In this session today, we will look at the wider picture in the workplace and other public spaces. This may be an issue that the committee will decide to look at more closely and in more detail. In this and this session today will help inform this inquiry as we go forward. Can i start by thanking our Witnesses Today on behalf of the whole committee for taking time out of what we know are incredibly busy days for you to be here. I know the preparation required to be here is significant, so thank you. The usual practice is we get questions from committee members. We have a lot of ground to cover so i might use my ability to move things on as a chair, if need be. Before we start with the first set of questions, please state your name and the organization represent, starting with claire. I am a professor of the law. I am a mark hamilton, hate crime the as in to the Police Council but hate crime liaison to the Police Council. When she visited the u. K. In 2014, the you and special raconteur said that there was a sexist culture. Do you think that statement can be justified . Who would like to start . I would suggest that walking into this room after 200 years i wouldken domination, say that statement has some i speak from and my own personal experience, women have much greater insight would say thati everything about our culture is founded on a male dominance and we need to address that, identified, for the cultural health. I would agree, i think our colleagues would offer much greater insight . Governor powell any other comments . Think the impact of that is a different for men and women, boys and girls . Of what, living in a patriarchal culture . Yes. Facethink they have to many things, domestic abuse, street harassment is absolutely appalling and unacceptable, there are corollary impact for boys which are unusually high rates of depression, suicide, Substance Abuse, risky behavior, male to male violence. To acan all be traced rigid interpretation of a what it means to be a man, a kind of masculinity which is toxic for us internally as men and also to the women in our lives. From a police perspective, cultureommenting on the of the u. K. Is tricky because we tend to base our evidence upon our understanding of crime. What i would say is that the ution of the police you arest say, when giving your answer, you will also have a perspective as someone who works in an organization such as the police. I imagine in the police there might be some issues in there as well . The Police Service is predominantly male, it has associated with it a much oh culture. A macho a lot ofxperience, progress has been made in gender balance but there is still a long way to go. I think that is the same in many places in society. What i wanted to say is that 20 or 30 years ago, we started to address how women were treated in terms of Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, the debate now is moving firmly towards how women are treated generally, as victims within the system. Be it street harassment, verbal abuse, be it the attitude shown to them in casual encounters on the street and the impact that has on women. As an individual, but women as a group in society. About thetalking issue of misogyny come up it has never been more present in the debate as now. For us, it is a significant issue, and we are dealing with how we should address it. Therefore i do not take the debate would be there if there was no necessity to have it, if women were experiencing things in our community that should not be happening. And if there is no agenda basis for that a current. Best for that occurring. I agree. The existence of the committee is tied to the continued discrimination and our society in all sectors. Workplace,is the education, violence against women as has been mentioned. I would agree. We aret know whether more of a boys club than other countries, i think these issues exist in other countries, the oppression and sexism against women is fairly commonplace across the country. And to take on what others have said, violence against women and Sexual Harassment, i think the Boys Club Culture and sexism extends beyond that. Lots of things that this committee has looked at over in schools,sexism the gender pay gap, occupational discrimination. It paints a picture of a society which is not very fair to women. Do you think there is consensus in regards to the contention that sexism and Sexual Harassment [indiscernible] . Sexual harassment i think is clearly defined in the law. I think whether the general publics understanding of that and what the law says is a different question. In the light of the various allegations from hollywood and lots of Media Attention on Sexual Harassment, i think Public Perception of what Sexual Harassment was it was not in line at all with what the laws on Sexual Harassment is. I think there are some quite worrying findings about this. I am sure mark would consider these to be serious crimes although not perceived by everyone to be Sexual Harassment or crimes. There are seen as part of everyday life, so i think there is a mismatch between what the law says, what the hrc says, what the guidance we have is on what Sexual Harassment is, how it is defined in law and how people generally on the street might understand it to be. Do you see that ambiguity, mark . Yes. There is no law that i am aware can and if define everyones behavior. It doesnt always work, but i think that while progress has been made in dealing with areas crime, issues such as on the street behavior, which you usually are accepted as part of daily life are actually detrimental and damaging. Sexual harassment of a woman or a girl at a bus stop by a male might be something that some women feel that they just have because of this debate, we are moving toward identifying those issues in the same way that we would define other issues or