How about covertly hostile?
Somehow I’m not very reassured.
Royal College of Nursing chief denies hostility to women
The chairman of the Royal College of Nursing was suspended over allegations that he was “openly hostile” towards women weeks before the organisation cancelled its annual congress.
I wonder if anyone thought to appoint a woman as chair of the Royal College of Nursing. Wild, I know, but it just might work.
Dave Dawes, a bondage expert who has led workshops in the practice, was suspended last month over the allegations, which also include that he was dismissive of staff concerns about discrimination and included sexual references on his own social media account. He was suspended weeks before the decision to cancel the conference over allegations of sexual harassment which Dawes says are separate.
A “bondage expert”? Why does the Times drop that in there as it might drop “an amateur violinist” or “a birdwatcher”? I suppose possibly as a hint at some of the reasons for thinking he’s hostile to women (cue the cries of “kink isn’t hostile to women!!”) but who knows.
One of the complaints against him includes sexual references in social media accounts dating back more than a decade. Dawes is openly poly-amorous and has led workshops on open sexual relationships and rope bondage.
I don’t need to know all that…unless it has something to do with the claims that he’s hostile to women.
Well…if you talk to people (especially women) who are in that scene, you will turn up many accounts of men who use BDSM as cover for abuse.
But we can do better than guilt by association. If Dawes is active–high profile–in the BDSM community, then he is going to have a reputation (especially among women) in that community. If this is a matter for investigation, then inquiries within that community are likely to turn up high quality, first person accounts of his views and his past behavior.
Clearly, the allegations of sexual harassment that led to the cancellation of the conference are separate. Clearly.
I certainly hope there are investigations. As far as I can recall, I’ve always been skeptical of BDSM, but while I was admittedly entranced with the concept of polyamory for a time, I’ve since come to see it as a major red flag. (At least in the sense of it being an identity, but probably also just in general; my experience has lead me to conclude that “being polyamorous” is mostly an excuse for men to be able to have sex with women with whom they do not have a committed long-term relationship.)
Several former Chairs of RCN Council (the correct title) have been women, in fact the large majority of them.
The President of the RCN has only ever been a woman.
Current, previous and previous to her Chief Executive were women (can only think of one man who’s held that position in last 20 years.
It has had major problems as an organisation since way before the “bondage expert” was elected Chair.
Of course, it has everything to do with innuendo and colouring the reader’s opinions of any accusations which might actually be forthcoming. Though, from the portions of the story you’ve quoted, it’s quite likely that someone (or many someones) kicked up a fuss that a man dared to be elected or accept an appointment as chairman of the Royal College of Nurses — though there are a great many male nurses, especially roles that used to be called “orderlies”, who often do dangerous work in prisons and mental hospitals, and are generally below registered nurses in rank.
I cannot imagine anyone seriously kicking up a fuss over a woman being elected or appointed chair(wo?)man of the Royal College of Physicians, though there are still and have been more men than women practicing medicine as physicians. Yes, there is an asymmetry there, as nursing has historically been female-dominated and considered subordinate to “practicing medicine” in a self-reinforcing cycle. But that history does not account for the present environment in the UK of just over 11% of registered nurses (and a higher percentage of “nursing assistants” and other roles which one no longer calls “orderlies”) being male, and does not mean that nursing associations must always and only be headed or represented by women.
If I had to guess, this whole thing rests on the intuition that it is inappropriate for a man to represent nurses, as though nursing were destined to always be exclusively a female vocation and therefore a nurse organisation is the same species of group as a women’s advocacy organisation; it is further supported by innuendo of the particular man’s character, where interest in bondage and polyamory is taken as strong evidence of the man’s unsuitability to work with women in the first place, much less lead them. I strongly disagree with the second, and while I’m more sympathetic to the notions of the first, I also come down on the side which says the intuition is likely an incorrect one.
I have to admit curiosity into how the bondage guy was “suspended.”
@Me, by his nipples, obviously.
Seth, I didn’t read anything in that to suggest he was suspended because people were upset that he was a man, but because of actual sexual allegations. That is the appropriate reaction; suspend and investigate. If the charges are groundless, you lift the suspension and return him to his position, unless he no longer wants it or there is some other reason to remove him. If it is determined the charges are legitimate, then you can remove him from his position.
Since it is often the case with journalists that they just say “sexual misconduct” or “sexual harassment” without giving details (sometimes that’s for legal reasons, I imagine), the failure to tell us what the charges were is less concerning to me. It is possible that some of the problem stemmed from the bondage workshops he gave; maybe he was inappropriate, or something, or it could be an unrelated attempt to smear him, but if he positions himself as a bondage expert, it could be relevant…depending on what the actual charges are.
As for male chairs, I don’t see an overall problem with that, but I am surprised to find that most of the previous chairs have been women. I learned a long time ago that while librarians are majority (strong majority) women, their supervisors are mostly men. Physical and occupational therapists are majority women, but it is men who get promoted to supervisors. K-12 teachers are dominated by females, but principals and superintendents are mostly men (though that is changing, at least somewhat).
iknklast,
Yes, I certainly agree that if there are credible allegations of misconduct, they should be investigated. I was merely commenting on the fact that journalists, quite particularly in the UK, often rely on seemingly-scandalous details to pepper their stories with innuendo in an attempt to frame the story in a certain way, no matter how relevant those details turn out to be. The mentions of the alleged accused’s lifestyle seem like pure innuendo-mongering to me.
As for nursing in general, it could be that nurses have been led by women most often (at least in the UK) as a consequence of the very founding of the profession, by Florence Nightingale, during and shortly after the Crimean War. Or it could be that ‘proper doctors’ were seen as the managers of nurses, so the head of the nursing association was bossed around by a man (in the form of whichever doctor was nearby), so there was no threat to the overall patriarchy in allowing nurses to be led by women. In the other cases you mentioned, there isn’t a clear male-dominated hierarchy extrinsic to the positions, and so one must be imposed within them.