I’m probably going to get into serious trouble with this post, as it touches on third/fourth wave feminism. Various people have urged me to address the topic before and I’ve just not gotten to it. Up front, let me say I’m a second wave feminist, and I have opinions that sometimes diverge sharply from the current platform.
Here’s the issue: A while back I watched a panel discussion on the Weinstein scandal, and I was struck with some contradictions. This show was Friday, Oct. 13, Third Rail with Ozy asks: Is sexual harassment inevitable in the workplace? Along with Colorado College Professor Tomi-Ann Roberts, the panel included three younger women.
Roberts related her personal experience with Weinstein as a 20-year-old and her subsequent decision that she wasn’t cut out for work in Hollywood. The panel then went on to define sexual harassment in the workplace to include compliments on appearance and beauty. Hm. Okay, second wave question here: Roberts looks professional. She’s got on a boxy jacket and restrained hair and makeup, but the other women look like they’ve spent hours on their appearance, plus a big chunk of change. They have on form-fitting clothing, heavy make-up and trendy hair styling. Why?
If we assume appearance is expression and therefore a type of speech, what are they saying? Are they trying to provide role models for young girls with self-esteem issues? To garner compliments from other women? To gain respect from the TV host? Or are they trying to meet a standard? What standard? Dare I say this is a beauty standard? So then, who sets it? Is that in itself sexist? I know the current feminist platform says that women need to be respected regardless of what they’re wearing, but why haven’t these women copied Roberts’ restrained, professional style? What is she saying versus what they’re saying?
Next, the panel reviewed Vice President’s Spence’s policy that sets strict rules about when he will be alone with women. The consensus was that this kind of rule limits access for women and is therefore discriminatory. Reasonable person question: How can you police comments by a particular person (or group of people) and then complain when they’re careful that someone else is always there to verify what they say to you?
I have another example of this that provides a flip test. A young woman recently wrote in to an online business advice column. Her boss was a woman who had been mentoring her, offering tips and extra training. The problem was that the boss called the young woman “hon.” The younger woman called her out for this, telling her it was patronizing and that she needed more respect. The boss complied, but the mentoring stopped. The young woman wanted to know how to re-establish that relationship. Any suggestions?
At this point, I’m not even going to attempt to address the Hollywood cesspool.
Lela E. Buis 
Nov 03, 2017 @ 04:31:51
Zero tolerance is seldom conducive to a good relationship, be it in the workplace or in our personal lives. We have to give people leeway to be imperfect, as long as they aren’t deliberately harassing or creating a genuinely hostile environment.
A male boss calling a younger man “son” might be called out if zero tolerance is the word of the day–but few men would do so. Why should we? Is this the battle that’s worth fighting? Is this the hill we want to die on? How about giving the boss a bit of leeway for condescension–he’s probably earned it. Calling that sexual harassment can also devalue real, serious harassment.
Trying to squeeze out that final 1% of deviation from perfection is counterproductive IMO. The perfect is the enemy of the good, even the great. Do our police enforce 1 MPH over the speed limit? Do they give out tickets to every jaywaker they see? Legalism stunts good judgment.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 11:48:25
I’m trying to think of whether I’ve ever called a younger man “son.” (I’ll be 60 next year.) I don’t think I have–not even to my young nephews. I could only imaging doing so if I were angry.
Lela’s point about compliments being harassment reminds me of something that happened at Microsoft ten or so years ago. There was a woman in our team who was an outstanding beauty. One day I was in line behind her for coffee and I noted that she had on an outfit that was very effective. (Not revealing; I think it was the colors I liked.) So I said, “Good morning. You look really nice today.” She gave me a sharp, unhappy look until she remembered I was gay, then her face lit up and she gave me a big smile and thanked me.
But it made me think that she must get a lot of unwanted attention for her to have reacted that way. On reflection, I’d certainly never tell a guy I worked with that I thought he looked nice; it would freak him out.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 12:18:36
Yeah, that’s a minefield. I frequently tell women that I like their clothes or hairstyle or hair color or whatever — but I’m a straight woman, so there are no undercurrents to worry about. I wouldn’t feel comfortable complimenting men in the same way in most cases… with some exceptions, like “great tie!” or whatever.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 12:52:52
Greg, It’s true that beautiful women get a lot of attention, but why do they invest so much in the beauty culture if they don’t want it? Why not downplay their appearance instead?
