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justintyme
Joined: 08 Jul 2012
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Location: Northfield, MN
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 Posted: 10/19/17 11:50 am ::: #YesIHave |
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Craig Lancaster: #MeToo posts about sexual harassment prompt me to confess #YesIHave
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The #MeToo posts flooding my Facebook newsfeed — and yours, no doubt — demand a hashtag in response. Not as a rebuttal, but as a show of solidarity and a claiming of responsibility.
This week, as I fought off an attack of nerves, I posted mine: #YesIHave.
Yes, I have been too aggressive in my interest in a woman.
Yes, I have had the gall to be galled that someone didn't find me as appealing as I thought she should have.
Yes, I have told jokes that reduced women to how they looked or their physical attributes. And, yes, I have laughed at others' such jokes.
Yes, I have said wholly inappropriate things in wholly inappropriate situations.
As a social construct, it's interesting to see the way the Harvey Weinstein story has shaped a national conversation. Media attention blows up. More revelations pour forth. Lines get drawn. Debates flare in the middle of the issue and on the periphery. I've asked myself why, a year ago, I loudly and repeatedly denounced then-candidate Donald Trump for his misogyny but have had little to say about Weinstein (or my own errant ways, tame though they may be in comparison).
My justification — that I expect more moral character from a president than a Hollywood mogul — might well be a human response, but it only perpetuates the problem we have. We (eventually, maybe) respond to the most damnable abuse but do little to break down the systemic reasons it exists so pervasively. I have no grand answers about how to do this. I can only start with me and radiate outward.
I have been slow to recognize that the power structures in almost every facet of life make my journey easier than those of the women who have worked and lived alongside me. I have failed to acknowledge everyday situations where I blithely go about my business while women I know have to face fear, lack of comfort, even danger. I'm left to wonder how many times I benefitted from this dynamic without realizing it, or, worse, how many times I capitalized on it knowing full well I'd played an advantage I never earned.
#MeToo brings stories of sexual harassment and assault to social media
A dear friend of mine, the novelist Sheila Redling, posted this the day I decided to share my #YesIHave declaration: "You nice guys — and I'm blessed knowing so many truly nice and decent men — we don't need you to keep us safe. We need you to believe us, give us room, and police your own."
There, in a single paragraph, was the good and the bad from where I've been living for 47 years. I am a good man, as my parents raised me to be. I'm also a good man who can do better. Who can listen more. Who can be more vigilant. Who can learn. I'm grateful for moments that remind me I'm still a work in progress, even as I charge hard toward the mid-century mark. That's encouraging in its way, if humbling. It means I haven't calcified.
It's been an interesting week in my house. These #MeToo posts — and I've tried to read all that Mark Zuckerberg's algorithms have shown me — have prompted self-reflection and wholesale unearthing of past harassment my wife has endured. Hearing her stories made me angry, as does imagining such things happening to my sister or my nieces. And yet, that too underlines a problem. Our clarity on this shouldn't hinge on whether it's happened close to home. (Besides, statistically it has.)
Every single day, women around the world face countless men like Harvey Weinstein
One more hashtag, #YesIAm: I am trying to learn from the very real things that aren't always obvious to me. I am trying to be mindful. I am trying to do better and demand better from others.
And to all the women behind all the #MeToo posts: I see you. I hear you. I believe you.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 10/19/17 11:58 am ::: |
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Wow. This guy told some jokes and laughed at some, too?
Jesus. Is virtue signaling the default tone of the internet now or what? It’s like 90% of everything posted online!
Incredible bullshit.
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justintyme
Joined: 08 Jul 2012
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Location: Northfield, MN
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| Posted: 10/19/17 1:17 pm ::: |
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Self awareness is a beautiful thing. Until people (men) take ownership of how their behavior affects women and propagates a "boys will be boys" culture, we will never fix anything.
And jokes are great as long as everyone is laughing along. But how many times have we either told a joke or laughed at one that was more than just a joke, or that had someone awkwardly half laughing at it just to fit in?
I, along with just about everyone I know (even my gay friends) have done one of the things listed above. Even if we were to exclude the jokes part. And as the author was austutely pointing out, these things do more harm to more women every day than the monster of the moment. It is also what creates a culture in which a "pussygrabber" can be elected president and a Weinstein can get away with it for so long.
