In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations going public (I refuse to call it a scandal because, somehow, that makes everything he did and the women he did it to endured seem like a one-off), women have started sharing their stories of sexual assault and harassment with the hashtag #metoo. It started trending after actor Alyssa Milano wrote on Twitter ‘if all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.’
This is, undoubtedly, good. Harvey Weinstein is, in many ways, exceptional in terms of working in Hollywood, having incredible power in his industry and being very, very wealthy but let’s make no mistake, what he did was very unexceptional. It happens all.the.time, there aren’t always casting couches, lunches in Cannes or payoffs, there aren’t always non-disclosure agreements and there aren’t, sadly, always prosecutions but women, everywhere, in workplaces, nightclubs and public spaces across the world are subjected to this crap.
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This has been backed up by study, after study, after study in recent years. Of course, men can be sexually assaulted and harassed too but, let’s not pretend, even for a second, that the majority of perpetrators aren't men and the majority of people who have to live with the consequences of that aren't women.
Let’s just go over the statistics one more time, shall we?
A year has not gone by recently without one of these studies confirming the sheer scale of this problem. What good does it do? Nothing changes. And so, I question what good sharing our stories in public will do, it might make us feel less alone, it might reconfirm the mountain we have to climb to do something about it but will it bring about real change? The problem is not women, it is men. So why does the onus fall upon us to share our traumas, pain, and stories? Why can’t men start a hashtag? Why can’t men publically declare their apologies and complicity? Why can’t men come together and pledge to do something about the behaviour of their peers?
Why is it only women politicians who are coming out on this, to share their stories like Maria Miller or condemn the male perpetrators of abuse and harassment? Why do no men in power get involved? Why do they not call for reviews? Why do they not talk about the clear crisis of masculinity causing this problem? Why do men’s news and lifestyle publications not cover the problem? Why should it fall on me, or you or her to divulge the details of how we were violated, subjugated and made to feel shit for years afterwards whilst trying to put a brave face on it and function as a woman in the world and at work?
One of my male friends posted a status in response to #metoo and it is by far one of the most moving, reassuring, uplifting and refreshing things I saw in my timeline:
*‘There is no greater fault than saying something is wrong without seeing wrong within oneself. If the majority of women have been affected it means the majority of men have played their part. No matter how awake and passive we all may try to be. In the last week, I've analysed my life. I've spoken with other men about theirs. I see that all men are scared of exposure and confronting the possibility that in youth and in present day we are all guilty of playing to power dynamics, responsibility, and the benefits of bad communication. We've always expected something that is not ours to expect. We've been silent when we shouldn't have been.’ *
I respect the women sharing their personal, intimate and often traumatic stories on social media but the above is what I want to read. This is the conversation we, particularly men, need to have.
I thought long and hard about whether to share mine. There are two, one is a depressingly common tale of an abuse of power and low-level assault, the other is more serious and all I will say is that it was a sustained campaign of harassment. The story ended with me leaving a job and area of my industry I loved, changing my behaviour at work, finding myself eminently more comfortable in the company of women, doubting my talents, questioning my personality, not sleeping, being very broke for a while and changing the way I carry and dress myself. These stories do not include the numerous times older, more powerful men invited me for drinks to ‘discuss my career’ and subsequently stuck their tongues down my throat on the way to the tube afterwards, pretended they had been misled when I said I didn’t ‘think that was what this was about.’ Nor do they include the very serious assault I experienced outside of work. I am a survivor of multiple instances of this shit.
The terrifying thing about the above is that I’m barely even moved when I write it down. Looking at in black and white neither shocks me nor scandalises me. Reading the stories of friends, colleagues, women I follow, women I respect, women I love barely even makes me angry anymore because I know. You know. We all know how bad this is. You do not need to read a blow by blow account of my experiences in all their depressing detail to know we have a serious and endemic cultural problem.
Sure, if I did write it all out in detail here (and believe me I could, with photographic accuracy), it might contribute to a communal conversation in which people feel less alone. I do not underestimate the importance of that. However, after years of healing which has been consuming and exhausting, I can’t help but resent the notion that I am required to speak up, to go to war with someone I never held to account. How would I fund this work? And it would be work. Where would I find the time? The energy? The emotional strength? I can’t be alone in that. Equally, I do not what to be defined by what has happened to me. I’ve had to work very hard not to be.
So, with a heavy heart, I say me too. But, as comforting as it is to read the stories of other women I would much rather read statuses from my male friends, contemporaries and colleagues which say ‘yes, me too, I stood by’, ‘me too, I was inappropriate’ or ‘me too, I am complicit in this problem.’
Me too. But there is nothing ‘shocking’ about Harvey Weinstein and pretending otherwise is doing this issue a huge disservice. Nor is he a rare, unique monster or nearly extinct dinosaur ready to be consigned to the archives. The sort of behaviour he typifies is everywhere and until we start unpicking masculinity and why it causes men to abuse power and assault women we’ll be going around in circles.
Me too. But it is the perpetrators of sexual harassment and abuse who need to be put on trial. It is the bystanders who need to ask themselves searching questions. It is men who need to start a conversation. I don’t think I, or any other survivor, should have to tell you what I’ve been through to validate this problem.
We have comprehensive equality legislation in this country but it hasn’t stopped abuse and assault. This is a cultural problem. We do need to have a conversation, but I’m not convinced it’s one in which women take the conversations we have about our assaults, abuses, and harassments so regularly in private into the public domain. It needs to be a conversation that doesn’t just include men but is spearheaded by them, about their behaviour.
For too long, dealing with abuse and harassment is an unwritten part of women’s job descriptions. That needs to change. Imagine what would be possible if our energy wasn’t tied up in dealing with it?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.