Day 13
Happy Friday the 13th everyone, and I hope you are keeping safe and healthy as things go to pot everywhere. It seems almost trivial to be posting about women in the face of what is currently happening around the world, but I decided that my area of expertise would not make me of much use solving the coronavirus problem, and it didn’t make it worse to continue, so I will continue my posts.
Today an essay about something that has been in the news off and on for the past few years. Where do we move now that he has been sentenced? What do we talk about? Well, there is lots, of course.
Now, 5 amazing women.
Benazir Bhutto - former Prime Minister of Pakistan
Dolores Huerta - Labor leader, co-founder of United Farm Workers
Sybil Ludington - revolutionary messenger; female Paul Revere
Sappho - Greek poet
Harriet Tubman - former slave, freed slaves with Underground Railroad
BEYOND HARVEY
Okay, so, if you’re expecting (and wanting) a piece about a big white invisible rabbit, you should probably check out. This is not that piece. Instead, I would like to talk about Harvey Weinstein, and where we go now…what lies Beyond Harvey. The undiscovered country, if you will.
The exposure of Harvey Weinstein laid bare a Hollywood culture of exploitation – mostly of women, but some men being exploited, too, as witness the case of Kevin Spacey. Countless Hollywood men were named, but few were charged, and most of them have returned quietly to their careers with little change in their overall trajectory. Many more doubtless lie beneath the surface, unnamed and covered over with layers of lies that serve to protect men.
Other industries have also been rocked by sexual scandals. Philosophy. Science. Retail. Sports. Academia. Uber. And, of course, there is always the great big ongoing sexual scandal that was once known as the Catholic Church. Other churches have sexual scandals as well, but being smaller and not led by a global charismatic leader, they manage to slip under the radar so the overall edifice of religion can remain relatively unmarked, while individual churches deal with the pain of discovering someone they trust has betrayed the community.
Still, down in the trenches, it seems that little has actually changed. It seems the country went through a spasm, cleansed a few festering sores, and then went back to the comfortable stasis it has always enjoyed…the stasis that allows “boys to be boys” with only occasional interference from the pesky rules about things like consent and human dignity. So how do we keep the momentum? How do we move Beyond Harvey?
To move Beyond Harvey, we will need more than a 23 year sentence for a 67 year old man who has been a big offender. We will need more than #MeToo. We will need a massive remodeling of the sociological, psychological, and economic underpinnings of our society. We will need to be de-brainwashed, if you will.
The phenomenon that went by the name Harvey Weinstein was built on ego and power. He didn’t need to force women for sex; there were doubtless plenty of young women willing to sign on for consensual sex. He needed to force women to demonstrate his power. To demonstrate his domination over them. For many men, and perhaps for Harvey, to humiliate and hurt them. We have known for a long time that rape is not about sex, it’s about power. It’s time we ask ourselves what that really means.
We pride ourselves on the steps we have taken to achieve equality of opportunity between the races and between the sexes. People of color can tell you that we have fallen short on race, and do so eloquently. I will focus here on the equality of opportunity between the sexes. I will tell you, as a woman who has lived through the seismic force that is Women’s Lib, Feminism, or whatever name you choose to call it, we are much further from equality of opportunity than we like to believe. I can also say that, in my lifetime, even as we have moved more women into more positions, the ideas of gender and sex have reverted to a view that is more regressive than it was thirty years ago.
When I was growing up, there was sort of a nod to girls in pink and boys in blue, but it was honored mostly on Easter, at least where I lived. I wrote all my life with Bic pens, never knowing that I was writing with a pen that was a man’s pen; it wasn’t until I was in my forties that I was presented with the pink monstrosity of a woman’s Bic. Same with Legos. My sisters and I used the same Legos my brothers used; we didn’t know we were illegitimately using “boy’s” Legos, and that if we just waited four decades, we could have our own pink Legos to play with (of course, I wasn’t particularly interested in playing with Legos by then, but oh well).
Girl’s toys and Boy’s toys are more separated in space in toy stores than ever before. Walking through the girl’s section of a clothing store can make you think some monster vomited pink vomit. You may feel like you are drowning in a pool of pink. Gender reveal parties are pink themed or blue themed. I have even heard people refer to women as a “species”. Damn it, I didn’t even know I was a separate species. I always assumed I was human. I have heard people talking about writing women needing to “get the dialect right”.
