Inside the sexism that runs rife in the drinks industry

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One wine expert who’s been in the trade for 17 years, says she lost a job in 2019 after rejecting sexual advances from a work contact.

The moment she felt the man’s arm snaking around her waist, Helena knew her career was in trouble., a wine expert who’s been in the trade for 17 years, says she lost a job in 2019 after rejecting sexual advances from a work contact.Then, at an awards ceremony soon after, a man from that company began to touch her waist, shoulders, and hair, and edge towards kissing her neck. ‘Brushing him off’ had no effect. Only when his assistant stepped in did he stop.

This isn’t to protect those people, but out of a deep fear of the impact coming forward could have on these women’s careers.While they’ve all had positive experiences with men in the trade during their careers, there’s an abundance of instances that make it clear that attitudes within the business need an overhaul.

The response to her email was ‘just a very embarrassed and gushing apology from the person who did it’, says Helena.Helena used to be an actress and encountered similar situations in that domain, so she left the business and established herself as a freelancer wine consultant, presenter and drinks influencer.

While he came for both men and women in these WhatsApp messages, Helena believes this man ‘particularly attacked women that were looking like they were successful, particularly on Instagram’ – and she herself was one of these targets.They were ‘misogynistic in the extreme’, she says, and some of the women written about actually left the business off the back of #WineBitch.

‘I had some male friends in that department and they would say “I tried to give this CV but they’ve said they don’t want women”, because they wanted to keep it traditional.’This filters down to small things, such as when Emily would be told by multiple people that she shouldn’t – or couldn’t – do manual parts of the job, such as carrying heavy items.

 

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