The beauty culture is highly sexist and a serious social and mental health issue for women. Women’s self esteem peaks at age 11, and then hits the skids until old age takes them out of the competition. Gals that don’t rate are marginalized and bullied for their appearance. Young girls are sexualized early and encouraged to buy makeup and revealing outfits. There is a huge emphasis on weight.
As a second wave feminist, I don’t buy into this culture. That’s why I’m seeing a contradiction in the TV show, where the women dressed up like beauty queens to complain about the compliments they receive from men. Then the feminist culture shouts down people like Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson whose comment on the Hollywood scandal was that women can encourage sexual harassment through their behavior and dress.
I know personally how this works. If I wear a no-nonsense business suit, I get much different responses than when I wear leggings and a low cut top. Duh. Who would have thought.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 12:23:08
David, my point with the form of address is that this is an indication of how the speaker sees the relationship. Someone who says “son” or “hon” is indicating a personal relationship rather than a professional one. There are situations where this would be inappropriate, say in a meeting used to devalue an opinion, but it’s often an indicator of a mentoring situation. That’s what the gal in the example missed. By insisting the relationship be strictly professional, she cut off the mentoring.
I agree that people have to cut each other some slack. Insisting on zero tolerance in itself creates a hostile environment.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 09:14:21
I don’t have time for much participation right now, but a couple of small comments —
“Next, the panel reviewed Vice President’s Spence’s policy that sets strict rules about when he will be alone with women. The consensus was that this kind of rule limits access for women and is therefore discriminatory. Reasonable person question: How can you police comments by a particular person (or group of people) and then complain when they’re careful that someone else is always there to verify what they say to you?”
Spence’s policy is discriminatory because he only applies it to meetings with women. If he also insisted on never being alone with men, then I’d have no problem with it — in fact, it would probably be a smart idea. And why not? After all, having witnesses to any private exchange would protect both parties against false accusations, and not just accusations of a sexual nature.
“The problem was that the boss called the young woman “hon.” The younger woman called her out for this, telling her it was patronizing and that she needed more respect. The boss complied, but the mentoring stopped. The young woman wanted to know how to re-establish that relationship. Any suggestions?”
This young woman was most likely not raised in the South. 😉
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 12:32:06
Contrarius, I agree that Pence’s policy is discriminatory, but it also indicates where he sees the danger. The move is clearly to protect himself against charges of sexism and/or harassment from women. You’re also right it’s probably too limited as a policy. Trump’s private conversations with Comey clearly show elected officials need at least three people for a meeting with men, too. Otherwise you get he said, he said.
I don’t personally have any problem complimenting men on their appearance, but I would likely phrase it a little differently than I would for a woman.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 17:58:02
Like you, Lela, I’m conflicted on this issue. On the one hand, we have this sort of thing going on:
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2017/10/more-on-new-republic-in-which-i-lose-my.html
This is the ongoing scandal at Big Lefty rag the New Republic, wherein a top editor AND the publisher have been pursuing some massive improprieties with female staff.
On the other hand, we have idiots complaining that VP Pence refuses to be alone with any woman not his wife. Seriously, pick a direction.
I’ve had women managers be improper with me. I thought it was -hilarious- when they tried to bully me and called me “honey” in a meeting. I laughed out loud.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 22:26:14
Thanks for checking in, Phantom. I’m glad women are now trying to call attention to the sexual harassment, but I’m also wondering where they’ve been for the last 40-50 years on this issue. The mechanism has been there in place to report the problem since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Don’t people like Rose McGowan just help perpetrate the problem by taking a payoff to keep quiet? She’s making a big thing of it now, but it’s too late to bring charges. Shouldn’t she have treated it like a rape in the first place?
It would take real courage for these women to complain at the beginnings of their career, and like Roberts, they would have probably had to kiss a Hollywood career good by. But now they’ve bought in, and by letting the assaults go, they’ve become complicit.
P.S. Interestingly, I’ve found one reference that suggests the attack on Hollywood (and other liberal bastions) is a political payback for the attack on Ailes and O’Reilly. In that case, the women are only pawns.
