Sadly, after reading comments to a recent article about the sexual harassment suit filed by Gretchen Carlson, I’ve concluded that there are those on this site that could use a bit of education about sexual harassment as much as could some Fox News employees. So, here’s a little explanation about it.
First, I want to make clear that I understand sexual harassment does not only happen to women and that it’s just as bad when it happens to men. However, in this diary I’m going to be addressing the subject using women as an example. My reasons are twofold: One, the article containing the comments that caused me such pain was about a woman being sexually harassed and two, I’m a woman.
Now, on to my hissy fit.
I’ll answer the last question I asked first, since it’s the simplest. When is sexual harassment justified? The simple and only answer is never, contrary to what many commenters apparently believe. I.e. It’s not justified when it happens to someone whose politics are different than yours; it’s not justified when it happens to someone who hasn’t been fighting for womens’ rights; it’s not justified when a woman has been putting up with it for years; it’s not justified when a woman wears sexy clothes; it’s not justified when a woman makes a considerable amount of money; it’s not justified even if you think the woman has somehow “participated” in making other womens’ lives more difficult or has ignored other womens’ plight; it’s not justified when it happens to someone you dislike.
Sexual harassment is simply never okay and it’s not “karma” when it happens to a woman you hold in contempt for other reasons. Every incident of sexual harassment harms every woman. Sexual harassment is not a personal injury only; it’s a social injury as well. Every time you make an excuse for it or a comment that downplays it or justifies it, you’re taking a stance that harms every woman. Every time you dismiss a woman who has been sexually harassed, you’re dismissing every woman who’s been sexually harassed (and that’s probably most of us).
Although of dramatically different degrees, sexual harassment and sexual assault have many things in common. One of those things is that most offenders are serial. They don’t choose “a” woman they dislike and harass her; they invariably harass many. The second thing they have in common is that it frequently comes down to “his word against hers” because most harassers are smart enough to harass as privately as possible. The third thing they have in common is the result of that — women have a very hard time being believed and listened to and it’s an incredibly difficult decision to try and confront that harassment. And the final thing they have in common is the answer to my first question — what’s it about? Both sexual assault and sexual harassment are about power, control, domination, manipulation, humiliation, and lack of respect.
Just as a rapist doesn’t rape because he sees a woman he finds so desirable he just can’t control himself, so a harasser doesn’t harass because he wants a woman so badly he tries to woo her with harassment.
Sexual harassment has one purpose and one purpose only — to keep a woman “in her place”, to consistently remind her who has the power and what that power can do to her, to prevent her from ever considering that she might be the equal of the harasser, to keep her feeling as uncomfortable, uncertain, and insecure as possible. And that goal is accomplished so much easier and success is so much sweeter to the harasser if he can manage to make her and others believe that she’s “participated” in her own harassment.
I recall listening once to a sexual pedophile who stated that his molestation of boys wasn’t about the sex — it was about the feeling of being superior and in control of these boys because he could make them do things voluntarily that he knew they didn’t actually want to do. That’s what Roger Ailes has succeeded in doing to Gretchen Carlson (in a significantly less traumatic manner, for sure.)
Gretchen Carlson had dreams. She’s a smart and beautiful woman. If the world was an equal place, she’d have doors open to her all over the place. But because it’s not and she’s a woman, most of those doors carry strings attached to them. Of course, she had to be smarter than the men she dealt with. That’s a given. But her beauty? A two edged sword. It makes doors open for her that wouldn’t ever open to ordinary women, many of them being in the entertainment industry. But those doors generally carry a price — one that every woman is aware of. Sometimes it involves having to “sleep your way to the top”, sometimes it means just putting up with the sexual innuendos, unwanted torching, exclusions, etc., and sometimes it means actually having to participate in all that, it means pretending to be appreciative of unwanted and inappropriate flattery, laughing uncomfortably at stupid innuendos, acting impressed over a man’s chest thumping.
“Ah”, you say, “I would never do that. I have too much self respect. I would stand up to them. I would risk my career. I would accept never having an opportunity to prove myself rather than do that. I would quit rather than put up with that. I would tell them where to shove it.”
And I tell you: Every single woman that ever shattered a glass ceiling has done some of that. Over and over and over. They didn’t have such a high level of self respect that they accepted failure rather than put up with being sexually harassed. Because if they hadn’t, they’d still be a secretary — as would all the rest of us who were able to reach higher because they did what it took to break that ceiling for us — and probably still dealing with all that. Because for most of our history and in most professions, that’s just the way it has always been. In order for a woman to have any opportunity to many fields, she either deals with this crap the best way she personally can or she gives up and leaves the field to the men.
