Blaming the victim

In recent decades women became more sexually liberated, engage alcohol and drugs more commonly, and wear more revealing clothing. These days it is rare to hear anyone (especially a politician) publicly blaming a sexual assault victim, though some people may be afraid to disclose their true feelings.

That said, it is nevertheless obvious that when either men or women get "blind drunk", the risk of misadventure skyrockets, and people often do things they later regret (especially if other people are also drunk). Retired British Judge Mary Mowat further observed that the rape conviction statistics will not improve until "women stop getting so drunk". It is also clear that both sexes are not always equal, and that men have a far higher tolerance of alcohol.

There have been numerous calls for changes to Parliament House culture in the aftermath of the latest rape allegations. There are suggestions that fraternisation is improper where there exists a power imbalance between the parties. Former PM Turnbull, for example, changed the ministerial code of conduct to ban sexual relationships between ministers and staff members.

I think there is a lot of wishful and fuzzy thinking here.

Women themselves seem to be unduly attracted to powerful men. Also, there is not a hope of stopping fraternisation in a workplace with disproportionate numbers of young single people working long hours, who in turn work to ministers that are routinely away from their spouses. One therefore has to ask the question of whether dalliances between colleagues in a ministerial office reflect power imbalances or just nature.

In relation to the alleged perpetrator, it may be the case that too much is being made about the alleged actions of one individual (mostly in non-workplace situations). One person does not a culture make. At the same time, one has to be concerned about alleged repeat offending and hope that justice can prevail for all concerned.

Finally, in all this it seems to be forgotten that it is not only men that make advances. Women often make the first move and it is not uncommon for this to involve (non-indecent) touching. A big difference is that men rarely complain of harassment.