crime. Even the crime the crime that has been committed, the debate is similar to other hate incidents. Should we take action . Itate their behavior before accelerates into a crime . Restore some confidence of the victim and ensure that it is being addressed in society. Is there evidence what evidence is there that sexism or gender stereotyping are links to Sexual Harassment and violence against women . Ofthere are a number attitudinal studies which suggest that individuals displacing a sexist attitude are and maybe indicative of our understanding of rape culture or a sexist culture. Some of those that these are experimental that there is some evidence, and association between different examples of porn, andlesuse of displaying sexist attitude. There is no correlation but there is an association there. We can suggest that in a sexual torture, socialized sexism, there sexual culture and socialized taxes and, there is a link there. That is an interesting study, it is sponsored by a United Nations organization and sponsored by unilever. Study of 3000 young men in the u. K. , u. S. And mexico, between 20152017. It asks them in a series of ages 1835, of men how they would respond to 13 different questions about how they view women, themselves, about homophobia, a range of issues that i would do disservice to try to remember. The ones who scored the highest in these general scoring system of the research were most who we wouldose see our most articulate in the most rigid form of masculinity and have the most strictest views of gender roles, are most homophobic, most inclined to act with aggression against women. Despite the admission it indicated that the u. K. And the men who wereoung seen as the most masculinity they were six or seven times more likely to admit to Sexual Assault and or Sexual Harassment. A decentis clearly body of evidence of three different cultures fairly similar, you might say but by no means identical it draws a really common feeling that young men feel that they have to appear invulnerable. They have to be selfsufficient, they have to be physically tough, they have to get what they need, etc. And they are much more likely to offend in terms of Sexual Harassment, and violence. They are also coincidentally much more likely to admit to suicidal ideation, types of risky behavior on a regular alcohol anddulge in Substance Abuse on a regular basis. It is a whole toxic package. That is a good recent reasonably. Ccessible document claire, did he want to Say Something as well . I am not familiar with that study. International organization, it does a lot of it isith the u. N. And about reducing what it refers to as a gender inequality and genderbased violence worldwide. There was commissioned by the open university and they did focus groups in leeds. We will take a look at that. Day extension of that, if we address gender stereotyping, we therefore have a knock on effect where we reduce harassment, assaulting and discrimination and so on . I believe that is a reasonable inference. Would be be addressing the root cause of the problem of we address the gender stereotype . Rx i do not think it is necessary or would solve the problem. It is part of a series of actions you might want to look at from a young age to adults. I think there are interesting correlations between anddominated work basis the distinction between sexual is a man Sexual Harassment. For instance, the display of or not griffey might be construed as Sexual Harassment and the workplace. Sex of a, making sexual nature might be [indiscernible] i think there is a link there. I think there, i think there might be more questions in terms of Sexual Harassment in the workplace. I do think it can be particularly problematic for women working in maildominated work laces. Or when there is just a few women in a masculine setting. I am not sure how arbitrary this might be. How would you determine the percentage of what should be appropriate . You were saying, in one environment this would be acceptable or person might think this would be acceptable or a person might be offended. So generally, how do we determine what consensus might be acceptable . It is for law to decide. Guidance in the Statutory Program might give further guidance as to what might be acceptable in situations. Supposing,arlier, yes a lot of people do not have a good understanding in terms of Sexual Harassment. But i think there is an element of how behavior is received as well as the intention of the purpose trader as it were. It may well be that one person might not think something a Sexual Harassment whereas someone else would and how is that comment received is very important. My understanding of the course law it would be a civil issue. It would be interesting to hear clears view. View. Hear clares conduct that might be unwanted, therefore there is a notice on the person committing it to make sure the behaviors wanted or not. But we might want to do what we are trying to do is that anyone who it is happening to would come forward. Thats very basic debate is the difference between what becauseon might except the behavior might be wanted. For example, no touching of any variety is lawful, so there is no parameter under which you should sexually touch another person. [indiscernible] it gets more vague for people for sexual speech and so forth and that is where maybe some people feel the parameters are different but in a particular workplace, the quality has a particular set of behavior. Ofe it back to the point portfolio sexism, my is hate, not primarily Sexual Harassment. It was hate. We talked a lot about prejudice. If you describe Sexual Harassment like prejudice, there are number of activities we feel are important to address. One is actually encouraging people to talk about and reported so gets out of the opening and is exposed to conversation and challenge. Another