Gender Roles — 2018 — Spillenger's Commonplace Book

On January 16, 2018, at just around high noon, I posted a link on Facebook to a piece by Margaret Atwood entitled “Am I a Bad Feminist?” In her essay, Atwood calls into question some of the attitudes, tactics and opinions of the #MeToo movement, based in part on her experience as one of many people who questioned the way a University of British Columbia professor was treated after charges of sexual harassment were brought against him. I didn’t add any comment to the post, just posted the link, because I thought it was a smart, thoughtful piece that some of my FB “friends” would find thought-provoking and which might spark some constructive discussion.

As of today, January 23, 2018, only two people have responded to the post, both of them men. They offered no comment but simply “liked” the post. Otherwise, crickets.

There is no question in my mind that, whatever its goals – and most of its fundamental goals are good, noble and long-overdue – and whatever its intentions, the #MeToo movement has had a chilling effect on open discussion of the issues of sexual harassment, sexual violence and the destructive and unjust use of power in the workplace (and elsewhere). That many people whose views and instincts don’t align perfectly with the new orthodoxy are publically invisible leads to this inevitable conclusion. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard such an ear-splitting silence. On Facebook and in other discussions, both in-person and online, I have noted a widespread fear to risk conflict and obloquy by offering more nuanced thoughts on the issue or pointing out the dangers of stifling open conversation on such an important matter. When people are intimidated to the point that they feel it’s best to maintain a wary silence, the possibility of dialogue atrophies and potential allies are launched into the periphery. Perhaps more significant, the level of discourse plummets because the movement contents itself with comfy memes that preach to the converted and, as a result, important perspectives are lost and useful distinctions – such as the one between obnoxious flirting and rape – are elided.

I recently wrote a National Geographic series on dictators. One of the experts interviewed was Tim Snyder, a Yale historian specializing in Central and Eastern Europe. Here’s one of the things he said:

Before an authoritarian or totalitarian has complete control, the main thing that you do is you try to make people who speak truth feel lonely. You generate costs for them by bullying them, by rallying your people against them, literally rallying, perhaps holding a rally. You point to people, you point to journalists, and you say, "boo them" or "throw them out." You try to create costs for people whose job it is to seek the truth or who just have the inclination or the courage to seek the truth. You call them out. You make their names public. You try to make them subject to abuse.

Another interviewee, Fathali M. Moghaddam, an Iranian psychologist specializing in these issues, talked about the mindset of people living in a dictatorship:

In the privacy of their homes, in the privacy of talks with some family members, discussions with some friends, they can be frank and talk about the regime as they really feel. But in public, and with most people, they have to pretend that they support the regime. This leads to a dichotomy. This leads to a situation where they are continually feeling dissonance, and this cognitive dissonance is a pressure on them, so they are constantly feeling a tension in their lives between how they have to present themselves and how they really feel.

These dynamics obtain in a country ruled by a dictator, and Snyder’s observation in particular is an apt description of Trump and the politics he represents. But they can apply as well to sub-groups within a society. It is a fact of history that even leaders and movements driven by progressive ideals and liberationist motives can appropriate, with stunning speed, the tactics of the oppressor; one need only think of Castro. We need to be aware of this danger whenever we call for people to be silenced or behave in such a way as to stifle dissent or alternate points of view. The righteous movement doesn’t need to shut people up; the wise leader listens and sees potential value in what others have to say, even if in the end he or she is not persuaded by it. Only the tyrant is threatened by free speech and open dialogue.

Again and again we see the tyranny of the righteous.

It goes without saying that the real enemy rejoices in the bickering among people who should be natural allies. To engage in bullying and personal attack is exactly the strategy of the dictator and when a progressive movement that claims to be fighting for justice and freedom adopts this kind of tactic, it actually legitimizes the bullying.

Case in point: I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I don’t get to have an opinion on these issues because I’m a man and couldn’t possibly understand. This is not a very convincing gambit. Human beings are capable of compassion and empathy precisely because we are able to feel by analogy. I have never been a dirt-poor farmer in Stalin’s Soviet Union, but I can reason my way, by analogy to things I have experienced, to an understanding that his situation was cruel and unjust and a feeling for his pain. Women bear some responsibility to help those of us who actually don’t understand learn to do so, and this, I believe, is one of the true accomplishments of the #MeToo movement. But the argument that a man can’t express a view or contribute to the discussion because of his sex/gender is fatuous. It often arises when a man asks a question or makes a point that the other has no good answer to: Oh, you couldn't understand, so why bother?

Humbug, I say. And in the spirit of free and open conversation and the hope of solidarity where now there is rancor and a fearful silence, let me cop to some of my own behaviors with and attitudes toward women, behaviors and attitudes I am completely comfortable with, which I think are generally benign, and which I see no reason to change. I don’t engage in these behaviors all the time, and of course I use my sense of propriety and tact, fueled by my natural shyness, to decide in each case when, where and how to act.

