Comments

1
Indeed yes Dan. People that extrapolate these things into falsehoods are evil.
2
“This post is too long.”
“That’s what she said!”
4
Thank you, Dan, for not letting yourself get totally and completely caught up in this righteous--but increasingly over-reaching--wave of empowerment. While I am for anything that helps tear down the bullshit patriarchy, nuance still matters, as well as acknowledging that everybody makes mistakes, every situation should be judged individually, and taking the concerns of women seriously shouldn't mean automatic presumption of guilt.
5
Starhawk made a similar point on a recent blog post...
He switched seats, and sat down next to the young French woman [in the train car]. She continued reading her book. He moved closer. His hand snaked up her thigh.

She picked it up, regarded it calmly for a moment, then took his ring finger and sharply jerked it backwards. I don’t think she actually broke it, but he yelped, swore violently, and moved away.
I looked at her with awe. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
[...]
Until I saw that woman fight back, it had literally never occurred to me that you could.
6
Oh right, her entire blog post is worth reading too, as well as a few others.
7
Talking about sex in a work environment is inappropriate. Joke or not. This woman sure has milked it, and that's politics.
8
Why is it on the woman to throw the man off or tell him to shut it or nearly break his finger. And yes, who knows if the man will escalate the situation quickly after being pulled up. That's part of the power imbalance, the fear that these out of control members of our species, the ones with hormones which seem to take over their wee brains All The Time, men, might become violent.
9
You guys should check what happens each month to the hormones of a fertile woman. Crazy changes every month, and then at the end of it we get to bleed as well. Fun times. The hormone line is a big con and it's time men realised the gig is up.
10
@9: Oh really? On what planet would we find such crazy bleeding creatures?
11
"are there aspects of femininity we might wish to ditch too?" No shit, Sherlock, as we used to say. Who does this think it's disagreeing with?

A classic from almost ten years ago now:
https://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2009/06/…
12
She didn't tell him to shut up in that car because, yes Dan, of the fear of violence. Why? Because going on & on about how you liked touching my breasts while you put the mic on me is NOT normal behavior.

I'm 39 years old and have never been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted. Fortunate, sure. But also: 39 years of witnessing men's complete ability to behave themselves (even drunk horny 19 year old boys half naked with drunk 19 year old me).

If a man does something aberrant -- oh, say, discuss touching your boobs while driving you in a car during work -- you are EXTREMELY hesitant to say something to call him out, because he's currently proving himself to flaut social conventions & concern for your comfort -- so what is he also capable of?

Stop this false narrative of "a lot of men are just clueless, women should just stand up to them." Men aren't clueless, they know how to behave, and those who choose not to are indeed a threat.
14
Donald Trump, a known sex predator, was elected president, over a woman, with the help of the majority of white women who voted.

It's not just that women are physically afraid of men acting against them at a vulnerable moment... there's something else going on there too. Are they psychologically afraid, even in an anonymous voting booth? Do the majority of white female voters in this country simply not care that much about women's safety?

The majority of white women who voted in the last election personally empowered and endorsed a known sexual predator.
15
@14 if anyone is psychologically afraid in the voting booth to the point where it changes their vote, shame on them. You who who's psychologically afraid? White guys in the boonies. They're fucking terrified - of things that almost certainly will never happen, but apparently we've already decided that reasonableness of fear isn't relevant. I think you have to make a choice - are all feelings valid, or do they need to be reasonable for anyone else to then act on those feelings?
16
@14, America had the choice between a sexual predator and the wife of one who never said a word about her husband's behaviour.
17
Many white American women, who have access to things like birth control and even then have sex never and thus the luxury of staking the "How could you ever want to abort a fetus after you actually had to let that asshole inside you to get one?" high ground would also pick the predator over the "babykiller".
18
@16,

And white women voted for the sexual predator instead of the victim of a sexual predator.

You're a woman, yes? I'm going to assume you're white but correct me if I'm wrong. But if you are a white woman who voted last year, think on this: Most women just like you out there disagree with you... your political beliefs are in the minority. Most women out there are a-ok with sexual harassment and sexual assault of men on women. Pretty shitty country we live in, yeah?

