Appalling: Sexual Harassment at UNAIDS
Who supervises UN agencies? It took years of inaction on allegations of sexual harassment before donors finally threatened to pull the plug. WHY DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR ECONOMIC PRESSURE TO STOP SOMETHING THAT IS A VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS?
Male Star Worries Wooing will lead to Claim of Sexual Harassment
This piece about Henry Cavill got me angry. Cavill, of course, is the action-genre film actor who played Superman and is featured in an upcoming Mission Impossible movie. In an interview with GQ Australia magazine, he said:
“There’s something wonderful about a man chasing a woman. There’s a traditional approach to that, which is nice. I think a woman should be wooed and chased, but maybe I’m old-fashioned for thinking that. It’s very difficult to do that if there are certain rules in place. Because then it’s like: ‘Well, I don’t want to go up and talk to her, because I’m going to be called a rapist or something.”
Here’s why I was offended. In June, I attended a non-fiction writer’s colony at the New School in New York. In my class of 12, we had four men and eight women, ages ranging from 19 to 63 (me). We read our daily writing assignments out loud and classmates gave close reads and then feedback.
It was sobering to hear the essays by most of the women describing how they have been systematically objectified, dismissed, harassed, ignored, or vilified by men throughout their entire lifetimes. Despite this soul-crushing behavior, they are no longer hesitant to speak out.
According to a recent Quinnipiac Poll, 60% of women say they have been sexually harassed. That 60% statistic either means perpetrators commit sexual harassment serially or that most men have, either intentionally or not have harassed a woman.
If you are a man and are worried now about how to behave around women, lest you be accused of sexual harassment, how about trying to treat women as human beings with human rights as are bestowed us and codified in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Not as prey. That can’t be so hard, can it? And if you slip up and someone says your behavior is offensive, stop, apologize, promise you’ll never do it again, and then do not retaliate in any way shape or form.
That’s how you’d like to be treated, no, when you make a mistake?
Sexual Harassers Have Been Using the Same Tactics Forever
A while back, I wrote a role-play for a module on sexual harassment as part of an anti-harassment course. It involved a senior staff member inviting a junior person back to his/her hotel room to discuss a meeting they’d had and “get to know each other better.” Some people said it was so extreme that it couldn’t happen. Most research on sexual harassment says a power dynamic is always involved. The more senior person, who has power, will pay attention to the junior person suggesting he (yes, it’s usually men) can help or hurt the more junior person’s career. Many times, it happens on a business trip with an invitation to a hotel room.
For example,here’s what Rose McGowan said about Harvey Weinstein’s modus operandi:
Rose McGowan Calls Harvey Weinstein’s Hotel Room “International Rape Factories.”
Variety reports Matt Lauer using a similar tactic:
It’s been said that in medieval times, Kings had the “droit du seigneur,” that is the right to sleep with the wives of their subordinates on the wedding night before their husbands. Everyone knew it was going on. No one spoke up and stopped it.
People can say that the women are just as much as fault because they played the game and did so to get ahead. But, who made the rules to the game? Men in power. And even if the woman flirted or initiated the relationship, the person in the higher position of authority does not have to say yes.