This is not women helping women

As much as men need to learn to think about women differently, women have work to do too. Undervaluing ourselves and overvaluing men has a cost.

One of the more obvious costs is that we will frequently accept bad treatment when we don't have too. Sometimes there is no escape route, or we try to get out in ways that don't work. Sometimes we successfully say "no" and get punished for it in other way. But sometimes we say "yes" because we think we have to. Frankly, the first two instances do a lot to support the idea that we should not be fighting for ourselves. It's very demoralizing.

Also, sometimes we pick on each other. Yesterday's post referred to an association between women enjoying sex and being sluts. Too much enjoyment can even seem doubtful when it is a woman whose only partner has been her husband, just because those ideas can take such deep root. Furthermore, sometimes the worst judgment comes from women.

There are lots of sociological reasons why this makes sense. Frequently women don't get to exert much power over men, but they can wield power against women via social acceptance and rejection and gossipy criticism.

(A good side path could be examining the correlation between having a lower status and being more abusive of those further down, but we're not going there now.)

This is really just a prelude to criticizing two more celebrities, not for them assaulting or harassing anyone sexually, but for being stupid about it.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/drew-barrymore-blasted-tone-deaf-comments-metoo-urging-women-not-angry-161220971.html

I admit that the first thing that stuck out to me was Drew Barrymore's urgent plea to the women coming forward to reject anger. It stuck out to me because I had recently learned the value of my own anger. It stuck out because even though there has been plenty of talk about how opposite of helpful tone policing is, she literally referred to the "tone of anger" (and has rightly been called tone-deaf).


There's that, but on the second pass I noticed this repetition about women "not expecting to have things handed to them" and working hard and proving themselves.

What is anyone trying to have handed to them other than being heard?

Many of the women who have come forward have proven ability in acting, some also with directing and producing, and they have worked plenty hard to get there. Thanks for invalidating all of that, but seriously, what do you think they are asking for? Is it that you have to work very hard to be allowed to say when someone with power over you abuses you?

Have you fully thought about the ramifications of that? Because it seems like then we're going to have to stop caring about child abuse and inmate abuse, but I guess we can still listen to hotel and farm workers who get abused because they work really hard. Only we're not listening to them, but basically listening to people who have a name we recognize or maybe they have an abuser whose name we recognize. I concede that's not a perfect system, but I swear Barrymore is not thinking about what she is saying, and that's unfortunate because she has a recognizable name.

I know anger can be dangerous, but it can also be empowering. Denying victims a form of empowerment because it makes you uncomfortable (and then crapping on them even more by implying that your hard work was the magic power that protected you) is not a good look. Honestly, it makes you sound a little fragile, like you are afraid that if you think too much about the bad stuff it will all fall apart. I can have sympathy with that, but take it to a therapist, not to a television interview.

She's still better than Susan Sarandon.

I couldn't find the quote that I remember, talking about career choices that protected her, because we all have the ability to pick and choose roles when you are trying to make it in a really competitive industry. That's okay; I found a worse quote.

"Now, I’m sure there’s a lot of men who were much smoother at seducing than-” she bursts out laughing – “James Toback and Harvey Weinstein, who a lot of women felt very flattered to be sleeping with, even if they didn’t get the job. There’s just a culture, starting in the 60s and 70s, where there was a certain amount of liberation that made it possible for those things to happen without even seeing yourself as a victim.”

https://www.wmagazine.com/story/susan-sarandon-harvey-weinstein-hillary-clinton-comments

Or possibly it feels different when a man is pursuing you for a relationship and you like him than when a man is forcing himself on you, scaring you, sabotaging you, and putting his hands around your neck.

Let me say one more thing about Sarandon; I tried to find an article that only focused on her reactions to #metoo and not on her political beliefs and support for Sanders. I could not successfully do so. Partly she may just be proud of all the ways in which she is contrary to those other actors, so it kept coming up. However, that reference to the liberation, and how that let things happen, is interesting in a couple of ways.

Actresses got raped in the 40s and 50s too, for sure, along with getting drugged more. Also, the one article also referred to Peggy Noonan (whose level of affection for the Clintons is similar to Sarandon's) drawing a similar connection to sexual liberation and #metoo.

(To read a pretty twisted quote from Noonan without having to be a Wall Street Journal subscriber, go here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/12/peggy_noonan_suggests_the_sexual_revolution_is_to_blame_for_harassment_here.html)

That still ignores the history of rape, assault, harassment, and misogyny, and then conveniently finds a way to blame victims and find oneself superior. I mean, it's interesting that someone so conservative and someone so liberal have the same take on a matter of abuse. There could be some interesting things to think about with the far left there, though I think that is still something I don't want to get into yet. Beyond that, a lot of people just really like being able to look down on someone else.

Maybe that will end up connecting to a post that gets written Monday, but I do want to get closer to wrapping this up, and then talking about books and movies.