@17,

Word. It simply reinforces my belief that conservatives, including conservative women, DEMAND their leaders to be male, misogynistic, homophobic, and bullies.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... for republicans, when their candidate is accused or guilty of sexual assault, that's a feature, not a bug.
19
@8 - Why is it on the woman to throw the man off or tell him to shut it or nearly break his finger.
Well, I think there are two answers here:
1. Everyone has a right to assert their own boundaries if another is trying to do something the person does not want. In that regard, everyone should be empowered to reject anyone trying to overstep their boundaries. Sometimes this needs to be stated outright and made clear. A 'No' should be sufficient. In 1962 France, the young woman applied pain to his finger to clarify a 'no'.

It's fair to say that some people are often unaware of someone else's boundaries until the line is made abundantly clear.

Since we're still in a time where the old rules are mixing with the new rules, some level of force may be necessary to assert a No. Either yanking a finger, or power-in-numbers, or the authorities, etc. Not optimal, not desireable, but a real fact.

(And yes, I do fully understand where another's power can influence one's ability to say No to any given unwanted situation, and that getting away or saying nothing is a functional strategy to avoid physical or social retribution. Hopefully in the glorious future, this won't be necessary.)

Here's another bit from another of Starhawk's blog posts:
A lot of sexual attraction proceeds from body language and subtle signals. I was raised in the ‘50s, when women were taught not to be the aggressors, but to signal our willingness in subtle ways. And our unwillingness, for that matter—not to slap Uncle Joe’s hand when it strayed to our thigh but to quietly move away and not spoil the party. That worked great for abusers, not so great for most of us. Plus men were never taught how to read those signals. Some intuitively got it right—others read everything short of a sock to the jaw as a sign of attraction.
Please don't read this as me giving men a 'pass' for shitty behaviour or abusive actions. I'm not. Men are 100% responsible for their actions. But my point is that both genders were taught a poor set of rules and roles for communicating about sexual interest.

So...
2. The expectation that men should constantly make sexual advances and that it is incumbent upon women to "put the brakes" on those advances is bullshit. Bad social & personal conditioning, and an unreasonable expectation as the social default.

Undoing this conditioning --on both genders-- is something we're working on right now.
Again, sometimes personal boundaries are unclear, and the recipient of unwanted attention needs to be empowered to say 'no'.

On the flipside, men need to step the fuck off, learn how to use appropriate words, and use those words in considerate ways, before making assumptions and sexual advances. And also gracefully accept "No" when they see and/or hear it (eg. don't take it personally).

Words can be totally sexy; it's completely ok to express attraction to someone; it's ok to want and ask for sex; it's ok for women to make the first moves.

Obviously there are some contexts where sexual advances & comments are not appropriate at all. But even in contexts where people are flirting, asking before touching is a basic rule all men should follow. Accepting no for an answer is another.
21
@18:

Just FYI, Lavagirl is from Australia, so she wouldn't have voted for either candidate.
22
And [men need to] gracefully accept "No" when they see and/or hear it (eg. stop, back off/go away, and don't take it personally).
23
There are lots of examples of women who were assaulted or killed after telling a man to shut up.

No, there are not. There are 14 cases out of literal millions to billions of rejection interactions annually in the USA. You're more likely to be killed by a meteor strike or terrorism, neither of which are reasonable threats to fear, either. Human brains wired to perceive threats in groups of fewer than 200 people are now asked to interpret every case in a population of more than 325 million (or 7 billion globally, depending on the scope we're considering), to which we can be exposed thanks to mass media, and we drastically overestimate threat as a result. If you pass two hundred thousand people on your way to work and two subject you to street harassment, that's almost nobody, but it will be perceived as a constant, pervasive threat. I would gladly take a handful of M&Ms from a bowl of one billion in which 14 were literal shit - I already effectively do that any time I eat M&Ms, given the allowable content of rodent hairs and droppings and insect parts etc. By insisting that the mistaken impression of a pervasive threat is real, you're amplifying the problem, the same way that FOX and Brietbart screaming about terrorists swarming over from Mexico stoke unreasonable fears of both terrorism and immigrants. Stop it.
24
Clearly, women need to evolve away from menstruation, and re-evolve the estrus cycle.

