The mining industry has a long way to go to stamp out systemic harassment of women, a study has found.
Already a subscriber?One in five women working on West Australian mining sites has reported being touched in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, a study has found., by researchers from the Centre for Transformative Work at Curtin University, established that the mining industry was a leader in physical safety but hadProfessor Sharon Parker says male mine workers must be taught that sexist jokes and sexualised remarks are not “harmless fun”.
“Where we saw even higher levels of harassment were those things beneath the iceberg – and these are often referred to as more covert forms of harassment. They’re a bit more insidious,” Professor Parker said.“We found that 41 per cent of women, which is a lot, two in five, are reporting that they sometimes, often, or very often, had comments that put them down, or that were condescending.”
Men who make such comments often say they are “just joking” and the remarks are “harmless fun”, Professor Parker said. “So those sorts of behaviours really have negative consequences – they basically signal to women that ‘you’re really not welcome here’.”