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Richard 77
Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 4142
Location: Lake Mills, Wisconsin
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| Posted: 10/19/17 5:07 pm ::: |
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Yes I have._________________ If you cannot inspire yourself to read a book about women's basketball, or any book about women's sports, you cannot inspire any young girl or boy to write a book about them. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Richardstrek |
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mercfan3
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 10/19/17 6:40 pm ::: |
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| justintyme wrote: |
Self awareness is a beautiful thing. Until people (men) take ownership of how their behavior affects women and propagates a "boys will be boys" culture, we will never fix anything.
And jokes are great as long as everyone is laughing along. But how many times have we either told a joke or laughed at one that was more than just a joke, or that had someone awkwardly half laughing at it just to fit in?
I, along with just about everyone I know (even my gay friends) have done one of the things listed above. Even if we were to exclude the jokes part. And as the author was austutely pointing out, these things do more harm to more women every day than the monster of the moment. It is also what creates a culture in which a "pussygrabber" can be elected president and a Weinstein can get away with it for so long. |
X______________________
"Yes I have" is far more important than "Me Too."
We need some male ownership here. Men need to change.
Jokes can be just jokes. "Cards Against Humanity" is hilarious, and it essentially prompts you to be a horrible human being, in a funny way of course.
Jokes can also be sexual harassment. (or workplace harassment in general) In the wrong setting, it can determine the entire climate of the space you are in.
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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 10/19/17 6:48 pm ::: |
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How timely.
On Perry Mason today, from 1957, "The Case of the Vagabond Vixen", which begins with a guy in a convertible picking up a hitchhiker with a "I'm a movie producer, let's go to my beach house so that we can discuss a movie contract.".
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 10/19/17 7:13 pm ::: |
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The issue and, for some, problem here and I would suggest the unexplored dilemma in the discussion around the sexual/career favors quid pro quo in Hollywood is that there will always be beautiful women around who use the most powerful motivation tool of all, their seductive talents and the promise of sex, to encourage and reward bad behavior and bad choices by men. Just speaking to the 'men must change' point.
I personally hate how the discussion that started with Harvey Weinstein's behaviors, which, other than the overt crimes he committed, I would suggest are commonplace in an industry environment that is very badly in need of a legal blowback, and maybe even federal oversight, a federal task force, offices set up on studio property and hotlines posted all around the city, it all has been diluted by a focus on every single aspect and manifestation of sexism worldwide, down to the telling of jokes.
Criminal prosecutions. New legal protections. A task force. Hotlines. I don't know about what's happening in every last virtue signally man's household, but these are concrete actions needed to fight the systemic abuses that occur in the sprawling and often off-campus workplace that is the Hollywood entertainment empire. Anyone who wants actual change should be clamoring for these things with teeth that can gnaw and cause hurt to be applied to the hundreds if not thousands of scoundrels who have for so long (almost a century) operated outside the system of legal protections afforded in most American workplaces.
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mercfan3
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 10/19/17 7:35 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
The issue and, for some, problem here and I would suggest the unexplored dilemma in the discussion around the sexual/career favors quid pro quo in Hollywood is that there will always be beautiful women around who use the most powerful motivation tool of all, their seductive talents and the promise of sex, to encourage and reward bad behavior and bad choices by men. Just speaking to the 'men must change' point.
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Here's the problem with that line of thought.
Beautiful women use that tool that they have, because they've (as have all women) been told their entire lives that their appearance is what is the most valuable about themselves. So they can fight it, or they can use it to get what they want. Until women's accomplishments, intelligence, humor, and skills matter as much as their appearance, they're going to use what they can to get themselves ahead.
One of the coolest things I've seen on television was on the show The Voice. There was a contestant who was extremely uncomfortable with the "beauty" aspect of performing. She liked to be covered up. She wore large glasses that covered her face. She didn't like makeup. Thing was, you could totally tell that she could play that "beauty" game if she wanted to, she just didn't. And it was one of the rare times I've seen a woman's personality and ability matter more than her appearance. (Her appearance was, of course, still talked about..) I think we get that a little bit with Kate McKinnon too.
Regardless, the above has nothing to do with sexual assault and sexual harassment, unless we want to argue that the value that is placed on women's looks creates the objectification of women..which then leads to assault and harassment (a decent argument to make.). Regardless, even if we are only going to value women's looks..there is still the entitlement issue, which, IMO, is really what leads to assault.
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“Anyone point out that a Donald Trump anagram is ‘Lord Dampnut’”- Colin Mochrie
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