Loose Women, Lecherous Men (48 page)

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Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

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Page 192
women's sexual agency and self-definition have been calling for a fundamental reevaluation of how women can best procure our sexual liberation. These feminists are concerned that activists' consciousness-raising practices are too full of "victim" talk, of how sexually oppressed women are and how violated and misunderstood women feel. Such critics charge that this kind of feminist thinking is both patronizing and alienating to many women: women who do not feel harassed at work, endangered on the street, or paranoid and worthless at home are regarded as either pitiable, dull-witted, or co-opted women who need their consciousnesses "raised" with all manner of marches, speak-outs, seminars, brochures, and "woman-identified'' therapy to discover how truly oppressed they are. Feminists who object to this approach to understanding women's sexuality do not deny that
some
women
some of the time
are subjected to sexual intimidation by insensitive and overbearing men. Indeed, they do not deny that
some
women are brutalized by inexcusably violent men. What such feminists object to is a picture of women's lives in a world in which men are pervasively victimizing, hostile, and oppressive. Critics charge that such a picture reinvigorates an image of woman as a fragile flower whose vulnerability must be protected. This picture also paints an image of a savage male whom women would surely want to avoid at all costs, especially when considering sexual partners or families.
Critics further contend that the so-called evidence many feminists have adduced to make their case for the pervasive sexual violence against women is overblown in virtue of sloppy research methods and biased interpretations of the data. It is charged that such interpretations overestimate the severity of violence against women and disguise how women are complicit in much of their own abuse. Indeed, critics argue that the female victimization alleged to be fundamental to an institutionalized sexism effectively eliminates any personal responsibility that women have for being harassed, raped, or abused. Taking such responsibility, according to these critics, would encourage the kind of liberating mentality that not only results in better resistance to abuse but would conceivably keep a woman from getting into her abusive situation in the first place. Some sex radicals are unusually aligned with more conservative liberal feminists on this issue, as both camps tend to agree that treating women's sexual intimidation as, first and foremost, a gender issue is patronizing, presumptuous, and hostile to women (and men), and plays directly into the hands of those who would benefit socially and politically from women thinking of ourselves as sexual victims.
123
In the discussion that follows, I will further delineate how the feminist contention that women's sexual intimidation is an institutionalized and integral part of an oppressive patriarchy has been criticized by other feminists for disempowering and alienating women. From such an analysis we can then determine to what extent the "view from somewhere different" can offer a working model for thinking and talking about women's sexual intimidation that mediates the tensions of the debate without silencing the voices within it.
Developing a Thick Skin
Some feminists who wish to differentiate bona fide cases of sexual harassment from the sexual innuendo and trivial double entendre common to office banter are con-
 
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cerned that sexual harassment has become a catchall for any and all offensive remarks men make about women. Ellen Frankel Paul believes that all women become the unavoidable victims of an oppressive male sexuality when feminists regard sexual harassment as
any
unwelcome or offensive sexual behavior, since she contends that "[n]o one, female or male, can expect to enjoy a working environment that is perfectly stress-free, or to be treated always and by everyone with kindness and respect."
124
According to Paul, if we define sexual harassment in terms of sexually offensive behavior that fails to respect the rights of others or that creates a hostile environment for women, we have no way to distinguish between patting a woman's fanny and raping her, a position she suggests women should find unacceptably extreme. In fact, researchers who have documented the different ways women and men assess the seriousness of sexual comments and behavior in the workplace have noted that those who think of themselves as victims tend to regard specific behavior as more harassing than those who take up the perspective of the actor.
125
Paul's suggestion is that women "develop a thick skin" in order to survive and prosper in the workforce, even to "dispense a few risqué barbs" toward annoying men now and then, to diffuse their obvious satisfaction at watching women squirm.
Paul is not atypical of those concerned with the victim status they see foisted on women by feminists who would politicize and institutionalize the sexual harassment of women. Camille Paglia also worries that the hostile environment category under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines for sexual harassment confuses coarse or ribald language with real sexual intimidation. Paglia is convinced that this confusion makes women appear to be sexual puritans and moral elitists who cry wolf at the slightest off-color remark; and policies against hostile environment harassment return women to the traditional status of "delicate flowers who must be protected from assault by male lechers" by demanding a procedural advantage outside men's workplace rules.
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Both she and Paul would rather women be given the message to be more resilient and self-reliant when it comes to sexual provocation by male coworkers, instead of encouraging women to file gender discrimination suits that only give men the message that women are
not
equal in the workplace. Paul comments, "Equality has its price and that price may include unwelcome sexual advances, irritating and even intimidating sexual jests, and lewd and obnoxious colleagues." Paglia simply asserts, "It is anti-feminist to ask for special treatment for women."
127
Such "special treatment" can indeed backfire: male supervisors may hesitate to include women in business dinners or in informal gatherings where "shop talk" is looser, or men may fail to include women on teams that travel out of town for fear that they will take offense at coarse jokes made in airport or hotel bars. Kate Walsh argues that "the gender issue" has made men impossibly paternalistic in their dealings with women in order
not
to be sexist or in any way offensive. Now, instead of "What is a pretty girl like you going to do with a Ph.D.?,'' it is "What a bright girl you are!," as if, according to Walsh, it is a surprise that a woman can be smart. From this perspective, claiming to be victimized by an oppressive patriarchy has resulted in women being handled with a kid-glove approach that militates against frank discussion and direct criticism. Camille Paglia notes that climbing up the corporate ladder has always been cutthroat, requiring oppositional stratagems and rank competition. If individual women want to make their way in this environment, according to Paglia,
 