That way, they wouldn't be giving out conflicting signals as to their sexual readiness, and they could stop pretending to be horny when they aren't, and vice versa.
25
I must be really, really thick... can someone explain what part of Mr. Bezan's comment is sexual?
26
@25 "threesome" = sexual (innuendo)

"threesome" /= sexual harassment/assault.
28
In Carlson's case, there's another aspect to it than "female socialisation" and fear of sexual violence. He was driving the car. He had complete and total power over whether Carlson got to where she was going. And where she was going was "through rural Virginia." She was trapped in the car with him, with nowhere to run, no other option whatsoever besides remaining in the car, listening to whatever he had to say. You can't tell someone who has that much power over you to shut up, no matter what they're saying. (Yeah, this means you, Dad, who picked a very similar moment to subject me to a monologue about how awful my mother, your recent ex, is. Thanks, asshole.)
29
Urgutha: Why (many) women voted for Trump is perplexing indeed. But "many women voted for Trump, therefore all women deserve abuse" is ridiculous. Signed, a Bernie and Hillary voter.

Slowone @25: A threesome is a sexual encounter between people. I'm betting money the other person in the room was female. And I'm really wondering if this is part of a pattern of wordless sleaze, leering and the like, which is so hard to combat because it is sometimes no more than a feeling of creepiness emanating from certain individuals.

Spunk @24: You're a sexist pig, but as someone who's currently on birth control pills that stop my periods, I agree 100% that medical science should focus on ways to free us from this inconvenience. And as for men, as they have no cycle to blame for the problems they cause, it's obvious that chemical castration is the only solution. I'm sure you'd be down with that, too.
30
@29: Second paragraph should, obviously, read "between three people."
31

Interesting to read here in multiple posts, as well as elsewhere, this constant reiteration of the "53% of white women" stat. I can't recall the last time a single stat got so much continous airplay. Unsurpisingly, in nearly every case, it's made in a way to bash white women, to blame them for their own demise and for having "sold out" their fellow women, as was done here multiple times, for some reason, by Ugurtha Forka, and others.

What is never mentioned for some reason by these same "53%" obssessives, is any statistics at all about white men and their much more critical, in fact, entirely decisive role in Trump's victory. Trump simply would not be our "president" today had it not been for his army of white male supporters - 63% of whom voted for him, per fivethirtyeight.

63% is ten whole percentage points higher than 53%. Only 31% of white men could stomach voting for a woman, while the rest of the white men (6%) threw their votes away on the likes of Gary "What is Aleppo?" Johnson and his ilk, ie they too helped elect Trump. 63% + 6% = 69%. This number, too, is significantly higher than 53% I believe.

Also never mentioned by the 53%-obssessives, is that more minority men voted for Donald Trump than for John McCain or Mitt Romney. Did Hispanics and African Americans stand to gain from a Trump presidency? Of course not. Was it crazy and inexplicable for them to do so? Hell yes. Are the stats about minorities voting for Trump ever reiterated anyplace, and used in a way to blame them for their troubles under Trump? Never.

It's true that women of all colors, and all minorities, are in the same boat when it comes to the dangers Trump posed then and continues to endlessly pose and propose to them now, hence any percentage of either group voting for him is indeed bizarre, disappointing, maddening, and again, inexplicable, to me and to others.

It's also true, again, that neither of those groups were the deciding factor in Trump's victory. The deciding factor was in quite plain fact, the overwhelming majority of white males who cared so little about the impact a Trump presidency would have on non-white, non-straight, non-citizen, non-males ... and went ahead and pulled that Republican lever.

So if we are going to contnuously play the blame game, still a year down the road from this tragic and sickening election, how about we point the blame squarely where it really, actually belongs, and ask questions like, what is wrong with the vast majority of white American men, that they did this to the rest of us?

32
A thought-ful, well-written piece, Dan. Lots to think about, here. The nascent quality of individual behavior at any point in the life cycle is especially interesting--as well as that same 'eternal emergence' that's part of every human culture. How do we best treat a creature who is emerging? And how do we recognize that all of us--all of everything--is emerging?!
34
AS for the Trump 'thing.' However revolting it is that ANY women voted for the Cheeto, that 53% is only of the minority of women who voted at all. That's the larger scandal.

Two men died intervening when a racist harassed an hijab-wearing woman on public transit. In S.F. a man was stabbed nine times for merely asking that street-creeps stop harassing his girlfriend.

More broken fingers, or even gunshot wounds, for assaulters sounds like a grand idea. But virtually every woman has been groomed her whole life to freeze at the threat.
35
@31 Nobody expected white men to vote Hillary. Nor were they a deciding demographic in her nomination during the primary. You know who were? Middle aged white women. It's more that the demographic let us down after hoisting a really bad candidate on us rather than anything else.
36
@33. Facts need citations.
37
@33, I meant to say splitting hairs instead of drawing straws... I was kinda distracted when I wrote that unfortunately.

