No consent
“The investigation has concluded that Mr Xxxxx’s behaviour did not constitute sexual harassment against you.”
This was the statement from the humanitarian organisation I had worked with, and I was puzzled.
Did the panel consider that the events I described in my complaint were acceptable and did not constitute sexual harassment, or was it that they didn’t believe me?
The investigative process was hermetical: I had only access to the conclusion, and the compliance office wouldn’t answer my emails enquiring about the process and their painful decision. A friend offered an interpretation: it is about consent, she fathomed, they have decided there was consent. I am once more astonished as my heart rebels against this presumption. How can anyone judge there was consent? What does consent even mean in these contexts?
In the public debate about consent, the more strict definition in sexual contexts requires showing that there is a state of fear or helplessness resulting in the incapacity to defend yourself or to express your will. The night I was harassed I was burnt out and depressed, my aggressor knew it because I had been fired that morning. On top of this, he was fully aware I was afraid of him: I had made the mistake of reporting my fear to a superior, who in turn had told my colleague.
As I give more thought to the concept of consent and read further on the subject, I come across a document of the European Council explaining a wider definition in which the lack of consent, although a central element in framing sexual violence, “does not fully capture the realities of women experiencing sexual violence and how they respond to threat (i.e. flight, fight, freeze, flop or befriend)”. These words have a cadence that captures me: flight, fight, freeze, flop, befriend, flight, fight, freeze, flop, befriend, flight, fight, freeze, flop, befriend. I say them in my head as a mantra. Sadness invades me as I remember a woman in the corner of a bathroom looking at her feet: me. I feel tears forming and realise I don’t have the skill to describe the freezing and the flopping of that night; the attempts of flight and fight on the previous days; the befriending strategy that I improvised that morning. I can’t describe this because it feels shameful and stifling, it feels different from writing about before and after the harassment. To describe my non-consensual behaviour requires describing movements and touch, and I don’t have that strength.
I find my own thoughts in someone else’s writing. Maggie O’Farrell*, according to her own experience, affirms: “You can’t confront a bully; you can’t call them out; you can’t let them know that you know, that you see them for what they are.” I read further on O’Farrell’s wonderings of another girl less lucky than herself: “Did she make the mistake of alerting him to the monster he was?”
I get goosebumps: my non-confrontational behaviour was well-founded, I remind myself I escaped rape.
I give compassion to myself and stop giving space to the doubts that this process is raising: I know what consent is, it is not a grey area, and there was no consent.
I am convinced everyone involved with my case understands there was no consent. This is about the will of the organisation. This is a choice, this is not a court with tight rules of law, this is an internal investigation by the compliance office and they have sided with him.
They could have been braver, tried to find evidence from other women, even fired him — doing the right ethical thing. Instead, they chose to keep a harasser working for them, with access to less protected local employees and vulnerable populations of war regions.
