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Commentary - Aug 7, 2010 - Printable Version
- You Want it, I Know You Want it
by Robin Buckallew
Last week, a jury handed down a decision on a lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild which has been reverberating through the blogosphere. Countless bytes have been expended on discussing this case, and tempers have flared. This article is not about that case. At this point, the information I have is insufficient to evaluate the situation fully about the legal aspects, and I have no way of knowing (unlike many of the bloggers) exactly what Jane Doe was feeling when she was dancing in the bar where she was filmed, or what she was feeling when someone yanked down her top after she refused to remove it, nor what she was feeling when the film turned up later in an embarrassing venue. So, for those of you who are viciously tearing apart anyone who dares to write a column condemning the decision, you can turn your attention elsewhere, because that is NOT what this column is about. I say that in total resignation, knowing that you will ignore that disclaimer, and jump immediately into the fray with both feet, feeling the desperate urge to explain the jury’s decision to me, and why they were right. When you do, however, because of this paragraph, you will hopefully be able to grasp why I am not going to respond to you. Response would be futile, since you will have already demonstrated that you are unable to read, or comprehend what you are reading, enough for me to bother trying to knock into your head what I am really saying. So, pontificate away. You’ll be doing nothing but making yourself look foolish. Like most other sexual assault cases floating around in the strange and surreal world that is the Internet, this case has brought out the absolute worst in many men (and a few women). To give credit where credit is due, however, it has also brought out the best in many men, who have not seen this or any other case as an excuse to take cheap shots at all women, but have instead offered up a thoughtful support for the idea that women are people, too, and who have the decency to recognize that, as white men, they still occupy a relatively privileged place in a relentlessly patriarchal society. Women have come a long way since the days when they were considered little more than property, but there is still a long way to go before they reach the status of no longer being seen as objects to be presented up on a platter of chiffon for men’s enjoyment.
Many blog discussions start out with a thin veneer of sophistication and civility that quickly gets stripped off, revealing the beast underneath by about the third or fourth comment by a given poster. When the subject is women, however, the veneer is often dispensed with before the poster arrives at the discussion. The narrow, patriarchal view of women is often stated up front, and the poster makes no attempt to disguise the fact that (s)he regard women as merely serving a reproductive, decorative, and nurturing role in society…a whore, a model, and a cook all in one. Yes, I did put an “s” in front of that “he” on purpose. Though far from being a critical mass, there are all too many women who willingly accept this view of gender, and feel that, because that’s what they see as right for them, all other women should have the exact same expectations out of life. This is, I’m afraid, unavoidable, as long as most of us continue to regard ourselves as normal, and don’t recognize the wide range that encompasses the concept of normal. In fact, being a woman is often used by a poster as proof that their comments were not, in fact, sexist, but just plain common sense, everyday knowledge that any woman would know.
In watching the drama unfold in cyberspace, I found myself frequently in shock at the raw, brutal nastiness with which many posters approached this issue, usually sneering at any woman who expressed the idea that “no means no” as “militant feministas” or “feminazis”, and going on at length about biology, as though somehow biology excuses boorishness. Anecdotes of females acting provocatively in front of men are repeated ad infinitum, unverified, but considered devastating “evidence” for the idea that women really want men to seize them, drag them by the hair back to the cave, and spend the afternoon ravishing them unmercifully. Such anecdotes gain, and grow into urban legends, “verified” by others who defend it as being obviously true because the poster has used it before, and didn’t just suddenly come up with it out of the blue for that particular discussion. Generalizations run amok; it doesn’t take long to move from a discussion of whether Jane Doe was “asking for it” or giving “implicit consent” to a generalization that all women are “asking for it” or giving “implicit consent” by happening to be in close proximity to where men are and wearing something more revealing than a burqua.
