We've all worked with a Bill O'Reilly
That Bill O'Reilly does not treat women well is not news. Or isn't it old news? Or the same news about men with power using their position to get what they want from subordinates, usually women. So I'm sort of curious about the current uproar. The media and we, the scandal-hungry public, love a good taking down of a powerful man. But if we don't stop to recognize and actively dismantle the patriarchal standards in these episodes, then these stories, these women, are just fodder for the patriarchy grist mill.
We have to examine why we, as a culture, accept that men may bring their economic, social, professional power to bear on sexual relationships, but women who do so are punished. Men are allowed to be sexual beings at all times. In fact, isn't it a popular trope that men always and constantly think about sex or cannot be separate from their sexual function? So that you can easily forgive a man who crosses the line if they act on their sexual attraction. They can't help themselves. Or perhaps, we just need to reminded that women lie, manipulate, cannot be trusted and are fortune-hunters.
Because women cannot be their own sexual beings without the approval of men. In the workplace, a woman's sexuality is a loaded weapon. If she uses her feminine wiles, she risks slut-shaming. If she pretends to be asexual, she risks putting off male colleagues who crave feminine attention or for whom a woman's mutual sexual interest is irrelevant to theirs. Either way, it's incumbent on the women to modulate their behavior and appearance to appease/please the men. Certainly there are many people for whom not making a racy joke or bringing attention to someone's appearance is a burden, and plenty more who witness these breakdowns in office decorum and think it's innocuous. We're too sensitive, too politically correct.
This is patriarchy at work. That men are able to fully express their humanity, sexuality included, in all their dealings, but women are relegated to being foils for men and their weaknesses. That women must tread lightly for fear of disrupting company culture, not demand an environment that respects them equally, and pretend that it is not colossally unjust that women have to be sexually attractive to men and maintain a tight rein on their sexual desires if they want to get ahead while men may disregard their female colleagues' agency, dignity and humanity with impunity.
Anyway none of this is news. But maybe this is a good time, it being National Sexual Assault Awareness Month and all, to review what consent means. How, at the core of consent, there is a recognition that you own your body. This is a fundamental human right. Maybe the fundamental human right. Your body belongs to you, and no other person may infringe upon it without your permission, which may be revoked at any time, because again your body belongs to you and you get to decide what happens to it. But this is idealistic. In reality, women's bodies don't belong to them. They're public property. Our appearance is policed. Our sexuality is stigmatized. Our reproduction is politicized.
In a recent study, 1 in 3 college-aged men said that they would intend to force women into sexual intercourse if no one else ever knew about it and there were no consequences.
To me, this says that we need to do a better job of teaching people, our boys and girls, to accept that women are people, full human beings with all the rights thereof. Until women are granted their full humanity by everyone, our culture will continue to side with the rapists, harassers and misogynists, the benefit of the doubt given to male transgressors, and consent will be rather meaningless.
We have to examine why we, as a culture, accept that men may bring their economic, social, professional power to bear on sexual relationships, but women who do so are punished. Men are allowed to be sexual beings at all times. In fact, isn't it a popular trope that men always and constantly think about sex or cannot be separate from their sexual function? So that you can easily forgive a man who crosses the line if they act on their sexual attraction. They can't help themselves. Or perhaps, we just need to reminded that women lie, manipulate, cannot be trusted and are fortune-hunters.
Because women cannot be their own sexual beings without the approval of men. In the workplace, a woman's sexuality is a loaded weapon. If she uses her feminine wiles, she risks slut-shaming. If she pretends to be asexual, she risks putting off male colleagues who crave feminine attention or for whom a woman's mutual sexual interest is irrelevant to theirs. Either way, it's incumbent on the women to modulate their behavior and appearance to appease/please the men. Certainly there are many people for whom not making a racy joke or bringing attention to someone's appearance is a burden, and plenty more who witness these breakdowns in office decorum and think it's innocuous. We're too sensitive, too politically correct.
This is patriarchy at work. That men are able to fully express their humanity, sexuality included, in all their dealings, but women are relegated to being foils for men and their weaknesses. That women must tread lightly for fear of disrupting company culture, not demand an environment that respects them equally, and pretend that it is not colossally unjust that women have to be sexually attractive to men and maintain a tight rein on their sexual desires if they want to get ahead while men may disregard their female colleagues' agency, dignity and humanity with impunity.
Anyway none of this is news. But maybe this is a good time, it being National Sexual Assault Awareness Month and all, to review what consent means. How, at the core of consent, there is a recognition that you own your body. This is a fundamental human right. Maybe the fundamental human right. Your body belongs to you, and no other person may infringe upon it without your permission, which may be revoked at any time, because again your body belongs to you and you get to decide what happens to it. But this is idealistic. In reality, women's bodies don't belong to them. They're public property. Our appearance is policed. Our sexuality is stigmatized. Our reproduction is politicized.
In a recent study, 1 in 3 college-aged men said that they would intend to force women into sexual intercourse if no one else ever knew about it and there were no consequences.
To me, this says that we need to do a better job of teaching people, our boys and girls, to accept that women are people, full human beings with all the rights thereof. Until women are granted their full humanity by everyone, our culture will continue to side with the rapists, harassers and misogynists, the benefit of the doubt given to male transgressors, and consent will be rather meaningless.
Comments
Post a Comment