The hashtag #metoo trended across
social media this past week in an attempt to make men understand how disgusting
and rampant their sexual abuse of women is. This sparked an online conversation
between a friend of mine and a male associate that went like this:
“Do you
know how to hold these?”
Every
female reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about. Someone who shall
remain nameless IM’d me yesterday, asking what is “me too”. I explained to him
that women were posting that to their FB pages if they had been sexually
harassed or assaulted. He was skeptical that many women had “something like
that” happen to them.
I
asked: When you are walking around town by yourself, how do you hold your keys?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: Not a trick question. When you are walking around by yourself, how do you hold your keys?
Him: They are usually in my pocket.
Me: The next five women you see, ask them that question. They will know exactly what I’m talking about.
Him: What do you mean?
Me: Not a trick question. When you are walking around by yourself, how do you hold your keys?
Him: They are usually in my pocket.
Me: The next five women you see, ask them that question. They will know exactly what I’m talking about.
[I
clarified that he needed to ask the next five women * he actually knows *, not
just random women. Didn’t want him to creep anyone out. ]
Me:
After they show you how to properly hold your keys, ask if they have ever been
sexually harassed or assaulted.
Him: I’m NOT asking anyone that!
Me: Why not?
Him: Seems awfully personal.
Me: How do you expect to learn anything if you are not willing to have an uncomfortable conversation or two? Explain that you are trying to educate yourself on what women face in their lives. Explain that you don’t need details, you are just trying to understand the scope of how many women you know personally who have gone through something like that. It will be an uncomfortable conversation. And, yes, you’re right - maybe save that question only for women you REALLY know well. But if you don’t even believe that many women on FB have experienced these things, then you, sadly, are part of the problem. As women, we have all at some point in our lives experienced not being believed or listened to. That is specifically why some women don’t/won’t discuss it/come forward for YEARS. Some won’t ever talk about it. Every woman I have EVER met has experienced sexual harassment at the least. A staggering number of women I have ever met have experienced worse. It doesn’t matter what a woman looks like, her education, her economic status, her… anything. I have yet to meet a single woman who hasn’t experienced a moment of concern for her safety at some point in her life.
Him: I can’t even imagine.
Me: You’ve never had to.
Him: Well, men get harassed too.
Me [Oh for fuck’s sake. heeeere we go ]: And this is where we end the conversation because… No shit. No one is saying that. While it’s equally wrong, and should also be stopped, it happens in far less frequency than it happens to women. Hell, you don’t even need to know how to properly hold your keys.
Him: I’m NOT asking anyone that!
Me: Why not?
Him: Seems awfully personal.
Me: How do you expect to learn anything if you are not willing to have an uncomfortable conversation or two? Explain that you are trying to educate yourself on what women face in their lives. Explain that you don’t need details, you are just trying to understand the scope of how many women you know personally who have gone through something like that. It will be an uncomfortable conversation. And, yes, you’re right - maybe save that question only for women you REALLY know well. But if you don’t even believe that many women on FB have experienced these things, then you, sadly, are part of the problem. As women, we have all at some point in our lives experienced not being believed or listened to. That is specifically why some women don’t/won’t discuss it/come forward for YEARS. Some won’t ever talk about it. Every woman I have EVER met has experienced sexual harassment at the least. A staggering number of women I have ever met have experienced worse. It doesn’t matter what a woman looks like, her education, her economic status, her… anything. I have yet to meet a single woman who hasn’t experienced a moment of concern for her safety at some point in her life.
Him: I can’t even imagine.
Me: You’ve never had to.
Him: Well, men get harassed too.
Me [Oh for fuck’s sake. heeeere we go ]: And this is where we end the conversation because… No shit. No one is saying that. While it’s equally wrong, and should also be stopped, it happens in far less frequency than it happens to women. Hell, you don’t even need to know how to properly hold your keys.
Still
Me: I’ve given you all the education I can stomach for now. Go educate yourself
and get back to me. Go talk to your mom, your sister, your wife. Get back to
me.
Men have enjoyed – and I use that
word literally – a position of power over women for well over two thousand
years now. While this statement doesn’t apply to every society on the face of
the planet that ever was or exists now, it applies to enough societies to
demonstrate the Patriarchy is real, that so many men have benefited from it and
continue to do so (particularly religious zealots) that anyone who denies it is
utterly clueless, like the man in the conversation above. The Patriarchy, as a societal
concept, has even swept into U.S. government offices a score of men hellbent on
controlling women, from denying them key elements of healthcare coverage
especially as it relates to reproduction to ad hominin attacks against women
like Senator Kamala Harris as being ‘hysterical’ when questioning a Trump
cabinet appointee (men are never spoken of like this, not even Al Franken who
clearly hates almost every Republicans) to ways of talking about women in a
demeaning manner which has no bearing whatsoever on whether a man should be
U.S. president or not. The whole point of the #metoo hashtag was to bring
attention to this fact, that virtually every woman a man knows has experienced at
least some sexual harassment, and that these same men – in being oblivious to
it – are complicit to it. And this made me think; have I ever sexually harassed
a women or treated a women as less than human because they were a woman?