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Nov 03, 2017 @ 23:59:41
Lela said: “It would take real courage for these women to complain at the beginnings of their career, and like Roberts, they would have probably had to kiss a Hollywood career good by.”
Well, yeah. What do you think happened to me after I laughed at the battleaxe that called me “honey”? I got fired, obviously. It hurt too. Cost me money, trouble, heartache.
This is the one thing that’s funny in the whole very un-funny situation. Everybody is pretending this shit doesn’t happen to men every single day. Well, sorry girls, it does.
Most people seem to be able to let it slide. They keep on keeping on, somehow. I’m the one idiot who can’t, I guess. I am the guy who will get fired before I’ll let some frigging superannuated cheerleader call me honey. I can’t even imagine the female equivalent of Harvey Weinstein hitting on me, holding my job over my head to make me say yes. I’d laugh myself sick at the very idea. That’s probably why it never happens.
Lela said: “Don’t people like Rose McGowan just help perpetrate the problem by taking a payoff to keep quiet?”
Sure. She took the money. But first, she was DUMB enough to show up in Harvey’s hotel room with no escort.
That’s like Mike Pence taking a dinner meeting with a Russian hooker. Why doesn’t Mike Pence take solo meetings with women? So they can’t GET HIM. The guy is a member of the most hated group in America, Christian Conservatives. He’d have to be crazy to leave himself open like that. One bimbo eruption would destroy everything he’s built in his life.
Likewise, Rose McGowan at 19 was a perfect 10. Exactly what fat, rich, lecherous older men want more than anything else in life. McGowan walked into the lion’s den, and the lion bit her. So surprising, right? Then she TOOK THE MONEY, another amazing act of stupidity, because doing that seems to have destroyed her mental health. She is a mess now, by all accounts.
Are there any clean hands in this whole thing? Doubtful.
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Pixel Scroll 11/3/17 Third Pixel To The Right And Scroll On ‘Til Morning | File 770
Nov 03, 2017 @ 21:10:12
Nov 04, 2017 @ 08:25:42
Back in the 80s when I worked for AT&T, the word came down from on high that if we were working/meeting with an opposite sex colleague, the doors to our offices must remain open; in circumstances where privacy was required, the two parties that were to be private were to go to a supervisor beforehand and acknowledge that they were both ok with the door being closed (or they needed to bring an observer in).
This was no doubt a response to an incident of harassment, sexual or otherwise, though I’m not privy to the details.
I remember thinking at the time that this meant that AT&T didn’t trust its employees to be able to behave in an adult, mature manner. (and I don’t think many could….)
I’ve often read and been told that “men are visual creatures”; that “women respond emotionally and men respond visually”; that “there’s no harm in looking, but keep your hands to yourself”.
I do like “to look” (I don’t comment, I don’t touch, I don’t stop women on the street to offer undesired compliments.) My late wife understood this and had enough confidence in our relationship to know that I was just enjoying the “eye candy” (and also that people watching was part of my writing process). Sometimes we’d “look” together, discussing clothing choices, bad hair days and “Mimi” style makeup (it was co-ed entertainment with observations distributed across the spectrum of sexuality).
The women of my mother’s generation (family) have, over the years, shared stories of the men who were perfectly groomed, polite and well-behaved when in public, and turned into “all hands” when in private. And I’ve been told by these same women that they slapped these guys down. The way they describe these encounters is as if they were expected and prepared for and just part of the landscape. Public good behavior, private bad behavior…
My mother is currently dealing with a “friend” who can’t keep his hands to himself. I’ve cautioned her not to be alone with him (with the threat that I’d have to kill him if anything happened) and her response has been that it’s either nothing to worry about and/or she can take care of herself, is not concerned. (Yet she has complained about his behavior to me.)
I’ve no desire, nor have I ever had, to use whatever power or influence I possess to force a sexual encounter or unwanted attention on any other individual. The idea of having sex with someone who is an unwilling partner is a huge turn off for me.
I’d never hesitate to compliment a friend on their appearance, but never a stranger.
If you’re trying to behave in the proper manner, it’s a minefield, but I think it possible to navigate: observe the basic rules of propriety, keep your hands and thoughts to yourself and remember that it’s the perception of your actions, not the actions themselves, that are going to be judged by others (whether rightly or wrongly).
