Only Snowflakes Don’t Enjoy Sexual Harassment at Work
Or why an old white man thinks tolerating sexual assault is the price you have to pay to be allowed to do your work
There are many reasons why we should stop old white men from running the world. Among them is the fact that so many of them are entirely out of touch with reality.
This week, we were presented with new proof for this in the wake of a survey reporting that two-thirds of female surgeons in the NHS (UK) have been subjected to sexual harassment. One-third reported being sexually assaulted in the last year.
It wasn’t long before an old white man burst on the scene to tell us this was fine. They should just suck it up and get used to it.
Don’t believe me?
Well, Dr. Peter Hilton of Haverfordwest, 71, a retired anesthetist, went out of his way to write a letter to the editor of the Times. To tell us exactly this. Women who don’t like to be sexually assaulted are Snowflakes.
As the Times requires a subscription to read, let me include his full letter:
“Sir, This “snowflake generation” of young doctors, largely female and selected on mainly academic excellence, clearly did not do their homework. Medical training and practice is brutal and demanding, with long hours, and bullying happens. Sexually inappropriate comments and actions do occur. It is stressful. All I can say is that if they want to make a success of this rewarding career then they should toughen up. Perhaps four A*s at A-level are not the answer to all the problems they will face.”
Dr Peter Hilton
Consultant anesthetist/intensivist 1986–2020; Haverfordwest
Let’s take a closer look at this debacle. What got Dr. Hilton’s panties in such a bunch he felt the urge to tell us to toughen up?
On September 12, the British Journal of Surgery released a study called “Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape by colleagues in the surgical workforce, and how women and men are living different realities: observational study using NHS population-derived weights.”
Thankfully, it was published under the Creative Commons license, which allows us all easy access to the details.
They questioned 1,704 people in the NHS surgical workforce. 51% of them are women.
What they found is surreal:
Among women, 63.3 per cent reported being the target of sexual harassment versus 23.7 per cent of men (89.5 per cent witnessing versus 81.0 per cent of men). Additionally, 29.9 per cent of women had been sexually assaulted versus 6.9 per cent of men.
Now, to be clear, the definition of sexual assault and harassment used in this survey is not as widely inclusive as the one US Americans are familiar with.
We’re not talking about namby-pamby stuff like making derogatory comments about your gender or your sex. This isn’t included here, and even so, two-thirds of the women reported being sexually harassed, and one-third were assaulted.
And no, they’re not making it up. 81.0 percent of the male respondents said they’ve witnessed the sexual harassment and the assaults. Makes you wonder why something that is so glaringly obvious that even men admit to seeing it continues to happen.
Maybe they don’t care enough to step in because it doesn’t impact them? After all, only 6.9% of men reported being sexually assaulted themselves.
Back to the garrulous doctor and the archaic opinions he so freely shares with us. He tells us that to become a surgeon, academic achievement isn’t as important as doing your homework on the sexual assaults (SA) you will face.
Perhaps four A*s at A-level are not the answer to all the problems they will face.
What does that even mean?
Was there a course in uni on how to enjoy being the victim of SA that women should have taken and excelled in? Does being a surgeon mean you have to give sexual favors to your colleagues and superiors? Is that how Dr. Hilton got his job?
I’m deeply confused as to what reality this old man is living in. If you do the math, you’ll find that 11 of the women in this survey reported being raped.
How do you toughen up to being raped?
Did Dr. Hilton have to play frequent games of hide the sausage with his superiors to become an anesthetist? Or how else did he come to the conclusion that this is part of the job? And more important than academic prowess?
Maybe he is the product of one of the notorious British private schools where sexual assault was rampant, and you just had to deal with it because no one talked about it?
Or maybe he’s just an old prick who’s been overprivileged his whole life and views women as objects of entertainment?
Whatever the reason for his broken logic, it is high time that he and the colleagues who so wholeheartedly support his views learn that the world has changed and such behavior does not belong in a modern workplace.
Women will no longer be quiet about the negative experiences they have while doing their job.
Dr. Hilton thinks the reports are trivial. He told us as much in a follow-up interview to his nasty letter. He also let us know that his — I assume male — ex-colleagues agree wholeheartedly.
“I’m not the only one of my generation that feels like this. I’ve sent the letter to colleagues I worked with and they agree wholeheartedly. Medicine is not alone in having a culture of bullying, sexual abuse verbal or otherwise, and banter that’s in bad taste.”
I wonder what this man was up to before he retired three years ago.
Did he have a hand in making sure medical practice was brutal for women? Was he one of the doctors who use their female colleague’s cleavage to wipe their sweaty brows?
Like the one who worked with Judith:
“[He] just turned round and buried his head right into my breasts and I realised he was wiping his brow on me.
Or did he rub up against his subordinates when the urge overcame him? An experience reported by consultant Philippa Jackson, who was being sexually harassed when she was a junior doctor.
“He rubbed himself against my thigh, he then made a comment about his erection,” she said.
Hilton is right. Sexual abuse occurs in many other fields as well. Don’t we all know that?
Most of us have had our negative experiences. I recall lewd comments about my appearance, and I‘ll never forget the professor who couldn’t stop staring at my cleavage when he walked through the lab.
But, Sir, you’re not eligible to assault women just because other men do it too!
The letter created an uproar, sparking a heated public debate — with doctors and organizations denouncing the content. The Association of Anaesthetists told Dr. Hilton where he could stick his opinion and took a public stand against sexual harassment — at least on social media.
No one wanted to be seen publicly lurking in his corner. But I wonder. 81% of men say they’ve witnessed this behavior. How can the results of this survey be surprising to all these organizations and people?
Almost 90% of women said they had witnessed sexual misconduct in the past five years, with 81% of men giving the same answer.
I’m sure it wasn’t a surprise, no matter the wide-eyed proclamations of shock and awe and the professions of solidarity we now see. After all, 35,000 cases of sexual violence and sexual misconduct were recorded at NHS facilities between 2017 and 2022 — both by patients and personnel.
Women have been reporting these issues for years. And they feel that organizations have taken no steps to address them.
Tamzin Cuming, a consultant surgeon who chairs the Women in Surgery, calls for the creation of a national implementation panel to oversee action on the report’s recommendations and for incidents of sexual misconduct to be independently investigated.
The sexual harassment is happening out in the open. Everyone knows about it. But as long as there’s no independent organization to handle this, no one will step up and put an end to it.
The results of this depressing study were released at the same time as another very eye-opening study that shows that female surgeons deliver a better outcome than their male counterparts.
“…those treated by a female surgeon were less likely to experience death, hospital readmission, or major medical complication at 90 days or 1 year after surgery. This association was seen across nearly all subgroups defined by patient, surgeon, hospital, and procedure characteristics.”
They achieve this while being sexually harassed, belittled and paid less than their male colleagues.
Imagine what they could do if they were supported to do their best work instead of gaslit and called snowflakes because they don’t want to be sexually assaulted at work!
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