With Harvey Weinstein's recent verdict, I am reminded of how bad systemic sexism is in our country when it comes to how we talk about and understand sexual assault. Yes, Weinstein and many other male celebrities are facing repercussions for their actions, but it took 90 women to accuse Weinstein of harassment and abuse, the entire #metoo movement, 5 years of court proceedings, and intervention from the New York state governor for this to happen. Granted, it didn't take as much effort to prosecute Bill Cosby, but this shows that there's something very wrong with our culture if it takes so much to penalize one man who did so much damage.
I think that the primary culprit here is the wide cultural assumption that most women who accuse men of sexual assault just have some sort of feminine agenda to take men down. This implies that most women don't get assaulted and either just fabricate a story of abuse out of nothing or seduce men into having sexual relations with them just to have leverage for blackmail later on. Unfortunately, this assumption also implies that one woman's mere allegation of sexual assault has the power to sink ships, which is grossly inaccurate. Not only are most people highly reluctant to believe an accuser's allegations, but the accuser seems to face greater repercussions than the accused regardless of the verdict. For some reason, it's extremely difficult for the public to believe that a man they know might be a sexual predator, yet it's extremely easy to blame a victim and assume that she has an agenda or has gone crazy. Because of this, whether or not the accused is found guilty, his reputation is usually capable of recovering while the victims always seem to get shamed into oblivion. Again, Weinstein and others have been facing consequences, but it took an entire cultural movement and extreme cases to get here because one lurid allegation from one woman about Weinstein wouldn't have so much as made a scratch.
Troubling Commonplace Views of Sexual Violence
Aside from all the rumblings of this kind of rhetoric that have appeared on TV or social media, things that really cemented how our culture thinks about this issue were a student reader response I read in my First Year Writing class and a recent conversation I had with a close friend. For the reader response, I had students write about sexual harassment because we were covering a poem that expresses a woman's experience with being catcalled and the issues with having to jump through more hoops to get ahead than a man. In the student's response, she pretty much said that sexual harassment is something that women came up with if they wanted to ruin a man's life. This response basically implied that men don't sexually abuse or overpower women because it didn't even acknowledge the fact that harassment and assault exist. Moreover, like what I stated above, this response directly indicated that women only accuse men if they want to ruin their lives by getting them fired, splitting their families up, and dragging their reputations through the mud.
Needless to say, I found this response extremely appalling. I was tempted to tell this student, who was a petite, 17 to 20 year old blonde girl, that I hope she never gets sexually assaulted, but if she does, I hope that the people she goes to for help are more sympathetic and understanding about her situation than she is. Since I was scared of upsetting her and prompting some kind of retaliation, my response was a little less confrontational than that. But after seeing these kinds of views from someone who is very likely to encounter sexual assault at some point in her life, the only way I was able to wrap my head around her having these kinds of views is the safety in denial. Granted, her youth and inexperience probably make her feel invincible, but as a young woman, I imagine that she should have some awareness of the issue on some level, but chooses to ignore it. If this were to come from a male student, I would be equally appalled, but I'd understand the ignorance because men hardly ever face any kind of sexual threat outside of prison settings, and it is usually kept secret whenever men actually encounter sexual harassment or assault because acknowledging those kinds of things conflict with and compromise ideas of manhood and masculinity. But since this student was a girl in college, and college parties and other social functions people of that age group usually find themselves in usually run the risk of date rape, I imagine that this student must be aware of how vulnerable she is to some extent, but refuses to acknowledge it.
I believe that people generally deny these kinds of things because it's difficult to digest the fact that nobody is immune to encountering sexual violence. Hell, even big, muscly actor, Terry Crews has faced sexual assault. So, when we assume that nobody but a few isolated, hideous villain characters pose any actual sexual threat, sexual assault and harassment isn't really an issue worth addressing. But if we're going to acknowledge that sexual assault is a thing and it's bad, it makes it easier to process when we can conclude that the victim isn't like you or me. If we subscribe to the assumption that the victim was too promiscuous and was asking for it, the rest of us are safe because we aren't asking for it. If we assume that the victim was assaulted because she made stupid mistakes like leading guys on, walking to her car by herself at night, not carrying a gun or mace, etc., we find safety in thinking that we're too smart and prepared to be preyed on. If we believe that victims of assault just fabricate their narratives, we're not only back to assuming that sexual assault isn't a real issue, but we wind up sympathizing with the accused instead of the accuser. These scenarios are a lot easier to grapple with than acknowledging the reality of sexual violence because it puts us in a safer place as people who don't do things to get assaulted. So, the only thing that's left to fear is being arbitrarily accused as a part of some accuser's malicious agenda.
