20 Nov Sexual Harassment, Part 2: The Pushback

Last week I shared a blog called “A Dissenting View of Sexual Harassment.” Many of you wrote to me with appreciation for taking the discussion of that topic out of the us/them/blame realm, and for pointing toward the broader sexual disturbances in our culture.

Some of you, however, took exception to what I left out or didn’t fully emphasize in my post. This follow-up gives me a chance to address those concerns.

The first concern is the undeniable impact of the patriarchy, which for centuries has enabled men to suppress and subjugate women for their own gains. Despite the significant advances of feminism, in so many awful and unjust ways it’s still a (white) man’s world. The importance of so many women overcoming their trauma and speaking their truths, galvanized by the current groundswell, cannot be overstated.

The importance of all men owning their own part in this also cannot be overstated (see %%track {http://matthewremski.com/wordpress/eleven-year-old-boys-touching-women-subway/#more-7259,} -group {text:1}%% recommended by an astute reader). We’re nowhere near a level playing field when it comes to societal and professional power, and we need to keep striving mightily to achieve one.

To this point I would add that what’s also long overdue is the shift toward revering women. We need to suffuse every aspect of society with a deep recognition and honoring of the immeasurable gifts that women provide. Apart from giving birth and nurturing children, for those who choose to do that, women have ways of seeing, creating, relating, affirming, uplifting and simply being in the world that are as vital as they are precious.

Feminine energy and feminine power are awesome, in the true sense of that word. We need to teach and demonstrate reverence for the feminine to both young boys and girls, as well as those who don’t gender identify. We need to help everyone find and draw upon that energy within themselves, so that respecting it in others becomes second nature. Only this will allow women the freedom to express their own feminine and masculine energy both, safely, in an ever-evolving blend to which they see fit.

Conversely, we won’t get there by demonizing or shaming men who don’t yet get it. One reader shared that sexual harassers “are not wounded and frustrated men. They are narcissists who don’t care who they hurt. They are drunk with…entitlement.”

Even if that’s true (and if some of them may even be sociopaths), it still serves us to look beyond labels and disorders to what spawns them. Men who abuse women usually become that way as a compensation for their own wounding. They are terrified, repulsed and enraged at being vulnerable. Their greatest aggressions arise, paradoxically, out of feeling hurt, threatened and powerless.

Some women told me that they don’t care about this. They’re sick of these men and resent having to spend one more minute thinking about them. The men need to change, on their own, and it’s not women’s jobs to baby them through it. Fair enough, but I would argue that we turn away from men who abuse women at great peril. The need us, all of us, in order to change.

I would also argue that our greatest asset in fostering that change, and in finally ending the patriarchy, is the promoting of vulnerability. By this I don’t mean sharing how we feel with others, though this is often important. I’m talking about vulnerability within oneself, the ability to become aware, to access, and to feel the emotions and wounds within us that are most challenging. What we feel, directly, doesn’t need to be acted out upon others.

This takes true courage. It’s soft power, feminine in nature, but just as available in men as women.

We already have enough laws on the books about sexual harassment. Although enforcing those laws is crucial, what we most need is to evolve our society to the state where for the most part it doesn’t need them. That will only come from reversing the idea that vulnerability and weakness are one and the same. They never actually are. True vulnerability is what gives us our most enduring strength, along with the opportunity to see ourselves and one another clearly, and to hold each and every life as sacred.

Another issue some women readers wanted me to understand is that sexual harassment is actually less about sex and more about violence. Harassers violate the safety of the workspace with their actions, and often the very bodies of their victims, too. They neither desire nor seek consent. They take what they can because they believe it belongs to them.

I agree with this, and wish I had zeroed in on it more fully. Whenever the behavior of powerful men in the workplace amounts to assault, it’s clearly a crime and needs to be treated as such. Full stop. To pin such assault on our culture’s broader sexual mess would be a mistake. I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that.

And…when it comes to the much grayer area of office sexual politics in general, that’s where our broader cultural mess does come into play. Both men and women often tend to pursue their attractions with whatever they’ve got to offer, consciously or otherwise. That may include money, looks, flirting, access, and preferential treatment to name a few. Any of these, taken just a little too far, may fall into the harassment territory. People who trangress in these ways are rarely anything like a Harvey.

Then there are those like the caring and genial man who shared with me that he’d always been at a disadvantage in this realm by virtue of being a “nice guy.” He watched repeatedly while “bad boys,” and those who flaunted the rules of decorum, always seemed to win out. This reminded me of the derogatory acronym, SNAG, meaning Sensitive New Age Guy. Even many women who value an emotionally intelligent man in general still don’t want him as their lover.

The more honest we can be about the ways our sexuality doesn’t fit neatly into strict, approvable boxes, the easier it will be to create a much healthier sexual playing field.

I’m not trying to create some kind of equivalency here between the challenges faced by women and men, or to confuse the issue when it comes to true predators being bought to light. May that continue, for sure, as long as we continue to seek justice and restitution rather than dehumanization. And, may we keep listening with rapt attention to the voices of women and all other disenfranchised people until they feel fully heard and their grievances are fully addressed.

Oh, and one last thing: An insighful commenter chided me for nominating Dan Savage as the first secretary of the newly imagined Department of Sexual Affairs. Though gay, he’s still a white male. Though Jewish, so am I. Recognizing that, and why it matters, I’m now going with the commenter’s own candidate, Toni Morrison.