Tag Archives: outrage management

military, politics, tactics

Outrage management in Israel-Palestine

Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military attack on Gaza generated enormous rage and despair throughout much of the world. To understand these reactions, it is helpful to examine the tactics commonly used by powerful perpetrators of actions perceived as unjust.

            In the long-standing conflict in Israel-Palestine, supporters on each side have perceived their opponents’ statements and actions as threatening and dangerous. Then came the 7 October attack by fighters from Hamas, the governing body in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza. Much of the discussion about these events has been about the rights and wrongs of the two sides, including acts of violence, ways to stop the war, arguments for and against Zionism and Hamas, Israeli settler colonialism, Hamas’ terrorism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, two-state and other options for conflict resolution, and the history of the conflict.

            A different perspective on these events can be obtained by examining tactics used to reduce or increase public outrage. In a sense, in parallel with the fighting, there is a different sort of struggle, over people’s understanding of what is happening.

Outrage management

Most people are angry, distressed or upset when they witness an obvious injustice. For example, if someone shoots into a peaceful crowd, this can cause public alarm, anger and distress: this is unprovoked killing, which few people treat as acceptable. Perpetrators commonly take steps to reduce adverse responses to their actions. This can be called “outrage management,” namely influencing people’s feelings in response to a potentially upsetting action.

            A murderer can do this by concealing evidence, so no one knows what they did. If they are accused, they can claim it was an accident or that they were provoked. When a powerful group — for example a government or corporation — is responsible, it has more potential tools to reduce outrage. These tools or methods can be classified into five categories.

  • Cover-up: the actions are hidden from wider audiences
  • Devaluation: the target is denigrated and demonised
  • Reinterpretation: the meaning of the action is altered by lying, minimising consequences, blaming others and/or framing it as appropriate or justifiable
  • Official channels: formal processes are used to give an appearance of justice without much substance
  • Intimidation: participants and observers are threatened or harmed.

How these methods work is, in most cases, straightforward. When an action is hidden, people don’t know about it and so can’t be upset. When a target is devalued, what is done to them doesn’t seem so bad: murdering an esteemed brain surgeon is worse than murdering a serial killer. Reinterpretation techniques change the way people think about an action. Intimidation can affect whether someone decides to do something. The method of official channels, in contrast, can be counterintuitive. When an issue is referred to expert panels, appeal bodies or courts, many people think justice is being done. However, when perpetrators are powerful, official channels often are slow, procedural and target low-level agents with minimal consequences, with the result that public outrage dies down but little of substance happens.

            The same five types of methods are used by perpetrators and their allies in a wide variety of actions, including censorship, sexual harassment, industrial disasters, massacres, demonising of refugees, wartime bombing of civilians, torture and genocide. This is called the backfire model, because if the methods to reduce outrage fail, the perpetrator’s actions can become counterproductive. There is a body of writing applying this model to diverse issues.

            To complete the picture, it is useful to consider counter-tactics, used by targets and their supporters, to increase public outrage over injustice. These are reversals or counters to the five types of methods noted above.

  • Exposure of the action, countering cover-up
  • Validation of the target, countering devaluation
  • Interpretation of the event as an injustice, countering lying, minimising, blaming and framing
  • Avoiding or discrediting official channels; instead, mobilising support
  • Resisting intimidation.

            This framework — five methods that can reduce outrage from injustice, and five counter-methods that can increase it — can be applied to both sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict, going back decades. The events on and after 7 October have highlighted the use of these methods, some of which have gone into overdrive. Because the framework applies in a more obvious way to the Israeli military assault, I will cover it first, with examples of each of the methods. Then I’ll address the Hamas attack using the same framework, showing some distinctive differences in the methods used.

            This examination is far from comprehensive, for two main reasons. First, the volume of material about each of the two atrocities is so great that only a few examples can be given. Second, new information will be revealed in the future, in the coming years or decades. Although atrocities can be limited in time — Hamas’ 7 October attack was over in a day — disputes over what happened and its meaning can continue for a very long time. For example, the Turkish government continues to deny the Armenian genocide a century after it occurred.


Armenian genocide

The tactics of outrage management can be deployed before, during and after the events. Accordingly, the treatment here can be considered a preliminary assessment, one that will require revision and updating as new information becomes available. Furthermore, by the nature of cover-up, some relevant information may never be publicly known.

