Sexual harassment

These are the stories of medicine with Steve Davis and Dr. Travis Brown.

This is the story of sexual harassment in medicine.

Dr. Travis Brown, we normally talk about diseases on This Medical Life and this time we're talking about something that's rather, well somewhat might argue, endemic at a systemic level.

What brought this topic of sexual harassment onto the radar?

This was an article that I read from Dr. Louise Stone.

It was in Insight, and this was talking about sexual harassment in medicine.

And this is something that occasionally crops up in medicine in some of the journals, and you just see either some horrific case that's gone into the courts, into the legal system, then it's caught on, and society then turns its eye and says, well, what's wrong with medicine? What's wrong with...

Something's happened.

And then there are a couple episodes in season eight, which...

I have looked at very closely where she is, where Margaret is basically put in a quid pro quo sexual harassment situation, one by a general and then another entering into a McCarthyism sort of plot.

And so they really, they started to take Margaret and Loretta Swit much more seriously.

And that became her legacy.

I know you talked to April about a script she wrote about harassment.

That was really, I was very conflicted about that.

And I know April was assigned the topic, which I thought she wrote a very interesting, good episode, except she made Billy unaware of sexual harassment in the workplace.

as a device, as a plot device, because eventually she becomes more than aware and an advocate for another young woman at the trib who's being harassed.

And I'm Bennett Mason.

Under the Sex Discrimination Act, employers now have a positive duty to eliminate as far as possible workplace sexual harassment, sex discrimination, sexist conduct and related victimisation.

It's been almost three years since the Australian Human Rights Commission's regulatory powers in relation to this positive duty came into effect.

The new obligations marked an important cultural shift in how organisations are expected to approach these issues, with a much greater focus on prevention rather than response.

Can you remind us what happened before these measures were introduced? Why were they deemed necessary?

We've had the Sex Discrimination Act in place for 40 years now.

So for all of those years, people have been able to make complaints of workplace sexual harassment.

And what we've seen is that there are complaints that are made, but really it's an ineffective means to try and eliminate the harmful behaviour of sexist behaviour and sexual harassment at work.

And Hayden sadly passed away very recently.

We're not going to be diving into, like, unpacking that it's more like her story because only a couple months before she passed she released her memoir which is this is me a reckoning where for the first time she documented issues that she'd faced in the industry as a child actor as a teenage actor sexual harassment the me too space losing brand deals and all of that stuff so we're just going to be concentrating on like basically what hayden wanted to speak about before she passed

okay Okay.

So with all that being said, what do you know of, remember of Hayden Panencia? The film

going.

So after she had a big break on Heroes, she started getting invited to, say, like a lot of parties, a lot of industry events and all this stuff and making connections.

And then she has spoke about in her memoir that, how she faced a few different scenarios of sexual harassment, crossing over to potentially sexual violence, almost.

Three of them that I'll mention.

Very interesting case.

Now, this case here, NM versus Transnet, it's about sexual harassment and employer liability.

So NM had been employed by Transnet and later reported to Mako, a senior employee.

But from 2008, Mako subjected her to repeated conduct of a sexual nature, including offensive emails, arranging one hotel for both of them on a work trip.

And also, the crucial key section here, transit was liable under Section 60.

Now, also, have a look in today's update.

There are three landmark cases, older labor cases, on sexual harassment and damages.

Fascinating reading, all of those that are referred to in this case and which are supplemented in today's update.