These days everyone wants victimhood status – even the ‘male, stale and pale’ execs losing their advertising jobs

Is it time to redefine how we use the word “victim” – one of 2018’s most overused tags?

Post MeToo, millions of women (and some men) felt empowered to open up about damaging things that happened to them years ago, claiming victim status in the process. The effect has been exhilarating and cleansing for some – but has it destabilised the fragile relationship between the sexes?

Take the young women in Little Mix, who this week posed naked and daubed with derogatory slogans (“slutty”, “common” and “insignificant”) claiming their “brave” stand will empower fans and strike a blow for feminism. It’s the antithesis of victimhood, many claim. But isn’t it pretty feeble? As ineffectual as those naked celebrities and actresses posing with dead fish to encourage us to save the marine environment. They always have great hair and lighting (the women, not the fish).

Let’s be honest: navigating sexual politics in 2018 requires more subtlety than stripping off and slogans – Germaine Greer did all that back in the 1960s, most memorably exposing her genitalia for the cover of an underground newspaper.

A year on from MeToo, some men are not just confused: they are flatly unwilling to accept the new operating rules, both at work and in social encounters. A new discrimination battle is being fought by a group of men claiming they’ve been made redundant simply for being “male and straight”. Jo Wallace, the creative director of J Walter Thompson, used a speech earlier this year to decry her industry’s Mad Men reputation and describe staff as too “pale, stale, and male”. She said she was making it her goal to realign the gender and ethnic mix in the agency.

A group of men who reportedly complained about her remarks were subsequently made redundant and have consulted lawyers, seeking damages for discrimination. The agency has already suffered one huge scandal – in 2016, the Global CEO, Gustavo Martinez, was forced to resign after he said that he would like to “rape, but not in a nice way” Erin Johnson, the chief communications officer, in front of 60 executives. It took the company two years to settle her case. The British agency also has one of the biggest gender pay gaps in the industry.

Are the redundant pale males “victims” of political correctness? On balance, no. Life is unfair, but you look at television advertising and see how out of touch it is with the real world. Men never do anything in the home, or if they do, they are comedy characters. Families are always one man, one woman and a cute child who always behaves. Advertising needs to move with the times.

Jo Wallace has a duty to reflect the world her clients want to operate in and sell to – they include Debenhams, Shell and Nestlé. The pale males should take their pay cheques and be grateful; after all, women have suffered the same treatment for decades.

Victimhood status has also been claimed by Philip Green, who has been widely attacked for his alleged inappropriate behaviour in the workplace and slapping gagging orders on any staff who disagreed with their treatment. Green is a bully, not a victim, a Neanderthal man operating out of his time. His manners, his speech and his aggressive tactics are those of a barrowboy in the 1950s, not the head of a company which relies on women to buy its products. The female staff who complained about his behaviour are victims – because he exerted his power and influence to slap them down. Their only options were silence or another job.

This week, Beyoncé joined Simon Cowell and ended her relationship with Green, buying him out of her clothing label. Cowell revealed he had bought Green out of Syco in a tabloid interview earlier in the week. All of which begs the question: Green’s behaviour has been known about for a long time – a 66-year-old man does not morph into a different character overnight – so why did Cowell and Beyoncé take so long to disassociate themselves from him?

The same question might be asked of women’s rights campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera, who complained to the House of Lords last year that a senior peer had repeatedly sexually harassed her, offering her a damehood if she would sleep with him. The alleged incidents took place 12 years ago when they were working on a book together. Following a nine-month investigation by an in-house standards committee, Lord Lester was found guilty and faced a lengthy ban from taking his seat.

Astonishingly, Lord Lester was never asked to make a statement or put his side of the story. Following a debate in the House of Lords, peers voted to reverse the decision and there will be a fresh hearing. Now Sanghera is claiming victim status. Lord Lester is well connected, and his friends were highly vocal in his defence, clogging up BBC news programmes since the ban was made public. In the name of fair justice for all, Lord Lester ought to be heard.

Sadly for Sanghera, she is a victim – not of sexual politics, but of the ineptitude of our parliamentary system. A victim of the failure to run an inquiry properly. The House of Lords is a club for (mostly) old buffers, who lunch together and go to the same clubs. The chances of success in that environment – particularly when your allegations date back 12 years – were always going to be small. I believe Sanghera went through hell, but sometimes it’s better to move on.

Claiming you are a victim might make you feel better, but it doesn’t necessarily engender improvement in your status. Victimhood has huge drawbacks.