An Awareness Campaign Still Needs Something To Show

The British government plans to spend £15 million tackling misogyny. The press release is already performing at full capacity.

The Guardian reports that the funding is expected to be confirmed in Wednesday's Budget. Organizations would be able to bid for support for mentoring, workplace training and awareness campaigns, with ministers seeking additional money from businesses and philanthropists.

This is planned funding, not money already spent or a program whose results can already be declared a success or failure. It is also separate from the previously announced £20 million schools package. Combining the two into one exciting new number would make the announcement larger, not the information clearer.

The policy's aim is worth taking seriously: preventing sexism, harassment and discrimination in the places people work, study and use every day. The government is also responding to concern about online influencers promoting misogyny. None of that becomes less important because ministerial language arrives wearing its usual high-visibility optimism.

The question is what the money will buy beyond the announcement.

The Guardian points to earlier Transport for London campaigns encouraging men to challenge abusive behavior by other men. Those campaigns won advertising awards. Critics argued that they had done relatively little about the major threats of violence against women and girls.

An advertising award establishes that someone liked the advertising. It is not a certificate that the behavior in the advertisement has stopped.

That does not make awareness campaigns useless. It makes the measurement important. A program aimed at everyday harassment should be judged against that objective, not dismissed because it does not single-handedly eliminate every form of violence. Equally, a striking slogan should not be allowed to substitute for evidence that the intended intervention helped.

Workplace training offers the same test. The attendance sheet can prove everybody sat in a room. It cannot, on its own, prove that someone can report harassment without being punished for reporting it. Those are different achievements, although the first is much easier to fit in a quarterly presentation.

Corporate match funding could expand what the fund can support. It should not turn participation into a convenient substitute for examining conduct inside the participating organizations. A company can sponsor a respectable campaign and still have ordinary responsibilities as an employer.

The welcome part of the announcement is that prevention is being given a dedicated funding line. The next part is less suited to a launch photograph: choosing effective work, defining outcomes and being honest about what changes.

If the fund helps make workplaces, schools and public spaces safer and more respectful, that is the result to celebrate.

The trophy can wait in reception.