The other personal example involves a conversation I recently had with a friend I've had since childhood. As people of about the same age, from the same hometown, and who are both queer males, we see eye to eye about most things, but it always becomes a somewhat heated discussion whenever we discuss sexism. So, the MeToo movement came up the last time I was in town because we were talking about how a female musician who we both loved came forward about a loved male musician of ours sexually assaulting her. When my friend brought up this story, I couldn't help but notice the skepticism in his voice. He then proceeded to say that the female musician that we both loved "went crazy like the rest of the women in the MeToo movement." I asked in what way did she go crazy, then he said that he just couldn't buy her story because the alleged assault happened in the 90s and if this was such a big issue, why would she wait this long to do anything and essentially jump on the MeToo bandwagon? At the moment, the only thing I could think to do was explain how most victims of sexual assault are often humiliated for being in such vulnerable positions, then if they're a lower ranking person or a no-name who has been assaulted by someone with celebrity, money, power, or authority, going after them with no tangible evidence is terrifying because the man with power could likely retaliate or people you confide in are very likely to not believe you and even attack you for being an accuser and trouble maker. I doubt that this explanation convinced him of anything, but we eventually changed the topic of conversation.
However, a few months later, after Weinstein's verdict came about, I suddenly remembered a time when that friend encountered sexual harassment himself. It was nearly ten years ago when he worked at a hospital cafeteria and an older man, who I think was a janitor, pretty much terrorized him for most of the time he worked there. From what I recall, the man would make inappropriate comments to my friend, as well as find different excuses to touch him or get him alone in a room, and this horrified him. He wound up feeling dread whenever he'd go to work and tried all kinds of leaps and bounds to avoid him when he was at work. This was when I was already living in a different town for college, but I think that I was one of the few people he confided in about the situation. As any young friend who wanted to help, but didn't understand the complexity of these kinds of situations, I instructed him to do something: tell him to stop, fight him, threaten him, tell a boss or a friend at work, do anything at all. However, my friend chose to continue what he was doing until he eventually quit without saying a word to anyone at his job about the perp.
Luckily, this problem didn't escalate to anything like rape or extend to any kind of stalking outside from the work setting to my knowledge, but this was still a serious issue that deeply affected my friend and impacted his performance at work. I believe that part of my friend's worry, as is the case with the sexual assault of most men (especially queer men), was that nobody would take him seriously because of the belief that men don't get sexually harassed or assaulted, as well as the assumption that they'll like ANY kind of sexual attention that's directed at them especially if it's from someone of the gender they're sexually attracted to (women to straight men and men to gay men). He was also afraid that the harasser would retaliate if he got reprimanded in any way. Granted, the man wasn't in a higher position over my friend, so he didn't have hierarchical clout to get my friend fired, but things could have gotten worse outside of work if the guy found out that my friend snitched. Not to mention, my friend is usually the type of person to just repress and avoid stressful things he encounters instead of confronting them head-on.
It took me awhile to understand all of this about these kinds of situations and even my friend, but I was just glad that he got away and things didn’t get worse. On the other hand, now that I look back on the situation and reflect on the recent conversation I had with this friend over the MeToo movement, it kind of boggles me that he isn’t more empathetic of victims who came forward about their abuse. Considering how his situation wasn’t that extreme and it seemed to go away over time without much hassle, perhaps “jumping on the #MeToo bandwagon” and publicly addressing his experience would have been a stretch for a private and reserved non-activist, but I’d expect at least a little more of an understanding from someone who has faced that kind of terror himself. I kind of wish that I had thought to bring up the fact that he didn't do any of the things that he suggested our beloved female musician do about her abuse when he was being harassed, both highlighting a double standard and pointing out how these issues are extremely complex, especially when the situation doesn't directly involve us. On the other hand, I'm glad that I didn't bring this up because things might have escalated to really uncomfortable heights considering how my friend deals with most of his issues by repressing them and usually gets upset when painful things from his past are brought up. In retrospect, I realize that making this point wouldn't have been worth a potential fight with my best friend, but I'm addressing it here because this experience along with what I read from that female student seem to relate to our culture's current state of individualism.
I'm not saying that individualism or it's relative, introversion, is bad, but I think that it's the most reasonable explanation for why a person who is statistically more likely to encounter sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault (my former student) and someone who has actually experienced the tyranny of sexual harassment and reacted the same way as most victims of harassment (my friend) have these kinds of mainstream understandings of sexual danger. These two examples are extremely different and involve different things, but what they seem to have in common is an underlying assumption that "these kinds of things won't happen to me" or "my particular situation exists in complete isolation from other, similar situations and there are no bigger things to learn from other people's experiences or anything to relate my situation to."
