I am grateful for the feedback on an early draft of this post that I
received from women friends.
Accusations of, to put it excessively mildly,
inappropriate behaviour on the part of a Hollywood bigwig were made
in public. People, quite rightly, rushed to support those making the
accusations. Other people came forward with their own stories of
attacks and harassment by the same man.
It's not the first time it's happened. It won't be
the last. Similar things have happened and will continue to happen in
many different contexts, especially where there are individuals seen
as too talented, important or powerful to assail. This isn't just
about films; it can happen in universities, in hospitals, in big
business. In a sense, this time isn't particularly special, when
considered with all of the others. However, this time there seems to
have been a little more success in taking the opportunity to raise
awareness of the ubiquitous nature of sexual harassment and assault
in our culture. Women (and girls) everywhere are posting “Me Too”
on social media. Statistics and psychology suggest that plenty of
women who have had such experiences aren't sharing, on top of those
who are. People are noticing – perhaps not as many as one might
hope, but they are noticing. Social media posts and web pages are
going viral with advice to men on how they can help deal with this
endemic cultural problem; of course, they attract trolls to their
comments, and perhaps some sincere but clueless guys as well. They
respond to these suggestions of how men could help, and they seem to
feel that we, men, are being victimised by such advice. That singling
out men as needing to take certain steps is unfair, even
discriminatory. I don't know how to make them learn. I'll admit that
I was once a clueless guy, though maybe not that clueless, and I'm
forever grateful to the women who persisted in helping me learn,
perhaps sensing that there was a sincere desire to “get it”; I'm
still working on getting there.
