I do keep wondering about all of these women, suddenly coming forward with
accusations of predatory male behavior which is taking place, and which has
been taking place for decade upon decade. And some men are being fired from
their jobs because corporations are embarrassed to be employing men who have
acted in such unacceptable ways. But none of this feels like real change to me.
This is the way men have always acted. It's part of our culture. I don't
believe that the basic attitudes can be changed. I think that only behavior can
be changed and behavior is changed by laws and rules with suitable discomfort
when one breaks the laws and rules. That's how this society has kept overt
racist acts in check. The basic racist attitudes of white people didn't
disappear, but white people were made to feel uncomfortable when behaving in
a racist manner. The minute permission is granted, the racist behavior is back.
You can do the same thing with men's sexual harassment of women. You can
control it by making the men who do these things feel very uncomfortable, lose
their jobs, lose their reputations. But the basic sexist attitudes? They're not
going away.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2017 3:16 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Anita Hill on Weinstein, Trump, and a Watershed
Moment for Sexual-Harassment Accusations
If we Americans are serious about altering the behavior of men in power
positions, toward women, we need to establish a Task Force to develop
guidelines that will impact those long established male habits.
The "Right" of men to pressure women for sexual favor is so ingrained in all
aspects of our culture, that merely turning the spotlight on a few violators
will not change a thing. After the dust settles and the public shock has
subsided, we will settle back in our old, comfortable ways.
Unless we explore methods of modifying our behavior, nothing will change. Like
so many social improvements, interaction between men and women has shown some
improvement over the years. But underlying these improvements is the same male
nature, better covered but just as aggressively male as ever.
Even as women have made gains, our current president holds women in contempt.
His remarks are seen as signals by predator wannabees.
Women's place in their community, better today than 50 years ago, is being
challenged. Women's role in society will be part of our return to our former
Greatness, if Donald Trump has his way.
Carl Jarvis
Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Attorney and law professor Anita Hill, a trailblazer in raising public
awareness of sexual harassment. (photo: Andreas Branch)
Anita Hill on Weinstein, Trump, and a Watershed Moment for
Sexual-Harassment Accusations By Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
03 November 17
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, eleven women accused Donald
Trump of making unwanted sexual advances toward them. Following a
well-worn playbook used by other accused sexual harassers, Trump
dismissed the women as "horrible, horrible liars" and their
allegations as "pure fiction." The women's voices swayed very few
voters, it would seem. Even after the "Access Hollywood" tape
surfaced, allowing voters to hear Trump boasting about "grabbing"
women "by the pussy," he was elected President. Among those who put
his candidacy over the top (at least in the Electoral College) were
fifty-three per cent of white female voters.
So why have Harvey Weinstein's alleged transgressions been taken so
much more seriously? One answer, it seems, has less to do with the
accused than with the accuser. Weinstein's sexual-harassment scandal
is unlike almost every other in recent memory because many of his
accusers are celebrities, with status, fame, and success commensurate
with his own. Sexual harassment is about power, not sex, and it has
taken women of extraordinary power to overcome the disadvantage that
most accusers face. As Susan Faludi, the author of "Backlash: the
Undeclared War Against Women," put it in an e-mail to me, "Power
belongs only to the celebrities these days. If only Trump had harassed
Angelina Jolie . . ."
Anita Hill, a woman with unusual insight into this topic, agrees that
the nature of Weinstein's accusers is the reason that his exposure has
proved to be a watershed moment. In a phone interview, Hill emphasized
that sexual-harassment cases live and die on the basis of
"believability," and that, in order for the accusers to prevail, "they
have to fit a narrative"
that the public will buy. At least until now, very few women have had
that standing.
Twenty-six years ago, Hill learned this the hard way, when, as a young
Yale Law School graduate, she famously testified that Clarence Thomas
was unsuitable for confirmation to the Supreme Court, on the grounds
that he had repeatedly harassed her while he served as her boss, at
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (I wrote about the
confirmation process and Hill's allegations in the book "Strange
Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas.") Her testimony blasted the
subject of workplace sexual harassment into the public consciousness,
but it was swept aside by the Senate. In televised public
congressional hearings, Hill's credibility was attacked, her character
smeared, and her sworn testimony dismissed as an unresolvable "he
said, she said" conflict. After Thomas described the process as a
"high-tech lynching"-despite the fact that both he and Hill are
African-American-the Senate confirmed him.
Hill, who is now a law professor at Brandeis University, told me that
what Thomas possessed, like many accused harassers, and unlike many
accusers, was a winning "narrative." The lynching story resonated
deeply. Without a similarly widely accepted narrative, Hill was
vulnerable to detractors supplying their own readings-imputing false
motives, insinuating psychological problems, and smearing her, as the
American Spectator notoriously did, as "a bit nutty and a bit slutty."
In contrast, Hill pointed out, "the Hollywood-starlet narrative is
part of the folklore. The casting couch is a long-standing issue." In
addition, she told me, "people often believe the myth that only
conventionally beautiful women are harassed-and so it didn't seem that
far-fetched to people that this would happen to beautiful starlets who we all
know and love."
Charges levied at political figures, Hill believes, face a
particularly high hurdle. Her case, like those of the women who
accused Trump, she says, "was cast as a political story." In such
situations, "everything gets interpreted through a political lens, and
it makes it almost impossible" for people to seriously consider
whether the accused harasser "is the right person to represent you. It
just becomes 'This is our guy' and 'people are trying to bring him
down.' "
Meanwhile, as Jessica Leeds, who accused Trump, during the campaign,
of groping her on a plane thirty years ago, told the Washington Post,
"It is hard to reconcile that Harvey Weinstein could be brought down
with this, and [President] Trump just continues to be the Teflon Don."
Melinda McGillivray, another accuser, told the Post that she, too, was
having trouble accepting the double standard. "What pisses me off is
that the guy is president," she said. McGillivray accused Trump of
grabbing her at Mar-a-Lago, in 2003, when she was twenty-three years
old.
Hill says she is "hopeful" that, in light of the Weinstein affair and
other recent sexual-harassment revelations against powerful bosses,
"people will revisit the women" who accused Trump. But she fears that
the Weinstein lesson "won't translate to everyday women, or even those
in high-profile careers in places like Silicon Valley," who still
don't have the fame, success, and standing of movie stars.
"We need to transfer the believability," Hill said. She argued that
the public needs to understand that Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie
"are just like women down the street. People need to take this moment
to make clear that this is not just about Hollywood."
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