I find that a really interesting question, because it seems that women speaking up about the language used toward women in politics is not enough. For a man to have to step forward and say, “Hey, you can't talk to her that way” is kind of surprising. A woman saying, “No, that's enough” should be enough. We teach our children now, but.... Obviously, I'm not stereotyping politicians on Parliament Hill. This does not apply to everyone. There are a few bad apples in the bunch. But it's shocking that they don't stop after being informed that it is inappropriate. As a young woman in politics, I think it's very disappointing.
We were originally told that we would have three minutes for our speech, so I had to cut mine down some. In my original address, I spoke to that a little bit. What will it take for this language to shift? I believe there needs to be more support behind any victim of inappropriate language coming forward, whether it be a man or a woman. In this case, we're talking about women and how they are too afraid to come forward. Women are afraid to come forward because they worry about the repercussions on their jobs. They worry about being alienated amongst their peers. We need to create a culture where that won't happen, where women are supported, where their first thought after being sexually harassed isn't “What's going to happen to my job?" but “How should I go about this? How should I report this? Who do I need to speak to? How does this need to be addressed?” They shouldn't be worried about their jobs.