Sexual harassment at work is not about sex. It's about power. Who holds it. Who uses it well. Who uses it badly. How we deal with sexual harassment is just one measure of how robust the systems in our working environments are. Robust systems would always ensure victims are protected and assisted; and harassers are punished.
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But Caroline Tan feels abandoned by her surgical colleagues. Utterly abandoned. She won her legal case against her harasser but has lost faith in the system. This year, the working lives of women surgeons were exposed after comments by senior surgeon Gabrielle McMullin.
McMullin told women surgeons and surgical trainees what they already knew – and what female trainee surgeons already tell each other – that if you complain about the behaviour of a senior member of staff, particularly if it's about sexual harassment, you will pay. Much of what she said was based around the experience of Tan, now a neurosurgeon.
Not long after McMullin's comments – and in the last few weeks – a nurse at a hospital in Sydney told managers she was being harassed by a senior surgeon. The managers told the nurse she should be flattered by the attention and that the surgeon brought in a lot of money to the hospital.
In an operating theatre just last month, a senior surgeon told colleagues that women should never be surgeons, they didn't have the temperament, and that they should stick to anaesthetics.
This is the world in which Caroline Tan now finds herself, just one woman among many who have experienced sexual harassment at work. In Australia, the figure is around one in five. In Tan's case, it has left her devastated and unsure about how her future career will unfold.
Tan wanted, and still wants, more from her colleagues: respect, collegiality and public support. She is desperate for a public show of support from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
Michael Grigg is the outgoing president of the RACS. In his 12-month term, he has overseen many changes, including his insistence that surgeons confront the issue of excessive fees. RACS also decided that an external review would examine the way in which complaints of sexual harassment were dealt with by the College.
It's a committee with a very impressive roll call – Helen Szoke from Oxfam and Ken Lay, the former Victorian Police Commissioner among others. But the review is yet to make findings and any of those recommendations may well take years to be implemented. Caroline Tan can't wait that long.
Grigg's term expires this week but he says he has achieved much of what he set out to do. "For me, the issue was all about the College taking a stance on issues that would affect the profession."
During his term, sexual harassment and the way in which the College dealt with Caroline Tan was one of those issues. He says that he thought the way in which sexual harassment was raised this year was unfortunate.
"The advice that you should suffer sexual harassment and not complain was wrong, it is extremely unfortunate and must be corrected," he said. He says he is deeply saddened by the way Tan's case was dredged up this year.
"She won [the case] convincingly, there can be no question. I am sad she has been dragged into that. She is fully competent and in good standing with the College." But he muses that a public show of support might be "counterproductive".
Caroline Tan is seeking a public statement from RACS. Tan is hurt by the response of her colleagues. Although she has had reassurance from Grigg privately, she feels a public announcement would do much to support her in her desire to gain a major teaching hospital appointment.
The patients she sees now are not the ones she imagined she would see when she began her career in neurosurgery. "To learn and develop professionally, I need a big public hospital appointment," she says.
McMullin, author of Pathways to Gender Equality, The Role of Merit and Quotas, says she is disappointed that more women are not more publicly supportive of Tan and more prepared to speak out about the problems.
"But I don't want to make this issue about women – because it's about men. Men need to yield their power more responsibly. Women work very differently from men and their input is incredibly important in every institution."
McMullin also says she does not have much faith in the review. "History shows us that a profession only changes when women account for 40 per cent. We need more women to effect those changes.
"Having a leader who's a woman makes a big difference."
Twitter @jennaprice or email jenna_p@bigpond.net.au
