by Laura Bates
5. Karma
Beware the ultimate punishment for shouting at women in the street: karma. As these women’s reports to @EverydaySexism show, it is less rare than you might think:
@ragazza_inglese: Man just fell into a set of bins because he was too busy gawping at me to look where he was going. Karma #everydaysexism
@FolieADarcy: Two guys whistling and honking at me from their car. Seconds later, they crashed it due to lack of concentration. #OwnFault
@thejessicaraven: BAHA! Someone just shouted at me from a car and then crashed into a stop sign. #instantkarma
Originally published 10 October 2013
FLIRTATION OR SEXUAL HARASSMENT? HERE’S HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE.
‘Equality means never paying a woman a compliment’ . . . said no feminist ever.
Amid the exciting recent surge of feminist activism and energy in the UK, a slight confusion seems to have crept in around the idea of battling sexual harassment. The general concern seems to be that by condemning sexual harassment and discriminatory behaviour, we will somehow accidentally sweep up well-meaning compliments and flirting in the melee and inadvertently do away with all sexual interaction.
Well, there’s no need to panic! Feminism simply means wanting everybody to be treated equally, regardless of their sex. It’s as simple as that. And no part of that definition maligns or ‘bans’ flirting, telling somebody they look nice or going at it like joyfully consenting rabbits in whatever style, location, position or combination of partners your heart desires.
What it does mean is that women shouldn’t be scared to walk down the street; shouldn’t be faced with intimidating and aggressive sexual shouts from cars and vans; shouldn’t be treated as dehumanized sex objects; shouldn’t be made to feel that men have an inherent entitlement to their bodies in public spaces.
Strange though it seems to have to keep reiterating it, the difference between sexual harassment and flirting is really fairly clear. It’s actually quite insulting to the vast majority of men to suggest that they aren’t perfectly capable of knowing the difference between complimenting someone, starting a flirty conversation and harassing them. The clue is in the name: harassment. And if you’re hoping to end up in bed with someone, of whatever gender, it’s really in your interests to steer clear of harassing them, as it’s likely to be fairly unhelpful to proceedings.
I think very few men would be concerned, upon reading through the page after page of stories we have collected from women screamed at, pursued, groped, licked, touched, appraised, scared and frustrated by street harassers, that combating these things might somehow interfere with their personal pickup style.
But for those still in doubt, you could always run through this handy checklist of questions:
• Is the way in which I’m making this advance likely to scare or alarm the person?
• Has the person already made it clear to me that they are uninterested in my advances?
• Does the speed at which my vehicle is moving rule out any likelihood of a response to this advance?
• Is this ‘advance’ actually just a shouted and uninvited assessment on my part of this person’s attractiveness/body/genitals?
• Does the context of this situation (a job interview, for example) make a direct sexual advance offensive or inappropriate?
• Am I actually, all things considered, just being a bit of a dick?
If the answer to any of the above is ‘yes’, then perhaps what’s happened here is that you have accidentally confused sexual harassment with a respectful sexual advance. In this case, I refer you to the advice of a lady on Twitter, who rather eloquently summed things up:
@almostalady: Frankly, if your ‘liberated sexual advances’ are cock-blocked by the @EverydaySexism project, you’re probably doing them wrong.
More seriously, though, to make the wounded assertion that everybody, men and women, must retain their vital libertarian right to make direct propositions for sex is to display rather a major ignorance of the circumstances in which many women experience such propositions, on a near-daily basis. When you’ve had ‘Get your tits out love’ or ‘All right darlin’, fancy a shag?’ shouted at you across a busy street; when you’ve been angrily pursued with shouts of ‘slag . . . slut . . . whore’ simply for politely declining such advances; when you’ve been lecherously harassed in the workplace, or confronted with somebody who simply won’t take no for an answer until the alternative ‘ownership’ of a boyfriend finally convinces them – when you’ve experienced all this and more, it can have a bit of an impact on how you respond to unsolicited sexual advances.
Yes, sometimes just a tad of caution might creep in. Is it too much to ask that you respect that context? Is it really all just too wearisome to have to go that extra mile in your approach to reassure the person you’re flirting with that you’re not harassing them?
And if your answer is yes – if you are so frustrated by the atmosphere created by our gender imbalanced society in which such a large proportion of women experience harassment, and by the annoying caution that this engenders in some of your female flirting targets, guess what? The people you need to blame for that, the people you should be getting angry with, are the harassers. They are the ones ruining your fun and cramping your style – not feminist women and men who call out such behaviour when it happens.
Telling us that not all men are sexist or perpetrate harassment is preaching to the choir – the Everyday Sexism Project has received the most overwhelming support from men all over the world. We actually celebrate their awesomeness pretty regularly too.
