I was recently having a conversation with a dear friend about the #metoo movement and I was asking about her experiences to help me better understand the issues that we’ve hopefully begun to shine a better light on.
During our chat, she mentioned something which really stuck with me as I don’t know that as a male I have ever truly understood this concept, as I have never really had to. This being the unwelcome advance and the perils of just wanting to be left alone.
In the last 15 years where books like “The Game” have been released, and the rise of professional dating coaches to help men successfully lure a woman to a one-night stand have entered popular culture, we have a far more pervasive mindset where many seem to think a woman saying no is simply her playing ‘hard to get’ and that if they persevere, they will succeed.
In researching this article, I dutifully hopped on to google and started to search for results about women receiving unwelcome advances. The results pages were littered with articles from self-proclaimed dating coaches on how to get women to submit and how to persist until you get that all important physical contact. Google it – actually, don’t, the results are far too depressing.
We have heard the all too common stories of women saying men have “slid in to their DM’s” (‘Direct Messages’ for those like me who tend not to rely on social media messaging), or sent repeated requests via social media platforms (even LinkedIn of all places) where by simply being a woman (not being single doesn’t appear to be a disqualifying factor), they have invited the attention of men who want to date them or enter in to a sexual relationship and that somehow they should just be grateful for the attention. If they are not, then they are the ones with something wrong with them, not the men who consistently pester them everywhere they turn.
Even the simple and mundane acts of buying a coffee before work, having a drink with colleagues on a Friday, or lining up to buy lunch can be seen by too many men as a challenge to get a woman’s number, take her home, or to any place of convenience to initiate a sexual encounter.
I’m no psychologist so I am unable to speak to any predispositions or hardwired hunter-gatherer-procreating alpha-male-in-chief instincts that may exist in the brain. What I will attempt to do here instead is simply tell the stories that are all too common, that women for the most part feel ashamed to tell because they take the blame on to themselves for being a victim. In this day and the age of #metoo, it seems like something that really shouldn’t exist anymore.
You really don’t have to look very far to find stories of women who have been on the receiving end of such an advance that went from unwelcomed to threatening very quickly. In fact, just ask any woman you know and I can guarantee you that every one of them will have such a story. It may be something seemingly innocuous to others, but women have spent their lives living with these conditions and so much so that it barely seems worth mentioning to most of them.
In Australia, we have had this issue brought to light all too often. You need to look no further than the murders of Eurydice Dixon, Qi Yu, and Jill Meagher to highlight the horrifying reality of unwelcomed advances. Women who by all accounts were carrying on the business of just trying to get home and refusing an advance. Their refusals ended with their deaths in all three cases.
We tuned in to media reports of the murders and the usual talking heads saying that women should have more situational awareness and be more careful when out walking. This is quite possibly the most preposterous and unhelpful commentary I have ever heard. Why should a woman simply walking along trying to get to her destination need to be more aware of underdeveloped troglodytes who will murder them if they refuse to submit? It is victim blaming and completely unacceptable for anyone to suggest that these women were just not wary enough to avoid being murdered.
One in three women have experienced physical violence since the age of 15, one in five have been the victim of sexual violence. There is a better than average chance that a woman you know and hold dear has been a victim and simply not discussed it or reported it. Intimate partner violence actually contributes to the death and risk rates for women 18-44 (women classed as being “of reproductive age”) far more than tobacco, illicit drugs or cholesterol.
In America, we have the recent case of Mollie Tibbets. A woman who went out for a run and was murdered. Police reports state that her attacker started to follow her and that she became frightened for her safety and she told him that she would notify the police. By the attacker’s own admission, this threat made him angry and he “blacked out” and woke up with Mollie’s dead body in the boot of his car.
In fact, I could probably write an article 10 times as long as this one, focusing solely on the stories of women who have rejected an unwelcome advance and become the victim of violence, threats or rape because of it. These are just the small percentage that are reported.
Of course, violence is a significantly male problem. No matter how many times you see someone pithily commenting or hashtagging about it being “not all men”. We routinely look to place blame in these situations and overcomplicate it. But the statistics do not lie. Almost 95% of survivors of violence reported experiencing threats, physical or sexual assault from a male.
We can trace a lot of this back to attitudes towards gender inequality. Research from the World Health Organisation[1] demonstrated that people who believe that generally speaking, men and women have distinct characteristics are more likely to condone or even excuse violence against women. Just as men who hold traditional and somewhat hierarchical views about gender are far more likely to be the perpetrators of these threats and acts of violence against women.
Reports published by Vic Health[2] and ANROWS (Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety)[3] have shown quite clearly that 20% of Australians believe that men should take control in a relationship and be the “head of the house” and that 25% said that they prefer the man to be the one in charge. Moreover, 20% again responded to these surveys that they believed that domestic violence and intimate partner violence are matters that should be handled privately by family and that women should not be seeking external help from counsellors, health professionals or law enforcement.
This is where it gets really mind numbingly horrifying, but a similar number of respondents to these surveys believed that if a woman is intoxicated or under the influence of a substance then she should be held at least partly responsible.
So, the question then is, as men, what can we do? Well known thespian Sir Patrick Stewart is one such man taking a stand. He tells stories about how his own mother was a victim of domestic violence and I’d like to share two of his quotes on the subject.
“As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, ‘Mrs Stewart, you must’ve done something to provoke him, it takes two to make an argument’. WRONG! My mother did nothing to provoke that, and even if she had, violence is NEVER EVER a choice that a man should make. Ever.”
“People won’t listen to you or take you seriously unless you’re an old white man, and since I’m an old white man I’m going to use that to help the people who need it”.
Now, if these attitudes are good enough for the Captain of The Enterprise, the surely we can follow his example. Being a defender of rights for women and girls is the entire reason I decided to begin this website and hope to tell the stories of women from every walk of life to bring light to the issues.
As men we should be absolutely refusing to validate this kind of behaviour. We can unequivocally repudiate contests of sexual conquest. We can without approval from peers who show demeaning attitudes. These are not harmless jokes. It is not made in jest or just for fun. It most certainly is NOT just “locker talk”.
If boys will be boys then isn’t it incumbent upon us as men, leaders, husbands, brothers and fathers to insist on better? We must absolutely insist on better treatment of women, we must demand that the men in our circles behave better. We must no longer tolerate or excuse. Wearing a ribbon once a year simply will not do. This sort of behaviour of privilege, of insistence and of “right to conquest” is the logic of an underdeveloped mind that we should have long since evolved past.
Women are NOT at fault for simply wanting to do the same things that we do. Things we take for granted like walking home alone or any other daily activity for that matter. We can refuse to accept “being under the influence” as a factor or any other quite frankly weak excuse to mitigate the damage done. Stress levels, substance consumption or mental health must no longer be used. We must repudiate court room defences of now being deeply remorseful after the fact. The damage is already done. Being sorry doesn’t undo the harm you cause or the lives that you ruin.
Only with a holistic approach where we stand together can we ever expect true meaningful change to occur.
[1] http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/9789241564007/en/
[2] https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/publications/2013-national-community-attitudes-towards-violence-against-women-survey
Fractured Ceilings 