As the Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford case unfolds with dramatic intensity in the US, one thing has stuck in my head. And that is one of the lines of defence that’s been mounted for Kavanaugh — that a respectable, upright man should not be penalised for an act committed in youthful thoughtlessness.
That Kavanaugh threw a girl on a bed during a party and tried to rape her is considered a fun, young thing to do, part of the “growing up” rituals of a high-spirited boy. Like drinking too much beer or crashing a car into a wall.
We are no strangers to this nudge-nudge, wink-wink attitude. The ‘boys will be boys’ line is trotted out with depressing regularity here as well. Men are taught to believe that stalking or groping a woman is nothing more than playful ‘eve-teasing’. That obsessive and psychotic pursuit, which might even lead to the man killing the object of his desire, is nothing more than deep ‘love’. Our cinema glorifies these ideas as much as that vile genre called ‘high-school romance’ does it in Hollywood.
Men are expected to ‘sow wild oats’ during youth. Men ‘score’, a trophy-hunting term used to describe how many women they sleep with. They get to ‘first base’ or get a ‘home run’ on dates. They rate women as ‘easy’ or ‘tease’ or ‘hard to get’. All of this language is a socialising tool, honed over centuries to protect male privilege; indulgent wordplay that society uses to license male unaccountability.
And all of it adds up to mean that if Kavanaugh did indeed molest Ford, he and a whole lot of men believe he doesn’t really have to pay for it because, you know, boys, ha ha.
In the self-obsessed theatre that is a man’s life, women have always been the props. That the ‘props’ are now complaining is what most men find really incredible. Closer home, as the Tanushree Dutta - Nana Patekar fracas builds up, check out the degree of male anger directed against Dutta, exactly like what Ford is facing. One of the ways in which Dutta is discredited is by pointing out her intimate scenes and revealing costumes from other films. For many men, this is enough reason why she must not complain.
I have been following the he said-she said debates both here and in the US. In both cases, the women have provided proof of some sort, and in both cases an investigation could unearth more. But what I find most interesting in the debates is the overweening idea that a man must never be held responsible for his actions. If he does something as a teenager, it’s his bubbly youth to blame. If he does it as an adult, it’s the woman’s dress to blame. If he does it on the sets, it’s the woman’s fault for picking a career in cinema. If he does it in a lift, the woman shouldn’t have got into a lift at that hour.
In other words, men never harass or assault. They just live their ordained lives. But women keep getting in the way, and oh how we wish they wouldn’t whine but just lie back and think of how lucky they are.
Every woman who is coming forward with a complaint today is helping to remove this fig leaf of immunity that has protected men from ever facing the consequences of their actions. Of course, women are playing catch-up now, revealing sordid stuff that happened years ago, but these are all building blocks for a future social structure where women will not be afraid to call out such offences as soon as they occur and they will get support — and it will happen without song and dance. As routinely as one reports pickpockets.
One other thing has stayed with me from the Kavanaugh-Ford hearings. When Ford was asked what she remembers most from that night when she was assaulted, she replied, “The laughter, the uproarious laughter....”
It’s a chilling memory. Men having a good time at the expense of a woman. It is this that must change.
Where the writer tries to make sense of society with seven hundred words and a bit of snark.
