On watching the Hey Dad Scandal evolve

[girliejones]

For those not in Australia, during the 80s and into the early 90s we had a sitcom called Hey Dad. It was um ... funny in the 80s? Pre-Friends and Seinfeld and whatever. Last week, Sarah Monahan, who played the youngest daughter on this show, and was 6 when she began on the show, told local women's mag A Woman's Day that a man who worked on that

Comments

[jo1967]

Because we're taught from very young to not rock the boat, don't make waves (why is everything so nautical?).

Because if you told the man who harrassed you at work that he was behaving inappropriately and that he should keep his conversation completely professional and otherwise to keep away from you, you would be told to get a sense of humour and not take yourself so seriously.

Because we're only girls, why should we have the right to feel comfortable in our own space?

[girliejones]

And it's funny you know, the "we're only girls" - I've noticed women I would not classify as feminists, and who would not classify themselves as feminists, saying the same thing.

We don't get the entitlement to feel comfortable in our own space.

[jo1967]

There was a heavy element of sarcasm on the "girls" bit.

I agree though, it's not a "women's" issue, it's an issue for women.

[girliejones]

Oh I got the sarcasm. I just meant that lately I've been hearing it without the sarcasm, in my daily life, and that's even worse - the acceptance of it all.

[callistra]

I think that the fact we're all talking about this more is very helpful. I'm hoping that we can help by telling people how to handle things if they are in an uncomfortable situation, preferably giving them several tools that will help to bolster them. Also, by talking and supporting, this is very important too. Watching the ACA thing last night, I was struck by the fact that Sarah was saying that because there were people who knew, and who were trying to help she felt more capable to try and act/get help/kick him/pee in his shampoo bottle.

I think we all feel so helpless when it happens, we all freeze up and just don't know what to say or do. But when we talk about this when we're not scared, and when we can think clearly, then maybe we'll have a better chance in a freezing type of situation, to blurt out something like "That's not appropriate dude". I say "That's not appropriate" to my kids a lot, so I expect I might say it a lot to adults now too!

[girliejones]

You know, I think in part what i am saying is - it's easy to say we're all going to say that's inappropriate when it's the creepy weird guy doing it. You know, the guy we want to actually stop coming to our parties but don't know how to say so. I don't for one second think we will be calling people we know more closely than that on this kind of behaviour.

[callistra]

I don't think it's ever going to be easy to actually do, but all people make mistakes. I'd much rather believe some people just don't know, or need to be re-taught, rather than believe so many people are malicious

[girliejones]

For me, it takes more guts than I have to turn around to someone I consider(ed) a close friend and ask them to not do something they just did to me. Maybe that comes after a liftime of being told that X was not actually meant the way I experienced it. But if I told a good friend of mine to stop rubbing her breasts against me orhrusting his groin into me when giving me a hug, I feel like they would see that as an attack on the kind of friends we are. Or that I would be acknowledging what they are doing as sexual when I have been turning a blind eye to it for some time because I didnt want the confrontation.

[strangedave]

Responding just to the part about the TV industry, not your personal experience - I've heard multiple awful stories about the TV industry, and the gist of most of them is that TV execs care far less about sexual harassment complaints (up to and including molesting minors) than they do about keeping the 'talent' on a successful show happy

[girliejones]

I think I'm saying that this kind of behaviour - of the TV industry - is actually no different to anywhere else.

I was like 10 when the show started. I watched it.

[callistra]

I used to watch it too.

[strangedave]

And I think I'm saying that I think the TV industry is actually worse than the average -- because it really is part of the culture that you don't let your morals interfere with the money. Certainly I agree that you might meet men anywhere who would, if given the opportunity, act as Hughes did, and that is awful. The question is, would most industries have someone who acted as poisonously as exec producer Gary Reilly is alleged to have, including threatening the victim with career retribution for not keeping quiet?

Yeah, none of us has taste in comedy when we are 10. I was a cynical 17 year old when it started, though.

[cassiphone]

The really awful thing is how recently this sort of behaviour was deemed completely acceptable and indeed normal in the workplace. it's not that long ago that it was the price women paid for being in the workforce.

That's part of the reason I cou'dn't get past the first episode of Mad Men. My mother worked in environments like that. It was considered normal.

[karenmiller]

I didn't even last the whole ep, for precisely that reason.

[girliejones]

I want to argue that the interest for me in the show is watching the women take their power back, slowly, and how these women actually did it. But it is very uncomfortable and infuriating much of the time.

Though i did have one amusing moment discussing this show with a much younger woman than me, who said that she thought the show was stupid because it was so sexist and treated women so badly that it was so unrealistic. Yeah, I had to kinda mention the point of the women's movement.

[karenmiller]

Those who do not remember (or educate themselves about) the past are doomed to repeat it.

As for the Hey Dad thing, I''m not at all surprised. We live in a world where Kyle Sandilands didn't get fired on the spot.

[anonymous]

Six years old is so small and defenceless; it makes me want to cry.

And you're right, that it's everywhere, and that's what's made me into the kind of mother I am. The kind of mother that doesn't go with the other mothers into the grown-up room at playgroup while smiling old men watch the toddlers. The kind of mum who doesn't let her daughter go to dancing lessons because parental supervision is not allowed.

Maybe I was too selfconscious and embarrassed a teenager to speak up when Indian men groped my breasts on crowded public transport, or when the ski instructor guided me down the slope with both hands on my buttocks.

But I'll be damned if anyone will touch my daughter and not face the consequences. Which means that until she's old enough to clearly communicate about such things, I will be watching.

Thoraiya

[girliejones]

But you *are* going to let her go to dance class eventually, aren't you???