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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
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| For some men, rape just isn’t a big deal | For some men, rape just isn’t a big deal |
| (about 14 hours later) | |
| One man I know thought it wasn’t ‘as bad as working in a factory in China’, which shows just how far we’ve got to go | |
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| Thu 2 Nov 2017 16.35 GMT | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 14.26 GMT | |
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| One thing I keep hearing, as the fallout from Weinstein continues, is incredulity that a famous champion of liberal causes might have a problem with women. To most women who have spent time around champions of liberal causes, this is (grimly) hilarious. The idea that men on the left are less likely to be misogynists than men on the right is as bogus an idea as the one that men of the cloth are less likely to sin. And yet over and over it comes: why did he do it? Was it because of self-loathing? Was it the thrill of getting away with it? | One thing I keep hearing, as the fallout from Weinstein continues, is incredulity that a famous champion of liberal causes might have a problem with women. To most women who have spent time around champions of liberal causes, this is (grimly) hilarious. The idea that men on the left are less likely to be misogynists than men on the right is as bogus an idea as the one that men of the cloth are less likely to sin. And yet over and over it comes: why did he do it? Was it because of self-loathing? Was it the thrill of getting away with it? |
| I think he did it because, to him, it was simply no big deal. I was talking with a friend once about sexual assault and he said: “Well, being raped isn’t as bad as, say, working in a factory in China.” Apart from the ludicrousness of the comparison – of trying to figure out what rape is and isn’t as bad as – it was suddenly clear to me that to him, and I assume to many men, rape exists purely in the hypothetical realm. “If you had to work in a factory for six months or be raped, which would you choose?” I asked. He looked taken aback; rape wasn’t something he had considered in relation to himself. | I think he did it because, to him, it was simply no big deal. I was talking with a friend once about sexual assault and he said: “Well, being raped isn’t as bad as, say, working in a factory in China.” Apart from the ludicrousness of the comparison – of trying to figure out what rape is and isn’t as bad as – it was suddenly clear to me that to him, and I assume to many men, rape exists purely in the hypothetical realm. “If you had to work in a factory for six months or be raped, which would you choose?” I asked. He looked taken aback; rape wasn’t something he had considered in relation to himself. |
| There have been complaints from women that the elision of minor infringements – knee-grabbing, verbal harassment – with violent assault dilutes the gravity of “genuine” sex crimes. But it seems to me that these things have always been elided: by the criminal justice system, by men who don’t see much difference between pinching someone’s arse and “non-consensual sex”. Unless you are a 17-year-old who is grabbed off the street by men in ski masks, the continuum between sexual assault, harassment and aggressive “banter” is at best a little blurry. | There have been complaints from women that the elision of minor infringements – knee-grabbing, verbal harassment – with violent assault dilutes the gravity of “genuine” sex crimes. But it seems to me that these things have always been elided: by the criminal justice system, by men who don’t see much difference between pinching someone’s arse and “non-consensual sex”. Unless you are a 17-year-old who is grabbed off the street by men in ski masks, the continuum between sexual assault, harassment and aggressive “banter” is at best a little blurry. |
| There will be over-corrections. Some of the narratives on offer to young women to whom older men have been inappropriate will invite some to feel more traumatised than they are. It is, undoubtedly, better to laugh off some experiences than nurse them. | There will be over-corrections. Some of the narratives on offer to young women to whom older men have been inappropriate will invite some to feel more traumatised than they are. It is, undoubtedly, better to laugh off some experiences than nurse them. |
| But it is also better to live in a world in which the genuinely traumatised aren’t told nothing has happened to them, and where the presumptions underpinning even the most trivial acts of aggression are dragged out and exposed. It has never been much of a taboo to touch a woman without her permission. Perhaps, under pain of calamitous “overreaction” from those legions of humourless millennials, it will be from now on. | But it is also better to live in a world in which the genuinely traumatised aren’t told nothing has happened to them, and where the presumptions underpinning even the most trivial acts of aggression are dragged out and exposed. It has never been much of a taboo to touch a woman without her permission. Perhaps, under pain of calamitous “overreaction” from those legions of humourless millennials, it will be from now on. |
| Shelving the issue | Shelving the issue |
| A man came to my house to assemble some furniture this week and reminded me that “men have feelings too”. His standard line, he said, when reviewing the handiwork of men whose wives or girlfriends had called him in to fix it, is “the only reason it didn’t work is that you didn’t have the right tools”. Meanwhile he’s thinking: “This guy’s an idiot.” | A man came to my house to assemble some furniture this week and reminded me that “men have feelings too”. His standard line, he said, when reviewing the handiwork of men whose wives or girlfriends had called him in to fix it, is “the only reason it didn’t work is that you didn’t have the right tools”. Meanwhile he’s thinking: “This guy’s an idiot.” |
| Sometimes, when the women have left the room, the men confide in him – that they feel weak and inadequate if they can’t put up shelves. You can’t call a woman names any more, said the man – his belief in this was touching – but you can tell a guy to “man up” and it’s no big deal. Somewhere in there I thought he had a good point. | Sometimes, when the women have left the room, the men confide in him – that they feel weak and inadequate if they can’t put up shelves. You can’t call a woman names any more, said the man – his belief in this was touching – but you can tell a guy to “man up” and it’s no big deal. Somewhere in there I thought he had a good point. |
| Voice of balm | Voice of balm |
| Restoration came this week in the form of the new Netflix documentary on Joan Didion, leaver of pauses, finisher of sentences, who, after dispatching a perfectly composed thought to camera, swept a look to the floor as if devastated by its implications. She talked of the Central Park Five, the emblematic New York rape case of the late 1980s that Didion identified at the time as not just “a lie” but as a proxy for political tensions in the city. Yet all one wanted was to hear her on Weinstein. | Restoration came this week in the form of the new Netflix documentary on Joan Didion, leaver of pauses, finisher of sentences, who, after dispatching a perfectly composed thought to camera, swept a look to the floor as if devastated by its implications. She talked of the Central Park Five, the emblematic New York rape case of the late 1980s that Didion identified at the time as not just “a lie” but as a proxy for political tensions in the city. Yet all one wanted was to hear her on Weinstein. |
| • Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist | • Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist |
| Rape and sexual assault | |
| Notebook | |
| Sexual harassment | |
| Women | |
| Harvey Weinstein | |
| Gender | |
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