Anyway, yeah education is great, though it still perplexes me that ANY woman would vote for the guy that grabs pussies at his leisure, walks in on beauty pageant contestants changing rooms, wants to fuck his own daughter, and insults most other women regularly. You don't need any education to see the misogyny and male entitlement there.
39
@18 "...instead of the victim of a sexual predator."

No.

NO.

Fucking NO

Hillary was Bill's partner in crime, accomplice before and after the fact, viciously attacking his victims.

As Sydney eloquently said in her poost:
"If you know there's a sexual harasser in your marriage and you don't do something about him, more sexual harassment will continue. If you're cool with that because of political calculus or whatever else, you're not just as bad as the Republicans. You're worse."

And if you attack the women your husband has already assaulted, well, they haven't found a place in the Universe hot enough for the Circle of Hell you are going to.

And you expected people, women, to actually vote for this vile sack of shit?

No.
40
@ 23 - "There are 14 cases out of literal millions to billions of rejection"

Citation. Fucking. Needed.

I've been assaulted (read: punched) after telling a man (who was over twice my size) to back the fuck off. You expect anyone to believe that's only happened to thirteen other women in the entire country?
41
@23 I do see the point you are making, but many of us, I would wager, have experienced aggressive behavior in the wake of rejection that made us fearful even if it did not come to physical assault. For example, when a man who is bigger than you goes from a charming smile and "hey, sweet darling, you're pretty" instantly to "You fucking fat cunt, I hope you get what you deserve" because you said "no thank you" it can be a little alarming. Being followed down the street, or having a beer bottle thrown on the sidewalk where you are walking away can be a little frightening, even if it never gets worse than that and you're pretty sure it won't.

Perhaps you would argue that those behaviors, since I was never physically touched, should not have threatened me. And to be honest, none of these encounters has emotionally damaged me nor did I spend any time reflecting on them until this very comment section, but the fact is one does feel fear in these moments, and the 14 deaths in that article don't account for the day to day reality. And I think that reality may be hard to imagine for men who would never consider behaving that way, let alone even catcalling a woman in the street.
42
Time elapsed between assurances that this call-out movement wouldn't degenerate into a witch hunt and first attempt to get politician removed from office for a PG-13 joke: approximately six seconds.
43
Guys

Asking why suburban and rural people voted for trump is like asking why a Jewish person wouldn't vote for a reform-oriented Nazi.

Trump, literally, speaks to them. He adopts their language, he extolls their values, he models himself after their ideal person.

The fundamental issue is not sex/gender/etc, it's the Urban Liberals are the elites and the suburban and rural conservatives are the serfs. They're a billion time more likely than an urban leftist to work in factory or do manual labor of any kind. They're a zillion times more likely to be in trades. It's literally an Eloi/Morlock scenario from their perspective. And they're mostly right: Our (urban liberal) culture treats these folks like literal second class citizens. One of my besties is a doctor from rural north carolina, she lives in Portland now. She says "when people hear my voice, they ask if I went to school in a horse-and-buggy". When I dated a woman from Birmingham, she had similar stories. She had gotten married at 20. The "joke" she heard multiple times while in new york was "were you pregnant by your brother or uncle?".
So please don't wonder why these folks will vote for Roy Moore or Donald Trump, even though they're shitheads. At least they're telling their constituents that their issues are valid - much more than anyone in DNC can do. We're busy trying to tell them what their issues "really are" and all the things they complain about aren't real problems.
44
@39, so why'd they vote at all? Or why didn't they vote for some third party candidate who wasn't a sex predator? Why did women vote for one sex predator over another?
45
You wanna pass your stupid opinion off as “fact” with authority go ahead, but until you have a link backing it up then it’s just your feelings.

Don’t give a shit about the nonsensical lies you tell yourself, just that you are arrogant enough to try and pass them off as something other than your pathetic and ill informed feelings.
46
@45 Are... Are you really arguing that educational level isn't correlated with political leanings? Just search it on 538. It's not a complex or rarely researched anomaly.
48
44
Because they recognize that not voting or voting third party are not responsible choices for engaged citizens in our system.
Only two candidates had any chance to win in November, and the responsible choice was to choose the better (or less evil) candidate and vote.
The amazing feat the Democrats managed was putting up a candidate who made Trump electable. Many many people, including many who ultimately voted for Trump, would literally not thought that was even possible.
Sure, The Left comforts itself by declaring that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist ignorant Nazi homophobic blah blah blah but they are deluding themselves.
49
I'm starting to come around the the idea that the 2016 was at least partially about Democrats' collective denial regarding Bill Clinton's sexual allegations.

