I’m an equal-opportunity victim-blamer-hater
First things first, though, the XIIIth Down Under Feminists’ Carnival is up at SAHM Feminist. Awesome work, Azlemed!
Now, I must admit, I was probably asking for it when I agreed with Cactus Kate on something. But I could hardly have expected the Universe to respond with the best most mindboggling piece of victim-blaming I’ve seen in a while.
Tell you what, I won’t even comment. I’ll just quote all the bits that deserve their own spot on that Sexual Harassment Bingo Board I should probably knock out this weekend. But first, some egregious strawpersoning to kick things off:
Today Witness A from Camp Goff came forward with a statement that deserves comment from a female who is not partial to jumping on the “kill a man” bandwagon. … we can put large question marks on the credibility and political motivation of this woman and Fool Goff in one post.
Given where Cactus Kate is going with this, that last sentence should keep me warm for the rest of the winter.
First up she answers a random text to meet him. Mistake number 1. At this point she had the chance to ignore the message and write it off to a weirdo. She didn’t. She enjoys the attention and is flattered to be asked.
She CALLS the number and agrees to meet a man in an official position as Minister of Crown … First, how would he have known her number unless she gave it to him? … Second, there is no mention she turned up with a friend or helper. She turned up alone to meet a man she didn’t know. Not asking for trouble but definitely not the actions of a female shrinking violet. Least of all meeting him at a Sylvia Park cafe. That’s a tad trash. I would of at least made him take me somewhere salubrious and where I know friends were close by should the meeting turn nasty.
I’m sorry, but I just have to cut in here. I honestly invite comments from anyone who’s ever thought, “You know, this meeting with a senior Government official might turn nasty, I should bring backup”. Because apparently in CK-land this is a normal assumption to make.
Worth at that point offers her a job as Ethnic Affairs advisor.
This “acting like a normal person” ploy should have put her instantly on edge, obvs.
…
This is a man who tongue in cheek offers jobs I hear to everyone. At Umi one afternoon … he suggested that I go work for him … That would have been his only good judgment call regarding staff in years as I would have made this Labour plant disappear. As a professional female over a lazy lunch men offer you jobs all the time, usually because they don’t know that they can never afford you. …
She obviously never laughed and stated words similar to “hell no pervert”, which is what I do in similar circumstances or laughed him off as being insane… At no point did he say “fuck me and I will give you a job” and the statement did not cover what Worth wanted in return for offering the job. At no point at this stage did she state “do not contact me again pervert”. We assume or she would have included it in her statement that no doubt Fool Goff’s office had a hand in writing.
As a side note, if you’re in need of a cackle (or yet another head-desk) consider comments made on The Standard to the effect that “she can’t have written the statement herself, the English is too good and obviously as an Indian woman English must be her second language”. Laughed till I cried.
Still obviously not stating “piss off Richard”, she went overseas and Worth followed up her interest in employment possibilities. Nothing wrong with this. She’s with her husband and two kids so I don’t see how she could feel that uncomfortable. Even if he then went drunk in charge of a cellphone and recommended flirtations with skimpy clothing or holidays overseas. Remember before this point she hasn’t said “no go away”. She probably needs a job. Maybe stringing him along a bit. It takes her this long to deduce he was making sexual advances? Yeah. Okay how naive is this woman?
I think my CTRL and B keys are wearing out.
Worth then responds with “xxx” at the end of his messages. And the woman has to ask her husband what it means!! Oh dear. This woman really is thicker than a lift shaft.
An important thing to note here is that Kate’s knowledge and experience = all women’s knowledge and experience.
… She at this point wouldn’t have told Worth to stop if what she claims is true – she had no idea that he was looking for a sexual relationship. At what point could she feel creeped out if she didn’t even understand what a married man texting with “xxx” at the end of the message means? Did she grow up among Nuns?
Worth made drunk sexually explicit calls. What? While you were on holiday with your husband? Was the phone glued to your ear? Could you not state “please go fuck yourself Richard” and get rid of the man? Or hand the phone to your husband to deal with it?
Nope, you answered the calls because YOU WANTED A JOB. And you thought Worth could give you one (job).
Kate also has psychic powers, because she is deducing all of this from a one-page statement of events.
This woman … put up with this repeated harassment from 26 November through to 23 February…. He apparently made 60 text messages and 40 phone calls! You are joking? A man makes one unwanted phone call with me and the expletives fly in the “combine sex and travel” method. He’s married, could she not have threatened say after unwanted call number 19 not to call the four letter word starting with “w”(w.i.f.e) that his harassment was unwanted? Come ON!!
… There’s no way a professional man with a marriage at stake and a reputation to lose would make this many calls unless there was reciprocation of at least a friendly relationship.
