after I said
>It is a
>>natural development from the underlying assumption in much feminist
>>literature first that the barrier to women's emancipation is men (or
>>'patriarchy') and second that men are inherently violent. With those
>>assumptions, it is natural to take the direction that Roiphe describes.
>
>as to the first part, you've got it right.... is there something
>problematic about that? [please note that not all feminists subscribe to
>the idea of 'patriarchy']
I don't see the 'war of the sexes' as a zero sum game. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries men made a barrier to their own emancipation, by collaborating in the oppression of women. I don't see men as gaining by that, I see them losing. (And it should be said that the position is changing. In turn of the century Britain women were entirely marginal to the workplace, today they are half the workforce; similarly today women's pay is 80 per cent (as reported in the press two days ago) of the pay of men - where in the past it was less than fifty per cent.)
> well a brief perusal suggests that it's simply not true that
>there is any agreement on the claim that men are inherently violent.
I can't agree. I see a preoccupation with male violence, a characterisation of maleness as inherently violent, a persistent association of men with violence.
>"are we to believe that [rape statistics] result from the male's
>ungovernable mating urge..."or must we face up to the conclusion that
>sexual violence is somehow embedded in the social fabric? if we believe
>the former, then there's not much to be done about it. if we believe the
>latter, we must collectively endeavor to change the assumptions and
>attitudes of our culture...."
>
>anne fausto-sterling "myths of gender" oh, of course, there's plenty more
>i could cite.
All this does is substitute a cultural determinism for a biological one. Take a reality check: sexual violence is embedded in the social fabric? Hardly. How many men do you know that beat or rape women? I mean, seriously, amongst your own circle of friends, would you say that the men are sexually violent? And if you would not believe it of your friends, why would you believe it of a wider circle? The vast - and I mean vast - majority of men do not commit violent sexual offences, and wouldn't dream of doing so.
>
>i'd like to be able to speak to this, but what can i say? it does seem
>silliness as you've presented it. can't imagine any feminists i know,
>respect, have read who'd agree w/ this.
I'm surprised you should say so. Surely the reaction of the women's group against Peter Webb was entirely rational given their starting point: that the male gaze was a violation, that erotic art was no different from pornography, that pornography was violence against women. With those kind of premises, all kinds of censorship can be justified.
>
>here's a story: a young grad student teaching asst, male, was accused of
>sex harassment at a place where i worked. problem was, the undergrad
>accuser merely reported her concerns to other grad student t.a.'s. they
>reported the info to the dept chair, a man,* who quickly moved to
>discipline him. he fought back for two reasons. 1] this was hearsay and
>not actionable 2] she'd simply been uncomfortable because he sat near her
>during class and once, after running into her off campus, he was in
>conversation and said "you're very pretty, are you a model" I should note
>that our young man was 22, not sexually experienced, and surely not
>experienced at giving women the ole look-see in an inconspicuous way,
>indeed he often had to run off to the bathroom if you get my drift.
>
>the sex harassment officer, no softie, told him that he had not done
>anything that could reasonably be construed as s.h.. moreover, a faculty
>member, well known as an expert witness in sex harassment trials, took his
>side. he ended up getting booted anyway, but not b/c of the charge. it
>was all, in the end, about politics.
Your story raises lots of questions. Since no direct accusation was laid against the man in question, he was hardly in a position to defend himself. If I had been his union representative, I too would have said that the accusations were hearsay, and not actionable. How would he have been able to challenge the charge against him if it was never put directly?
Secondly, the words you quote (presumably, from hearsay) would not necessarily constitute harassment. If the advance was unwelcome, it might have been boorish, and ill-mannered. But hardly a sacking offence, unless it was repeated, after the advance was rebuffed. After all, people get off with each other at work all the time. Presumably someone makes the first step.
>
>The NUS here in
>>particular has institutionalised the 'anti-harassment' policies through
>>the creation of women's officers in every college.
>
>and....? how is this bad?
Because in institutionalising the policy, by creating student union officers with a brief to find such offences, you can create such offences. At Bradford University, extensive (and laboriously comical) rules have been published which require people to register their dating habits. Such a degree of formalisation of interpersonal relations necessarily has a deadening effect upon everyday life.
>
> Characteristically
>>the first group to be banned under the new harassment policy was the
>>students' Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
>
>i'm lacking cultural capital here...?
