As I write this, the aftershocks of the Harvey Weinstein (to be referred herein as “HW” henceforth) scandal agitate the status quo less and less as us commonfolk retreat to our daily routines having done our part or had our say on Twitter, Facebook or our medium of choice. In lieu of #metoo, newly adopted puppies, Homecoming pictures & selfies with lush, full glasses of wine have saturated my Instagram feed once again.
The slap-back from the scandal was so abrupt, so jarring, that people need a minute after the surge of such an outcry… and hopefully we will collectively take this moment to reassess and resume a new normal rather than step back into our blinders to relive the reality of yesterday. Here are my observations; take them as you may:
The deluge of anti-HW sentiments overwhelmed social media and news outlets for several days… and the stories continue to trickle in. Any celebrity who did not fully align with the freshly embraced solidarity against all things HW received countless tongue lashings. Now, this is to be expected. HW has been accused, by a growing number of women, of countless assaults and incidents of unacceptable harassing behavior. Although he has not been tried in a court of law, he has certainly been socially indicted by the sheer number of women who have reported eerily similar experiences with this alleged predator. The force of the reverberating voices of these women, suppressed for so long beneath the power and shame HW wielded, catapulted the everywoman to embrace the #metoo hashtag (read more about Tarana Burke and the #metoo origins here: Tarana Burke and #metoo). The end result was that social media was awash in the aftermath of generations of women speaking their truth publicly, some for the first time.
That said, there’s another piece to this complicated clapback and that is the context in which it has occurred – a culture that is anxious and afraid in a post-politically correct world where people are polarized on so many topics that publicly stating an opinion that does not jive with another’s can result in a verbal slap which can sting for days or weeks. Publicly shaming the bearers of unpopular opinions is de rigueur and those who admonish & rebuke the outliers often do so to reinforce, for themselves and the world at large, their own social righteousness. The scoldings become personal and lack discernment between the behavior/words and the individual. Rob Bell, author of several books including Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith and a provocative figure within the Christian community, recently discussed a similar sentiment and proposed that such reactions stem less from a place of justice and more from the elevation of the ego (Listen to the podcast here: The One About Boundaries).
And why is this dangerous, you ask? Why, when people defend a monster like HW, shouldn’t they be put in their place?
Simple.
Because that reaction shuts down all conversation.
Much like the after-effects of an authoritarian parent who demands “My Way or The Highway,” the only options are black & white, right or wrong. Popular opinion dictates the right side & the wrong side of an argument, leaving no room for reflection; the false, stark contrast eliminates the opportunity to delve into the shadows of the truth; HW detractors or defenders are shamed and, predictably, contrite apologies are issued…. And the conversation stops. Shame is liberally dealt and the silence closes in once again when, in fact, we need a buffer to the outcry. We need to break things down to understand their origins before we can build a new narrative.
Two prime examples come to mind. Both women in question are strong and independent in their own right and although I disagree with the content of their HW responses, their comments create a valuable opportunity to discuss deeper issues facing us as a whole.
“I think we have to look at ourselves. Obviously, the treatment of women all over the world is something that has always had to be identified. Certainly in the country of Haiti where I work, in Africa, in the developing world, it’s been a hard time for women.
I also think how do we display ourselves? How do we present ourselves as women? What are we asking? Are we asking for it by presenting all the sensuality and all the sexuality?
You look at everything all over the world today and how women are dressing and what they are asking by just presenting themselves the way they do.
What are they asking for? Trouble.”
– Donna Karan
See the full statement in this article: Donna Karan.
There is so much packaged in this statement! Setting aside the irony that many of the advertising campaigns for her clothing brand sexualize women as she peddles a certain flavor of female sensuality which ultimately ends up on the racks of our local Macy’s and which we, in turn, gobble up with our 20% off coupons; there are common threads here that echo an unfortunately universal response to sexual harassment.
First, that couldn’t happen here. Rattling off Haiti & Africa, Ms. Karan distances herself from the notion that such behavior could happen here. On her turf. I say this not to discount the plight of women in the developing world, but in the context of Everywhere, USA, she seems to believe that behavior couldn’t happen here or it is nothing compared to… Good people live here. We are liberally-minded, we are genteel…
And yet it did happen. And yes, we are genteel and good people live here. And bad things still happen.