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 16:08:35
Steve, you need to be careful how you look, too. American men tend to be too pointed about it sometimes. They should take a lesson from European men. 🙂
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 10:25:57
Women, especially women presenting on TV, who DON’T follow the (yes, it is sexist) beauty standard are often punished for it. And when punishment includes lack of promotions, not being given opportunities because “your appearance is clearly a sign of low self-esteem” or they’re not sure they want someone who takes so little care to “represent the company”, and the like, it’s often something that cannot be avoided. I’m at a low end position at a big company, I can afford to dress pretty casually for work. My sister in law works for our (Canuck) federal government. She spends $300 on make-up or on one piece of clothing on a regular basis. She literally cannot afford not to.
And then you have your response to Greg’s anecdote: “Why not downplay….” If wearing an outfit in good colours and not revealing is seen as upplaying beauty then what is the woman supposed to do? What qualifies as looking professional without “upplaying beauty”?
Or are women not supposed to care about looks?
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 16:00:35
Lenora, I know that women are often judged by their looks in how they represent the company, etc. There have been lawsuits brought about this under Title VII, for example, Christine Craft in 1983 and Marina Kolbe in 2003. It’s another one of those sexist things that happens because women buy into it.
You see where the problem is with the TV show, right? These women are complaining about one kind of sexism, but seem to have totally missed how they’re catering to a different brand of it.
Women do care too much about beauty. That’s why there is so much bullying and so many neuroses associated with appearance. As Mayim Bialik said about the Hollywood game, gaining a few pounds and spending less time on your appearance is a sure sign to people that you’re not playing and mean to be a serious actress.
I’m not sure what to say to your question about what would downplay beauty in a particular situation. It would depend on the person. Covering your best assets would be a fairly reliable approach. For example, my niece is a really beautiful woman and when she doesn’t want to be seen, she styles her hair down over her face and wears glasses.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 11:31:01
“This is the one thing that’s funny in the whole very un-funny situation. Everybody is pretending this shit doesn’t happen to men every single day.”
Except for, of course, all the men coming forth now about Kevin Spacey.
Their reasons for not saying anything at the time are the same as women’s–they were afraid of not being believed, afraid of being blacklisted, etc etc. I remember reading an article about one victim (don’t remember if he was one of Spacey’s, but another male victim) who said a lawyer he consulted told him [paraphrased] not to bother bringing charges, because he wouldn’t get anywhere.
So, with “advice” like that, is it any wonder people don’t speak up? Now, are y’all going to start blaming the male victims too?
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 11:51:55
And let us not forget kids of both sexes, like the Coreys (Haim and Feldman) and many others.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 16:02:58
Where were their parents? Maybe people have been blind to the corruption, but these kids should have been better protected.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 18:27:19
Lela asked: “Where were their parents?”
Sadly, I have learned to not ask that question. Behind every stripper is an abusive father/uncle/mother/what have you. It’s like an epidemic of horror, if you start digging into that.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 18:23:42
Bonnie McDaniel said: “Except for, of course, all the men coming forth now about Kevin Spacey.”
Regarding Kevin Spacey:
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2017/10/im-loosing-count-of-lefty-pervs-by-now.html
Despite not being at Hollywood parties attended by numerous gay men at the age of 14, I also have received numerous, and in some cases quite insistent, unwanted advances from gay men in my young life. This is in broad daylight, in public, in busy places, incidentally. I used to be purty, I guess.
It leaves a mark.
As I mentioned in the link, my response was to become an extremely hard target. I am no longer purty. I haven’t been approached with an unwanted advance since I was ~20. Not even at gay bars, been in the odd one periodically.
Predators know prey when they see it. That’s not what they see when they look at me. I worked HARD for that, and I earned it. I teach it to anyone who will listen.
My point above was there’s more predators than the male sexual predator like Weinstein, Spacey, Hamilton Fish, Bill Clinton, Leon Wieseltier, and et cetera. Anyone who uses their position to prey upon those lower than themselves in the workplace is one, Bonnie. The way you beat them is to live free or die. Figuratively, or even in some cases literally.
