#Time's Up January
14, 2018 Dr. Roger Ray
It
became a hashtag, a movement, a reckoning, but it began, as great social change
nearly always does, with individual acts of courage.
Edward
Felsenthal, editor-in-chief, Time Magazine. Jan. 5, 2018
2017 was a tumultuous
year in very many ways but when Time Magazine editors sat down to choose the “Person
of the Year,” the person who did the most to change the world in this amazing
and heart-breaking year, they didn’t choose just one person. They chose a group
of people, the silence breakers. The group of mostly women and some men who
started to publicly identify with the hashtag, #MeToo… or what the French often
call balance ton porc, which roughly
translates into “expose your pig.”
It is a 2017 story that
has been building for years, centuries, really. Millions of years of evolution
embed impulses and appetites in all manner of life to reproduce through sex.
Birds and reptiles and mammals of all sorts have nesting rituals so that their
species will continue to reproduce but humans have complicated that process
with what we call “civilization” but then we routinely fail to be civilized
about it.
And the rules of
engagement are different in different cultures and in different times. We
Westerners are offended by the Muslim practice of insisting that women cover
themselves entirely but those more conservative Muslims are shocked and
offended by the way we pressure women into revealing clothing and makeup as if
they were constantly on display for sexual purposes. What seems like freedom
and liberation in the West looks like exploitation in the Muslim world and, to
be honest, if often is.
And what looks like
repression and control in the Muslim world in our eyes, is, in truth, exactly
that. Both are, in some ways, right, and both are, in other ways, horribly
wrong.
Twenty years ago I was
scuba diving in the Bahamas and one of our dives was on the submerged airplane
that was a set in the James Bond movie, Thunderball. When I came home, I rented
the VHS tape of the 1965 movie to show my then 8-year-old daughter where I had
been on vacation. In the opening scenes, James Bond engages in what could only
be called a rape scene with a masseuse that sent me scrambling for the VCR.
I’m sure that I had seen
the movie when I was young and the Bond character was designed for young men to
be envious of 007’s swagger, his self-confidence, his success in seduction but
what looked like over-the-top secret agent stuff in the 1960’s looked like rape
in the 1990’s. That kind of confusion and evolution of how men and women engage
in seduction produced the somewhat shocking result in the 1980’s when
researchers asked women if they had ever been raped, the most common response
was, “I’m not sure.” Sometimes that is because of alcohol or drugs, including
rape drugs of the Cosby variety, but it also means that they had an encounter
in which they felt that they had lost control of their ability to stop.
The silence breakers in
the closing months of 2017 have helped to usher into the public a long overdue
conversation that can help us to clarify the rules of appropriate conduct going
into the future. We have had other moments of sexual revolutions and
revelations. Most memorable for me was the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991.
Hearings that made an entire generation of men aware of how sexual harassment in
the workplace has been a torturous and coercive part of women’s lives ever
since it became common for men and women to share office space. Though the
Senate ended up seating Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and Anita Hill did
not get personal validation in reward for her courage, she did wake up the
world and started a whole industry of sexual boundary training in offices,
universities, and even churches.
There have been other
instances of forced awakening, such as when the Catholic priest sex abuse
scandals began to break in the late 1990’s. But the most recent cascade of
public revelations began with the case of Bill Cosby who, after years of fairly
publicly discussed predatory sexual behavior, finally was formally accused and
taken to court. More than 50 women came forward to report having been drugged
and raped by the formerly wildly popular and influential comedian. The accounts
went far beyond the category of “casting couch” exploitation into an arena that
surely meant that he would spend the rest of his life in prison, though, so
far, he is still free as a result of a mistrial.
But Cosby’s sins were
still seen as being an outlier, almost too weird to have an impact on the garden
variety of workplace sexual harassment. Politicians and corporate bosses
sometimes make a splash in the news when they are found to have availed
themselves of the services of male or female sex workers, or if their
compulsive and lewd behaviors reach the level of the repeated offenses of the
ironically named former congressman, Anthony Weiner.
