Many of us love pointing a finger at ‘bad guys’ when they are brought to justice. Maybe getting some reassurance that, however much of a mess we may be making of our own lives…at least we’re not as screwed up as they are.
But, before we feel too good about ourselves, as we relish the fall from grace of people we may previously have (somewhat enviously) held in high regard, I think there’s a need for us to engage in some self-reflection. It seems to me that a lot of sexual harassment, currently well represented by likes of dinosaurs such as Weinstein and Trump, is by men who are essentially damaged – either because of personal experiences, or because of growing up in a culture which promotes a distorted view of masculinity which gives us men an assumption of privilege and power, whilst at the same time trying to deny us the ‘right’ to be fully emotional human beings, a toxic combination which leaves many men feeling unbalanced and/or anxious that they are falling short in some way, and needing to prove their masculinity to themselves and their peers
Sexual harassment seems to me, to be a mixture of showing off and bullying, both the result of inner insecurity, but without enough empathy to see the damage that’s being caused to whoever is on the receiving end. In that sense, it’s the behavior of a child.
Weinstein and Trump behave more like spoilt boys who have a tantrum when they can’t get what they want, than men; who then feel the need to throw their substantial economically based weight around as a way of denying that truth to themselves.
I believe that men’s abusive behavior towards women is actually rooted in a deep-seated fear of the feminine, and an anger and resentment which emanates from that, creating -in some men—a need to show that they have power over women in whatever way they think they can get away with – from calling out on the street by men with a low sense of their own status, to manipulation or coercion to the point of rape by those who have a larger sense of entitlement.
From my point of view, all sexual harassment is in reality no more than an admission of weakness and inadequacy. What greater evidence could there be of a man’s timidity than the need to shout at someone who is vulnerable? It’s the equivalent of a kid calling a teacher a rude name behind their back and running away. And how invalidating must it feel to know a woman is only putting up with your company because she’s afraid not to, or can’t get away.
It must go hand in hand with the loneliness of being wealthy, and never knowing whether people are only with you because of what they hope to get from you. And any man who has to force a woman to be physically close to him is admitting to himself, and the rest of the world, that at heart he believes he could never be ‘man enough’ that a woman might choose to be with them.
Like all bullies, men who harass women are self-revealed cowards. They may briefly feel good about themselves based on an illusion of power when they are intimidating someone, but I think they know deep in their hearts that they have done nothing more than reveal their weakness, and have betrayed everything that is worthy of affirmation in a (hu)man.
As men, we should be doing do everything in our power to guarantee the safety of all women. But I think that rather than just despising these self-evidently sad and damaged individuals who go against this ideal, we need to promote the reality that harassment is a weak and unacceptable thing for any man to do engage in, whilst at the same time encouraging those men who are afflicted by drastically low sense of self-esteem which must be behind abusive behavior, to get the help they need to in order to behave with respect for others and for themselves, and ensuring that adequate, and appropriate support is easily available to them.
(We’d better also recognize the possibility that any hatred and anger we feel towards men who harass women is a projection of a deep-rooted anxiety that—having also grown up in a culture which is still misogynistic in many ways—we may be capable of behaving like that ourselves).
Probably, because of a sense of shame, about the way in which they think about, and behave towards women, such men seem to be afraid of confronting, or even thinking about, their actions and attitudes in a way that would enable them to choose to both grow and change, thereby creating more love and happiness for them, and for the women in their lives. They need help as well as being exposed for the unacceptability of how they behave.
The condemnation by many men of Weinstein’s behavior towards women, and of all the other men who seem to have the same problem, and the embarrassed silence of those who have colluded with it, is reason for hope that an evolution in male consciousness is slowly but surely moving us towards recognizing that respect for others is in everyone’s interests, and that the abuse of power whenever and wherever it takes place, is ultimately damaging to us all.
There are lessons here for global as well as gender politics. The outmoded but still prevalent male addiction to power over others, which may be something which served us well in the past in evolutionary terms, but which is clearly no longer fit for purpose, is taking us dangerously close to some kind of apocalypse. We urgently need a more ‘feminine’ collaborative approach to bring us back from the brink of self-destruction which would be the outcome of some kind of nuclear showdown.
I hope and believe that we are experiencing an evolution in men’s consciousness, relationally and attitudinally towards, ‘the feminine’—in girls, women, and in themselves. Many men are already rejecting the macho myths about what it is to be a ‘real’ man, although the spheres of media and entertainment still need to offer a more realistic reflection of the full range of ways in which ‘real’ men think, feel and act.
To move this process forward, there’s a need for some kind of awareness raising campaign about the on-going incidence of male sexual harassment, and clear thinking about how it can be changed- not by imposing ‘solutions’, but by encouraging and enabling men to develop a deeper understanding of why their behaviors can be so confused and destructive—and what we/they can do about it.
Some kind of National Men’s Forum could galvanize men into realizing that confronting and addressing sexual harassment is not a ‘women’s problem’, it is also OUR problem as men, and if we don’t want to be part of that problem, we need to reflect on what more we can do to be part of the solution.
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Photo: Pixabay