The Israeli military assault on Gaza. 1: Reducing outrage

Soon after Hamas’ 7 October attack, the Israeli government initiated a military response that targeted both Hamas and the wider Gazan population and infrastructure. Information about the consequences of this military response triggered anger and despair in many parts of the world, threatening to harm the reputation and operations of the Israeli government. Therefore, it is predictable that the government and its supporters would take measures to reduce adverse reactions to the military operation.

            Cover-up In many previous cases of mass killing, perpetrators have made serious efforts to hide their actions from wider publics, at least from ones that might be opposed to it. What is unusual about the Israeli assault on Gaza is that so much of the operation — bombings, targeted killings, destruction of hospitals, denial of food, and much else — has been revealed to a wide range of audiences. This is a prime reason why the level of international protest has been far greater than from many previous atrocities.

Although many of the consequences of the assault have been exposed, nevertheless some Israeli actions have received little or no attention. For example, compared to the huge publicity about the hostages taken by Hamas, there is almost no attention to what might be deemed Israeli de-facto hostage-taking, with thousands of Palestinians arrested and imprisoned without being charged or tried. There is little media attention to claims that Palestinian prisoners have been ill-treated, even tortured. There have been reports of Israeli shooters targeting civilians, military targeting of water infrastructure, and obstruction of humanitarian efforts, that have received little attention in mainstream media internationally. The Israeli military does not publicise these actions and targets some of the journalists who expose them (see below under the category intimidation). Some foreign media organisations do not report these sorts of actions.


Gaza water well

            When there are reports about Israeli military actions that challenge its official narrative, how can we say cover-up was involved? It is useful to think of secrecy as an onion, with many layers. Some information is known only to an inner core, some to a slightly larger group, and so on, with ultimately some information broadcast to large audiences. Some features of the Israeli military assault are known but given little attention. Cover-up is a process with many players. The Israeli military and government can try to hide or downplay some information; so can international media, especially those sympathetic to the Israeli cause.

            Devaluation For many Israelis, Palestinians are considered inferior, as people whose lives do not matter as much as the lives of Israelis, and some Israeli figures have attempted to dehumanise Palestinians. Dramatic examples of this sort of attitude were cited in the South African application for proceedings before the International Court of Justice, accusing the state of Israel of genocide, for example the Prime Minister referring to “monsters” and “barbarians” and the Minister of Defence referring to “human animals.” Law for Palestine provides a comprehensive list of Israeli incitement to genocide, in which devaluation plays a crucial role.

            Another aspect of devaluation is labelling Hamas as a terrorist organisation. “Terrorism” is a loaded term, normally only applied to non-state groups, although scholars argue that state terrorism is far more deadly than non-state terrorism. The Israeli government has killed far more Palestinians than vice versa, yet Israeli operations are seldom called terrorism. Some Israeli figures have talked of all Gazans as Hamas, thereby applying the stigma attached to Hamas to the entire population.

            Reinterpretation Powerful perpetrators commonly try to reduce outrage by explaining, or explaining away, their actions, by lying, minimising, blaming or framing. When the Israeli military targeted al-Shifa Hospital, it claimed its purpose was to destroy a Hamas command centre located underneath the hospital. However, evidence supporting Israeli claims was questioned, suggesting that the official rationale for the attack on the hospital was a lie.

            Israeli government spokespeople have repeatedly assigned responsibility for their assault on Hamas, specifically on the 7 October attack, which is the reinterpretation technique of blaming. They have called their actions a defence of Israel against aggression, which is the reinterpretation technique of framing.

            Official channels When other methods of reducing outrage work well, powerful perpetrators may feel no need to invoke official channels. This can change when calls for accountability become exceptionally strong. The Israeli military’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on 1 April 2024 was publicised internationally and seen as especially egregious because those killed were White Westerners, not Gazans, and were involved in humanitarian efforts, which made them harder to devalue. As information came out that their WCK convey was well marked and the Israeli military had been notified about its route, the usual reinterpretation technique of claiming it was a mistake was insufficient.

            The response of Israeli authorities was to dismiss two military officers and reprimand two others. This followed the usual pattern of powerful perpetrators who are exposed: a few lower-level individuals are given relatively mild penalties, but policymakers are exempt from investigation or stricture. In the WCK case, the inquiry was in-house, run by members of the perpetrator group, and accordingly had less credibility than an independent inquiry. Either way, formal inquiries can serve to suggest that processes are operating to address the injustice, so continued protest is not necessary.