1. When I see a beautiful woman, I often look at her. Generally, I try not to stare or make her “uncomfortable.” But I am hard-wired by natural selection to have my attention drawn to “beautiful” (however we may define that) women. I can’t help it, I enjoy it, and I don’t apologize for it. It is not sexual harassment. It is not always about physical traits; sometimes it is the way she moves or carries herself or a certain sparkle in her eye. There are genes that make me do this. And while Katharine Hepburn's Rose Sayer advises Humphrey Bogart's Charlie Allnut that "nature is what we are put into this world to rise above," I see no particular reason to adopt her view in every instance. I never thought I'd see the day when a modern feminist would adopt the perspective of a moralizing early-20th-century Methodist missionary. Then again, the #MeToo movement always has had a slightly Puritan aspect to it.

2. The way a woman dresses, talks, moves or “puts herself together” is often a factor in the attention I give her. Often a woman -- and by talking about women I am not implying the same isn’t sometimes true of men, just that, as a heterosexual male, I don’t have the same reaction to men as I do to women in this respect -- deliberately takes steps to be attractive. This is not in itself a bad thing. Nor am I implying that by dressing in a sexy or attractive way women “ask for” rape or any sexual attention they’ve made it clear they’re not interested in. I’m simply stating what is probably obvious to most people: that many women like to be found attractive, like to be noticed, even like the occasional compliment on their appearance. None of this is by definition “harassment”; it can be a natural and positive aspect of human relations.

3. The assertion that women don’t strive to be attractive to others but rather only to themselves flies in the face of my experience and, it seems to me, common sense. I'm not even sure what it means. It is other people who see how we dress, adorn ourselves and comport ourselves; it is not the feeling of the clothing alone that gives us pleasure – if that were the case, it would be hard to explain the wearing of high heels! Many women, I have observed, actually want to “look” good -- which implies that there's an audience. There is obviously no crime in this, nor is it a crime to admire or be attracted to someone who looks “attractive.” The dynamics that may ensue from this point onward may or may not be criminal.

4. Fantasy is not a crime. Unlike some fundamentalist types who believe it is a sin to “lust in one’s heart,” it seems obvious to me that this is exclusively the business of the luster in question. A woman may or may not appreciate being lusted after or fantasized about, but as long as it remains merely a feeling and not an action, there’s not much she can legitimately do about it.

5. When I’m in social situations and the general “feel” of the encounter seems suitable, I sometimes naturally inject an element of very low-key flirtation into my exchanges with women. I know -- it's unbelievable. I do this though I am married and have no intention of engaging in sexual intercourse with the woman in question! It is just a part of who I am, and when I sense that it is a part of who the woman is, it is sometimes automatic, unconscious even. It's often difficult to draw a fine line between flirtation and playfulness. But flirtation, playfulness, even naughtiness, is a part of human interaction; indeed, it’s a part of discourse itself. It can be a way to get to know someone better, to penetrate (if I’m allowed to use such a word) the barriers that keep people at arm’s length from one another. Life would be diminished if we outlawed flirtation because we decided it constituted sexual harassment. On the other hand, I am attuned to any signals that my light-hearted flirtatiousness is unwanted.

6. Many men are assholes and dopes, maybe even most men, especially when they’re young. The proper response to such assholes and dopes is to tell them exactly what they are, throw a drink in their face, throw a strong right hook into their kisser, tell the bartender or a large friend that said asshole/dope is bothering you, etc. That you were annoyed, made “uncomfortable” or pissed-off by the jerk’s unwanted attentions does not raise them to the level of an actual crime, such as rape, stalking or continuing the offensive behavior on more than one occasion, which would. Assholes, as the good book tells us, we will always have with us. Uncomfortable situations we will always have with us; they’re a part of life, and it’s how you deal with them that defines you.

7. The women I admire the most are the feminists who don’t paint themselves as victims but act to fight a sexist system and toxic institutions. They don’t whine about “safe spaces” and complain, when a drunken idiot tried to kiss them, that “their souls were violated.” They don’t insist that every encounter be “comfortable.” They stand up for themselves and other women, and they try to learn from unpleasant situations. They take power where they can, because they are powerful. They know the difference between rape and a sophomoric, obnoxious photograph of a man pretending to feel up a sleeping woman’s breasts. And by drawing such distinctions they place the focus where it should be: on the men who use their power to coerce sexual favors from women. These are important distinctions. Because in the end this is chiefly about power – who has it, who doesn’t, and how it’s used.

8. Of course, much of what we experience as attractive is culturally determined, but that doesn’t mean that it’s “wrong.” We live in a particular moment of history, and though other periods and other cultures measured women’s beauty by other standards, we live here and now. The questions we should be asking are: Are we cruel to those who don’t live up to our culture’s mainstream and media-disseminated definition of beauty? Do we discriminate against them and close doors to opportunities that should have nothing to do with how they look? Are we capable of seeing beyond the surface physical features and loving the deeper humanity in people – are we even interested in getting to know them? Or do we treat them as what used to be called “sexual objects”?

9. We are animals, like it or not. Libido is part of who we are. As a matter of fact, it’s a truly awesome part. Its reach extends far beyond the actual "bedroom"; some might say that the whole world is kind of a bedroom. If you’re uncomfortable with your own sexuality, I get it. I don’t judge it, and if it’s not a problem for you, it’s not a problem, period. But sexuality and the expression thereof is not in and of itself a crime. Until the orthodox #MeToo movement becomes a little more sophisticated in its understanding of what constitutes a sexual crime and accepts that tarring every sexual action with the same undifferentiating brush is stupid and counter-productive, it will fail.