Even though different situations involve different circumstances, when people assume that their experiences in no way relate to other people's or some sort of larger cultural phenomenon, it inhibits the chance for any kind of structural change to happen. In order for larger, structural issues to change, people need to band together, acknowledging that many have been experiencing this and that it is a problem that needs to be addressed, then work towards some kind of change. However, if people are silent about things like sexual violence, either because they're scared of publicizing their abuse or they believe that their abuse is beyond anyone else's comprehension, nobody will band together, openly acknowledge the issue, or do anything to fix the issue. Thus, it's easier to believe that sexual violence couldn't happen to you, the sexual violence that did happen to you isn't like other people's abuse or that there's nothing to be learned from other people's stories of abuse, and nothing can or should be done to prevent further abuse from happening.
Yes, situations are contextually complicated and individuals are unique, but these kinds of assumptions seem to be going to an unreasonable extreme when people who are vulnerable to sexual abuse can’t relate to or empathize with people who’ve experienced similar things. In other words, it seems as though people have internalized the belief that they’re special to the extent that they’re the only people who have endured these kinds of experiences, that their situations are more complex than the situations that other people find themselves in, or even that connecting their experiences to broader phenomena diminishes the significance of their experiences. This reminds me of how most college freshmen react whenever I cite theories about particular groups (generation z, men, women, white people, upper class people, etc.). Most of the time, my students would interpret the theory as some kind of overgeneralization or stereotype because “everyone is different and makes their own choices, so there is no point in shoving everyone with a shared background, culture, upbringing, etc. into one belief or category.” This is true in the sense that entire populations of people shouldn’t be overgeneralized; however, this kind of defensiveness against theory completely overlooks the fact that theories are mere interpretations of something as an attempt to understand that thing and connect it to the bigger picture. By understanding theory as an interpretation, we are aware that interpretations can be wrong, which is why we don’t conflate theory with fact. Theories acknowledge that a+b=c the majority of the time, but also take into account that this isn’t the know-all, be-all truth. Stereotypes, on the other hand, are ironically understood to be factual when used to describe particular groups even with the understanding that they are based in some kind of mythological generalization of stereotyped groups.
Defensiveness towards any sort of theorizing seems to be a symptom of extreme individualism because it resists the suggestion that individual experiences can be explained and understood through generalized parallels to other people and different situations. As far as why people resist suggestions that what they’re going through is a cultural or systemic issue, I don’t really know. It could just be the feeling of powerlessness and insignificance because either doing something about one isolated incident or choosing to ignore that particular incident is more doable than trying to sway how people view something, adding or changing a law, or thinking of other ways to end sexual violence all over the world once and for all. As much as I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, maybe most just have that pioneer mentality that they’re exploring territories where “no man has gone before” to make them feel like they’re some kind of exception and their experiences are somehow anomalous. Or, perhaps, a lot of these people just aren’t equipped to widen their perspectives enough to understand that sexual violence goes beyond just a few bad eggs or that even though each individual case of sexual assault and harassment may vary, they are all symptoms of a broken system with how sexist, sexually repressed, and homo/transphobic most cultures are. Maybe if trans people’s mere existence or attraction to trans people wasn’t as taboo, less trans women would be raped and murdered out of “gay panic.” Maybe if homosexual desire wasn’t seen as a threat to masculinity, less men would feel pressured to shove those desires deep down inside of them and they would feel less of a need to sadistically prey on seemingly vulnerable men out of internalized homophobia and repression. Maybe if the male gaze wasn’t as enabled in media and women weren’t as culturally pressured into being objects of male desire, more straight men would understand and respect sexual boundaries, and the thought of powerful and independent women wouldn’t be considered a threat.
Restructuring each of these suggestions would obviously take a lot of work and time, but maybe we can start by acknowledging the facts about sexual violence instead of letting rhetoric surrounding the topic influence us. This might start with acknowledging the validity of your own feelings and experiences if you have been abused or “playing the believing game” when you hear another person’s story about their abuse, meaning that you keep your opinions and doubts about someone else’s experiences at bay when you’re listening to someone else’s story to give them a chance to reach out to you before judging them or jumping to conclusions. This sounds overly simplistic and cliche, but it might also help to acknowledge that looks can be deceiving. I say this because whenever certain people are accused of sexually predatory behavior, if the accused is well-liked, conventionally attractive, or “doesn’t seem like someone capable of being a sexual predator,” the general public is less likely to believe the allegations. On another note, the sexual abuse of men is highly under-reported because it is assumed that men can’t be sexually abused or if they do get abused, it isn’t as detrimental as when women get abused because men are tougher and less vulnerable. Yet, men have to deal with the cultural compromise of masculinity and more of an intense need to repress their feelings about their abuse on top of everything else that comes with being sexually violated.
To wrap this up, I just want to say that it shouldn’t take so much work to deal with one man who has done so much harm. In fact, individual people should not be able to do as much harm by themselves because victims shouldn’t have to fear coming forward about their abuse and when they come forward, they shouldn’t be shamed, silenced, or ridiculed while predators get to keep doing what they’re doing.
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