… What was between them to sustain 40 phone calls presumably about employment opportunities and what Worth would like to wear while they go swimming. Phone calls are not one way meetings of audio are they?
No the texts and phone calls were “unwanted”. Dear…at what point? Call and text number 1 or call and text number 60 or 40? Come ON!!
This portion is bolded in the original:
So instead of her husband doing his job as a protector and sorting the “pervy” Dr Worth she whinged off to “Fill in” Goff and cried that Worth had harassed her. At what point? Call or text 1 or 60 or 40. Texts that she seems to have kept for some six months. Why?
Women who keep records of their harassment are suspect. Good to know, but could someone inform every single person I’ve ever heard talk about how to deal with [even garden-variety workplace] harassment?
It’s a breach of the Labour Party membership rules to show “respect” to any Tory. Let alone one as wet as Worth. You were nice to Worth the same reason plenty of women have been nice to older married men – as you thought he could GET YOU A JOB.
Your Labour Party membership hasn’t ruined your credibility Dear, your own statement has. Little wonder John Key’s staff deemed you a silly tart …
Kate then gives us some “rules for women to live by” but that’s a whole ‘nother post in the making.
Feminists will also cry of a “power imbalance” between an older man and a younger woman… The man is married. Witness A had ALL the power in this situation, a portfolio of texts and call logs she deviously and cunningly stored for months such that she could produce as evidence of the behaviour to hang over a married man in a position where his reputation has to be of a high standard. And she seems to have done just that…
The alleged harassment ceased on 23 February, it took three months in total for the woman to complain and Fool Goff to send this to the PM in May. The woman instructed Goff she didn’t wish to take the complaint public, but told him wanting Goff to tell Worth’s boss? Whatever. Vindictive. We can safely assume that she wasn’t offered the job!
Questions need to now be asked about the motivation behind this complaint and whether it was from Fool Goff’s office.
Well, I guess that’s sure set me straight about our society putting women in impossible positions where whatever they do, sexual harassment is going to be assumed to be all their fault. And that whole “women are treated as the gatekeepers of sex while men get off scot-free because It’s Instinctive Behaviour” theory I had is TOTALLY blown out of the water.
Thanks, Kate. Without your ability to see into the heads of people you’ve never met and make all-encompassing generalizations based on how you claim to act, you’ve totally convinced me. Richard Worth is a good and saintly man led astray by the magical thought-controlling powers of The Mighty Penis and let down by the one person who could have helped him – his victim.
—
Another good post (and the one which led me to Cactus Kate’s, Lew I am invoicing you for my therapy some day) on this at Kiwipolitico.
Ideologically Impure 
When your rebuttal is to reproduce most of my post then it’s clear you have no argument.
I didn’t defend Worth at all. I called for him to be sacked for the murky business dealings. As I did some months ago.
Why your knickers are in a knot is that you are not sophisticated enough to realise that I simply didn’t 100% support Witness A and Fool Goff because of their motives for bringing this up now.
Goff knew about this last year, he could have stopped Witness B’s misery had he gone to Key then and not waited until Witness B had to endure her alleged treatment.
It all depends I guess on how you view women as a gender.
This woman, Witness A was NOT a victim of anything. She was a cold, calculating manipulative activist from an opposing political party. Lead on more by Goff than Worth.
She wasn’t raped, sacked from a job for NOT having sex with the man, or sexually assaulted in any way. It trivialises women with legitimate complaints to have nut-jobs like this woman on the streets.
Her lack of action and that of Goff could very well have lead to Witness B’s misery.
Witness B I imagine is the one with a far more Worthy claim.
Kate, your post needs no rebuttal. It’s simply dripping in victim-blaming, in pretending to know what the woman was thinking, in making statements based only on your own experience. That was kind of the point.
If your bold key ever does die, I will buy you a new one, because the world needs it.
“There’s no way a professional man with a marriage at stake and a reputation to lose would make this many calls unless there was reciprocation of at least a friendly relationship.”
Um what?
Obviously, Fem, sexual harassers are driven by logic. A careful weighting and balancing of the risks they run, and an instinctive retraction of their advances if they’re ignored or told to stop. It’s certainly ludicrous to suggest that a rich white pillar-of-the-community influential powerful state-provided-Crown-car male could possibly have feelings of entitlement or a disregard for standard social mores.
Chris Trotter has a fabulous victim-blaming piece too. He and CK seemed to be in some sort of mutual admiration activity.
And plenty of commenters jumping on the “the woman’s husband should have done something!!!” bandwagon too, I see, as though that’s not a reaction almost exploding with sexist idiocy.
Thank you, oh thank you, QoT.
I didn’t even know where to begin with the stupidity of her critique, and it’s nice that you bothered where I just gave up in despair.