The fact is, even most of us who believe in equal opportunity between the sexes have internalized certain ideas about what women are, and what characteristics women have. We may know women are a vast heterogenous group of diverse personalities, aptitudes, and interests, but we still expect them to be nurturing, to put others first, to smile, to make us feel comfortable, to perform a whole suite of caring, giving tasks that we don’t think about. We do think about them when they don’t happen. “Wow, she’s really cold” we might think when a woman doesn’t go out of her way to nurture us, even when she is in a role where nurturing is not required. “Ugh, she’s ambitious” we might think of a woman who is moving up in the world, and making efforts on her own behalf to succeed.
The biggest problem, though, is “she’s sexy”. “She’s a 10.” “She’s hot.” Not that it is said, but that it is never questioned, and in fact is often encouraged. Websites that rate women on their looks? Fine. It’s just boys doing what boys will do. Boys discussing girls they want to “do”? (If that term is still in vogue…) Fine, it’s not only acceptable, it’s actually seen as good, because it shows they are really boys. “He’s all boy” is the answer. Boys are encouraged to move aggressively for what they want, and women are one thing they often want.
What about when a boy backs a girl up against a wall in school, and makes her feel uncomfortable? Violated? Well, she shouldn’t have encouraged him, or led him on…even if she didn’t. What about when a man puts his hand on a woman’s knee at work…or on the bus…or in the library…or anywhere else? Not a big deal, get over it, it’s not like he hurt you. What about when a boy takes advantage of a girl who has too much to drink at a party and passes out? She shouldn’t have been drinking. Not he shouldn’t be raping. No, she should curtail her activities (and no, I am not defending getting drunk and passing out. It isn’t something I’ve ever done, and probably never will, but let’s face it, people don’t go around insisting boys shouldn’t go to parties, and they will criticize when they get drunk and pass out, but no one thinks they should be raped for doing it).
There is an assumption that boys are inherently unable to control their behavior, and that it is the job of girls to control a boy’s access. This often leads the girl to be unable to network for that good position, or to be part of the team, or to be “one of the boys”. A woman is held responsible not only for her own behavior, but that of the men around her. Women must dress less sexy (you mean, like those nuns that get raped? Shame on them for those sexy habits). Women must retain control of her behavior. She must never drink, or flirt, or dance with someone who might rape her later…and somehow she has to know that how?
While all this is happening, boys are learning…often subconsciously…that they are the masters of the universe. They are stronger, they are smarter, they are faster, they are the ones who will run things. Oh, obviously not all boys feel like masters of the universe, of course, but that can only make things worse. When you are feeling lesser than all these other boys, and you know you should be entitled to better, where do you look to redress that? Why, to those who are lesser still…girls. When I was a girl, I found that the weaker boys, the boys that were mocked by other boys, the boys that were nerds and geeks and the like, often treated me, and the other girls, even worse than the boys who were self-confident and assured. You wouldn’t know that from TV or the movies, though, because that is always the boy who is the best friend of the girl, but never the boyfriend.
Our society taught Harvey that it was fine, even admirable, to obtain power over women, especially sexual power. Intellectually, he had feminist credentials. In practice, he exploited women freely, and many men (and some women) helped him cover up, avoid responsibility, for many years. Many men have had the same, or similar, experiences. It is rare for them to be called on their behavior, in spite of all the rhetoric about men shaking in their boots over #MeToo. They know they will usually get away with it, because they usually do.
I have personally experienced several times cases where sexual harassment or exploitation occurred at the workplace, in school, at home, at church, in recreational settings. For all the situations in which I have found myself unwillingly involved, I have never seen a single case where any consequences came to the man. In several of those cases, the woman was punished; in some of those cases, that woman was me. Punished for what? For pointing out an inconvenient truth, an uncomfortable fact – that women are being made to feel unwelcome in the world in which they live and work, that women are exhausted from dodging unwanted advances, grabbing hands, and even in some cases outthrust penises.
To move beyond Harvey, we must move beyond Harvey. We must not pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves on how good we are to put a predator behind bars. We must recognize and call out unacceptable behavior, even seemingly small and innocent behaviors like a hand on the knee or an arm brushing oh, so casually across a breast. No, these are not trivial behaviors, and they are not part of being involved in the world. After all, men don’t have to deal with them. Men don’t spend their days weaving through a mine field of grabbing, leering, lurching, and thrusting. They spend their days doing their work, enjoying their play, and having their own crises over issues that arise without the additional humiliation and pain of being sexually harassed.
The best guideline I have seen for men who profess to be confused by what is permitted (I don’t actually believe they are; it’s not rocket science). Just in case they really don’t know what they can and can’t do when faced with the strange apparition of a woman in “their” space, just follow the Rock test. If you would not do it to Dwayne the Rock Johnson, do not do it to a woman. As for all the worry about what if you want to flirt in the workplace, well, that’s easy, too. You go to work to work. Flirt on your own time, with someone who wants you to flirt with them.