James O'Brien Tells Male Callers To His Sexual Harassment Debate To "Sod Off"
19 December 2017, 11:54
This is James O'Brien's important response to the debate around sexual harassment - he banned all male callers from the air.
James admitted that the penny finally dropped after Minnie Driver's comments that men cannot understand what sexual abuse is like.
And so he took a decision. He didn't want to hear what any men had to say about it, he wanted to hear from the people involved.
So he told the male callers on his switchboard that he didn't want to speak to him.
He said: "My question to you, as a female caller... and almost inevitably, we've got men queuing up to talk about this on my switchboard. Sod off fellas. Seriously, just get stuffed.
"This is not a day for us to opine on what a woman's experience of abuse is like. That's kind of the whole point of this conversation.
""I generally agree with you but we all need to talk it..." says Martin in Lewisham. What was the other one? We've got Joshua saying, "I disagree with you." I don't care.
"Until people think that it's perfectly acceptable to grab your genitals by way of banter and flirtation, you're out of this game."
Afterwards, people flooded Twitter to thank James for his response.
@mrjamesob Thank you. Best male media response to sexual assault I've yet heard.
— Katie De La Matter (@katiedlm) December 19, 2017
