Confronting homophobia at work
A polite but forthright rebuttal is a great start, writes James Adonis.
I first came out at work almost two decades ago.
Ordinarily, ‘‘first came out’’ would be a tautology since coming out is inherently a first of some sort; it’s just that some of us need to come out again at each new place of work.
Anyway, that was the first of the firsts, and I still recall the bemused and disparaging facial expression of a colleague as she smugly said: ‘‘Oh so you’re a gay now, are you?’’
I wasn’t at all offended or taken aback. She was generally a niceenough person despite her ungrammatical use of ‘‘a gay’’ and her inclusion of the adverb ‘‘now’’, as though becoming ‘‘a gay’’ was
OPINION:
something I had decided to do while on my lunch break.
Apart from that one incident – a mild and inconsequential statement that left me amused more than anything else – I haven’t experienced any acts of discrimination or harassment on account of my sexual orientation. Obviously that isn’t the case for millions of others.
A while back, I had a business acquaintance with whom I’d catch up occasionally. He’d been in a long-term relationship with his same-sex partner for 10 years, one that was destined to last many more. But to his colleagues he was a heterosexual male with a female other half.
He even had a fake photo of her strategically placed on his desk. He was petrified his career would have ended were he to be outed.
It was an understandable reaction. He had previously witnessed homophobic comments in his workplace and didn’t want to be the object of ridicule.
That’s backed by research due to be published soon in the esteemed Journal of Vocational Behavior, which indicates people like my associate could have been spared the degradation of a humiliating pantomime, not only by speaking out themselves but also by having heterosexual allies speak out on their behalf.
In the first part of the study, the scholars ran a series of focus groups that, when transcribed, amounted to 57,000 words of testimony. What emerged was the emphatic need for straight peers to confront inappropriate workplace behaviour.
One such example was Chris who wished that when co-workers ‘‘hear the word ‘faggot,’ even when I’m not around, they say, ‘Hey, don’t use that word.’’’
Another participant, named Lauren, gave a different example in relation to an upcoming company event: ‘‘If someone said, ‘Oh, you’re bringing your boyfriend?’, [I wish a colleague] would say, ‘No, don’t assume that her partner is male,’ so that I don’t have to be the only one in the room who is correcting.’’
The second part of the study involved a series of experiments with 346 employees who were required to watch videos that displayed a variety of ways in which homophobia was confronted in the workplace. Some methods were hostile; others calm. Some were direct; others indirect.
The employees were then asked, as bystanders, for the methods they thought would be most effective. Of all the styles, the combination viewed most positively was the calm-but-direct confrontation. It was even found to inspire others to adopt similar techniques when they observed prejudice in their workplace.
‘‘Confrontation could be the first step in creating an informal coalition of employees that could in turn shape the organisational climate,’’ the researchers conclude. What that means is that it doesn’t really take much to shift the culture. A polite but forthright rebuttal is sufficient.
–Sydney Morning Herald
James Adonis is the author of How To Be Great.
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