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then they had better get over their Victorian moralism, learn how to play hardball, and "talk trash with the rest of the human race."
128
Moreover, Paglia regards hostile environment harassment as absurdly reactionary and totalitarian in its demand for the curtailment of freedom of speech; she believes such restrictions only confirm the view that feminists who would develop sexual harassment policy guidelines are no more than punitive moral prudes. However, she and other critics agree that a woman should be encouraged to seek redress if she is persistently and injuriously harassed. Researchers have found that ignoring or going along with the harassment is the least effective strategy for reducing its occurrence, while confrontation or reporting the harassment was found to be the most effective.
129
On the other hand, feminists in favor of regarding sexual harassment as a case of gender discrimination have warned women to be wary of making only informal complaints to their harassers or third-party mediators. Compliance by the harasser must be voluntary under such conditions, and the confidentiality of the complaint makes it difficult to identify repeat offenders or gain an accurate picture of sexual harassment within the company or department as a whole. Even formal reporting that follows company or university guidelines on sexual harassment may be biased against the harassed, if those appointed to review the case personally favor the accused or resent a woman's airing the company's or department's dirty laundry. Yet according to some critics, seeking legal redress through the courts in order to obtain a fairer hearing, expose the harassment to public scrutiny, or gain a monetary settlement underestimates the effectiveness of using in-house sexual harassment policies and procedures to settle disputes. Furthermore, such legal action often results in a humiliating revictimization of women on the witness stand, which feminists interested in publicizing the pervasively structural nature of the harassment have themselves deplored.
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Critics charge that such a public impression can only leave those who take in the proceedings with the sense not only that a woman is unable to manage the stress of the workplace or academic life without whining or blaming men but also that she is unwilling, or unable, to take any personal responsibility for her situation. According to this line of reasoning, since such responsibility is indicative of moral agency and autonomy, women appear to be no more than passive objects to be manipulated and controlled at the whim of men.
Rejecting the Purported Right to Be Comfortable
Katie Roiphe suggests that campus women's concerns about sexual harassment and rape are actually fears and anxieties about heterosexual sex, displaced onto male students and professors. Such displacement, she implies, ignores the real responsibility female students must take for steering the course of their sexual lives. Roiphe also sees hostile environment sexual harassment as making the workplace and academia so sexually sterile and humorless that all semblance of what is valuable in human contact is lost. Like Camille Paglia, Roiphe contends that male sexual aggression is a part of nature, which is not to say that all men are power mongers or real threats to women. Roiphe argues that there is no such right as a woman's right to be comfortable around men; yet according to Roiphe, this is just the sort of impossibly subjective entitlement that feminists are demanding when they demand to be free of un-
 
Page 195
wanted sexual attention. Moreover, Roiphe contends that if young women learn to expect leering coworkers around every corner and a rapist in every date, we will train an entire generation of women to see themselves as sexual victims whom feminists themselves have helped to create. Roiphe's concern is that unless we begin to deal realistically with the problems men and women face in our sexual relationships with one another, we will continue to miscommunicate our intentions and ignore chances for real intimacy.
131
Furthermore, Roiphe sees white student and faculty feminists' concerns about date rape as revealing a deeper anxiety over multiculturalism, one that characterizes poor but sexually voracious men of color as lusting after rich, white girls who have a reputation to protect. Instead of facing the problems of multiculturalism head-on, such feminists, in Roiphe's view, hide behind the specter of date rape to express their own gender angst about the apparent irreconcilability between races and classes. She also believes that date rape films, seminars, and brochures put women on the sexual defensive at the expense of sexual passion and pleasure. Women who are paranoid about rape, she implies, will not be willing to take the emotional and physical risks that are an integral part of satisfying sex.
132
Exercising Sexual Power and Handling Lecherous Men
Camille Paglia, on the other hand, describes men in such a way that suggests women
should
be on the sexual defensive, but only in order to assert women's sexual responsibility and exercise women's sexual power. Paglia asserts that men's "natural" state is one of sexual aggression; thus, she insists it is high time feminists embrace male lust and take responsibility for handling it. Paglia writes, "So my motto for men is going to be this, 'Get it up!' That's my thing. 'Get it up!' And now my motto for women: 'Deal with it.'"
133
With college men ''at their hormonal peak" and with a "tendency toward anarchy and brutishness" that only socialization can inhibit, a college woman must be alert and ready to fend off those who would sexually assault her. Paglia contends that women do not understand how provocative and inflammatory their sexual signals are to men whose pride and ego combine with their testosterone to demand women's sexual compliance. Yet because of men's pressure on women to "put out," women do not understand the full nature of their sexual power over men. For Paglia, rape is expressive of men's desperation, envy, and revenge for an infantile dependence on an all-powerful mother, a revenge which young women should be taught to predict, confront, and survive. Paglia is convinced that acknowledging that women are the objects of male lust in this way does just the opposite of victimizing them: such a recognition encourages a woman to take up her best line of defense herself. "The only solution to date rape is female self-awareness and self-control," Paglia states. She eschews campus judicial bodies set up to handle accusations of rape precisely because they do not empower women to counterattack publicly and legally.
134
As for stranger rape, former antigun activist Paxton Quigley has made a career out of teaching women how to feel comfortable handling and using firearms, asserting that her courses help women stop seeing themselves as victims and start seeing themselves as confident human beings. As one martial arts teacher who specializes in women's self-defense puts it, "Fear of men turns women into victims."
135

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