The fear, and the shame, needs to switch sides

Kate

8 hours ago

6 min read

In a women’s group discussion of street harrassment, a woman commented that telling men you’re placing a curse on them is the one thing that seems to make them uncomfortable. I adore this approach, and recommend The Shabby Creek Cottage’s hex spell for starters.

Other ways to create change? As many many many people have pointed out, we can’t educate our way out of this.

Everybody already knows what consent is and they don’t care. 57 Cornell students aren’t lacking in education or comprehension abilities. They are lacking in courage. And if men don’t have the courage to do the right thing, then they need to be afraid of not doing the right thing.

Why should women be the only ones carrying fear? The Birdie Campus Bundle of three different alarms that are “engineered to cover almost every safety scenario she'll encounter on and off campus” costs $88. Drink test kits cost $6 each.

Yes, this looks like a really fun way to spend your evening. Although the STAB part does have its appeal.

If they ever brought that drink testing nail polish to market, I think we can assume it would cost a lot more than an $11 bottle of essie. (Spoiler alert: they didn’t, in large part because women wisely asked, how about men stop raping rather than we have to constantly stir our drinks with our fingers to avoid being raped?) Self-defense classes can cost $50 per hour. Taking a cab or valet parking instead of walking (as long as Uber didn’t hire another rapist driver), paying a lot more for safer housing, not going to night classes, jobs, events, or trips because the safety calculations were too high, carrying pepper spray. The constant strain of dealing with sexual harassment while walking, the mental load of always having to try to avoid being raped.

How about we redistribute some of that fear load?

Because people don’t make change from a place of comfort. It is discomfort that creates change. Women don’t need to change any more. Men, and the institutions under whose noses 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 women get raped, need to get a fucking move on.

At home:

—Kids need to learn that a lack of consent is revolting. Children have to learn to show their nose-wrinkling vomit-inducing disgust at any friend who doesn't understand or respect consent. This is how the actual good guys can be really effective at stopping sexual harassment and rape.

Because

—Peers have to shun rapey peers. The entire nation was looking for one single thumbs down or dude WTF from one of the 57 members of that group text. The nation got exactly zero of that. Gisèle Pelicot stated the truth that the shame has to change sides. So too does the group norm. Any rapey “alphas” must be the outcasts. Their boys and their bros need to be disgusted by anyone dehumanizing women and they have to say that out loud.

This starts with reacting with disgust to rapey comments, and rapey comments go all the way back to “Take my wife. Please.” jokes. Let me tell you, as a therapist of 20+ years, when couples get divorced, women take a long time to heal, figure themselves out, maybe start dating again after they’ve opened an owl speciality bookstore or gotten a 2nd advanced degree. In the meantime, men get remarried at twice the rate women do (34.4 remarriages per 1,000 previously married men versus 18.5 per 1,000 previously married women). They cannot survive out there without a wife. So jokes that dehumanize women are beyond ludicrous. Men can last as long without a wife as they can without being able to watch television. Don’t kid yourselves.

Not laughing along at the expense of women, or condoning dehumanizing women with silence does take a modicum of bravery. That is why it needs to be taught, and that is why it needs to be the group norm, so that deviating from that runs the risk of shunning. Fear of ostracism is a powerful motivator. Clearly, that’s what currently bonds the brothers of the morally bereft Chi Phi. Men who believe their friends are accepting of “sexual aggression” are more likely to be aggressors themselves. Evolutionarily, being an outcast carries huge survival risks. We’re finely attuned to what keeps us in or out of the group, so much so that pain and distress is a reflexive reaction to sensing ostracism and the survival response is reconnecting with social norms.

Simply wrinkling your nose and saying ‘gross’ at “take my wife please” sends the necessary signal that dehumanizing women is not the norm here, so the speaker proceeds at risk of being shunned.

On campus:

—Universities need to be scared of their sexual assault rates.

1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted here? Shrugs — 1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted here? *Shrugs*

Let’s start with tuition: If Title IX bars sexual harassment, sexual violence, and quid pro quo harassment, then how are sexual assault victims stuck with a tuition bill for the place that couldn’t keep them safe? That money should be the first thing to come out of university coffers and go right back to the victim. Jane Doe had to troop around Cornell’s campus, seeing the 7 to 10 accused rapists every day, while Cornell refused to refund her tuition. That is a total abysmal failure to provide a safe learning environment.

Then, all hail Marco Fuentes ’85 who showed us how it’s done in his open letter to Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff:

Be advised that I am immediately instructing my legal counsel to amend my estate plan: the 50% bequest of my estate pledged to Cornell University is officially revoked. Furthermore, I am actively contacting fellow alumni, donor networks and class leadership to advocate for a complete, coordinated freeze on all personal and institutional contributions until leadership changes occur.

Right in the kisser, that one. Published by our other heroes, the Cornell Daily Sun — all hail the editorial board that would not let this story go.

Donations at all universities could be considered based on a Sexual Assault Safety Grade (capitalization mine), based on climate surveys rather than Clery numbers. Climate surveys can uncover actual prevalence that Clery Act reports can’t, as only 7% of rapes are reported to school officials.

Survey results could show occurrence, reporting, and disciplinary rates, and put a big red stamp on each campus:

A = safe; feel free to attend and/or make unrestricted donations;

B = needs improvement; visit, ask women on campus about safety; donations should go to women’s groups on campus;

Below a B = unsafe, do not attend; donations should stop and go to local women’s survivor groups and/or RAINN or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) instead.

Macro:

—States need the best updated laws possible. It turns out NY has terrible backwoods consent laws, along with southern states. Who knew?!

How do we find out what laws need changing in our states? Start with RAINN's state law database, which lets you compare consent laws and crime definitions state by state. Your state's coalition against sexual assault can then tell you which bills are pending, and the database's legislation page is a place to start tracking them. Call your state legislators and your governor.

—And you know what else we can do? Not elect men to office who brag about grabbing women by the pussy. See how that connects? Rapey jokes are often a tell about rapey behavior. Laughing at rape jokes is a straight line to signalling permissiveness for rapey behavior. If we worry about not “ruining their potential,” they get into office and roll back protections for women, propose eliminating the separate Office on Violence Against Women, appoint people accused of sexual assault to the Supreme Court and the Defense Department, who then in turn eliminate abortion rights and fire all female and BIPOC officers they can get their sweaty little palms on, respectively. Instead, we can arrest accused rapists when the DOJ provides reams and reams and reams of documentation about them.