The answer is, I don’t think so,
at least not intentionally. I may have catcalled a woman in my youth, I’m not
sure. If I did, I was wrong. Have I ever objectified a woman? Yes, and
hopefully she was okay being objectified as I assume most Playboy centerfolds hopefully
have. What I’ve certainly never done is badger a woman to date me or kowtow to
my sexual advances. (Frankly, whenever a woman said ‘no’ from the start, I
never pursued it further; I guess I’m either missing the ‘asshole’ gene or
understand that a woman who isn’t interested at the moment isn’t likely to be interested
later and I don’t have any right to assert my personal agenda on them – which I
guess is what an asshole does.) I’ve certainly never approved of any
legislation telling women what they can do with their bodies, and definitely not
after what I may have done to their body, if you catch my drift. Jesus, can you
imagine men being denied access to erectile dysfunction medicine? How fast do
you think Congress would act? Faster than they would on gun control after 59
people were murdered and hundreds were injured in a mass shooting, that’s for sure.
Men, again like the one in the
conversation above, have had the luxury of ignoring the problem because they
are typically not the victim. Most men are so blind to the problem they don’t
even think any form of sexual harassment has happened to any women they know. Well,
men, imagine another man viewing and treating your mother, wife, sister or
daughter as being less than human simply because they lack male genitalia, because
that’s exactly what’s happening. Human beings love to exert power over each
other and the Patriarchy makes it so easy for men. Why shouldn’t men be
oblivious to the plight of women when they benefit so greatly from it? Because that’s
what monsters do. Wait, what? Don’t like being characterized as something less
than human, guys? Interesting.
To be clear, the power men have
over women is not based on respect, it is based on fear. Power based on fear
takes no mental effort. It takes no improvement of the self. It is weak power.
This kind of power is not long-lasting; the oppressed will almost certainly
seek a way out of their predicament if they are able. But to be respected –
that lasts a long time. A gun in the face only lasts as long as the gun – or
Bible or Koran or whatever – is around.
Certainly, there are women who do
not mind being oppressed (maybe not raped, but repressed, sure). These are
people who share a very human trait to not think too hard, to want to get by
without having to do too much in life, who are content to let the whims of fate
control them presumably because being the master of your own destiny takes
effort. Far be it from me to insist any slave rise up and rebel, but it takes a
certain simplemindedness not to see how accepting the role laid out for you by
other people reinforces the system that enslaved them in the first place. Oh
well, let the men deal with it; everything seems fine after all. Yes, a woman –
if that’s their thing – is free to pursue this avenue of thinking. But they are
not free to foist it on others and that is what their complicity in the
Patriarchy is doing.
If it isn’t clear yet, it goes
like this: Women do not exist for the sexual gratification of men*; they are
not toys. They do not exist solely to bear men children; they are not property.
They are conscious living beings who have rich experiences just like men. To
say anything to the contrary begs for the man to justify his righteousness and
SORRY, a book of mythical spouting isn’t going to cut it. ‘Cause if that’s the
excuse, I’m sure I can find some sacred scripture that allows me to violate
another man with a plunger and be totally justified.
[*Scores of men love to use women
for this. I gather, though, that they do not like it when a women uses them for
pleasure – men generally hate the idea of a woman having pleasure on their own
terms – and then moves along. I’ve been there but there was the fact that the woman
and I had an understanding before our ‘involvement.’ That aside, it’s also fun
to imagine here what a world in which men forced themselves on each other and
then claimed the victim was asking for it would look like. Okay, maybe not, but
that’s the world women live in.]
It’s time for men to take
responsibility for the power they wield. It is less then human to treat women
as less than human. There’s no more being oblivious to what women deal with on
a daily basis, not in the Information Age. Men need to start treating sexism as
terrorism; if you see something, say something. You can’t take a backseat to
this anymore. Own what is happening, what HAS been happening – that’s what a
real man does. If you can’t handle the responsibility, well, what are you, a
girl?
Me? I personally do not care about
anyone’s gender or gender identity as it relates to daily life. I don’t care
about anyone’s skin color. When it comes to people, all I care about are two
things: That they are not an asshole and if a job is place in front of them,
can they get the job done. I hesitate to call myself a Feminist not because I’m
for the equal treatment of women but because I’m a human being with no special
status in the cosmos* – in other words, mostly like everyone else – and this
makes me understand that everyone deserves a fair chance. We, as humans, all on
equal footing, should be lifting each other up, not preying on each other.
Preying on each other – not some imaginary breakdown in a subjective, divine
moral code – is to blame for the world such as it is. So enough already.
Enough.
[* Don’t even think it, guys. Your
god does not favor you. It’s a lie you tell yourselves to justify your
actions.]
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