Helen Lewis has a few words for the men of journalism (which also apply to every other area). It’s easy to deplore acts you haven’t done, but that by your behavior you may have enabled.
The response to the Weinstein coverage has borne this out. Over the last week, my phone has lit up with female journalists silently screaming: have you seen him decrying Weinstein? The hypocrite!
In private, there has been a cathartic outpouring of Bastards We Have Known. The colleague who texted a friend of mine, Ros Urwin of the Standard, promising that “before I die, I will kiss every freckle on your lips”. The man who told my colleague Amelia Tait that she’d have to have sex to get ahead. The sub-editor who stalked a junior member of his team, turning up outside restaurants she was at with her boyfriend. The magazine journalist who developed an obsession with a female colleague and put her on late shifts to ruin her social life. The arts journalist who would take out new colleagues for a “welcome drink” at his London club – where they’d discover he had a room booked upstairs. The guy who put his hands down a colleague’s trousers at the Christmas party. More than one man in journalism, feeling spurned, has taken to ringing his love interest’s doorbell late at night.
Those are just the overt acts of egregious harassment. She also points out that a casual boy’s club atmosphere of little crappy jokes and disparagement in bad taste fuels the confidence of the worst offenders, and that we men all contribute in various ways to a culture of entitled oppression. Have I ever actively harassed anyone? No. But have I ever trivialized the atmosphere of sexual exploitation with a lazy joke or blithe acceptance of the status quo? Yes. Should I change? Yes. Will I change? I’ll try my hardest. You have permission to slap me when I screw up.
As a bloke I would like to add my voice to PZ’s on this – I haven’t always done all that I could to oppose the atmosphere that provides cover for inappropriate and potentially abusive behaviour toward women. I have kept silent in the past when I should have spoken up, but I mean to change. I may stumble from time to time, and should I do so a swift kick to get me back on track would be appreciated, though I acknowledge that it is not the obligation of anyone else to provide it. This is a sentiment any man of conscience should be able to get behind, though I don’t doubt the usual suspects will soon arrive with their customary howls of outrage that anyone should suggest that men bear any kind of collective responsibility for the sorry state society is in with regard to the shameful tolerance of gendered violence. It is no more than par for the course at this point.
Related, Anger as Chinese media claim harassment is just a western problem:
Of course, Helen Lewis also says trans women are privileged men, out to expose their penises in women’s bathrooms, supports even more intensely transphobic writers like Germaine ‘trans women don’t know what it’s like to have a big smelly vagina’ Greer, and argues vociferously against any support or medical attention for young trans people (among many other examples, these were just top of the recent list). So while she may be right on this as it appears, it’s incredibly disheartening to see her be spread around as a voice to listen to.
She uses her high-place in UK media to contribute directly to the suffering and death of trans people.
abbeycadabra:
Oh FFS. I don’t know what it’s like to have a big smelly vagina, and I’ve always had one.
To echo abbycadabra, I’m afraid boosting Helen Lewis warrants slapping you somewhat.
I get it’s difficult to keep track of the people who are good and right on some points but awful bigots in other aspects, we all fuck up.