The Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s most influential business lobbying group, has become embroiled in a firestorm of claims relating to incidents ranging from harassment to gross sexual misconduct – even rape – first reported by the Guardian.
The allegations, though unproven at this point, are harrowing. Today, the beleaguered organisation also announced that its director general, Tony Danker, will leave with immediate effect, to be replaced by its former chief economist Rain Newton-Smith. Danker was the subject of separate complaints earlier this month, one of which was defined as sexual harassment, and he was not the subject of the sexual misconduct claims most recently reported by the Guardian, but the board says his conduct “fell short of that expected of the director general”.
The latest slew of allegations are reminiscent of a time when corporate culture was defined by inequality and exploitation; an era when Mad Men – drunk on liquid lunches and bombastic self confidence – unapologetically lusted after their secretaries, and when out-and-out sex crimes were dismissed as just a bit of harmless fun by anyone who had a voice.
The headlines have plunged the CBI into its deepest crisis since it was formed by royal charter in 1965, and although the allegations are deeply disturbing, they aren’t entirely surprising given the sector they were made in. Rather, they remind us of previous incidents that have taught us that wherever there is money there is power. And where there is power, abuse – in some form – is frequently still rife.
Despite ostensible efforts by some of Britain’s biggest companies to create equal opportunities and appropriate representation for all genders and races within the workplace, businesses remain stubbornly skewed. They’re predominantly led by white men and blighted by the pay gap and the authority gap, in which women find it more difficult to be taken seriously at work. As a function of these chasms, troubling power dynamics allow for cultures of sexism and, in some cases, toxic masculinity to prevail.
At times it may seem like we’ve moved on. Surely, the #MeToo movement counted for something. Surely, we’re better than the generation that preceded us. Surely we’ve woken up. And then we’re corrected. Look no further than Amanda Blanc, the first female CEO of insurance giant Aviva, who in May last year was subjected to a string of brazenly sexist remarks at the company’s annual general meeting.
Blanc, investors said, was “not the man for the job”. One asked whether she should be “wearing trousers”. Another seemed at first to praise the company for its gender diversity and then showed his true colours: women, he quipped, “are so good at basic housekeeping activities, I’m sure this will be reflected in the direction of the board in future”.
Some of the incidents that come to light – like some of those that allegedly took place within the CBI – are egregious and criminally punishable. But one of the reasons why crimes of this nature occur in the first place, is because pernicious comments, attitudes and microaggressions that don’t break the law have fostered an environment in which – as is frequently described after the fact – things get out of control. These go unchallenged because they’re small enough to dismiss; they’re not grave enough to raise the alarm over. But an environment in which misogyny is ignored can quickly become an environment in which misogyny is normalised, and then one in which misogyny is encouraged. Yes, sexism and sexual harassment are two entirely different things. At the same time, it’s impossible to claim they’re unrelated.
Much needs to be done for the world of business to become a place of opportunity for everyone. The first is that cultures of silence cannot be left unchallenged. Organisations must have the resources to check concentrations of power, and to allow whistleblowers to speak up without fear of repercussion and punishment.
Human resources departments cannot be toothless yes-men to a CEO, chairman or board. Pay secrecy must end. Governance structures need to be such that companies consider the duty of care they have to their employees to be as important as the duty of care they have to their shareholders. In this regard, privately owned companies should be held to the same standard as public companies.
In a book that I’m working on – a narrative history of women, money and power – I write about academic research in Canada and the US that refers to “networks of complicity”. These networks, the scholars explain in a paper published in 2019, are central to understanding the persistence of sexual and other types of harassment in organisations.
“By using power and manipulating information, perpetrators [build] networks that [protect] them from sanction and [enable] their behaviour to continue unchecked,” they write. And in the organisations they studied, they observed that “networks of complicity metastasised and caused lasting harm to victims, other employees and the organisation as a whole”.
Perhaps the most unsettling conclusion the scholars drew was that these networks can survive and thrive, even if the original perpetrator is removed. One bad apple can ruin everything, but getting rid of the offending apple doesn’t guarantee that anything will improve in the long run. Change has to be systemic. Turning a company from bad to good requires an overhaul.
In March, Danker stepped aside amid an initial investigation into complaints about his conduct. Dozens of additional and more serious complaints followed, relating to individuals at the organisation other than Danker. A law firm has been conducting an independent investigation into all the allegations. The CBI has also hired an external human resources consultant to help manage what’s going on.
It’s unclear, of course, where this will leave the lobbying group, and whether it will ever fully recover. The CBI’s plight, however, can serve as an opportunity for other organisations to look at their own internal culture: a warning for what can happen when they look away and dismiss what’s going on, for what might occur if they keep telling themselves that they are all just having a laugh. Surely it was just banter, wasn’t it?
Josie Cox is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in business, finance and gender equality
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