Up Front: Does My Mortgage Look Like a Slag in This?
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Do I have the right to pull the tiger's tail... turn into she asked for it???
You're ascribing agency to the woman. You're suggesting that she is responsible for provoking the man. Pulling the tail.
What is more, you're taking away agency from the man and the choices he has chosen to make. He is not a mere animal, reacting to provocation. He is a human, and we hold him to much higher standards.
It is NEVER the fault of a rape or harassment victim. NEVER.
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We used to have an appeals judge in Italy who thought that wearing jeans on a woman's part was a form of provocation. He's dead now, and his replacements on the bench don't share those particular convinctions of his. The culture won't allow it, because things have changed, and they most certainly didn't change by themselves. They changed because enough people, led by some pretty corageous women, said "enough with that". And we have a way to go yet, obviously, but it can be done.
This idea that rapists are sick and the world is a dangerous place is defeatist, there is a lot we can do to change the conditions that allow so many sexual assaults to go unpunished or unreported, and that put so many women in vulnerable position because of powerlessness, not attire or social habits. The message has to be that women have a right to be safe, first and foremost.
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Well, I've just read "Saturday Night Fever" in the current Listener: "what the women's movement was fighting for"; "young blond"; "author of own difficulties" and "dressing like a hooker".
I have struggled to understand the vehemence of the arguments here but now have an inkling although I am a non-drinking, flat shoe wearing personage whose idea of a good time is a nice strong cup of tea and an episode of Coro.
I looked up 3rd wave feminism (again)
_ In the introduction of To Be Real, the Third Wave founder and leader writes,
"Whether the young women who refuse the feminist label realize it or not, on some level they recognize that an ideal woman born of prevalent notions of how empowered women look, act, or think is simply another impossible contrivance of perfect womanhood, another scripted role to perform in the name of biology and virtue."_ -
I am not trying to win an argument. I sort of knew that what I was saying would be twisted into somehow justifying or excusing the worst behviour of in this case perverted men. I am not! As Emma says "I'm saying, and several of us are saying, over and over again, not that what you wear shouldn't make a difference to your chances of being harassed, but that it doesn't." OK. I accept that. I have 3 sisters two daghters-inlaw, a wife and three grand-daughters. They should and do stand up for their rights as we encourage them to do. I just hope that none of you will cause them to not reduce the risk factors. Water-ski but at least consider wearing a life jacket. I respectfully withdraw.
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You keep making examples where the victim of a misadventure actually has 100% of the blame for what happens. The tiger whose tail you pull or the lake where you ski don't have agency in the same way that a sexual assailant or a harasser does - see George's point above. The problem *is* the analogy you're making. The fact that you can only think of examples where somebody gets in trouble by being an idiot proves Emma's point that the Listener article (or the ALAC ad) blames women for what happens to them.
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And to be clear, I don't think you're a bad person or have bad intention, I just want to highlight that it's how that article and that ad actually work, rhetorically speaking.
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The message has to be that women have a right to be safe, first and foremost.
if I had the skills, I'd remake that offending ad - the girl getting dragged down the alley, after the pub, etc - in fact, make a few interpretations of suchlike ads and bombard broadcasters, schools, sports orgs etc. If one could make a satirical, cutting-but-deadly-serious versions .... any guerilla film makers out there?
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Look. All I ever wanted was for people to stop making so many ads telling women what they should be afraid of (because believe me, we already know), and start making a few ads giving young chaps the heads-up on what constitutes harassment and what constitutes consent, and what constitutes full personhood (hint: I haz it no matter what I'm wearing). It's clearly not just psychopaths doing the harassing.
Here's an analogy: when Chris Brown beat up Rihanna, I remember reading a lot of scary articles about large proportions of high school students agreeing that 'she must have asked for it'. That isn't a group of damaged, evil folk - that's just high school kids, and they obviously aren't learning about how people should be interacting with each other. We could fix that, couldn't we?
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1. violence is legitimised in the media*, constantly.
2. killing in the name of a.k.a. capital punishment, seems to be quite legitimate in most states of the US and countries like Japan. quick----block your ears! mixed messages!* tv, music videos, films, manga, video games, books, magazines, radio, newspapers, billboards, commercial web sites.
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Ian, that list of questions and answers reminded me uncomfortably of Holmes. Shudder.
