In her landmark book Whispers from the Bush – The Workplace Sexual Harassment of Australian Rural Women, Assoc. Prof. Saunders documented the experiences of countless women in remote locations. And she believes the mounting evidence now justifies federal guidelines on best-practice workplace standards to protect them.
“This kind of national reform is long overdue,” says Assoc. Prof. Saunders, from UNE’s law school. “The time is ripe for consultation with Australian rural women about the unique challenges they face in responding to and reporting workplace sexual harassment.”
Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins has identified the problem as an urgent research priority, and Assoc. Prof. Saunders and her team are responding – seeking funding to develop practical policy guidelines and resources that take geography and isolation into account. Assoc. Prof. Saunders says while the Australian Human Rights Commission provides guidelines for reporting sexual harassment, they do not adequately address the specific needs of women in rural workplaces and the increased risks they face.
“There is a strong culture of tolerance in the bush, such that people need to be selective about what level of sexual harassment to report – and what to ignore – even though they may be subjected to daily sexual banter or inappropriate behaviour,” Assoc. Prof. Saunders says. “Much of the harassment therefore goes unreported, which is a problem, because we know that the behaviour commonly gets progressively worse over time. But, like the frog in the boiling pot, women can simply develop tolerance rather than ‘make a fuss’ and risk either losing their job or encountering small-town gossip. These factors are exaggerated where the alleged perpetrator is their manager or a friend of their manager.”
Of the 107 people interviewed for Whispers from the Bush, 73.8% indicated they had experienced sexual harassment during the course of rural employment and only one-third felt comfortable reporting it. Almost 80% of the women under 25 years of age preferred not to report.
The UNE team’s research aims to tap into the collective wisdom and lived experiences of rural women, and to engage employers and senior managers in rural sectors around the country to help transform the workplace for future generations of working women.
“The reality is that 83% of the rural employers or managers I interviewed for the book regarded sexual harassment as a low priority; they preferred their staff to roll up their sleeves and get on with it,” Assoc. Prof. Saunders says. “What many fail to understand is that they have a legal obligation to keep their employees safe from harassment and that they can be held vicariously liable for damages where they have not taken ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment (as required under section 106 of the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act). So the prevention of sexual harassment protects everyone in the workplace.”
In researching her book, Assoc. Prof. Saunders heard repeatedly that women believed sexual harassment came with the territory of working in rural industries like agriculture and mining. Many spoke of the need to either ‘grin and bear it’ or ‘fit in or f… off’.
“One female miner, aged 21, had to ask for access to a bathroom once a month during menstruation and, instead, her employer gave her keys to a Toyota, so she could drive to a toilet,” Assoc. Prof. Saunders says. “While she was away, fellow crew members would urinate in the connecting pipes where she was working, for her to discover on her return.
“A horticulturist described the culture of her workplace as akin to that of a footy club. She recounted men sitting down at smoko sharing their weekend sexual exploits. A young miner told me that, for her, it came down to picking her battles; that if her employer fired every bloke who stared at her chest, they would have no staff left.”
A remote area nurse explained that management did not take reports of sexual harassment seriously because of the difficulties of staffing remote enterprises. “… if they took up and ran with every petty complaint, they would risk losing staff members,” the 29-year-old said.
“Many respondents explained that having a written workplace policy, with clear guidelines about the definition of sexual harassment, who to report it to and how that complaint would be treated, were key,” Assoc. Prof. Saunders says. “Moving forward, I hope that our research project draws long overdue attention to the challenges faced by Australian rural women and leads to new initiatives, including a practical tool kit for the benefit of rural employees and employers.”
