Dear confused men,
That great model of ethical behaviour, Woody Allen, has responded with suitable empathy to the Harvey Weinstein scandal that’s still rocking Hollywood, by hoping that women won’t make a witch-hunt of it. What if “every guy in an office who winks at a woman suddenly has to call a lawyer to defend himself,” he asks plaintively.
As more of you echo this worry, it’s clear that you feel terribly short-changed. It’s unfair, you’re saying, here we were toodling along patting a back here and kissing a cheek there and all of a sudden you women are getting super-sensitive and all that.
I agree. Life gets difficult when you’ve made all the rules so far, most of them from the creepy-jokes and octopus-arms department, and now here come the women wanting to shift goalposts.
So I am going to be real nice and share a few tips with all you powerful men so that you don’t feel so aggrieved any more.
Rules 1, 2 and 3: If a woman is an employee / student / ward or in any relationship where you can impress / awe / frighten her, you are the ‘boss’ — and those ‘harmless’ hugs, kisses, fulsome compliments and loaded comments are not really that harmless.
Consent is a word that’s being thrown around a lot these days. Even Weinstein claims that all the women ‘consented’. But the context in which you imagine ‘consent’ was given is important.
As CEO / HoD / producer / proprietor / lecturer, your power is enormous. The woman wants to be in your good books, consciously or sub-consciously. She wants to succeed in the job or PhD or film. She has genuine or imagined fears: of being blacklisted, ridiculed, fired, failed, ignored.
It’s called imbalance of power and it makes her respond in ways infinitely harmful to her. So, the absence of obvious resistance is not automatically consent — it comes from fear, compulsion or vulnerability. Not seeing this doesn’t make you El Casanova, it makes you El Creep.
Rule 4: As the person wielding the power, it’s your responsibility to ensure your behaviour is appropriate. It’s your responsibility to send out the right messages.
A young woman can easily feel hugely flattered by an offer of friendship, by warm gestures and other overtures from a senior, famous, influential person. It’s easy for her to imagine love and agree to a physical relationship. Or become emotionally attached. And even easier for you to pretend later that it was all her stupidity and your irresistibility. In real life, it’s called predatory behaviour. Best avoided.
Rule 5: When you are powerful, your actions come loaded with spoken or unspoken promises and threats. You don’t have to actually tempt or threaten that underling, it’s built into the equation. If you have the smarts to get where you are today, surely you should have the smarts to realise this and choose your words and actions responsibly.
Rule 6: We realise what a concerned citizen you are but trust us, female colleagues really don’t need a solicitous arm around their shoulders to help them manoeuvre stairs and corridors. Nor do they need you to lean avuncularly over them as they type. They will somehow survive these ordeals without your help.
Rule 7, 8, ad infinitum: Women write code, design buildings, remove ulcers or sell soaps for the same reasons that you do — money, passion, career, fame. They’re not there — surprise, surprise — to liven up the workplace and give you the happies.
But what about some harmless flirting, I hear you ask. Of course, what’s life without a fling or two? But the operative word here is ‘mutual’. Anything that’s not two-way is sexual harassment and recognising whether or not someone is reciprocating is really not that tough.
We realise Woody Allen has been confused about life for a while now, but it’s difficult otherwise to misunderstand any of this. Unless you are a Neanderthal. And they got timed out, remember?
Where the writer tries to make sense of society with seven hundred words and a bit of snark