But the most perplexing of
recent revelations was when the infamous Access Hollywood tape was made public
just weeks before last November’s election. In the tape, Donald Trump literally
bragged about trying to force himself on women.
He claimed to have
committed assault in the most disgusting of language and even bragged of
pedophilia in walking into the dressing room of teen beauty contestants while
they were undressed. Honestly, I know people who are serving long Federal
prison sentences on sex offender charges for much less than what Donald Trump
confessed to, a confession we heard just before he was elected to be the
President of the United States, an event that required the willing votes of
millions of women.
The entertainer, Billy
Bush, who was Trump’s host on the Access Hollywood event was promptly fired,
basically for just listening to Trump’s foul story but Trump went on to occupy
the Oval office as the most powerful person in the world. His inauguration,
however, was very lightly attended by a disillusioned public and one of the
largest protests in the history of the world took place the next day as the
Women’s March brought women and men into the streets in cities, not only across
America, but across the world.
Clarence Thomas is a
Supreme Court justice, Bill Cosby is still free, and Donald Trump is, at least
temporarily, the president of the United States, but change about sexual harassment
and predatory behaviors is in the wind. If we don’t blow it, this is a time for
real change, at least in America and Europe.
There are, I believe, two
ways in which this movement could quickly fail and fade into memory before it
can make any progress. The first is if we lose sight of the revolution and
allow it to turn into revenge. The other is losing the moral high ground of an
appeal for ethics by becoming indifferent about ethics.
Please allow me to
explain: For many years, the world protested the system of apartheid in South
Africa. It was obvious that the racial discrimination, violence, and oppression
of the black majority in South Africa was wrong but the white controlled
government kept reinforcing their military enforcement of the system of
apartheid because, they feared, the moment that they took their boots off of
the throats of the black Africans, they reasonably expected violent
retribution.
The only thing that made
it possible to bring apartheid to an end without the white minority fleeing the
country and taking most of its wealth with them was to give leadership to the
kind of people who recognized the need for a revolution that did not devolve
into revenge killings. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that allowed
people to confess their sins and change their ways without unbearable
retribution has not been perfect. South Africa is still one of the most violent
nations in the world, but there was not a bloody civil war and that, in and of
itself, is a miracle. They are making progress though progress rarely comes
quickly nor does it always follow a straight line.
Though we are not likely
to fall into a gender based civil war, we do run the risk of some bomb throwing
that will have more innocent victims than targets. When the Harvey Weinstein
case went public, we saw the seamy underbelly of the entertainment industry at its
most creepy. Some of the complaints against him were for sexual harassment,
some were out and out exploitation, and, in some cases, you would have to call
it sexual assault or rape. So, an almost daily chorus of “me too” victims came
forward to reveal a real monster.
Seeing that a titan of
the industry could be brought down gave courage to others to file complaints
against well-known personalities that, frankly, just didn’t seem like the type
to me but that just proves how thick men can be about these things.
Mark Halpern, Charlie
Rose, and Matt Lauer seemed to be as benign as milk toast but boy did they ever
have skeletons in their closets. I didn’t find it hard to believe that Louis C.
K. needed help and I would easily have believed anything about Roger Ailes and
Bill O’Reilly. But I didn’t want to believe it about Kevin Spacey or John
Conyers but the evidence seems to point towards guilt. And President George H.
W. Bush grabbing women’s behinds from a wheelchair…that’s just pathetic.
In the past few months
more than 50 very high-profile politicians, actors, producers, and musicians
have been revealed and most have lost their jobs or their careers have been
ruined. Some will surely see jail time. Still, this is not just a problem that
has affected the Megan Kellys
and Gwyneth Paltrows of the world. The familiar,
household names of the news and entertainment world must open the door to the
millions of complaints to be lodged by hotel maids, waitresses, migrant farm
workers, and everyone who works for tips in any industry. Their stories must be
heard and their demands for justice must also be recognized. And, of course,
this is not just a matter of the powerful exploiting the vulnerable. Most
sexual harassment does not happen between an employer and employees. Most of
the daily, painful, comments, stares, and sexual suggestions come from fellow
workers. It is the whole workplace environment that must undergo a meaningful
reformation, from the shopping mall to McDonalds, the local Ford plant to the
TV newsroom.
