Steph Dyberg is on a mission

Lawyer Steph Dyberg, the 2018 Wellingtonian of the Year, is on a mission to make the workplace a safe and pleasant place to work, particularly for women. She’d like to see more of those qualities exercised in society generally as well.

Safe and pleasant means free from sexism, sexual harassment, bullying, and demeaning behaviour, all of which can be found in workplaces, not just in legal firms or in large offices.

For months now Steph has been talking regularly to a wide range of business and community groups to have “hard and unpleasant” conversations” that have to be had about the way men treat women.

“Men look bewildered, surprised, shocked and upset. Women nod with recognition when I tell the stories.”

Steph says that our behaviour is at odds with our values; everyone endorses values like respect, understanding, toleration and the like, but “challenge men on their behaviours and the reaction is often denial, anger, rejection and then attacking the person who is making the allegations.”

She told the story of a young woman who worked at Russell McVeagh who came to work one morning dressed to go out in the evening: “black lace mini skirt and a red jacket. One of the partners asked, ‘who hired the bimbo’?”

She was unsurprised when the harassment at Russell McVeagh came to light,” it was like that 20 years ago when I was there, and it clearly hadn’t changed.”

And while she maintains that the firm handled the whole matter badly, “I held the women as their tears came forward with their stories”, Steph was also stressing that bad behaviour was common in all types of businesses and ranged from the petty to the serious.

“A man taking credit for a woman’s ideas, mansplaining and micro-aggressions are at one end of the scale. Being touched, groped and assaulted is at the more serious end.”

Her message to younger women is that “my generation is there for your generation. I want women to know that it’s ok to speak up. It’s not about a good complaints procedure. It’s about stopping the behaviour being complained about,” she said.