It was easy to look at Lewinskygate within the prism of Ken Starr's endless proscecutorial fishing trip, but there were numerous accusations of non-consensual sexual interactions between Bill and various women before, during and after the 1992 election that we (I voted for the guy) ignored twice because we were so glad he wasn't a loser like Dukakis, Mondale, and Carter.

The political argument around Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" comment basically ended when Trump trotted out Jones, Willey, and Broaddrick before and during the Presidential debate two days later. Not that Dems stopped viewing it as a defining example of why he should not become president, but the political media moved on to other things. Trump is an ignorant motherfucker, but he's not dumb.
50
@48,
So some women voted for a guy who laughed and bragged about being a sexual predator, and now some of those same women want people to sympathize with them for being the victims of sexual predators?

Haha!!! Nope. They shit their bed, now they can lay in it.

/anyone who didn't vote for trump and wants sympathy for being a victim, I'm fine with that. But I'll give no quarter to those who cut their own noses off to spite their face.
51
50

Better to vote for a cynical shrew who laughed about getting the rapist of a 13 year old child off?
No thanks.
52
@ 51 -

"Hillary Clinton did not volunteer to be the defendant's lawyer, she did not laugh about the case's outcome, she did not assert that the complainant 'made up the rape story,' she did not claim she knew the defendant to be guilty, and she did not 'free' the defendant."

https://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-f…
53
That's not how the 12 year old rape victim saw it.
But who would believe the account of a woman rape victim?
Ha!
Not Hillary.
Ha!Ha!
(The rape victim was a public supporter of Trump.)

Hillary laughs several times thru the interview.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think she found so funny about the rape ofd a 12 year old child?
54
@53
Hillary Clinton was acting as a public defender.
She was appointed to the case, and she did the job required of her by the laws of the United States of America.
It doesn't matter if a defense attorney believes their client is innocent or guilty, they are required by law to provide their client the best defense possible.
12 year old children usually don't understand the complexity of the United States judicial system.
You on the other hand are an adult, and you should know better.
If you don't, you can learn more here:
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crimi…
56
Ugurtha, if it wasn't plainly obviously already that you are a misogynist, this sentence proves it:

"They voted to have their cunts fucked by a sexual predator."

Please, please get some help. Try and get to the source of your bitterness and hatred towards women, because this view of the world is toxic, and damaging. You can't face basic facts about the world, and you clearly loathe and resent women. Congratulations. You are Donald Trump's wet fucking dream.

57
As I said in my earlier post, you are obssessed with the 53% statistic for some reason, even though the facts prove that the vast majority of white men, 63% if you count just the white guys who voted Trump, 69% if you count the white guys who couldn't stomach voting for a woman and so voted for another white male, Gary Johnson. Both 63% and 69% are far higher percentages than 53%.

Hence, the straight up facts staring you in the face are that white males are responsible for Donald Trump being in office. Period. This is how little white men cared about putting a predator-misogynist and a truly dangerous, racist, anti-immigant lunatic in the White House. It's okay to own up to facts, Ugurtha. It's what adults, even bitter, petty adults, do.
58
54

Her job did not require her to attack a 12 year old child,
to subject her to a 12 HOUR psychiatric evaluation trying to prove she was “mentally unstable,” to accuse the child rape victim of “seeking out and fantasizing about older men” .

And again, what did Hillary find so funny about the case?
(she makes it clear she knew the rapist was guilty)
59
Just stop making jokes. I don't mean "jokes." No scare quotes. Stop making jokes, period.

Mourn for comedy, if you'd like, but don't kid yourself into thinking that it's ever truly coming back. For better or for worse, those days are long gone.
60
Here is the impact this #metoo movement has had on this particular female typing this comment: if I ever need to secure any type of professional service (law, CPA, medicine) I will never, EVER hire a woman for the job. Never. I am done hiring women. You see, I myself have a crude sense of humor - I could have been the one making that threesome comment. I have made jokes like that in the workplace.

So if I need a lawyer, accountant, or even a ob/gyn physician - I'm sticking with men. No way am I forking over $$$ to pay a pearl-clutching woman who might be offended that I love South Park or Family Guy.