            Another sort of official channel is statements by leaders of other governments criticising the Israeli government over its assault on Gaza. US President Joe Biden has been widely reported in the media as expressing US government displeasure with Israeli actions. This seems to respond to protests demanding US government action. However, this public rhetoric gives only the appearance of addressing popular concerns, given that even as Biden spoke, the US government continued to supply weapons to the Israeli military.

            Intimidation Speaking out against the Israeli military assault is potentially risky, depending on the circumstances. Over a hundred journalists in Gaza have been killed, injured or arrested, suggesting that exposing the events poses a threat to the Israeli operation, and also indicating how dangerous it is to do this. In some countries whose leaders back Israel, in particular Germany and the United States, protesters against the assault on Gaza have been arrested.

***

This brief overview indicates how the Israeli military and government, and their backers internationally, have used five methods — cover-up, devaluation, reinterpretation, official channels and intimidation — that can serve to reduce public outrage over the assault on Gaza. However, given the huge level of opposition, it can be said that these efforts have been only partially successful. The assault on Gaza led to a drastic decline in international support for the Israeli government.

Generating outrage over the Israeli military assault on Gaza. 2: Increasing outrage

To understand the limits of efforts to reduce public outrage, it is useful to look briefly at five counter-methods that increase outrage.

            Exposure As noted, what is distinctive about the Israeli assault, compared with many other atrocities, is the massive media exposure. This can be attributed to two factors. First, Israel-Palestine has long been high-profile in the Western media compared to other equally deadly conflicts elsewhere, which scholar Virgil Hawkins refers to as “stealth conflicts.”

Second, the widespread use of video devices, along with communication channels, has made it far easier to circulate vivid portrayals of killing and destruction to international audiences. The continuing flow of images and information has been crucial in generating public outrage outside Israel.

            Validation Although Palestinians are devalued within Israel, internationally this is not quite the same despite demonisation of Muslims in many places. Stories of personal loss and trauma, that feature in some news reports, make Palestinians seem as human as anyone else, and powerfully counter devaluation. References to children who have been killed or who are dying from starvation are especially influential because children are widely perceived as innocents.


Palestinian boy in Gaza refugee camp

            Interpretation The killing and destruction have been portrayed as extreme and disproportionate to anything done by Palestinians. Labelling the Israeli assault genocide is an interpretation of what is happening, especially controversial because Jews were the primary target of the Nazi genocide, and potent for the same reason, as it is tragically ironic to imagine descendants of genocide becoming agents of one. (See also “Genocide reflections“.)

            Official channels It is difficult to assess the role of official channels in dampening or promoting public outrage. Much of the international protest in support of Gazans has been to pressure governments to act, and as such is an appeal to official channels, seemingly with limited effectiveness. The South African submission to the International Court of Justice, alleging genocide, is also an official channel but, in the context of ongoing killing and destruction, seems to have contributed to public awareness and concern.


International Court of Justice

            Resistance Within Gaza, efforts to document killing and destruction, and to provide relief, have continued despite the dangers. This resistance to intimidation has been crucial to maintaining outrage internationally.

Hamas’ attack on 7 October. 1: Reducing outrage

Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians, and the taking of hundreds of hostages, can be analysed using the same categories. This is not an assessment of the morality or effectiveness of the attack, but rather of the methods used by Hamas to reduce outrage from its actions.

            Cover-up Hamas did little to hide its attack.

            Devaluation By its actions, Hamas treated Israeli lives as tools in a struggle. In the wider Palestinian population, there are examples of derogatory attitudes towards Israelis.

            Reinterpretation Hamas put out a statement presenting its motives for the attack, putting its attack in the context of the history of Israeli displacement and killing of Palestinians. This was an attempt at framing, at getting audiences to see its actions from its perspective. However, it did not deny killing many hundreds of Israelis and kidnapping hundreds more.

            Official channels Hamas had no capacity to use expert panels, inquiries or courts to give an appearance that justice was being done concerning its actions. There is no evidence that Hamas penalised any of its members for their actions on 7 October.

            Intimidation After 7 October, Hamas had little capacity to threaten or hurt those who exposed or condemned its actions. One possible source of leverage was its hostages, but there is little evidence of threats to hurt or kill them.

            In summary, Hamas had little capacity to reduce outrage over its actions on 7 October 2023, and seemed not to use even what small capacity it had, for example by devaluation or intimidation. It might be concluded that one purpose of the attack was to generate public anger. It can be argued that Hamas leaders knew their attack would lead to a massive Israeli military response, which in turn could generate support for the Palestinian cause, but at the expense of many Palestinian lives.

Hamas’ attack on 7 October. 2: Increasing outrage

In response to Hamas’ 7 October attack, the Israeli government and sympathisers worldwide undertook a major effort to generate public outrage, an effort that was highly successful, especially in terms of public opinion and support from governments internationally. Looking at the methods used to increase public outrage shows some unusual features.

            Exposure Given that Hamas had done little to hide its attack, it was straightforward for Israeli authorities to publicise it. The attack became a number-one news story in many parts of the world, with coverage continuing for weeks afterwards. The exposure was aided by the high profile of Israel-Palestine in international coverage of conflicts, and by the sympathies of many journalists and editors worldwide. This was a prime story for generating outrage: the killing and kidnapping of a large number of innocent civilians.

            However, there was a twist to this campaign to publicise Hamas’ atrocity: cover-up by Israeli authorities of some aspects of the events. According to some reports, which received little attention, many Israeli deaths during the attack were caused by the Israeli military as it sought to kill Hamas fighters. This was per the “Hannibal directive,” by which Israeli military priorities are to prevent the taking of hostages even at the expense of the lives of Israeli civilians. The implication is that publicity about Hamas’ attack was incomplete, leaving out the role of the Israeli military in causing hundreds of Israeli deaths.

            Validation Publicity about Hamas’ attack was effective in highlighting that the Israeli victims had moral worth, especially through stories about individuals, both the dead and the kidnapped. Giving personal details and photos of the Israeli victims made their humanity vivid, so audiences could empathise and feel sorrow. Little attention was given to the fact that many of the Israelis killed were military personnel; it is easier to see civilians as innocent.


Israeli hostages

            Interpretation It was straightforward to interpret Hamas’ attack as unjust, as an unscrupulous assault on innocent civilians. This was the frame that dominated most media coverage. Nevertheless, there were several unusual features of the pro-Israeli interpretation techniques.

            One of the claims about the attack was that Hamas had cut off the heads of babies, something even more horrible than killing adults. However, several investigative reports concluded that there was no good evidence for this claim. Another claim was that Hamas endorsed mass rape as a weapon of war. This also has come under question. These claims could be examples of lying or exaggerating to generate public outrage.

            In early 2024, the Israeli government made allegations against UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, which was playing a crucial role in providing humanitarian aid to Gazans — including that some of its members were involved with Hamas’ 7 October attack. In response to these allegations, many governments suspended funding of UNRWA. However, the Israeli government failed to provide solid documentation for its claims, which thus could be another example of lying to increase public outrage. It also involves the technique of devaluation, of guilt by association, namely of UNRWA by association with Hamas and its attack.

            Another reinterpretation technique was treating the 7 October attack as unrelated to previous history, in particular Israeli attacks on Palestinians and their livelihoods, notably the 1948 Nakba, in which thousands of Palestinians were killed and more than half a million were driven from their lands, to which they have been unable to return. This is a framing technique, seeing events from a perspective justifying a heightened Israeli military response.

            Avoiding official channels; mobilising support Because Hamas had no access to official channels that might dampen reactions to its 7 October attack, there was no need for Israeli authorities or campaigners to avoid or discredit official channels. Instead, their main approach was to mobilise support, which they did with remarkable effectiveness in the days after the attack, with the help of massive media coverage generating popular sympathy for Israelis and Israel. Mobilising support also extended to governments, with government leaders around the world condemning the attack. This might be thought of as a use of official channels not in the usual pattern by powerful perpetrators to reduce outrage through delay, technicalities and dependence on experts — the factors that commonly make formal procedures cause popular outrage to subside — but in a different pattern, by the targets of attack to give legitimacy and support for popular feelings of sympathy and support.

            Resistance In the aftermath of 7 October, the threat from Hamas to people in Israel and their supporters was minimal, except for one crucial group, the hostages. The Israeli government and its allies did not let this threat inhibit their condemnation and, soon after, its armed response.

***

In summary, after 7 October the Israeli government and its supporters domestically and internationally, in government, media and civil society, used the full range of methods to generate outrage over Hamas’ attack. What is different from the usual pattern is that in responding to the attack, the Israeli government and its supporters used some methods characteristic of perpetrators of injustice, including cover-up, reinterpretation techniques of lying and reframing, and launching a massive operation of reprisal.

            This difference from the usual pattern can be partly explained by the fact that Hamas is the weaker party in the conflict with the Israeli government. In the wider context, Hamas was not a “powerful perpetrator” in the sense of being able to deploy a full gamut of methods to reduce public outrage over its actions. Instead, its attack almost seemed designed to backfire, a pattern peculiar to non-state terrorism. In contrast, the Israeli military attack on Gaza was a clear case of a powerful group taking action against a weaker one, with the Israeli actions widely seen as disproportionate to anything Palestinian civilians had done, so the use by the Israeli government and its supporters of all the methods of reducing public outrage is not surprising.

Conclusion

In the vast volume of commentary on Gaza since 7 October 2023, there has been little attention given to the methods used by the Israeli government and its supporters on the one hand, and by Palestinians and their supporters on the other, to manage public emotions about and responses to the events. In this struggle over outrage, campaigners on each side support those they portray as the worthiest victims. This manifests in efforts to highlight despicable actions taken by those on the other side. Being seen as a victim becomes a claim for moral worth.

            This struggle over worthiness in part relies on current events, but it also has a strong historical dimension, as each side draws on its interpretation of the past to advance its current claims. Zionists repeatedly draw on the legacy of the Holocaust as making them worthy victims decades later, and for identifying antisemitism as an especially grievous form of hatred. Israelis also point to a history of Palestinian violence against Israelis, including terrorism by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Hamas.


Auschwitz

Palestinians, in contrast, draw on the legacy of the Nakba and a history of oppression by Israeli occupiers, including discrimination, displacement and killings.


Nakba

            The outrage-management analysis here has focused on the events on and after 7 October in Israel-Palestine, but there is much more to the struggle. In several countries, there have been fierce disputes over responses to events relating to Gaza, for example concerning media coverage, arms exports to Israel, humanitarian relief for Gazans, government statements about Israel and Palestine, allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, claims about genocide and responses to it, and protests on university campuses and responses to them. In many of these clashes that are inspired by events in Israel-Palestine, it is possible to analyse the role of outrage management, with the same patterns involving the methods of cover-up, devaluation, reinterpretation, official channels and intimidation, and counter-methods.

            One serious limitation of any study of outrage management is incomplete information. Given that cover-up is an important tool, often it is only much later that a fuller analysis can be undertaken, after archives are opened, interviews undertaken in a different era, and pieces of evidence put together into a coherent picture.

            However, full information may never be available, or at least not uncontested. The struggle over outrage, over the memory and meaning of events, can continue for years or decades. The significance and implications of both the Holocaust and the Nakba, both more than 75 years ago, continue to be contested, as campaigners use interpretations of them in today’s struggles. For this reason, the analysis here is necessarily preliminary, subject to revision and updating. The struggle over outrage is never over, and impossible to escape.

Brian Martin, bmartin@uow.edu.au

My thanks to Jungmin Choi, Alex Christoyannopoulos, Jørgen Johansen, Anita Johnson, Janet Mayer, Alison Moore, Erin Twyford and Stellan Vinthagen for useful advice and comments.

education, harassment, social dynamics

Judges and sexual harassment

Is Dyson Heydon, a former justice on the High Court, a serial sexual harasser? Maybe so, but there is more to consider: abuse of trust, outrage management techniques and official channels.


Dyson Heydon

Abuse of trust

In 1986, I joined the newly formed Sexual Harassment sub-committee at the University of Wollongong. Its aim was to oppose sexual harassment on campus. It was a sub-committee of the committee overseeing the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) unit. We were a small group, with members from the EEO unit, academics, research students and undergraduate students. We developed policy proposals, produced leaflets and held stalls at Orientation Week.

Some members of the committee, through their contacts, knew about harassment on campus. Hardly any students were willing to make formal complaints, which didn’t come to our group anyway. But EEO staff knew about patterns, and some other committee members did too.

For example, we heard that a particular lecturer was making unwelcome advances to undergraduate students, none of whom wanted to make a formal complaint. On the committee, we discussed options. We couldn’t approach, much less accuse, the lecturer, as that would violate the students’ confidentiality. We talked about putting graffiti in the women’s toilets. In the end, the EEO Officer decided to offer a workshop on sexual harassment to the entire faculty. In this way, we hoped, the message would get to the lecherous lecturer and his colleagues.

            In 1990, something happened that broadened our concerns. Two undergraduate students accused a man of rape. It turned out that the man, a PhD student, was their tutor in one of their classes. He later went to prison for rape. The Vice-Chancellor put out a statement raising concern about individuals who abuse their “positions of privilege” in relation to students who “may feel their academic progress depends upon compliance with the wishes of a staff member or members.”

On our committee, we took this on board and started investigating the issue of consensual sexual relationships between teachers and students. There were two main problems. One was conflict of interest. If a teacher had a close personal relationship with a student, then the teacher would likely be biased when marking the student’s work. Even if not, there might be a perception of bias.

The solution for conflict of interest is often straightforward. One of my colleagues was married to a student in her class. The relationship was known, and arrangements were made so that he was not in her tutorial group and she had nothing to do with any of his assignments.

However, we learned of cases in which such conflicts of interest were not addressed. In one instance, which I learned about years later, a senior academic was a supervisor for his wife, who was doing a PhD.

The second main problem with close relationships between staff and students was abuse of trust. One of the members of our committee knew of a male colleague who started a relationship with an undergraduate student in his class every year or two. The students who were dumped along the way were often distressed. Some dropped out of university.

Teachers are in a position of trust with students, trust that they will support and nurture their students’ knowledge, understanding and skills. Students often look up to their teachers as experienced and knowledgeable, sometimes even in awe. When a teacher uses this position of authority and status to cultivate a sexual relationship, it undermines the expected professional relationship: it abuses the trust implicit in the teacher-student relationship.

Unlike sexual harassment, abuse of trust isn’t illegal. However, it can be just as damaging.

            In learning about this sort of abuse of trust in university settings, one of our committee members came across a book by Peter Rutter titled Sex in the forbidden zone. The book’s subtitle listed several of the possibilities for abuse: When men in power — therapists, doctors, clergy, teachers and others — betray women’s trust. There is an implicit trust that a doctor, lawyer, teacher or boss will look after the interests of their patient, client, student or subordinate. In each case, there is a possibility of abuse of trust when the person with greater authority uses their position to promote a sexual or romantic relationship.

Heydon, as a judge, obviously was in a position of much greater authority than his associates. For him, or any other judge, to use their position to seek a sexual or romantic relationship is an abuse of trust.

In some cases, such relationships are consensual. A student might welcome, desire or even seek a sexual relationship with their teacher. Sometimes this works out well, leading to long-lasting relationships. However, there is still a serious risk of abuse of trust, as we learned from stories we heard on our committee. The solution for teachers is straightforward: if you want a close personal relationship with a student, wait until they’re no longer in your class or in any way subject to your authority or influence.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that one of Heydon’s associates welcomed his advances and began a relationship with him. That would be a legal, consensual relationship, not harassment — and it would still be wrong. It would probably involve a conflict of interest and most likely an abuse of trust. In such cases, the onus is on the judge not to initiate such a relationship. Indeed, if an associate took the initiative, the judge should refuse.

Sexual harassment: outrage management

Years after being on the sexual harassment sub-committee, I started studying what happens when a powerful individual or group does something that others think is wrong. An example is the 1991 Dili massacre, when Indonesian troops shot and killed hundreds of peaceful protesters in East Timor’s capital city. Another example is the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police, also in 1991.


Still from George Holliday’s video of the beating of Rodney King

In these and many other instances, the perpetrator and allies use a variety of methods to reduce public outrage. They cover up the action, devalue the target, reinterpret the events by lying, blaming and reframing, use official channels to give an appearance of justice, and intimidate or reward people involved.

This dynamic applies to sexual harassment. Greg Scott and I examined the techniques used when Anita Hill alleged that Clarence Thomas, a nominee for the US Supreme Court, had harassed her years before.


Anita Hill

Greg and I found evidence of all of the usual techniques to reduce public outrage. For example, after Hill went public, she was the subject of a massive campaign of denigration, including publication of a book, The Real Anita Hill, filled with lies and derogatory material. (The author later recanted.) Thomas reframed Hill’s allegations as part of hearings that were a racial assault on him.

