I find it very disturbing that many of the things I have struggled with, that I struggled with all through my...
I find it very disturbing that many of the things I have struggled with, that I struggled with all through my career, things which were one of many but significantly part of why I had to step away and try to figure out how to go forward - that so many of these things just need a few words rewritten to describe my and other's experiences. Transpose Hollywood for anywhere and everywhere, especially if men feel they are in power. Add money to that and it's gasoline on the fire.
I am so upset by reading this stuff, because I can't quite keep myself detached from it. Yet it is helping, because these people have found ways to start putting words to things, to verbalize experiences that kind of choke your words and freeze your brain. Because, you know, none of this ever happens. Right? And you are always what was wrong in the situation, or you misunderstood, or misinterpreted. Or failed. If you weren't a failure, you wouldn't have any problems. Right?
At least no one ever accused me of dressing inappropriately. Commented inappropriately on what I was wearing, but that's different. For example, women wearing scrubs is an opportunity to discuss their cleavage. In the male attending surgeons' locker room. Talk about literal metaphors. Thank you to the one male medical student who spoke up and said that was inappropriate. And warned us about what was going on and who to watch out for (practically all of them, and a decent number of the residents and fellows - that was a super awesome rotation).
Things Lena Dunham said that feel like my life:
terrifying producer rage
Just change "producer" and this is true in almost any context.
Last year, I was sexually harassed by a director of a show, not my own, and not on a set, and the response by the powers that be was to defend him, question the women ferociously and take ages before letting him go from the network. It was a move based less on his skill than on some ancient loyalty. It’s that kind of behavior that normalizes this abuse of power.
I ... really ... enjoyed watching this happen to people. It was special.
I felt that going onstage under his aegis was a betrayal of my own values. But I wanted so desperately to support my candidate that I made a calculation. We’ve all made calculations, and saying we’re sorry about those calculations is not an act of cowardice. It’s an essential change of position that could shift the way we do business and the way women regard their own position in the workplace. I’m sorry I shook the hand of someone I knew was not a friend to women in my industry.
Do I like being employed? Do I want to have a hope in heck of succeeding at anything I am trying to do professionally? How much is that worth versus my ethics and values? How much am I worth? How badly screwed am I over the entire world (not an exaggeration) if I report this extremely senior, internationally powerful and influential person? Who will then be protected no matter what and still have his job after I can't find a job volunteering for Mother Teresa? (I'd like to travel to India some day, but I don't want to have no choice but to disappear anonymously into a slum.)
Rage. Chauvinism. Misogyny. Abuse.
Yeah. Special.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/harvey-weinstein-lena-dunham-silence-.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/harvey-weinstein-lena-dunham-silence-.html
I am so upset by reading this stuff, because I can't quite keep myself detached from it. Yet it is helping, because these people have found ways to start putting words to things, to verbalize experiences that kind of choke your words and freeze your brain. Because, you know, none of this ever happens. Right? And you are always what was wrong in the situation, or you misunderstood, or misinterpreted. Or failed. If you weren't a failure, you wouldn't have any problems. Right?
At least no one ever accused me of dressing inappropriately. Commented inappropriately on what I was wearing, but that's different. For example, women wearing scrubs is an opportunity to discuss their cleavage. In the male attending surgeons' locker room. Talk about literal metaphors. Thank you to the one male medical student who spoke up and said that was inappropriate. And warned us about what was going on and who to watch out for (practically all of them, and a decent number of the residents and fellows - that was a super awesome rotation).
Things Lena Dunham said that feel like my life:
terrifying producer rage
Just change "producer" and this is true in almost any context.
Last year, I was sexually harassed by a director of a show, not my own, and not on a set, and the response by the powers that be was to defend him, question the women ferociously and take ages before letting him go from the network. It was a move based less on his skill than on some ancient loyalty. It’s that kind of behavior that normalizes this abuse of power.
I ... really ... enjoyed watching this happen to people. It was special.
I felt that going onstage under his aegis was a betrayal of my own values. But I wanted so desperately to support my candidate that I made a calculation. We’ve all made calculations, and saying we’re sorry about those calculations is not an act of cowardice. It’s an essential change of position that could shift the way we do business and the way women regard their own position in the workplace. I’m sorry I shook the hand of someone I knew was not a friend to women in my industry.
Do I like being employed? Do I want to have a hope in heck of succeeding at anything I am trying to do professionally? How much is that worth versus my ethics and values? How much am I worth? How badly screwed am I over the entire world (not an exaggeration) if I report this extremely senior, internationally powerful and influential person? Who will then be protected no matter what and still have his job after I can't find a job volunteering for Mother Teresa? (I'd like to travel to India some day, but I don't want to have no choice but to disappear anonymously into a slum.)
Rage. Chauvinism. Misogyny. Abuse.
Yeah. Special.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/harvey-weinstein-lena-dunham-silence-.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/harvey-weinstein-lena-dunham-silence-.html
My response to people who are shocked by this is kind of a puzzled blink, because... of course this was happening. This has always been happening. Even if it never personally happened to you, have you literally never talked to a woman (or another woman) in your whole life?
ReplyDeleteThey deny it, rationalize it, or slut-shame it away. I am not sure where the line is, and I do not want to go slut-shaming, myself, but I feel that some of these women are complicit.
ReplyDeleteI want to say they are all brain-washed, and traumatized themselves, but I have met people who are just straight-up, Handmaid's Tale complicit. It is deeply disturbing.
Well, that was the thing that Atwood hit right on the head: the Aunts were her representation of how women have always, throughout history, been complicit in their own oppression.
ReplyDeleteLeigh Butler That's one of the ways that really makes the patriarchy so powerful a structure. Women are given ways to succeed under the patriarchy and gain powerful positions, but a lot of that hinges on defending the norms of the patriarchy.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that there are psychological mechanisms at work. If a person's success and status depends on defending some values or performing some behaviour, I believe there is a very strong force to internalise those values or behaviours. Thus, women help foster their own successors in defending the patriarchy.