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Sacha. I was just trying to make it quite clear that I was not excusing violence/harrasment against women. And stating the things that we seemed to agree on. Didn't work did it.
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I'm thinking more late Victorian - fits better with the Charge-of-the-Light-Brigade-esque stupidity/bravery wire-crossing going on.
Actually I find it very bravest of commetators to be those who would like to assume a lady's virtue to be unquestionable. How Victorian-era stupid is that?
All it takes for rape is a rapist, but for harrasment a harrasser is only half the equation*. Harrasment requires someone to engage in an activity and someone to be harrassed by it.
Lucy, there is no scale, i can find no chart and there are almost certainly no telepaths. So how exactly is the harrasser meant to be exclusively at fault when it is a subjective decision going on in the mind of the harrassed?
* On that TV tropes thing i linked to earlier there is a standard joke to use when charactising a 'feminist' on TV for laughs - she will equate all sex with rape. Classed as a bad cliche of feminism.
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Is it pleasant to exist in an early-1960s mindset? I imagine so.
Prude is a word I used, because I do not have the Craig-ist gift for enunciating sentiment. Does evoke the 60s sitcom, for sure.
I have the mindset of a liberal. The right to offend is vastly more important than the right to not be offended. If someone feels harrassed they might be the victim of unambiguous mean spirited harrassment, they might have taken uncalled for offense at someones innocent endeavour to engage them or some mix of the two.
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Here's the difference, Angus.
The first time you say, "You wanna fuck?" that's a question, and it's an okay one to ask between two or more people involved in a conversation. It's even just fine to make it clear that you admire someone's bodily attributes. It might be distasteful - believe me, when you are roaring drunk, you are highly unlikely to be an attractive proposition - but it's not harassment. (Nb: a conversation is not the same as wolf whistling/cat calling/yelling from a car, where the intention is to let the recipient know that the only thing zie is valued for is hir sexual attributes).
If the other person says, "No," then you ought to stop asking. If the other person ignores you, and doesn't answer, you can take that as a no (consent requires the presence of a "yes", not the absence of a "no".) If you ask again, it's harassment.
Geddit?
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Clothing has jack-all to do with it.
I agree.
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Deborah
If you are asked by the 5th or 6th or 17th guy, are you being harrassed? Is he harrassing? I'd suggest that you are being harrassed and he is not harrassing.
Answering no to "you wanna fuck?" just means you don't wanna fuck, this doesn't neccessarily exhaust the avenues of male conversation (close, but not quite). Subsquent conversation if it does wander about a bit might end up in the vicinity of sexual proposition, what sort of vicinity is harrasment?
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Angus,
Can I give you an example of something that is not so unusual - it is not 'hindering' nor 'harming' but it lacks respect and is a pain in the arse.
Being in a bar on a girls’ night (sorry can’t remember what we were wearing, but something fabulous no doubt) and having some random guys try to talk to you, and we politely say, ‘we’re not interested, on a girls’ night.’ And them keep on hanging on and trying for another 20 minutes or so, while we keep on saying ‘please leave us alone’ until we have to say literally - fuck off (and we had to say 'fuck off' about 10 times and in the end with gestures- I am not joking). These guys weren't particularly drunk, were nicely dressed, not sick or threatening harm. But THEY WOULD NOT LEAVE US ALONE.
Now you might think this is OK because there is no hinder nor harm, and play around with words and say 'oh they weren't harassing you, but you were being harassed' (what does that mean anyway?) but can you imagine going out and having this happen to you? Over and over again, intruding into your space, your conversation, and sometimes your body - until you have to be rude to get rid of them, and even then it doesn't always work. You might not think respect is important, but I do.
Agreed with all above about a little education about respecting people's requests would go a long way. I like to chat to people in bars, but if they aren't interested I leave them alone, be nice to be treated the same way.
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PS love the shoes. I have a growing urge to go out shopping :)
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Angus. (And others)
I've been thinking about this overnight, and here's an example that might demonstrate what we're talking about.
A couple of years ago, I caught the ferry from Wellington to Picton. Before 6am, I was sitting in the ferry terminal, minding my own business. I was wearing jeans, sneakers and a hoodie. I wasn't showing any skin, and cleavage, I wasn't tottering on high heels. I wasn't wearing red lipstick, or false eyelashes or any other makeup. I wasn't 'asking for it'. I was a girl who'd had to get up at 5am, and I looked like it.