Bonnie McDaniels said: “So, with “advice” like that, is it any wonder people don’t speak up? Now, are y’all going to start blaming the male victims too?”
People don’t speak up because they know they are surrounded by cowards and jackals, Bonnie. If you trouble yourself to READ my links (faint hope, I know) then you will discover this is not about blaming the victims.
However, while we’re on the subject, lets talk about victims a bit. Fourteen year old boy un-escorted at an adult party. 19 year old actress, unarmed and un-escorted at a notorious businessman’s hotel room. Women at work, dressed to kill, shocked when some disgusting old perv takes advantage and grabs their ass.
This is not good life planning. Two seconds of thinking would have prevented those three events, yes?
Now, I have a question. It is a question people like you don’t like to hear, Bonnie, but I’ll ask anyway. Why hasn’t some amazonian actress stabbed Harvey Weinstein in the !@#% with a dessert fork before now? How is it that a fat, bookish, lame-looking longhair like Leon Wieseltier didn’t suffer a stiletto heel through his instep in the thirty years he’s been preying on women at the New Republic?
See, I was pretty shocked when aggressive middle aged men started coming up to me at age 17, two at a time in one case. But I went and did something effective about it. I changed literally everything about myself, because I was not going to be at the mercy of men like that.
Crying to the Teacher that little Jimmy grabbed your ass is not effective, Bonnie. Live free or die. Not live free or whine.
Here’s another unpleasant question for you. If you take the hush money, are you still a victim? Or are you now a partner in crime? Inquiring minds want to know.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 18:49:58
Phantom, I agree that some people either look like victims or invite attention through their actions. If I’ve been approached by either a man or a woman, I can generally say what attracted them. Appearing to be really drunk, for example, is apparently a big come on. Come right down to it, though, and normal people won’t look me in the eyes and continue to mess with me. I don’t look like a victim, either.
This is not to suggest there aren’t real wackos out there who are just out to get people. Predators after children, people who rape comatose patients, people who use violence to get what they want–I don’t think these are normal people. Weinstein was probably about to that point. Likely he had a hard time with people saying no to him.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 19:11:36
Lela said: “Come right down to it, though, and normal people won’t look me in the eyes and continue to mess with me.”
I bet. ~:) You certainly don’t seem the type. They see the commitment in your eyes, essentially. They know you’re not going down easy.
Lela said: “Predators after children, people who rape comatose patients, people who use violence to get what they want–I don’t think these are normal people.”
Clearly not. That’s another thing these “third wave” types love to go on about, “toxic masculinity.” This thing when men use their positions of power to go after women, or as with Corey Feldman children, or even Kevin Spacey going after other men, this is not masculinity. This is a mental disorder. There’s probably a name for it in DSM-V.
Tell you what though, Lela. They -look- normal. It is very difficult to pick them out of a crowd. That’s what makes having a commitment to defending yourself and your honor so important. They see it and they slink away to pick someone else.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 19:29:17
Again, this isn’t something confined to just men. Adult women who sleep with middle-school boys aren’t normal, either. This is seriously out of touch with reality.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 20:12:07
Is there any evidence of such a middle-school boy complaining, though? 🙂 The situation isn’t perfectly symmetrical.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 10:30:03
Greg Hullender said: “Is there any evidence of such a middle-school boy complaining, though? 🙂 The situation isn’t perfectly symmetrical.”
That’s the trope, for sure. Hot teacher and high school football hero. Looks good in a movie. Lots of eye candy for everybody.
The reality is that we don’t call them “cougars” for nothing, Greg. They’ve got a screw loose. Ever meet one? They’re not right. Nobody benefits from a predatory relationship like that. Boys take damage the same as girls do.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 21:34:40
I’m not sure, Greg. My point is that the adult woman is totally out of her mind. This might be acceptable in some places and times (e.g. traditional marriage in Native American cultures), but not here and now. Middle school kids are legally too young to consent.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 21:47:31
Greg, the situation may not be symmetrical, but it’s still abusive and horrible. The same entrapment in gender roles that we decry so much elsewhere is the only reason a grown woman preying on prepubescent boys is not seen as just as foul as a grown man preying on them.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 22:31:09
Lenora, Greg may be right. Times may have changed, but when I was growing up, I remember teen boys plotting how to seem older so they could have sex with older women. That’s not just adult women preying on kids, but falling for it is still illegal. I do agree that some women are acting like predators. Everyone should check ID these days, so they know what they’re doing.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 22:42:49
No one is talking about “prepubescent boys.” I stipulate that very few straight boys between 14 and 17 would feel abused in any way by a woman making herself available to them. That makes it a lot harder to argue that they’re victims.