Women face a difficult position in our society. We have been given messages all our life that we need to be pretty, we need to be desirable, we need to dress provocatively so we’ll attract men. We have our biological urges assisting with this societal message, because, like men, women begin getting sexual urges somewhere around puberty. In addition, we’re supposed to be a “good girl”, modest and demure, so that men will want to marry us, and give us the love (and children) we need to be complete women. Still further, we are now expected to be able to compete with men in business, in sports, in entrepreneurship, in medicine and science; in short, to be able to be fully realized contributors to the economic well-being of ourselves and our country. So, to sum it up, sexy but not too sexy; smart but not too smart; and never, ever single or childless. Holy shit, no wonder so many women are exhausted by the time their thirty!
The flip side of all this is that society, while expecting us to be sexy, will punish us for being sexy – we become whores, sluts, or “bad girls”. Society, while expecting us to be modest, punishes us for being modest – we become “boring prigs” or “Marion the Librarian”. Society, while expecting us to be smart and capable, punishes us for being smart and capable – we become “uppity bitches” or “ballbusters”. Then, with the inevitable confusion and depression that results from such a crazy patchwork quilt of expectations, we become the butt of jokes as hysterics, emotional basket cases, or just simply unstable “girls”. Boys, on the other hand, while often being stereotyped as rude, crass, boorish, sports-obsessed, penis-worshipping remote-control warriors, are not typically punished when they meet this stereotype (though, to be honest, they are often punished for failing to meet this stereotype, usually with epithets such as “homo”, “fag”, or “mama’s boy”). In a patriarchal society with a strong feminist presence, there is no “right” way to be a woman; there are only a thousand “wrong” ones.
In such a topsy-turvy society still struggling with gender roles, simultaneously trying to attain equality while maintaining patriarchal privilege, issues of sexual harassment and sexual molestation are complex and disturbing. Thoughtful, considerate men begin to feel uncomfortable if they find themselves staring too long at an attractive woman in a short skirt, not wanting to be a sexist cad by assuming that a woman who shows most of her body wants to be looked at. Men who are boorish and sexist respond to the chaotic struggle by becoming more boorish and sexist, but find themselves repressing those feelings in public for fear of consequences. On the internet, the entire thing explodes, and very soon, women are being reviled for insisting that there is a very wide chasm between wanting to be looked at, and wanting to be raped. A woman who reminds the cad-class that “no means no” will be accused of perpetrating disproven feminist ideology, or of being shrill harpies trying to emasculate the men, who are only doing what comes natural. The solution is simple: simply dress like Janet Reno, and men won’t want to rape you. So, the solution to men’s biological urges is simply to deny women the right to express theirs, and make them the butt of nasty jokes, besides. After all, there is nothing more despised in this celebrity-obsessed culture than an ugly woman.
The concept of less sexy clothes reducing rape is somewhat problematic; it hinges on the question of whether rape is about sex or about power, and there is a school of thought out there that says its totally about sex, and so women bring it on themselves by dressing provocatively (backed up by the works of Stephen Pinker, author of The Blank Slate, who has suggested exactly that). I’ll remember that the next time a nun is raped. I’ll remember that the next time I see the statistics showing that rape rates are high in countries where women wear the burqua (obviously, if a woman’s eyes are showing, it’s an invitation to rape, right?) I’ll remember that the next time a 2-year old girl gets raped (serves her right; no girl of proper modesty would dream of wearing a diaper under her dress). No, the problem isn’t what the woman wears; the problem is the men that don’t understand the boundaries between honest feelings of sexual desire and forcible expression of sexual desire. Men are responsible for their own actions, regardless of what the woman is wearing. Just because a woman is wearing a mini skirt doesn’t mean a man has the right to rip that skirt off of her and take liberties. Rape is NOT the fault of the woman, and all the ifs, ands, or buts of our current justice system are simply wrong. Does the law say that a woman is complicit in her own rape if she is attractive, young, and smiles at a man while wearing a skirt that shows her knees? Well, in the words of the immortal Mr. Bumble, if the law says that, then the law is an ass.