Four old men were sitting about 10 metres away from me held a conversation, for at least five minutes about me. About my body. About how, if the boat sank, my breasts would be good flotation devices. Sitting cross-legged in a chair gave them license to discuss my legs. They even weighed in on my hair, and whether it was my natural colour and how exactly they could find out. The fact that I was using my cellphone gave rise to the question of who I could possibly be communicating with, because how could anyone like me? When we went on board and I went to get a coffee, they discussed what I might eat.
Their conversation was audible not only to me, but to a number of other passengers. I was humiliated, ashamed and intimidated. The irony is, had I been in a pretty frock with lip gloss and some kick-ass shoes, I might have felt confident enough to confront them, and tell them the bottom of the ocean actually _is_ the only place they'd get their hands on my breasts.
So tell me this. Is that harassment? Was I taking "offense at someones innocent endeavour to engage" me? And how exactly could I have protected myself against it?
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You know, I totally get why feminist consciousness-raising was such a big deal in the early 70s. I'm finding it frustrating enough having women's experiences minimised, denied and ignored by about three people in this thread. Can you imagine what it was like to have a whole society telling you the same thing? It must have taken a lot of courage to keep talking about this stuff, over and over, until people really *heard* you. Thanks, second wave.
Prude is a word I used, because I do not have the Craig-ist gift for enunciating sentiment. Does evoke the 60s sitcom, for sure.
I used 'early 60s' to describe what you were saying because your attitude perfectly encapsulates what was happening during that period; the beginning of the sexual revolution was meant to be 'freeing' for women, but instead they were often insulted for not being 'free' enough (which basically just meant they wouldn't put out for everyone who asked. How astounding).
I'm not sure how many times we can tell you what happens to women in public, and then have you tell us we're imagining it, or brought it on ourselves, or are prudes, or are overreacting, or *whatever*, Angus. Are you ever going to actually hear us, or do we give up now?
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those who would like to assume a lady's virtue to be unquestionable
Oh. ALSO. I might have happily fucked an entire provincial rugby team the night before, but if I turn you down the next night, tough shit. 'Virtue' has nothing to do with it.
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You know, I totally get why feminist consciousness-raising was such a big deal in the early 70s. I'm finding it frustrating enough having women's experiences minimised, denied and ignored by about three people in this thread
Hope I'm not one of the three because of my views on nails and heels.
I do kind of feel sorry for the people who offer a different view here though. It seems intuitive that if a young woman wears skimpy clothes as in the picture in the Listener that she will be more vulnerable to unwanted male attention.
On the other hand you have put forward great arguments about the irrelevance of what a woman wears. In Megan's case the old guys might have been scared off if she was strutting her stuff - she might have looked more confident in her sexuality and guys like that are cowards, I think.
But if the dissenting voices in this thread had not dissented you would not have been provoked into your responses and people like me who are not up with the play wouldn't have got to read your arguments.
I read the Female Eunuch in the 70's and around that time vowed not to wear high heels again - or make-up! - then I went on to have three kids and work in schools and now I return to women's issues here and things have changed a bit!
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I thought Danielle that we might translate it to something that might be understood by a guy:
You are out on a hot date, that you have planned for a month. Finally the night is here, you are cosied up in a corner booth in a bar, sipping your drinks, and talking love talk. Then 3 guys come up to your table and start chatting. Fine you think, but not tonight 'hey guys, we just want some one-on-one tonight', but it is like they have never heard you. One of them even pulls up a chair and sits down. They leer at your date, keep talking. So you try again: 'hey, do you mind leaving us alone? It's date night' but again, ignored! The guy sitting next to your date moves his hand to his/her knee. She removes it. He laughs - 'Aw come on!' You really don't want to spoil your date night by getting angry, but you can't work out why these guys won't go away, and then another sits down next to you and puts his arm around you and gives you a squeeze, whispering something disgusting in your ear.
I can't be bothered to go on, but really would that be fine? Ages later you get rid of them by getting angry only to have another group come along 10 minutes later. Oh happy days.
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Hope I'm not one of the three because of my views on nails and heels.
No! :) I do struggle with some of those 'beauty' things myself, because I know impossibly Photoshopped people (for example) are bound to make some less media-savvy young women feel like shit. It's difficult and complex stuff.
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I can't be bothered to go on, but really would that be fine?
Well, it would be if Angus was wearing a low-cut top. ;)
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