Montreal Unitarian John Inder Has Never Been Bullied Or Harassed

But don't take *my* word for it U*Us. . .

Take the word of long time Montreal Unitarian U*U, and former President of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, John Inder in these words from the bio he posted to his sexual harassment consultancy website:

I am lucky enough to have never been bullied or harassed, but these issues have impacted my life because of what they have done to several people I love. Having witnessed a stream of media reports about sexual harassment, assault and abuse, I was struck by:

1. the mind boggling number of victims of this behavior, most of whom who have yet to tell their story, and the pain, the shame, the hit to self-esteem they face,
2. the growing list of prestigious institutions and reputable businesses who take a PR hit and seem to be flailing in the wind as to what to do about this toxic collection of behaviours,
3. the loss of productivity caused by the resulting distress – even the sad end of many careers of victims and perpetrators.

Everything I saw was about prosecutions and legal responses after the fact. The talk was mostly about bringing perpetrators to justice. Some consideration of offering support and therapy to victims was alluded to on the side, at least when the talk was not actually suspicious of the victims!

Then it hit me; I became aware of what I wanted to see happen (in addition to victim support and application of the law of course) – PREVENTION! Just as with issues of physical security and mental health, we need to put some time toward prevention and education. This cannot be just a few paragraphs of wisdom on a piece of paper you can hand out, or a policy that sits in a file. People within organizations need to sit together, get informed, talk and think their way through the issues, and prime themselves for how they want to respond when harassment issues arise. And I mean sexual harassment issues; addressed head on. We have to become able to talk about this in order to deflate the power of the taboos, the shame, and the denial. Later, after reading hundreds of studies on – bullying, sexual harassment, sexual violence, gendered identities, third wave feminism, masculine identity crisis, bystanders to violence, physiological sex differences, cognitive sex differences, adolescent sexuality, Canadian law and human rights legislation, and the effects of sexual harassment, etc., – I was even more convinced that working with groups in a positive pro-active way could have a real impact. I also recalled what I had learned from the men’s movement of the 80s – that insulting and ostracizing gays and lesbians was also a handy way to force people into traditional gender roles. For men, this meant – keep up the tough facade and be wary of emotions – something we do to our detriment.

The whole process of getting informed was more interesting and empowering than I anticipated, despite the heartbreaking nature of the subject. I hope you will work with me on this. If we all get up to speed on this issue, we can change the culture where we work and study, and keep everyone safer.