10. The strange notion of "unwanted advances." Consider if you will the following two scenarios:

Scenario #1: A man and a woman who don’t know each other are at a big party at someone’s home. While standing with a few other people by the punch bowl, they’re introduced by mutual friends. They exchange polite hellos. The man is obviously interested in the woman and tries to chat her up, but she shows no interest. As she moves through the party, he follows her around, and she tries to convey to him in subtle ways that she finds this annoying. At one point she is standing by herself with a drink, and he comes up very close to her. He tries to kiss her. That is clearly an unwanted advance. Any fool could have read the signs, and there is no way he could have seen her behavior as encouraging. He’s a dick. End of story.

Scenario #2: A group of co-workers are at a bar, everyone’s drinking and joking and maybe there’s a little innocent flirting. One of the men gets into a conversation with one of the women about his hobby (let’s say it’s stamp-collecting), and she’s really interested in it. They laugh together a bit about stamps and what a nerd he is, and they make some silly jokes about it. She says she’s going outside to have a smoke and as she gets up she puts her hand on his arm to help lift herself off the stool. After she leaves, he’s wondering if this moment of physical contact means she’s interested in him. He goes outside. They talk for a minute and then, with a little Dutch courage in him, he screws up his courage and kisses her. It turns out she didn’t want him to do that, and he backs off, apologetically. Awkwardness ensues. The attempted kiss is, in a sense, an unwanted advance, but from his point of view, only in retrospect; that is, he didn’t know whether it would be unwanted until he tried it. He thought they’d always had a “connection,” and their conversation in the bar made him feel there might be more there. He took a risk, and crashed and burned. It happens. To characterize this as sexual violence or violation would be insane. At worst, he misread the signals. It happens.

It would be difficult for me to be persuaded by someone who didn’t see the distinction between these two scenarios.

You can disagree with any of this or all of it. This is just my opinion, today anyway. I am utterly available for any reasonable argument against what I’ve written. What I don’t have time or patience for is argument by shouting or invective.

I would propose that to get at the truth of things at this pivotal moment and find ways to make the world a more equitable and just place, we allow men a seat at the table. That we stop shouting, bullying and attacking those whose views don’t line up precisely with the orthodoxy, even as they support – or could support – the larger struggle. That we respect the use of reason, evidence and due process, even if it seems like a slower way of moving forward. That in lieu of venting or personal attack, we channel our feelings of righteous indignation, traumatic memories and passion for change into strategies that actually do change things for the better because they don’t alienate or muzzle our natural allies.

America has always been this strange amalgam of Puritanism and pornography. The two are not unrelated. Our culture was defined from the beginning by a repudiation of European cultures far older than our own. We thought we could make it all up as we went along. Sex is dangerous, there’s no doubt about it. But the danger is part of what makes it glorious. We have tried to either sanitize it – make it “nice” according to the latest prissy self-help book on “loving relationships” – or relegate it to the dark alleyways of Internet porn. But older cultures know better. They know that Eros is the oldest and most powerful god of all. Repress him all you want, he’ll just be reborn stronger.

The #MeToo movement is a good, because necessary, thing. Its time has surely come. But as it develops – if it develops – it will have to see the injustice it’s fighting, not as a sexual crime, but as a political one. The kind of institutionalized exploitation we associate with Harvey Weinstein and his ilk are the offspring of a hyper-corporatized society, where we are defined almost exclusively by our willingness to be cogs in the economic machine, worker bees that function, in essence, as conduits for the transfer of wealth between and among large corporations. We sometimes forget how relatively recent a phenomenon is the “job,” wherein we sell the bulk of our waking hours to a corporation in exchange for the privilege of being an economic conduit. In a society where our identity is determined by our work, where success is measured by whether we keep our jobs and rise in the ranks, the opportunities for workplace sexual bullying are magnified a thousand-fold, because there is a sword hanging over everyone’s head: We could lose our job, even our career – and then who or what would we be?

It is easy, and yet ultimately useless, to mistake this struggle as a sexual one or define it in sexual terms. It is much harder to see this for what it is: one element of a larger crisis over who holds power. It is not “men” who are the enemy; it is some men (and some women, too) who exploit the system of power for their own personal gain. This system benefits from well-intentioned idealists who put all their energy into marginal and ultimately fruitless battles.

The only road ahead entails drawing rational and humane distinctions and then focusing on those who have truly exploited the power structure to abuse women. This strategy will be effective precisely to the extent that the movement adopts standards of rational discourse, evidence and due process and takes each case on its own merits rather than trying to shoehorn every case into a predetermined ideology that can’t tell the difference between rape and foolishness. It must, rather, embrace and embody the most powerful enemies of tyranny and oppression: knowledge, reason and fairness. In the end, while it may not feel as good in the moment as invective and broad-stroke condemnation, these are the choices that in the long run will make for a better and more just society -- for women and for us all.