But if you want to carry on making the point that many men are absolutely on the side of gender equality, you need to put your money where your mouth is. And in this case, that means stepping back, seeing the bigger picture and throwing your weight behind those battling sexual harassment, not moaning about the comparatively minuscule impact the widespread oppression of women might be having on your own personal sex life.
Originally published 10 April 2014
HERE’S HOW TO TALK TO WOMEN WEARING HEADPHONES – WITHOUT BEING AN IDIOT
Another week, another helpful, instructive article for the modern single man. This week: ‘How to talk to a woman who is wearing headphones’ – a topic only surpassed in its brilliance by other recent gems such as ‘Seventeen killer mistakes a girl should never make on the first date’ and ‘Thirteen little things that can make a man fall hard for you’.
The internet abounds with such guides, most of which might more accurately be retitled ‘How to be a complete jackass and ruin all chance you might ever have had of a relationship’ or ‘How to personify every outdated gender stereotype about relationship roles in ten easy steps’.
Glamour magazine’s ‘Thirteen little things’ counselled women to answer the door naked, wait with a cold beer when a man steps out of the shower, sit quietly by his side while he watches his favourite TV show and (my personal favourite) let him ‘solve your petty work problem’. Excellent advice for aspiring home-help robots or faithful canines; not so much for twenty-first-century women who don’t despise themselves or want to burn everything.
Metro’s ‘Seventeen killer mistakes’ list included helpful tips for how not to behave on a first date, such as ‘There is such a thing as too much make-up’, ‘Don’t mention your parents’, ‘Let’s not have sex on the first date’ and ‘Don’t think it’s sexist that we offer to pay the bill’. Women were also advised not to ‘tell us to order what we feel like, then get a salad from the starters after we’ve just asked for a rump steak’, a variation on the infinite and contradictory rules out there about whether a woman can or can’t eat salad on a date. Thanks, internet!
The latest offering – ‘How to talk to a woman who is wearing headphones’ – advised men to attract the attention of said women using much the same approach as an alien trying to blend in without arousing suspicion.
1. Stand in front of her (with 1 m to 1.5 m between you)
.
2. Have a relaxed, easy-going smile.
3. If she hasn’t already looked up at you, simply get her attention with a wave of your hand.
Wave your hand in her direct line of vision so she can’t ignore it.
Swoon. Excuse me while I go take a quick cold shower.
While there may be some women out there who would be delighted at this approach and immediately request marriage, the majority (judging from the response on Twitter) might find it annoying, scary, entitled or just downright rude. Given the amount of time women already spend fending off unwanted sexual advances, and the fact that many actively use headphones as a deliberate tactic to avoid them, an instructional piece encouraging men to invade our privacy is pretty much the last thing we need.
Yet, apparently, modern daters are in desperate need of guidance. So here’s an alternative list of simple tips on how to talk to/date/generally interact with a woman without being a total idiot.
• Try to think about a woman as if she were a real-life human person. If you would find it weird to have someone wave their hand in front of your face with a fixed smile as you walk to work, the chances are she might, too.
• Don’t do things to women that you would find annoying if done to you. This includes, but is not limited to, making unsolicited comments about body parts, musing aloud about fornicating with them or shouting out ratings out of ten.
• If paying the bill on a first date is the entire basis for your masculine sense of self, get help. Consider counselling, or have a nice long chat about self-worth with a friend or colleague.
• You can’t judge a woman on her weight AND get angry if she orders a salad – that’s just counter-intuitive. Try to work out in advance which sexist stereotype is most important to you, and stick with it.
• Remember that judging us on whether or not we want to have sex on a first date is the absolute, number one, most guaranteed way to turn us on. Women just love those sexist societal double standards. Lots of sex ahead for you.
• Acceptable reasons to approach a woman with headphones in: if she’s about to step into a puddle, dog poo or the path of an oncoming car. If she is on fire and has not yet realized it.
• Unacceptable reasons to approach a woman with headphones on: anything else. Don’t. Stop it.
• When you find a helpful article about how to approach women wearing headphones, first check whether it is published on a website that says it can teach you ‘What to say to turn a woman on and make her want to have sex with you ASAP’, followed by ‘This is very easy to do. You’ve got to try it!’ Also check if said website sells a 10-hour-long video called ‘Get your ex back: super system’. Do not take advice about women from this website.
Originally published 30 August 2016
FEMINISM DOESN’T MEAN A BATTLE OF THE SEXES, BUT A COMMON GOAL FOR ALL
Looking out over a sea of hands on a recent school visit, I felt a warm rush of elation at the sight of every single pupil raising their arm to affirm that they were a feminist.
Except that’s not quite what happened.
