Female Resistance

[femaleresistance]

When it comes to sexual assault and harassment in Japan, a culture of silence prevails.

“There is little concept of sexual consent in the law or in society.” “We live in a society where ‘no’ means ‘yes.’ That’s a very Japanese way of communicating — not saying much but trying to read what the other person is saying.” In Japan, there is no concept of outright refusal or non-compliance. “iie” is a term of polite refusal for something desirable. “yada” is not a serious term, but used in jest & teasing tones. This is a culture built around implicit assumptions, rather than explicit communication. “yamete” is a plea to stop after something has already started. Japan is so saturated with sexual images and pornography, that you cannot avoid being bombarded with sleaze in newspapers, on TV, in comic books, in children’s animation, or simply walking down the street; sexual services by school girls are openly advertised and legally purchased. Yet, Japan still considers frank & honest discussions about sex and (female) genitalia to be taboo.

[femaleresistance]

Feminist theory could be used to treat anorexia, a new study has suggested.

Topics for discussion included "gendered constructions of appetite", "cultural expectations surrounding female emotion and anger" and "cultural prescriptions of femininity".

[femaleresistance]

A study says that anorexic people feel less to blame for their condition after reading feminist theory. In my case, I have Susie Orbach to thank, writes freelance journalist Kate Leaver

Reading that book in hospital affected me in a way that no group CBT session ever did. It gave me permission to look outside myself for the causes of my illness, and so, just like the participants of this new study, I dared to think that I was not to blame. The single most helpful revelation in my journey to recovery was this very idea: that anorexia existed outside of who I, as a person, fundamentally was. It was an exorcism of sorts, then – something had taken over me and must be overpowered.

Anorexia is a complex interplay of genetics, personality traits and experience. Some scientists suggest that we may be genetically predisposed to the illness; a biological sort-of fatalism that doesn’t necessarily take into account how profoundly we may be affected by something like the cultural perception of gender. Sometimes, less conventional treatments help – art or music therapy, for instance, as well as medical supervision and a nutrition plan. For me, that balm was feminist theory.

[femaleresistance]

It's not funny anymore.

There is always an excuse, or a misunderstanding, and somehow the comedian ends up playing the victim. The quest for laughter is pure and good and anyone who complains is just a humorless prick who should be more sensitive to the comedian’s primal need to stretch the boundaries of good taste.

[femaleresistance]

How manipulative men use one of our culture's most muscular myths — that men are clueless — and weaponize it into an alibi

There's a reason for this plague of know-nothings: The bumbler's perpetual amazement exonerates him. Incompetence is less damaging than malice. And men — particularly powerful men — use that loophole like corporations use off-shore accounts. The bumbler takes one of our culture's most muscular myths — that men are clueless — and weaponizes it into an alibi.

Breaking that alibi means dissecting that myth. The line on men has been that they're the only gender qualified to hold important jobs and too incompetent to be responsible for their conduct. Men are great but transparent, the story goes: What you see is what you get. They lack guile.

How many deliberate, premeditated lies, how many carefully set traps, how many instances of deceit do we need before we can admit that men are every bit as duplicitous and two-faced as women are suspected of being? That harassment is not an accident? That predation requires planning? That this gigantic apparatus through which women's careers are destroyed and men's are preserved isn't just happenstance?

[femaleresistance]

Like many others who work in the film business, I find none (zero) of the revelations about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior even remotely surprising. His abusive work style was widely known, and, until two weeks ago, even admired by many of his male colleagues and/or competitors. And as is becoming increasingly clear, he was most definitely not alone. Pretty much everyone within a 1,000-mile radius of the biz is well aware that Sex-for-Work is Standard Operating Procedure in Hollywood.

Within this system, men are subjects and young women are objects for gratification/consumption.

An entire culture of visual language supports and encourages this system, justifying both the perpetrators’ actions and the victims’ humiliated silence. It is essential that this visual code of oppression be exposed and understood.

We’ve all heard the phrase “the objectification of women,” but most don’t know how precisely and insidiously this objectification manifests itself cinematically inside the very details of shot design.

Demoting half the world’s population to use-object happens not only at the level of script and narrative but within actual framing choices and lighting strategies.

Almost without exception, every “important” and “great” white male director, those who win Cannes or the Academy Awards, those who are considered must-see viewing for any aspiring student of cinema — e.g. Hitchcock, Welles, Scorsese, Godard, Tarantino, Aronofsky (to name only a few) — utilize cinematic techniques that belittle women while appearing to glamorize them.

[femaleresistance]

"A man who does this kind of thing likes to see a woman feel terror and beg him to stop."

Exhibitionists purposefully look to shock their victims because they are angry. They are not looking to make friends or go on a date — these are acts of revenge against women. These men are imposing the body part that is most threatening to a female and in doing so, they are acting out what is called “sexualized hostility” or “eroticized rage” against their prey. That look of fear or humiliation on women is arousing to them. We see clinically that these men feel wildly inadequate.

