment.

No matter how well-intentioned, criminalising all male actions to promote the lie of toxic masculinity makes a mockery of genuine victims. It also excuses actual criminal activity, which suddenly sees itself normalised.

I suspect the public is getting rather sick of in-tray neglecting officials, moonlighting in the public sphere. Paramount as it is to protect miniskirted lasses from unwanted attention in the monastic seclusion nightclubs provide, the police have slightly more pressing matters to deal with. And seeing the Old Bill already refuse to do their jobs  (you know, periphery like burglary and assault), perhaps they could start there if they’ve suddenly got time on their hands?

In fact, let’s roll that out across the board. In London, how about Sadiq prioritises stabbing, not staring (although fair dos, he stops people staring at the stabbing)? How about police focus on assault, instead of attention? And as for the government, perhaps they could deal with rape gang cover-ups, rather than compliments?

In the meantime, if you’re still in possession of that toxic penis – best avoid women altogether. Although, seeing as no one knows what a woman is these days, that includes men obvs. Best say nothing at all if you want a quiet life.