That said, I’ll confess I don’t follow their thinking. When I was a gay teen from 14-17, I was frightened by older guys. Perhaps most of it comes down to the size/strength difference between men and women.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 21:52:33
Phantom, Toxic masculinity isn’t meant to imply masculinity is toxic. It is a very specific and very unpleasant (and fairly small, percentage-wise) subset of masculinity whose expression is harmful to itself and others. The whole point of needing to add the word toxic is that normally masculinity is a neutral to positive thing. (And despite the existence of female predators, there are definitely some behaviours common to the Weinsteins of the world that are specific to male predators and come out of the ways we socialize boys.)
I don’t know why it is that people seem not to grasp this when they understand that a reference to toxic plants is not an implication all plants are toxic..
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 22:48:18
It’s probably worth pointing out that Third Wave Feminism does seem to have chosen its terms in such a way as to alienate as many people as possible. When I was a gay activist, we talked about PR impact all the time. We knew we couldn’t win by ourselves, and we were at pains not to say or do things to alienate potential straight supporters. Sometimes that was controversial (e.g. when we cleaned up our pride parades to eliminate the most offensive elements like NAMBLA).
It makes it hard for me to take Third Wave Feminism seriously. Something that seems designed to piss people off cannot possibly succeed–unless that was the whole goal.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 12:11:05
Lenora Rose said: “Phantom, Toxic masculinity isn’t meant to imply masculinity is toxic.”
Maybe not to you personally, Lenora. But from what I’m seeing out there, most of these activists hold that as a basic truth. Masculinity is the one true evil of the world.
Hilariously, most of the men saying it seem to be secretly disgusting perverts who hate women. They keep getting outed as abusers of the most vile sort.
Somebody tell me how bad Mike Pence is again, I never get tired of hearing that.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 22:04:54
I know this makes three in a row, but I want to put forth a suggestion about “Why did these women not fight back if they found it so horrible?”
It’s this. We talk about fight or flight. But therapists and trauma experts have pointed out this is actually incorrect. The real phrase should be “freeze, fight or flight”. And Freeze is by far the most common. This is innate reflex. It almost literally cannot be overcome.
I have experienced this, in a small way, when a window was smashed with a brass pipe right in front of me, glass flying my way. A fairly minor trauma really – no actual injury – but while the glass was flying towards me I could not move, just stare. It wasn’t until someone else shouted at me to move that I switched from freeze to flight, and bolted outta there. With a trauma like sexual assault, that ALSO pushes a lot of social boundaries people (especially women) are trained into (Be nice, don’t make a fuss, smooth things over, don’t cause an upset, if he hurts you it’s because he likes you) AND the threat of loss of work in a beloved career field… freeze is almost inevitable, because we as a society have done everything we can to give people, women especially, impetus to tamp down the very things that might allow them to switch gear from freeze to fight.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 22:35:29
The “freeze” thing turns out to be a myth. People do freeze very briefly in a traumatic situation, but we do not (men or women) do so for very long.
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Nov 04, 2017 @ 22:49:37
Following “freeze,” most people are asking themselves what they should do about this. That can often be a difficult question. Also, if you’re drunk or stoned on something, it can be hard to think at all.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 11:57:54
Lenora, I’m a bit of a mutant. I’ve never experienced the “freeze” thing. I get the other thing. The sudden, urgent need to kill that guy. Its a problem you see in red-heads a lot.
Both of these are limbic reactions, brain-stem level biological responses. Interesting that both reactions make you utterly useless in an emergency or a fight.
That’s why there is -training- to help you overcome the brain stem response. Sufficient training does eliminate the freeze reflex. I know that it took me a long damn time to beat the red tunnel, but I did. Lots of Tai Chi, lots of Aikido, and lots of shooting.
