Gate theatre employees speak out about director Michael Colgan's behaviour

I think there,s 1000 of case,s of sexual harrassment going on in the tech industry and entertainment industry .
Its just a matter of time til more women come forward and make a complaint .

Any company or theatre that recieves state funding should have a rule ,the board is 50/50 male female .

This might reduce the amount of sexual harrassment and encourage
people of either sex to come forward and make a complaint .
Theres too many companys where 95 per cent of the management are men,even though they have many women as employees.
I think things would change for the better if 30-40 per cent of the TD,S in the dail were women .

I dont understand people in this country. We have very tight laws and regulations such as equality acts and unfair sismissal which includes protections for constructive dismissal.

I read the irish times piece and most seem to refer to sexual assault and bullying. Surely they could have easily lodged a complaint with HR and if that fails sue for 2-3 times their yearly salary for constructive dismissal.

Are we to assume they would never have found another office based job elsewhere?

Im a male and never experienced sexual harrasment like that ive work in companies before that reguarlly tried to screw employees. I was managements greatest headache and they backed down everytime.

In the irish times article it mentions one employee complained to the board and they did nothing and also he was on the board himself. Like after nothing is done then, they have basically given that employee a winning lottery ticket to sue for constructive dismissal.

I dont care how policltically incorrect it is to say it, if these women knew there were concrete laws and actions they could have taken but chose not to, then they too are part of the problem.

Prune Tracy wrote: »

I worked right next to a woman who was being sexually harassed by her manager - I can understand why she didn't complain him: he was much more powerful than she was, what if she wasn't believed? What if she got in trouble for such an indictment? What if her job and livelihood were affected? She had two small children to support.

No, the only person at fault is the abuser exploiting their position of power.

The premise of your argument is nonsense. By that logic why have any laws against such behaviour?

If she was not believed by her employer then thats when she could move to the lottery option and go to court for constructive dismissal which have provided some livelihood until she found another job. This "you will never work in this town again" nonsense is just bullying horse****.

We have a system where any bullying sexual harrassment issues have to be taken seriously otherwise an employee can easily sue the company for large anounts of money and cause serious damage to a companys reputation.

Given that the above us true, employers should instantly **** themselves at the idea of ignoring this behaviour or even breaching employee rights.

However, there are many dodgy employers in this country both large and small that dont worry about screwing their employees because its not commonplace for employees to enforce their rights in this country.

By not enforcing the controls to prevent this behaviour, those women facilitated an environment where further women were subjected to it.

We all know that plenty of those in government knew there were kids being abused by the catholic priests back in 1960/70s. They did nothing which allowed the abuse to continue. Are you honestly saying they were not at fault and only the priests inflicting the abuse were responsible?

Based on the logic of your argument that only the abuser and not those that do speak out and allow it to continue bear responsibility for the problem, its a fair and accurate comparison.

_Dara_ wrote: »

Can't believe that Colgan was also on the board of the Gate Theatre. That means he saw all the complaints made about him and got to be part of the discussions about the complaints. :eek:

I know someone who worked in that administrative office a few years back. I thought she liked the job so was surprised when she left abruptly. Making more sense now though...

His presence on the board must have totally dictated how any complaint discussions were framed and dealt with, too. I don't envy any other board member tackling such a situation, especially as it seems everyone who came in contact with him had some familiarity with how he was. It must have been futile for them to even think about doing anything by the book of HR policies.

Never met the man personally, but did hear a story a number of years back about him cracking on to a much younger woman in some bar or other frequented by the rugby crowd. In the presence of her other half and family members. The man seems to be a boor who thinks he's a god. I wrote the story I heard off as "typical entitled upper-middle class Irish man in a position of power archetype". big fish, small pond mentality.

Power corrupts, and I have no doubt we'll hear similar stories from other industries soon.

Deusexmachina wrote: »

Hold on, this is what she actually said:

I am a woman and barely a day goes by without misogyny and sexual harassment. Funnily enough I also have female friends and they all say the same. It's not the exception, it's the rule.

What does that mean then 'it's not the exception, it's the rule'?

If it's the rule, it means that men who do not practice misogny and sexual harassment are the exception.

And I think that is complete nonsense.

No it doesn't mean that. If say 10% of men harass multiple women each day then it will be the norm for women to face harassment.

If there's an office with 10 men and 10 women but one of the men is a scumbag who harasses women the it's the norm for him to harass the women there and it's the norm for them to be harassed. However that doesn't mean that the majority of men in the office are harassers.

Not all men are scumbags but it only takes a small number of them to be scumbags to have a huge effect on women.

So saying every woman has been on the end of harassment does not mean the majority of men are harassers.

It's very, very simple maths and logic.

Dick phelan wrote: »

Sound like a horrible piece of work however i'm not really ok with this modern trial by social media we are having, The proper channels should still apply ie the Guards ect not really a good situation where people are named and shamed on twitter or some blog post without a proper hearing and deemed already guilty.

It's the fact that it lasted so long. It's the same with the catholic church. What made the scandal there so bad wasn't that a priest was a paedophile. It's statistically likely that there will be a few. I read a study which showed that the number of priests who are abusers is the same percentage as there would be in the general population. So it's not that priests were more likely to be abusers. It's the fact that there was a cover up for years which enabled them to keep abusing.

We see in cases like this that the abuser is in a position of power. Just like Weinstein in Hollywood or priests in Ireland. And so the abusive behaviour lasts for years.

seamus wrote: »

Indeed, it's like saying, "You can't walk down Grafton Street without being constantly harrassed by chuggers". That doesn't men that everyone on Grafton St is a chugger, in fact there may only be 10 or 20 of them on the street. But there are enough of them to make the process of trying to walk down the street an ordeal.

That's a far better way of saying it.

Grayson wrote: »

No it doesn't mean that. If say 10% of men harass multiple women each day then it will be the norm for women to face harassment.

If there's an office with 10 men and 10 women but one of the men is a scumbag who harasses women the it's the norm for him to harass the women there and it's the norm for them to be harassed. However that doesn't mean that the majority of men in the office are harassers.

Not all men are scumbags but it only takes a small number of them to be scumbags to have a huge effect on women.

So saying every woman has been on the end of harassment does not mean the majority of men are harassers.

It's very, very simple maths and logic.

Here’s her post (again):

I am a woman and barely a day goes by without misogyny and sexual harassment. Funnily enough I also have female friends and they all say the same. It's not the exception, it's the rule.

She is not in any way suggesting it is a ‘small number of men’. She is stating that ‘it’s the rule’ for her and her friends to be sexually harassed on an almost daily basis - not the exception, the rule.

It is was the same few men, then they are certainly getting around!!

Any fair reading of her post would indicate that she is suggesting that misogyny and sexual harassment is the norm (i.e. the rule) and is perpetrated by the majority (“not the exception”).

seamus wrote: »

Indeed, it's like saying, "You can't walk down Grafton Street without being constantly harrassed by chuggers". That doesn't men that everyone on Grafton St is a chugger, in fact there may only be 10 or 20 of them on the street. But there are enough of them to make the process of trying to walk down the street an ordeal.

Now it’s not. She stated that sexual harassment is experienced by her and her friends on an almost daily basis. It’s is the rule, not the exception.

Read what she wrote and try to be objective.