[femaleresistance]

For starters, we included the words: "I'm sorry."

[femaleresistance]

If we can’t talk about patriarchy, then let’s admit we’re giving up on the goal of a world without rape and harassment.

We have to let go of a comforting illusion—that there is some bright line between men who rape and men who don’t rape, between the bad guys and the good guys. That doesn’t mean all guys are bad, or that we can’t distinguish between levels of bad behavior. It means that if we want to end men’s violence against women, we have to acknowledge the effects of patriarchal socialization, and such critical self-reflection is rarely a pleasant task, individually or collectively.

[femaleresistance]

The Louis C.K. speciality: self-aggrandizement disguised as self-effacement.

The skewed power dynamic of which C.K. claims complete ignorance is just one contributing factor to his abuse. Asking someone if you can take out your penis—especially if that person is a co-worker, and especially if she has shown absolutely no sexual interest in you, like if she’s just walked into your room with her winter coat and a friend—will often be enough to make her feel threatened. (For C.K., that was probably part of the thrill.) It’s enough to make female industry peers question their worth, doubt their own talent, restrict their movements, and decline career opportunities. His words alone—the words he claims he believed established consent—were a major part of his harassment. Men who force women to watch them masturbate, or force them to field a request to do so, get off on causing women fear.

[femaleresistance]

There's something that's been really getting to me about Louis C.K.'s specific actions: the male weaponization of making women feel sorry for them.

Most women have experienced some kind of male aggression. But male sadness and guilt-tripping, that we need to feel sorry for these humiliated dolts, somehow rendered harmless by this patheticness, is just as common. It’s the friend zone, it’s nice guy syndrome, it’s all of it. Female reactions to male embarrassment, the social drive to make men feel better, to excuse behaviors because we feel sorry for them, that can be weaponized against us and is. That’s what Louis C.K. did for years, only admitting it when he was caught and couldn’t get out of it.

[femaleresistance]

Louis CK’s public statement is being lauded as an excellent example of an apology, but does he ever say sorry?

He used the word "admire" and it’s various forms to describe what his victims thought of him and what his community thinks of him, five times. One could call it self-masturbatory, but that is maybe too on the nose.

[femaleresistance]

To some, assessing an artist’s work in light of his biography is blasphemous. But it’s time to do away with the idea that they’re separate.

Can we now do away with the idea of "separating the art from the artist"?

Whenever a creative type (usually a man) is accused of mistreating people (usually women), a call arises to prevent those pesky biographical details from sneaking into our assessments of the artist’s work. But the Hollywood players accused of sexual harassment or worse — Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K., to name a few from the ever-expanding list — have never seemed too interested in separating their art from their misdeeds. We’re learning more every day about how the entertainment industry has been shaped by their abuses of power. It’s time to consider how their art has been, too.

[femaleresistance]

For too long, we’ve lauded men’s aggressiveness as a sign of leadership rather than a red flag.

Perhaps it’s time to consider that abusive men aren’t rising to the top in spite of their disdain for women, but because of it. In a country where domineering bravado and casual misogyny can land a man in the White House, it’s not unreasonable to believe that this kind of behavior in men not only goes unpunished - but that it’s actively rewarded.

[femaleresistance]

From Phil Spector to Roman Polanski, we ignore the signs of danger.

I knew what all this was saying about women, and I didn't know. Because knowing – really knowing – would have put me on the outside of everything that seem valuable, of this entire world that I wanted to be a part of.

Most of us, for most of our lives, have been trying to square ourselves with a body of culture that, more or less, hates us.

[femaleresistance]

How about the men post “I ignored it and I won’t anymore” instead?

Men: It’s not our job to keep reminding you. Remind each other, and stop abusing. It’s as simple as that. Until men speak out against men who abuse, this will never stop. How about y’all post “I ignored it and I won’t anymore” instead?

Because #hearyou doesn’t cut it. Just hearing us doesn’t cut it. Taking action, speaking out, and showing zero tolerance for abuse is the only way through. Silence enables. Be the change.

[femaleresistance]

As I watched my social media feeds fill up over the past two days, with hundreds of #MeToo hashtags from women sharing their firsthand experience of sexual harassment or assault, I began to grieve. I grieved for the sheer volume of the revelations, realizing they will still only barely scratch the surface; how many more women are too traumatized, too protective of their privacy, or simply not yet ready to make such personal declarations to an invisible assembly of relative strangers—many of them, the very kinds of men responsible for these wounds.

No survivor of violence should be compelled to unearth their hidden scars in order to reach those responsible for them. Men, the onus should not be on women who have been harassed or assaulted, to expose themselves to further injury just to show us the scale and the depth of our own sickness. This is our responsibility. We should be the ones doing the soul excavation and the mirror-gazing, and we should be the ones now openly confessing our #MeToo’s, in these moments when the world is watching.

We are the other side of the #MeToo stories. We are the writers of these awful stories. It’s time we owned this sickness. It’s time we stopped it.