Modest clothing is no protection against sexual violation, and immodest clothing is not an invitation to sexual violation…especially since there is no one definition of what is immodest that everyone will accept. In France, men and women share nude beaches, and that is not considered free license to act like a baboon that has just spotted a female baboon in heat. Men are expected to, and do, control their basest urges. Other men, however, can get turned on by a nun, a woman in a burqua, or Janet Reno. It is up to them to go take a cold shower every time Miss Reno gives a press conference, and not to assume it’s their right to fly to Washington and take her by force, just because she had the indecency to appear in public make-up free, immodestly dressed in shapeless, baggy clothing, and boots. If you truly want a woman, you have the option of attempting to seduce her and persuade her with your rugged good-looks and Harrison Ford charm that she should surrender to you. If you fail in the seduction, that’s that. You’re just not her type.
Watching the drama unfolding on the Internet in front of me, I finally understood why it’s so hard to get justice for sexual misconduct. Too many people simply don’t recognize that women are fully capable of knowing what they want; this became abundantly clear as I watched arrogant males informing women of what it was like to be a woman, and enlightening these women on what women are really feeling deep down inside, drawing, no doubt, on their superior knowledge from the status of not ever having been a woman. Too many of these posters were totally accepting of the concept that any woman who appeared provocative were fair game for men’s amorous adventures (hear that, Janet Reno? Better stop dressing so sexy, girlfriend). THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE. Each woman has the right to draw the line where she wants it drawn as to what she wants done with her body; if she wants you to look and not touch, well, just think of her as a museum or an art gallery – you’re able to resist your urges to run off with the goods there, right?
I’m going to share a personal story with you, to illustrate what it’s really like to be a woman in this country. I have been sexually harassed. I have been ogled, leered at, and subjected to lewd humor in my workplace by a person in a supervisory position over me. I was not dressed immodestly (though, if you asked a fundamentalist Muslim, they would probably tell you that my skirts reaching down only to my mid thighs and my sleeves reaching only to my elbow and my collars coming only up to mid-neck were sluttish and provocative). I wore business casual to work every day, and had made no flirtatious movements or gestures. I wasn’t prone to swinging my hips when I walked around the office, I wore only the barest traces of make up, and my jewelry was modest. I was, at the time, a reasonably attractive 28-year-old, and too shy and introverted to look anyone in the eye. The jokes about jumping on my bones, giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, or worse, were more than discomfiting. They were scary. The invitations out to lunch were unsettling; even more unsettling were the phone calls from a friend of the man, who also wanted desperately to meet me, based on what he’d been told by the man in my office. This was not something I asked for, nor was it something I “secretly” desired. Eventually, things got bad enough that I requested to be transferred, a request which was denied three times before it was finally granted, which happened only after my father went to the office and sat beside me while the woman in charge of such things explained to me that I should be flattered by the attentions. No, I wasn’t flattered, and I shouldn’t be. I should have had the right to be left alone, or treated with the professionalism that a man would have considered it his right to expect. This is what it is like to be a woman, to feel violated every day.
What is rape? Rape occurs anytime a woman is sexually used without her consent. No matter that she was wearing an outfit slightly more revealing than a pioneer woman. Even if she appears in public in a bustier, until she gives you permission to paw her, you should not paw her. That being said, any woman who appears in public in a bustier needs to understand: you’re going to be looked at. You almost certainly understood that when you put that garment on, so don’t complain about men looking. They will. Nothing wrong with that. They violate your boundaries only when they decide it’s their right to look at whatever parts you chose to keep covered, or when they feel it’s their automatic right to touch where their touch is not desired. This is a two way street; yes, women who do not want to be ogled should cover up anything they don’t want looked at. Yes, men should look only at that which is openly displayed, and should not touch anything they don’t have permission to touch. A woman who is showing her cleavage is violated the instant she is compelled against her will to reveal her areola, let alone her nipple. If the areola is showing, that DOES NOT mean you have a right to see the nipple. You have to win that right, and treating her as a human being will win you that right a lot faster than treating her like a piece of meat.
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