Does Strictly’s ‘hand incident’ mean it still has a women problem?

‘Strictly’ couple Katya Jones and Wynne Evans have apologised for a ‘stupid joke that went wrong’, after she was shown smacking away the opera star’s hand when he slipped it around her waist. But, says Claire Cohen, millions of women watching will have had the same sinking feeling…

I don’t know Katya Jones personally but, while watching Strictly Come Dancing this weekend, my stomach dropped as I witnessed what we were later told was just a prank.

In what many viewers felt was an awkward moment, cameras caught the professional dancer – rictus smile across her face – firmly removing the hand of her celebrity partner on the show, grinning Welsh opera singer Wynne Evans, as it snaked around her waist.

Evans has said he is “heartbroken” by the reaction to a “stupid joke that went wrong”. Jones has denied that the so-called “hand incident” had “made me feel uncomfortable or offended me in any way” – and we must take her at her word.

For its part, the BBC – still emerging from the shadow of a review that found 2023 Strictly contestant actor Amanda Abbington had experienced verbal bullying and harassment at the hands of her dance partner Giovanni Pernice – has said that no further action will be taken.

And yet I suspect that, like me, many women watching will have frozen at the same moment, and felt a pang of recognition.

This instance may have been in jest, but the sad reality is that most of us will have, at some point, been groped by bosses, colleagues or friend’s partners. Men with whom you have a connection, which they take as a green light for some stealth fondling.

I say stealth, but it’s so often in plain sight. Take the boss who would invite me for drinks or dinner to discuss my career and use it as an excuse, as the evening and wine wore on, to rub my back, hand moving ever lower, or put a hand on my knee – which I removed, with a smile naturally. It was only a female colleague mentioning that he regularly did the same to her which gave me permission to say I was busy the next time he asked.

Then there was the childhood buddy of a former boyfriend who took any dancefloor or bar queue as an opportunity to put both hands on my waist and slowly slide them south. When I mentioned it to my ex, the response was that – you guessed it – he was only joking. One female friend tells me that she has to awkwardly dodge the wandering hands of a pal’s husband every time they get together.

Such experiences are run of the mill. And if being in supposedly trusted company, or in a public place, offers protection to everyday gropers, imagine the impunity they must feel being able to send their hands roving on television. Surely he can’t be…? In front of everyone…? He wouldn’t…?

Yet, there are so many examples that it’s hard to choose. Perhaps US comic Andy Dick, who has faced various allegations of sexual battery and harassment in recent years, touching Ivanka Trump’s leg on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2007 and being escorted off the show (though seeing as Ivanka’s own father said he’d date her if they weren’t related, that may have been the least of her worries).

How about Italian singer Emma Marrone being repeatedly pawed by a backing dancer while performing on a TV talent show in 2017, despite repeatedly telling him to stop – an incident the producers dismissed as a “prank”.

Earlier this year, a clip from a 2014 episode of The Xtra Factor resurfaced in which Louis Walsh was seen cupping Mel B’s backside as they sat next to one another on a sofa. “Why are you grabbing my butt?” she interrupts the presenter to ask. Walsh’s response? I hardly need to repeat myself, do I…?

Let’s be clear: it’s not a joke. It’s harassment, crosses a boundary, and we don’t like it. But it can be hard to know what to do: if we call such behaviour out, it’s passed off as a bit of fun. If we say nothing, they try to go a little further next time – and that hand around your waist becomes a thumb grazing the underside of your boob. And, of course, the onus remains on women, or supportive men, to be vigilant and speak up, rather than the groper to keep their hands to themselves.

I had hoped we’d turned a corner with Luis Rubiales, the former Spanish football boss who resigned over kissing Women’s World Cup winner Jenni Hermoso without her consent, as she collected her medal on TV in front of the watching world. We all saw what happened, and Rubiales is to face trial for sexual harassment over the incident, which he denies. A watershed moment, surely?

And yet here we are again, asking the same old questions, albeit this time after an ill-judged prank. As one wag on social media put it: “I was sorry to hear about Wynne Evans’s sprained ankle next week.”