News from Forbes:
A recent study by Lean In and McKinsey, “Women In The Workplace” says that despite the #MeToo movement, women are not feeling confident that their claims about sexual harassment will be taken seriously. The study shows that 30% of women are skeptical that the changes taking place around sexual harassment policies and programs are effective, and women are twice as likely as men to say that it would be risky or pointless to report an incident.
These figures reflect a sharply lower representation of the reality of the everyday workplace. The women from which the above figure was drawn were full-time employees in the corporate workplace. There was no representation from the public sector or service sector, such as retailing and bars/restaurants, where the incidence of sexual misconduct has been traditionally greater than in the corporate sector. Also unreported were the opinions and experiences of part-time employees in low skilled/lower paying jobs such as office/home cleaning.
All of which means that if women saw how women are actually being treated in the everyday workplace, and especially when they come forward to report abuse, even at this period of heightened #MeToo awareness, they would be expressing a lot more than skepticism. They would be following the advice of Canadian suffragette trailblazer Nellie McLung about how real change is made: