When is it time to fight back...?

Always. You always fight back.

Battles and Wars

As someone who is braving our legal system (as a Claimant as opposed to as a lawyer, although one can't entirely separate the two), I have been pondering, following a discussion with a friend of mine, the human costs associated with going into battle. Some would have us believe that feminism is over, that the battles have been won, that all we have to do to get ahead is to work hard. Not a bit of it.

The problem with battle is that there is inevitably a human cost, a cost that may only become clear after the battle is over and the dust has settled and people are left only with their memories and trying to pick up the pieces. A victorious party will not escape the human cost simply because they don't have to deal with the humiliation of defeat. Battles inevitably have uncertain outcomes, but each battle is an important stage nevertheless. Whilst one cannot be certain that victory will come with any one battle, each is significant in the ultimate goal of winning the war overall. People will fall, as they do in any battle. It may be that what you do ends up being a clincher that turns the tide and makes the outcome, namely the eradication of discrimination, closer to realisation. Maybe you will only win it in a small way. Nevertheless all battles are important stages in a process.

What we are not told whilst we are working hard in order to get ahead is what happens after you get that high-flying job, that dream post, in the traditionally male bastions. Glass ceilings are only part of the problem. The unpalatable truth is that many of them resist the advancement of women sometimes in more overt ways (by harassment, say) and sometimes in more subtle ways which are no less devastating. As case after case attests, something is going wrong somewhere both within these bastions and in the way that the law deals with it. The legislation is actually not too bad, but the practice of trying to enforce it is very different. Courts have started to recognise the concept of 'stigma loss', namely that people suing their employers for discrimination are sometimes irrevocably compromised in their ability to find work afterwards, and the more controversial a claim, the more stigma is attached regardless of whether one wins or loses. The inevitable effect of this is that people think twice before going down this road - and understandably so. But the material point is that if we all did that then nothing will ever change.

"You have not dealt with this. You have to deal with risk that you will lose . I am not saying you will, just that it is possible, and how will you cope emotionally if you do?".

"I don't know how I would cope emotionally if I win!"

"You are right to be angry for what they have done to you, but you are hiding out in it"

Anger doesn't really begin to cover it.

The concept of justice is a fine ideal. Having your day in court and being able to say how wronged you have been. However, it is limited. It does not and cannot recompense for all the trauma you have been through in your battle. The satisfaction of winning is short lived. One is then left with having to try to heal the wounds of battle, however significant it may have been and deal with the human cost.