Mail Online

Do women really want a world where men are terrified to pay them a compliment?

SARAH VINE

CALL me old-fashioned, but if a male colleague told me that the dress I was wearing ‘really suited’ my figure, I’d be absolutely delighted. I might think it a little fruity – but what’s wrong with that? So long as the person doesn’t overstep the mark or appear threatening, it’s just a compliment. What’s not to like?

Everything, apparently. In fact, telling a woman she looks nice in a dress is now such a sin, such an unutterable act of rampant, predatory sexism, it can get a man cancelled. And it has.

The man in question is one of the country’s most prominent business leaders, John Allan, one-time president of the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) and current chair of supermarket chain Tesco and housebuilder Barratt. Both have demanded he stand down following allegations about his personal conduct which, they claim, risks ‘becoming a distraction’.

What can this man – a devoted grandfather, husband and someone described by

Karen Guerra, a former colleague and now a non-executive director at British American Tobacco, as ‘the most polite, respectful and equal-minded man I have ever had the privilege of working with’ – possibly have done to deserve such harsh treatment?

WELL, apart from telling a woman she looked nice in a dress, he is supposed to have touched another woman’s bottom at a CBI event (which he vehemently denies), told a second she also looked nice in a dress at a CBI event and patted a third, again on the bottom, at a Tesco AGM.

As far as the two at the CBI event are concerned, Allan says he was not even at the night in question.

As for the Tesco AGM, Allan argues, Tesco ‘have contacted every woman – including past employees – who attended and examined CCTV footage’ and there have been no complaints, despite an anonymous whistleblowing line being provided.

That’s it. Four allegations which are not only anonymous and debatable but also – were they to turn out to be true – not that big a deal.

If that’s what constitutes harassment these days, then there’s probably not a woman alive without grounds for complaint. It’s ridiculous – but also a sign of the times. It speaks to the kind of cancel culture that this week saw Baroness Falkner, chair of the ECHR, accused of bullying and harassment by individuals opposed to her stance on trans issues (she has backed legal reforms guarding the rights of biological women in sport and single sex spaces).

Thanks in no small part to the Mail, that travesty has now been exposed and the witch-hunt against her suspended. But the fact remains: it doesn’t take much now – just a few anonymous allegations, a bit of mud-slinging, some malicious gossip – to destroy a reputation. And the more successful they are, the more they become a target. It makes you wonder why anyone would bother doing anything useful or interesting with their life at all.

The presumption of innocence is a vital element of justice. But it’s also what governs our interactions as human beings. If a stranger accuses a friend of something, our first instinct is not to trust the stranger, but the friend. At least, it should be. That’s my approach.

But since the advent of social media, that principle has been slowly but steadily eroded. It’s the equivalent of the village gossip, dripping poison into everyone’s ears, playing everyone off against each other – only on steroids.

People panic, act like lemmings. They listen to the views of strangers instead of trusting those they know. It’s now very easy for opportunistic individuals with malicious intentions to make life very unpleasant for someone they don’t like.

You can understand your average person being swayed in the wrong direction. But you would expect more of grown-up organisations such as Tesco and Barratt. But instead of adopting a fair and robust approach, they panic, rush to protect their precious reputations – and hang people like Allan out to dry. The result is a growing culture of fear and paranoia, where the ordinary interactions between men and women, employers and employees, become fraught with danger. As Allan points out, male colleagues are now reluctant to get in the same lift as a lone woman, just in case.

Is this really the world we want to live in? And is this what women themselves want? A generation of blokes too terrified to pay us a compliment or share a lift with us?

The truth is, most women actually quite like men. And (whisper it) we also quite like it when they notice us. We don’t mind the odd compliment or advance in the workplace, so long as we can set boundaries.

Sometimes, maybe, we don’t want to set boundaries. And provided all parties are consenting adults, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Let’s not allow the stupid culture wars currently laying waste to society take away even that last simple pleasure. There are plenty of real predators out there: we should focus on them instead of sending men like Allan, guilty of little more that perhaps a minor misjudgment, to the gallows.

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2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/282119230917387

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