Sorry, the radical Islamic group Hizb ut Tahrir was banned on student campuses because of their traditional religious views. They were denounced as homophobic - which was true, to the extent that they held to Islamic scripture - but had no practical consequence. In effect it was religious bigotry in the guise of gay rights.
>
>
>>Just this week I read that the national NUS women's officer is bringing
>>harassment charges against the president of the Student Union. The
>>backdrop is that the women's officer is in a Trotskyist party, while the
>>President is a mainstream Blairite. So much easier to accuse someone of
>>harassment than to defeat their political viewpoint.
>
>and this means....that women are human and fallible and petty too?
I think this means that the harassment policy that the NUS has created has become an open invitation to settle scores through harassment claims. The president might well be reprehensible politically, but the charge of harassment reduces to the fact that they argued, and he shouted at her, as she had shouted at him.
>
>well, again, can't speak to anything because i have no details other than
>your claim that these are spurious. i have problems with some of the
>policies here in the states but i wouldn't for a minute naturally assume
>abuse charges are spurious in general, though i'd surely be happy to
>examine on a case by case basis.
Yes, sorry, I should have explained that in the North East hundreds of children were taken into care against the wishes of their parents on charges of sexual abuse that were judged to be spurious by the subsequent enquiry. The predisposition of the social services team - to which Campbell had been an advisor - to believe that child sex abuse was endemic, led them to interpret wholly innocent features as proof of child sex abuse. The whole story is told in Stuart Bell's book When Salem Came to Cleveland (or something like that).
> furthermore, i tend to see such extremism
>as resulting from the fetish for bureaucratic expertism rather than any
>sort of pressure on the part of feminist groups.
Again, I can't agree. The social services were acting on a model of the family as characteristically a site of abuse and sexual violence that was drawn from patriarchy theory, as argued by ...
>
>>The domestic violence group at University of North London are advisors
>>to the Home Office on rape prosecutions. It was they who prompted the
>>Home Office here to increase greatly the number of prosecutions taken to
>>court. To their dismay the prosecutions increased - but so did the
>>acquittals to the same extent, with no increase in convictions (this all
>>described in David Rose's book In the Name of the Law). Juries continued
>>to insist that the charges should be believable and proven. The proposed
>>strategy of the UNL team is to lower the standard of evidence in rape
>>cases.
>
>well, hmmm. the infamous almost supreme court justice bork once ruled the
>following in a proceeding to determine what would be considered evidence in
>a sex harassment case. no joke: 1] was the woman wearing dangling
>earrings? 2] was the woman wearing dark patterned stockings 3] when was
>the last time she had a date. that's the history of how such cases are
>treated here in the states: the victim's behavior is put on trial as if
>she somehow invited harassment or rape. ridiculous.
I would say that it is for the jury to decide what is and what is not relevant. It's true that defence lawyers in rape cases have in the past taken the obvious route of attacking the character of the victim - which after all is a common defence strategy in all violent assaults. In Britain for some years now the defence has been forbidden from raising prior character. But even with those constraints, juries have refused to be hectored into producing more convictions to suit the political considerations of the Home Office in Britain.
> same thing happened
>in NYS only a few years ago. a woman, very drunk, was gang raped in a bar
>near closing, several witnesses watched. they were all let off the hook
>primarily because she was judged to be a slut and somehow asking for it.
>
>if a woman is stone cold drunk, then 5 men who have sex with her are raping
>her. how anyone could doubt that is beyond me. but they do and did. that
>despite N.O.W. to the rescue with a decent amount of financial and
>emotional support.
Well, you give a version of events. Clearly the defence gave a different version, and convinced the jury. You might not like the judgement, but it isn't me that you have to convince.
>we live in a world in which chris matthews interviews germaine greer and
>has the audacity to say [in an effort to dismiss greer and feminism] "so
>in my home one person notices that the grass needs cutting and the other
>person is expected to cut it. i sure don't feel like i have any power in
>my home." [e.g., this feminism stuff is crap] what a joker that guy is.
>lord. if i ever wished i had a gun or sledgehammer to direct at a
>television set, that was the night when i watched that astounding display
>of idiocy.
Truly audacious, but I can't imagine that the redoubtable Germaine Greer was remotely dismissed. I don't find it quite as shocking as you that some people do not agree with me, or even hold old-fashioned views. After all if everyone already knew the answer then interviews and other forms of intercourse would be redundant. -- Jim heartfield