There always have been and always will be men who are terrified of the idea of women being treated as the equal of men. They know they can compete only if they’re competing against only half the population (and usually only about 25% of the population, since they will treat Blacks, Native Americans, etc. the same way). Or they simply hate women. Or they are incapable of doing anything other than objectifying women. Or whatever else their stupid egos come up with as their excuse for being inexecrable men. And therefore women will forever be having to make decisions about when they are going to risk their careers to fight it, when they’re going to just try to pretend it’s not happening, where the lines are for what they can deal with and when they’re going to give up their dreams because it’s more than they can take.
Which leads me to one final aspect that makes sexual assault and sexual harassment similar — the justifications people — even those who believe they oppose sexual harassment — can come up with to either dismiss or downplay the damage the harassment does, something commenters were pretty good at in regard to Gretchen Carlson. Any of these sound similar to things said about rape in order to either not believe the victim or to blame her?
-Why did she wait until she was fired to complain? (Why did she wait so long to report the rape? It must not have been rape.)
-She wore sexy clothes on the show all the time. (If she hadn’t been wearing those sexy jeans and tennis shoes, she wouldn’t have tempted the boy so much. She was asking for it.)
-If it’s been going on so long, why complain now? (She let him kiss her and touch her breast. Why should she complain about his making her have intercourse too?)
-She hasn’t done anything for womens’ rights. (Okay — I admit, most people don’t think there’s a requirement that a woman be a strong feminist before she can complain about being raped; I’m not certain why they believe that should be a requirement to complain about being sexually harassed.)
-She’s a horrible, awful person, so I have no sympathy for her. (I admit I again don’t often see this statement regarding rape and again fail to see why it would be appropriate for a victim of sexual harassment.)
I want to make it perfectly clear — I do NOT believe rape and sexual harassment are anything close to the same thing. The former is a traumatic, vicious event that is beyond words for describing the violation it involves. There being similarities between the two things does not make them equal and does not compare the two.
My point is, instead, that we should all be deeply offended by every instance of sexual harassment; we should all regret that any woman, whether one we like, dislike, or hate, should ever have to deal with it, that there are reasons, similar to the reasons women don’t report rape, that they don’t complain about sexual harassment, that accepting unacceptable behavior of this kind towards a woman we dislike is tantamount to accepting it for all women.
Sexual harassment is a very real stressor for many women in the workplace. Wondering each day, while you’re getting ready for work, what unwanted touching, unwanted overtures, unwanted flattery you’re going to be dealing with, trying to determine which of them you can reject without it hurting your future chances and which you’ll have to plaster a smile on for, then going to work and spending the day making those split second decisions each time, with the pressure mounting, mounting, mounting, because each one pisses you off a little more as the day goes on. I can only imagine what it was like for Gretchen Carlson to sit there while on air and have to pretend to laugh at the sexual innuendos and false flattery, because that was an absolute requirement of her keeping her job. I can only imagine the level of hatred she feels for those men. Because I can assure you all that no women is actually flattered by that crap. We do know why it’s being said. We do know that the men know that we know that what they’re really telling us is that they have the power to say anything to us, make us uncomfortable, make us hate them, and still we’ll have to smile and take it. And while they’re saying that to Gretchen Carlson, they’re saying it to every single woman out there in the audience, too. And we all understand the message.
I have no idea of what Gretchen Carlson is like as a person. I don’t know if she actually believes the Fox News crap or if she’s just doing what she believes is necessary to get her to where she’s going. I can’t say whether I’d ever go along with what she’s gone along with because I’ve never wanted to go where she wants to go, nor would I ever have had the chance since I have neither the skills nor the looks required to get me there. And yes, even that level of mediocrity does require skills most of us don’t have. I, as a woman, maintain a certain level of sympathy for all the women working at Fox. They all have their goals, their dreams, and they’re all putting up with a level of sexualization and disrespect that is mind boggling in an effort to reach those goals and dreams. I want to believe I’d somehow be above that; that my morality and sense of self worth and self respect would never allow me to put up with that. But the truth is, none of us know what we’d do in any particular situation. I’ve certainly put up with my share of harassment in my profession, although it certainly wasn’t a continuous or blatant harassment as she alleges. It’s simply part of being a woman. So while I hate everything about Fox News, and I’m unable to respect anyone who is a part of that organization, I’m not going to judge those who are part of it so harshly that I decide they — and society — deserve whatever happens to them. No one deserves to be treated this way. Every one of those women must have their own self respect chipped away a little bit every single day. Because there’s not a single one of them that is treated with respect, whether they’re forced to endure the blatant harassment Carlson has enumerated in her complaint or not. So yes, she’s agreed to be a part of a horrible organization. But she should not have had to endure any of this.