Prominent businesswoman Gina Miller has called for the resignation of the men accused of endorsing a secretive, male-only charity dinner for Britain’s business elite that has sparked outcry over the treatment of women working at the event.
The dinner, held at the prestigious Dorchester Hotel in London’s upmarket Mayfair district last week, was attended by 360 wealthy businessmen from the worlds of finance, media, politics and the arts, according to a Financial Times investigation.
More than 100 female hostesses were hired to wait on attendees and told to sign non-disclosure agreements before the event began. Many of the women hired were sexually harassed by the men present, the FT reported.
Gina Miller, a prominent figure in the City and an influential campaigner, told Financial News: “Women are being used as pawns for the pleasure of men and it must come to an end. Misogyny continues to plague the City and big business.”
The evening was organized by The Presidents Club, a charitable trust that has raised millions of pounds for children’s charities over the past decade. The Presidents Club counts real estate investor Bruce Ritchie and businessman David Meller, who sits on the board of the Department of Education, among its trustees.
Large companies that sponsored tables at the event included WPP WPP, -1.99% , the U.K.-listed advertising group; Frogmore, the real estate investment company; and CMC Markets, the spread betting company.
The Dorchester and companies were contacted for comment. WPP said it was ending its association with the event, which has been running for 33 years.
Miller said men who supported the event “must be held to account and should lose their jobs”.
She added: “They cannot be deemed fit enough to lead the young people, especially the young women, they employ within their companies.”
Many women hired as hostesses to wait on the male guests during the event, which included an auction that raised more than £2m ($2.82 million) for children’s charities, said they were routinely groped by those present. A large number of hostesses also received a stream of lewd comments throughout the evening, according to the investigation.
Among the items sold for thousands of pounds during the auction included lunch with Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, afternoon tea with Bank of England governor Mark Carney, an evening at the Windmill stripclub in Soho and a plastic surgery voucher to “add spice to your wife”.
The news comes in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal in the U.S. and amid a series of allegations of sexual harassment in Westminster, which resulted in the resignation of defence secretary Michael Fallon last year.
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According to the results of an FN survey of 181 staff working in the Square Mile, which was carried out late last year, three quarters of women working in the City said they have been subjected to sexual harassment at work but most did not feel able to report it.