is drafting in the work peopleand educating about their behavior and challenging them as to why prejudice exists. There is a balance between and enforcement for the serious and enforcement for the less serious and how you do that. Major issues for public life and media. What we say, how we behave, a role inly there was public service, i think it was a long way to certain standards that people will abide by it. Youre a leadership to the workplace is important. What we also have a huge continuous discussion about in the hate filled generally as how the media reported. There needs to be up for debate about these issues. We are asking people to show respect for each other, understand there are competing perspectives and try to bring consensus on the way forward. This is not an attack on one community but i another or one community by another but it is trying to stop editorial behavior. Is never going to stop at all but i do think you know with a number of actions we can reduce the instances but also weekend increase peoples capacity to challenge it. There is, as we said, a very clear definition of what constitutes Sexual Harassment in the policy act. Whichare criminal laws overlap with that. I think in relation to the hoc,nal law it is ad please mail, and adds to the fact that people do not always know their actions are criminal law. We have discussions about up skirting but polling also shows people think that should be a criminal law and most people are surprised it is not by it is not covered in fact. There is a minimizing and trivializing of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence and i think that is common across the board hand and can be a just broader Prevention Strategies around attitudes toward sexism, gender stereotyping on that continuum. There is need to update some and send the message which to a help to bring people common understanding of what constitutes Sexual Harassment and why it is harmful. To i very much. Do you see any evidence the government is currently doing enough to tackle Sexual Harassment . Anyone can answer. [laughter] i think there have been some important steps taken recently to think about the law in particular. We cannot measure in the last abuse,rs around sexual revenge or not murphy. There has been a start but we need to go further regarding online abuse. There are a number of gaps and that area and we could be taking more action and that regard. More generally, there is a lot of work around prevention to be done. Waive my magic wand, it would be about reversing that in making them more compulsory to make sure the issues were talking about today are taught in the schools by experts because, you know, the jobs we teacher coming in as we probably all know does not do the same job as an expert who might achieve it so with respect there is a lot more that could be being done. [indiscernible] the move in sreright direction around as well. The government could make a huge difference in gathering data i have been reading the media issue and recent months. We undertook research because of the huge gap in the data and we undertook private polling. It seems that is the only source and the government is so good at measuring other things. I know for instance in fundslia, the government a data gathering exercise to understand the scope and nature of Sexual Harassment and australia. Baselined to have a and way of measuring if there is change. That is something i would like to see. This has been a privately commissioned poll and that is good because were coming up with similar types like it would be good to have robust government studies to give us a better picture of what is going on with respect to some age aoups focusing on it as offense, may an 2014 there was a commission to review the effectiveness of the should be aner it extension of the aggravated stances. The commission made a number of recommendations, one to review the scope of the crime. The five categories and whether they should extend. . When was act 2014. [crosstalk] there is an option whether or not to do that but an option to hate crimes. Ewing what do you suggest . A provisionat on the criminal justice fact as we would describe it and i will come back to it in a minute. It does not exist as a provision to takeuld be looking certain action that were similar shouldrs in hate if we accept that massage and he should be looked at as a hate crime. Upon review, they consider statutory provisions. They come back to identify. There is a really good debate bravely led byy the former chief constable on onemebased hate and misogynybased hate. Were trying to put papers through. Misogyny oration of if not a sex crime, what are we going to do about it. Other chief constables are reporting and we are waiting to see what that looks like. My concern is that the police on their own, even if we decided were are going to report on this nationally for 12 months under complications about trying to fit either misogynybased or genderbased tape crimes we would have to work on it so it doesnt fit questionke than the would be, so what . We report on it is one thing and will the criminal Justice System from end to end work on it. That is bigger than me. My portfolio i will try to take forward from this perspective. All that has been said about whether taking it seriously or that when youink say people should come forward talkeport and you encouragingly about people coming forward to reporter, do you actually think that is a revolution for somebody who reported . I think it depends on the response you get from various services. For example, you might get a different response in a different place. What would be the sanction if you for example, in amsterdam, lets say the index defense was an offensive assault for example and if that was in the hate crime side comment that result was like a hate crime then it went t