Paula McDonald at the Queensland University of Technology led a study of sexual harassment using this framework, examining testimony in court cases about sexual harassment. Court transcripts revealed that the same techniques were used in case after case.

For years, Heydon paid no penalty for his actions. The primary technique to reduce public outrage was cover-up. Heydon of course didn’t publicise his actions, but neither did others who knew about them. Many of them were afraid to say anything because they were worried about repercussions, for themselves rather than Heydon: their careers might be damaged. This is the technique of unspoken threats, a type of intimidation.

It is possible to counter the techniques that reduce outrage from injustice. The counter-methods are exposing the action, validating the target, interpreting events as unfair, mobilising support and resisting intimidation and rewards. These are the methods that made the Dili massacre, the beating of Rodney King and the sexual predation of Harvey Weinstein counterproductive for the attackers.

In Heydon’s case, outrage was stoked most of all by the breakthrough stories by journalists Kate McClymont and Jacqueline Maley. The stories were enabled by women willing to tell their stories. This was the counter-method of exposing the action.

            In the exposure, the women harassed by Heydon were given respect. In the coverage, they were presented as credible and as talented, conscientious individuals. This was the counter-method of validating the targets.

In the exposure, the events were portrayed as harassment and as wrong. This had particular resonance in the Heydon case because of his symbolic status as a high-level representative of justice and as a self-styled pillar of moral rectitude. This was the counter-method of interpreting events as unjust.

The coverage was enabled by women willing to come forward and tell their stories. The #MeToo movement was instrumental. It triggered a mobilisation of support for targets of harassment and assault.

Finally, several courageous women were willing to go public with their stories, despite the possible damage to their careers and reputations. This was the counter-method of resisting intimidation.

The exposure of Heydon’s harassment thus shows the relevance of all the counter-methods commonly involved in challenging a powerful perpetrator of something deemed wrong.

Official channels

In my just-published book titled Official Channels, I describe my experiences learning about the shortcomings of processes and agencies such as grievance procedures, regulatory bodies, ombudsmen, anti-corruption bodies and courts. Most of the workers in watchdog bodies are doing their best, but the system has inherent shortcomings.

One of the chapters in Official Channels is about sexual harassment. In Australia, like other countries, sexual harassment was a long-standing problem that came on the public agenda due to efforts of feminists. The main response has been setting up of laws and procedures to deal with the problem, but often these only give an illusion of protection. Decades later, sexual harassment and sexual assault remain serious problems.

After Heydon’s harassment was revealed to the public, the first response in many cases was to say that better processes are needed to deal with it. This is nearly always the number-one response. But why would better processes work now when they haven’t before? Furthermore, many of Heydon’s actions involved an abuse of trust, and there is no rule against abuse of trust.

I’m all in favour of more effective regulations, laws and watchdog bodies, but there’s a danger in thinking that this is enough. Several other options are neglected by comparison.

One important option is improved skills. Imagine that those around Heydon had been better prepared to expose and counter his behaviour. This doesn’t just mean the women he targeted, but others too, so-called bystanders, especially those who heard about his actions. Skills against sexual harassment include putting graffiti in women’s toilets — and in men’s toilets. They include being able to use anonymous remailers and set up secure websites. They include being able to make covert recordings, and being able to document events and convey them powerfully to others.


Martha Langelan’s book offers excellent practical advice

            This might sound like putting the onus for action on the target, in effect blaming the victim, but just as much onus needs to be put on others to provide support and take action. Bystander training is valuable in skill development.

Another important option is changing the culture. The legal profession is highly hierarchical, with judges at the apex. A more egalitarian system would reduce the power of elites, empower those lower down and enable stronger challenges to abusers.

Changing the culture might also mean changing expectations so that associates are treated as professionals rather than as personal assistants. It might even mean getting rid of the role of associates altogether, providing support for judges in other ways.

The point here is not to provide a blueprint but to note that there are options besides official channels. Improving skills and changing the culture might not be easy but they show quite a bit of promise, especially considering the failure of decades of official concern about sexual harassment. It is revealing that if official channels were effective, there would have been no need for the #MeToo movement — or for investigative journalists to expose people like Dyson Heydon.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

Thanks to Sharon Callaghan and Qinqing Xu for valuable comments on a draft and to the many individuals over the years who have helped me learn about the issue of sexual harassment and what can be done about it.