Second, are we asking for it? Despite decades of women’s liberation – and set aside for a moment the fact that Donna Karan is often heralded as being the designer for today’s modern woman – she still ponders if we are asking for it. As horrible as this sounds, pause a moment. Remember that girl who claimed she was raped back in college? Recall that secretary who always wore super short skirts and was vilified for suing your employer for sexual harassment? Just a few weeks ago, I stood dumbfounded as one of Dashiel’s classmates showed me an Instagram shot of her frenemy du jour as she assured me the girl was a slut. Couldn’t I see how she was dressed??? No wonder she had so many boyfriends, I was told…
Donna Karan is speaking a horrible truth & yet the truth is different than you might think – it is not that we are “asking for it” but that society still believes that to be true. This blows my mind – the assumption that girls “ask for it” is still commonplace enough that these words flowed off the tongue of a female titan of the fashion industry. This is the truth we suppress – not that it is women’s fault. But that a huge percentage of us still THINK it is her fucking fault.
Third, and not shown in the quote above but referenced in the article, Karan refers to HW and his wife as “wonderful people” claiming he does “amazing things.” Again, this is so much a reflection of us.
Oh, my gosh. He is so nice; he was my daughter’s soccer coach. There’s no way he did […]; or That guy was my dad’s surgeon – he was incredible to us. I just can’t believe he […] and the list could go on.
People generally tend not to be 100% good and 100% bad (except for me – I’m perfect); while in Germany on an exchange program as a teenager, I actually had someone try to explain to me that Hitler wasn’t that bad because of the amazing infrastructure he initiated, like murdering 8+ million humans vs. the awesome Autobahn was a viable pros/cons list! Actions that result in the subjugation or destruction of physical/emotional health of other humans cannot be remedied by charity work or a baller donation to one’s preferred political party. The amazing work HW promoted does not in any way compensate for terrorizing women – apples and oranges. A mature society must be able to recognize the light and dark and the tension betwixt the two. [Side note: I have no comment regarding his wife, because she is not the perpetrator in question and she must now embark on her own journey of healing; Side side note: yes, I like the word betwixt]
Donna Karan is not the problem. Her words represent the thoughts that pass through many of our minds. Subjecting her to a public verbal spanking only suppresses the conversation further beneath the layers of political correctness as the reaction of the many is, naturally, self-preservation. Instead of airing these words and thoughts in the light of day and examining these ideas for what they are (archaic, ignorant), we assassinate the people who are merely messengers, bearing our own preconceptions about assault, victims and predators.
“And yet I have also experienced the upside of not being a ‘perfect ten.’ As a proud feminist with little desire to diet, get plastic surgery or hire a personal trainer, I have almost no personal experience with men asking me to meetings in their hotel room. Those of us in Hollywood who don’t represent an impossible standard of beauty have the “luxury” of being overlooked and, in many cases, ignored by men in power unless we can make them money.
I still make choices every day as a 41-year-old actress that I think of as self-protecting and wise. I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with. I dress modestly. I don’t act flirtatiously with men as a policy.
I am entirely aware that these types of choices might feel oppressive to many young feminists. Women should be able to wear whatever they want. They should be able to flirt however they want with whomever they want. Why are we the ones who have to police our behavior?
In a perfect world, women should be free to act however they want. But our world isn’t perfect. Nothing – absolutely nothing, excuses men for assaulting or abusing women. But we can’t be naïve about the culture we live in.”
– Mayim Bialik
Holy shit. I have to be honest – as I read her thoughtfully written, well-intended op-ed in the New York Times (read in full here: Mayim Bialik Op-Ed), I related to her desire to be seen as smart and accomplished; I empathized with her journey navigating the entertainment business as a non-traditional beauty… and then she wrote a few paragraphs that could be read as the propaganda piece advocating that all women should wear burqas because we “can’t be naïve about the culture we live in.” Ahem.
And hang on…..
That is one piece of the puzzle that I am talking about!!! I was so irritated by her assertions that if I were an avid Twitter-ite, perhaps I would have been triggered enough to shoot off a derogatory post condemning her… and thereby elevating my own ego & cementing my self-righteous indignation. Instead I had to take a moment to exercise the grace I advocate and buffer my reaction, so I could create the space to respond in an equally thoughtful, and hopefully productive, way.
So let us address the assumptions that Mayim Bialik may not even realize pre-exist in her NYT piece:
Only girls who dress sensually or behave flirtatiously are sexually harassed or assaulted.
By explaining that her choices “might feel oppressive to many young feminists,” she is reinforcing that the measures she has taken in how she presents herself in Hollywood are “self-protecting and wise.”
Do her actions – actively dressing and behaving modestly, reserving flirtatious behavior, saving her sexual self for private, intimate moments – protect her?
Perhaps.