Good going ladies!!!!
61
@58:

You know, you can just pull shit out of your ass and flat-out lie as much as you want, but don't expect anyone here to tell you you're a good boy and wipe your feces-encrusted butt-hole for you.

Where do we start with unpacking your prevarications? The fact that Clinton didn't "volunteer" to represent the defendant, Thomas Taylor, but as a public defender was appointed to the case by the presiding judge, Maupin Cummings, and subsequently asked to be removed from the case because she felt the defendant was guilty? Or that she NEVER laughed AT Ms. Shelton, but in recorded interviews conducted some five years later can be heard laughing at the absurdity of the case itself, as for example, when she commented to a reporter on the defendant passing a lie detector test, wherein she's quoted as responding WITH A CHUCKLE, "well, that forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs!"? Or that. while she did ask that a psychiatric evaluation of Ms. Shelton be performed (SOP in these types of cases), the Judge Cummings denied her request?

I mean, that's just for starters; it's all a matter of public record and easily verifiable. So, as I said, you can continue to spew venomous falsehoods, but those of us with more than half a brain and something resembling a conscience don't have any obligation to blindly accept your lies as truth.
62
@61
+1
Apparently @58 thinks anything that appears in a meme must be a fact.
I'm sure he also believes that cats love cheeseburgers and Tacos shoot lasers.
64
@58

There's no need for me to debunk claims that have already been debunked.

Let me just put it to you this way:
I would rather vote for a lawyer who was doing her job then a businessman who likes to brag about harassing and assaulting women.

You do realize that Donald Trump has been accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape and pedophilia, don't you?
https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.…
65
Gosh, you guys must be right.
Hillary is just swell!
You should defiantly run her again, for sure.
Just give us one more chance to appreciate her qualifications, pretty please?

We thought Obama was smoking crack when he said "there has never been a man or a woman or a deity—not Washington, not Lincoln, NOBODY—more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America” , but now we see it was TRUE!

What do you say?
Hill in 2020?

66
Just remember,
you can't keep Hillary without accepting Bill and day by day Bill's history is going to be less and less acceptable to the emboldening Feminist lynch mobs.
Hanging on to Bill/Hill is going to open a nasty rift in the Democrat Party.

And look for the criminal predatory behavior of the Kennedy brothers to show up in the docket soon.

Before the Great Purge (google it) of The Feminist Left is over Camelot and the roots of the modern Democrat Party will be laid bare to the disgusted view of new unsuspecting generations of women.

Expect a new round of statue toppling...
67
@65/66

How long do you think it will take before you get banned again?
68
Given that The Cowardly Left withers when confronted with The Truth like The Wicked Witch of the West with a bucketful of water in the face not more than a few hours.

Which is sad.

Discussion and engagement are essential to the functioning of a Democracy.
When one side lays curled up in the fetal position in the corner with it's eyes shut tight and it's fingers in it's ears screaming 'I won't hear you! I won't hear you!' not much will ever improve...
69
@68

Yes, it's very troubling, but discussion and engagement are impossible when you're dealing with idiots and lunatics who constantly spout falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and propaganda.
70
@68

In case you didn't get it oh, that wasn't just a reference to Fox News and Breitbart; but sad little trolls like you too.
71
And how.
We try to plow thru the crap anyway, for the sake of The Republic;
at least until our account is suspended (again).....
72
Women have known for years that there is strength in numbers - but in way too many offices, too many social circles, too many public venues like buses and subways, women have held back from getting together with other women and with men who agree with equal treatment to protect each other against specific men who are acting badly.

So yes, alone you are at the mercy of big guys who are violent, but if it's on a bus and all of the women on the bus speak up and tell him no, he'll back down. If it's in an office or a bar, if all the women in the office or the bar are willing to come to your aid he'll back down. And since the police's mistreatment of assault victims is a known problem, if groups of woman organize who will all go to the police together if any one of them is assaulted, that would ensure that the police know that any mistreatment will be witnessed, reported to the media, and followed up judicially.

"Why should we have to organize? It's not our fault!" I hear that complaint a lot. And as a gay man who has been in an attacked minority for a few decades, I sympathize, but this is the society you have been dealt. It is not fair, it does not have your best interests at heart, it is not just, and it sometimes attacks you. But it's what you've got to deal with.

If you have to deal with men who act badly, you can just put up with it and suffer, or you can organize with other women and with men who agree with you and do something about it.

You can't expect the men who are acting badly to change on their own, and at some point you become complicit with them if you allow them to get away with it.

Please wait...

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