This is where Lefties really annoy me. Shooting is a Zen pursuit. You have to re-program your whole mind and body to hit that teeny little black dot waaaaay out there with the teeny little bullet, launched from this gun that literally kicks you when you pull the trigger. The bigger the gun, the harder the kick.
I have yet to meet a female shooter who doesn’t get that look in her eye, the one that says “do not trifle with me.” Doesn’t take many sessions either.
That look comes from the physical training of eliminating the flinch reflex. The gun goes bang, makes a huge noise and hammers you with a hard punch, yet you remain relaxed and soak it up as if it was nothing. Because it is nothing. It is just a noise, just a punch. It doesn’t hurt much, you can ignore it and maintain your focus on the little tiny fricking target waaaay out there.
So yes, you CAN reprogram yourself to live through a battle or a car crash or something like that, and yes, people do it all the time. Women do it all the time.
But, you have to stop blaming other people for what happens to you, and take the responsibility for yourself. I’ve observed that many women find it much easier and more comfy to blame men, “toxic masculinity” and the Patriarchy for making their lives sucky.
The problem is that even if it IS their fault, that doesn’t get you anywhere. Its still -you- that suffers, and -you- that has to fix it. They are not going to change. You have to change.
This is know in Third Wave Feminism as “blaming the victim.” One gets the feeling that Third Wave was designed by predators to keep the prey plentiful and docile.
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2017/11/mainstreaming-bsdm-has-consequences.html
Evidence of Lefty media benefiting from Third Wave stupidity.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 12:48:54
As an archer I can agree that shooting is a zen pursuit. (I’ve only fired a gun oner day, and that was a smooth-bore musket, so not exactly modern…but I also know what you mean about the bang.)
I’m not sure I want to live in a world where everyone has to have this kind of training, or is treated as a terrible person for making a dumb teenaged mistake or wanting to show off a hot dress, and someone else taking advantage.
Greg: No, you don’t stay frozen forever — but a few seconds is often crucial. And by the time the freeze is done, either the person who grabbed and groped you has moved on, in which case the belated reaction of bitching them out seems really weird, and assaulting them now the threat is over is worse, or they’re on top of you and you have to decide whether you want the additional hurt you’ll get from fighting back.
Also, even if you do react and fight back then, and stop worse from happening… well, something has already happened.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 13:58:04
Lenora, like Phantom, I have to admit to being sexually harassed and assaulted both in my lifetime. However, I’ve always given as good as I got. The people responsible for the assaults were especially sorry. I didn’t just run and tell, either, and never had any resulting problems. What are they going to say? She gouged me in the eye because tried to kiss her?
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 17:18:35
Lenora Rose said: “I’m not sure I want to live in a world where everyone has to have this kind of training…”
I hear that a lot. Every single time this conversation comes up, somebody always says it. “I don’t want to live in a world where everyone has to…
…own a gun.”
…dress modestly.”
…defend themselves.”
…et cetera. Latin for “and the rest.”
You already do. You’re just pretending that you don’t. You need it a lot worse than I do.
You can either prepare yourself to win, or you can do nothing and hope you stay lucky all your life.
Me, I got seriously unlucky in the safest town on the safest street in Canada, utterly and completely random mayhem came and found me. At work, no less. I won, but I won ugly.
Good luck with the pretending. Hope it keeps working for you. Not the plan I picked though, just sayin’.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 12:25:34
http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2017/10/kathy-shaidle-on-weinsteining-and-why.html
Victim blaming.
Lela mentioned Mayim Bialk above, pilloried for suggesting women might get in less trouble if they didn’t flash their assets quite so much. I continue the theme.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 14:05:22
Both men and women need to watch their behavior and their assets. Getting blind drunk/stoned is really poor judgement, for example. Having a friend/escort along for a night out is a good idea. Realize that costume and body language are a form of communication. Realize that that beauty culture is a game and what you’re doing when you buy in.
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Nov 05, 2017 @ 17:29:50
Lela, I’m not sure I want to live in a world where I can’t get blind stinking drunk and pass out on the side of the road, with a hundred dollar bill sticking out of my ear, in perfect safety. Patriarchy!!!
I’m so triggered.
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Dec 08, 2017 @ 20:32:40
Additional reading. Here’s someone who’s written a similar article wondering where this is going:
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