The myth of ‘Everyday Sexism’

Article here. Excerpt:

'Sexism in the workplace is rife, according to a new study commissioned by employment law firm Slater & Gordon. Sixty per cent of women, the report suggests, have had a male colleague behave ‘inappropriately’ towards them. Now, putting aside the obvious point that an employment law firm may have a vested interest in unearthing potential new cases, the report hardly stands up to scrutiny. Do the 1,036 women who participated in the survey represent a cross-section of society or is the data based on self-selection? Are there any editorial processes or judicial procedures in place to decide what does and does not constitute sexism, or is it merely a case of ‘it is if she says it is’? And then there’s the issue of context. In the report, incidents of harassment includes everything from having a colleague putting their hands up a woman’s skirt, to touching their legs or thighs and placing their hand in the small of a woman’s back. Surely there is a difference between your boss randomly groping your breasts and that over-familiar male colleague slapping your thigh after they have told a dirty joke?
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The big questions of feminism used to be about tangible, practical things: should women have the right to vote, to the contraceptive pill, to equal pay? Now, the ‘big’ questions are introspective, self-absorbed questions mired simply in identity politics, and based on small, perceived instances of sexist abuse. This new trend not only degrades the gains of feminism but women themselves. The concept underpinning both the Slater & Gordon report and the Everyday Sexism Project is that all women are the default victims of male dominance. The implication is that men act, while women are acted upon. We are told that we’re afraid, oppressed, we are kept down and persecuted and there is nothing we can do on our own to get out from under this enormous, nebulous burden of fear and misogyny that is endemic within the workplace, and Western society in general.'