Although the social backlash she experienced was swift, are we not willing to acknowledge that these assumptions, albeit misguided, lurk tidily away in the files of our own minds? These thoughts lie low in our subconscious and perk up in moments when we spy that girl at the bar take a tumble in her micro-mini; when we overhear a too-loud cackle as a woman chats with a known womanizer. If we are honest, we know that these views are not reserved for the sanctimonious biddies staring down their noses at all the young ladies populating the workplaces and dance floors and churches and malls of America. They are a protective layer of effort we wrap ourselves in to protect us from the dangers lurking in plain sight.
So perhaps her actions protect her.
And perhaps not.
But maybe the false sense of security buoyed by these assumptions is the real danger.
The truth is this – one cannot control the actions of another. If we could, there would be no rape. There would be no child molestation. The big, bad uglies would not exist in our world. If I could follow a checklist and guarantee my safety or teach my daughter 5 Simple Steps To Sexual Safety, you better damn well bet I would exercise every bit of parental persuasion to make that shit happen. But there’s no fucking checklist that works. There is nothing I could have done to protect myself from the web that was wrapped around me at a young age, because my predator didn’t golf for fun – he hunted. And he honed his skills, I suspect, over decades, tracking his prey among the innocent little girls within his sphere of influence.
“Pretty girls” are the ones who get the unwanted attention.
I generally operate under the assumption that ALL women are beautiful, so although Mayim may feel a divide between the nontraditional beauties and “traditional” lovelies vying for work in her competitive industry, this is another way of distancing ourselves from facing one of our society’s most pervasive problems. Donna Karan distanced herself from the claims of HW’s sexual harassment and abuse by talking about how bad women have it… over there, in Africa and Haiti. Mayim Bialik does it by saying how hard it is… over there, for those pretty girls.
These bogus lines of division we create to differentiate ourselves from the victims – these attempts to create space between ourselves and “them” – are simply sophisticated tools we use to “elevate” ourselves from the dregs where danger lurks, reinforcing the pseudo-differences between us and them.
In large part, this is not due to malice on Mayim Bialik’s part, but due to unfamiliarity of context. Unless someone has experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault, they do not understand the complexity nor the consequences of a survivor’s involvement and subsequent aftermath.
She wrote her op-ed from a position of blessed luck and good intentions – I am so happy she is not part of the sisterhood as I called it in my last blog entry. Not because I disagree with her, but because this sisterhood needs no new members.
Instead of slamming her personally, I hope we take a moment to examine her prejudices – after all, she is merely holding up the mirror to our own preconceptions.
If you do A, B & C, you will be safe. FALSE.
If we can spot our own ignorance staring back through her words, we have the opportunity to affect change in our mindset, then in our communities and eventually in our world. If we only engage in knee-jerk reactions, nothing will change.
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The HW scandal is a culminating event created through decades of suppression, silence and shame. There must be room for conversation to take place; to weigh opposing perspectives, to hold them in the palms of our hands, and ask ourselves – if we do not live in a vacuum, from whence did these thoughts and ideas come?
Over time, the polychromatic outcry against this goliath of the film industry may fade to shades of sepia, memories will wax and wane and HW may wander into the realm of nostalgia where folks like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski reside.
As the tidal wave of HW stories recedes, many would agree with Glee star Jane Lynch when she told Us Weekly last week that (see the article in its entirety here: US weekly):
“Yes, it’s over. I don’t know why. Everybody goes, ‘Why did it take so long?’ Well, who the F cares? It’s out. It’s done, and we’re not going back. There’s no way we’re going back.”
A happy thought, indeed, and it would certainly make all of us feel safer knowing Goliath has been bested & we can all go about our merry way. Sadly the dragon has not been slain. More than a few scales have been chipped off & perhaps Hollywood has topped off one of the big names of this multi-faced hydra, but there is still work to be done.
No one will ever write a story in the New York Times about my #metoo experience and that is ok. As long as we remember that HW is not the only one – that there are HWs sprinkled throughout all communities across the 50 states and beyond – and we start the conversation. This is not solely a Hollywood problem – the bright lights and talent provided ripe conditions for the likes of him, like shooting big game on a protected reserve. But HW alone is not the problem – he is merely the poster child for his kind.
If we let the conversation unfold, we will uncover deeply held, subconscious beliefs that perpetuate the perfect living conditions for those of his kind. Let us take this string of tragedies and turn this into an opportunity to embrace the women speaking out, to positively engage with the outliers and to truly take steps to taking down this beast.
Musings of a Mom 