Have you ever been made to feel like an object? Have you ever been excluded from a conversation because of your gender? Have you ever felt like someone was paying attention to you and it had nothing to do with the work you were presenting, but more because of the outfit you had on?

It’s happened to me and I have a feeling I’m not alone. And I never would have called that sexual harassment. I alway thought sexual harassment was much more overt. Much more “in your face” kind of behaviors. But in 2018,  a landmark report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine revealed that sexual harassment isn’t just about the overt coercion and unwanted attention, but it’s also gender harassment. What’s that you ask? Those verbal and nonverbal behaviors that make the environment feel hostile…that’s also sexual harassment. 

Another key feature about the report is how common sexual harassment occurs. Almost half of medical students report experiencing gender harassment before they even graduate from medical school. How many medical schools include how to deal with sexual and gender harassment in their curricula?

So, who can help address the rampant sexual and gender harassment in our healthcare workplaces? Who can work as an intersectional organization to bring safety, equity and dignity to our workplaces? TIME’S UP Healthcare can…that’s who. TIME’S UP Healthcare was founded in 2019 by a diverse group of women across the healthcare fields who are committed to working towards three key principles – safety, equity and dignity. 

Why those three principles? Safety because you should not have to go to work and be worried about being harassed by your colleagues, your supervisors and depending on your fields, by your patients too. Equity because how is it possible that there is no field in which women physicians get paid more and why do male nurses make more than female nurses? Dignity because a woman with agentic traits isn’t likable, whereas a man with the same traits is revered. Dignity because consistent patterns of inequity, discrimination and harassment take an overwhelming toll on a woman’s mental, emotional and physical health.

If you agree that the time has come to address the lack of safety, equity and dignity in our healthcare workplaces, then join us in saying TIME’S UP Healthcare!  

Watch the complete FIX19 talk below!