It is not
enough to send Bill Cosby to prison and kick Kevin Spacey to the curb and stop
reshowing House of Cards. It is not high-profile revenge that will satisfy these
centuries old injustices, it is change, change in the way powerful people use
their power and change in the way that both men and women, gay and straight, go
about the intricate dance of pairing. No means no. Derision is not flirtation. Lewd
suggestions are not jokes. Unwanted sexual attention is harassment. Period.
The second issue is more
complicated and possibly more dangerous for a straight man to talk about but I
will beg your indulgence to allow me to say a bit about ethics. You cannot meaningfully
simultaneously air your grievances for ethical violations while insisting that
ethical violations against others are inconsequential.
Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly,
Harvey Weinstein, and Charlie Rose were evidently sex offenders on a criminal
scale. People like Anthony Weiner, Mark Halpern, and Louis C. K. seem to me to
be mentally ill and deserving of treatment. But do Al Franken and Garrison Keillor
deserve to be tarred with the same brush as these rapists, predators, and
exhibitionists? Is George H. W. Bush a predator or just a sad case of being
given too much latitude in his old age?
Everyone deserves to be
heard but not everything you hear will be true. I’ve done marriage and divorce
counseling for nearly 40 years and I can tell you that almost everyone tells
their story in a way that portrays themselves heroically and their enemies as
monsters. Very many of those stories are exaggerations and some are
fabrications. In some cases, we will never know the truth.
At least eight women came
forward to accuse Judge Roy Moore of inappropriate sexual harassment or
outright pedophilia but none of them had evidence that would make much headway
in a courtroom. Eight women, regardless of what my brother said about it, does
not add up to hearsay. But eight accusers still doesn’t become a criminal
conviction though it certainly makes for a persuasive case. For centuries women
have been ignored and that was wrong, very wrong, terribly wrong, but it would
not be right to assume that everyone who has a story to tell is telling the truth.
Victims deserve to be heard and the accused deserve the right to defend
themselves.
I would not argue that Al
Franken was innocent. In fact, he clearly was not. I would say that he didn’t
get a fair hearing and that his life and political career was sacrificed in one
of the most ridiculous examples of hypocrisy that I have ever witnessed.
In a civilized society,
we know that some offenses deserve a warning, some a fine, some incarceration,
and there are some crimes for which society even chooses execution but we don’t
execute everyone who commits a minor offense. Ethics demands that the
punishment fit the crime. And I know that there are very many victims,
numbering in the hundreds of millions, who don’t feel much sympathy for the
innocent people who will be ruined in this revolution but let me warn you, the
substantive change accomplished in the revolution will depend, at least in
part, in the credibility and fairness of the process.
It could all backfire,
you know. Rather than being granted an equal role in the workplace, employers
might choose not to hire women, especially not young women. Executives might
not include junior executives who are women in their business travel or
Saturday golf rounds where networking takes place and where promotions are
born. We want for men to respect women but not to fear them. We want those who
are guilty of offenses to be appropriately punished but we do not want to
punish every man for being male even though there is a long history of punishing
nearly every woman for being female. Revenge has a certain appeal but, I
submit, revenge is its own worst enemy.
Somewhere between the
Hooters uniform and the hijab, somewhere between the Playboy mansion and the celibate
monastery, is a rational, compassionate, and fair place where men and women can
be fully who they are and yet where everyone can work, engage in commerce, and
even meet their future significant other in a safe environment where everyone
is respected and where no one has to sacrifice either their bodies or their
self-respect and that is the place where we must get to because nothing less is
acceptable.
We owe a debt of
gratitude to the silence breakers who have set this reformation in motion. Let
your applause today be for these brave heroes who have set us in the path of
justice.