In fact, when I asked everybody who was a feminist to put their hand up, the result was a paltry scattering or hands – 20 per cent of the assembly hall at best. So I asked the pupils to raise their hands if they thought everybody should be treated equally regardless of their sexuality, and every hand in the room went up. I asked them if everybody should be treated equally regardless of skin colour and, again, the response rate was 100 per cent. Finally, I asked them to put their hand up if they thought everybody should be treated equally regardless of their sex. Everybody in the room raised an arm.
‘If you have your hand up now,’ I explained, ‘then you’re a feminist. That’s what feminism means.’
Apart from a few horrified boys who snatched their hands down in dismay, the general reaction was one of bemusement. Several kids asked if boys were allowed to be feminists, and others protested that they couldn’t possibly be, since feminism meant wanting women to defeat, overtake or generally beat men into submission.
It’s not surprising that these outdated and false stereotypes persist, given their stubborn repetition in the media and across the internet. In fact, there seems to be a huge amount of anxiety about the current resurgence of feminism and what it might mean for men. In the past week alone we have seen wails that the sacking of Jeremy Clarkson points to an ‘emasculated’ BBC, articles proclaiming that UN statistics on sexual violence unfairly malign men, comment pieces that declare the ‘real’ everyday sexism in the UK to be against men; even Russell Crowe mourning ‘the loss of traditional masculinity’.
What’s strange is that often at the heart of this panic is an entirely false dichotomy. Such arguments suggest that tackling issues such as sexism, street harassment or domestic violence somehow precludes action on problems that disproportionately affect men.
The idea that the fight for gender equality somehow erases masculinity or disempowers men seems to be strangely insulting to any man whose sense of identity doesn’t come from being offensive to women. Feminism doesn’t mean doors can’t be held open any more, or the end of flirting, or that men should never again pay a woman a compliment. That’s simple human kindness we should all show one another, regardless of gender.
The idea that feminism must somehow result in either deliberate or collateral damage to men is simply not true. Almost every issue that feminists campaign about would have a positive knock-on effect for men. The entries to the Everyday Sexism Project reveal this with brilliant clarity – in the same week, we’ll receive one entry from a man refused parental leave and ridiculed in the office for asking for it, and one from a woman who has been refused a promotion because she is considered a ‘maternity risk’. We hear from girls who aren’t allowed to join in football games and boys who are bullied for wanting to take ‘girly’ subjects such as art or drama. We learn of fathers congratulated for ‘babysitting’ their own children and mothers criticized for ‘taking a night off’. Many of these problems are so obviously two sides of the same coin.
The same is true for many of the issues that men’s rights activists raise as exclusively ‘male’ concerns, with the suggestion that feminism ignores these problems. Invariably, these include accusations of gender imbalance in the allocation of custody, or the fact that the male suicide rate is several times higher than it is for women. What they don’t seem to realize is that these, too, are closely linked to the inequality that feminism seeks to address. If there is an unfair bias towards female carers, it likely stems from stereotypes about women being family-oriented and men being career-focused. It seems sensible to assume that at least some part of the gender disparity in suicide rates may be connected to the pervasive idea that men must be tough and strong, that boys don’t cry and it’s shameful for men to talk about their feelings or reach out for help. The flip side of this is the notion that women are overemotional, hormonal or hysterical. Tackling these stereotypes would be good for everybody.
It will slow us all down if people persist in peddling this outdated dogma that sets men and women up against each other. Of course, not all men are sexist, and not every woman will necessarily face sexism. Gender inequality has a negative impact on men as well as women, though its structural and ingrained nature (politically, economically, socially and culturally) does mean that women tend to experience its effects more frequently and more severely. There is a vital role for men to play in this battle, and it isn’t as detractors or naysayers, but as allies, agents of change and beneficiaries. This isn’t about men against women, it’s about people against prejudice, and everybody needs to get on board.
Originally published 27 March 2015
SEVEN QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF BEFORE JUDGING A PREGNANT COLLEAGUE
Rachel Reeves MP, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, has said that she plans to continue her political career if her party comes to power while she is – gasp – pregnant. To read some of the comments and think pie
ces about this revelation, you might be forgiven for thinking that she had admitted an ambition to make bonfires of taxpayers’ money.
The ‘stupid woman’ is ‘setting the case for working women back by about fifty years’ according to one column. Another spits that she is ‘treating motherhood as a part-time obligation, almost a hobby’, is not ‘fit to represent women’ and should be disqualified forthwith from ‘ever making important policy decisions affecting women’. Fellow MP Andrew Rosindell fretted that she might not be able to give the job her ‘full attention’, arguing that ‘people need to be put in the positions they can handle’.
Since when has being pregnant become a shocking and shameful act? For those who might still find the very common act of reproduction a bewildering minefield, here are seven handy questions to ask yourself before making judgements about somebody else’s pregnancy . . .
1. Am I being patronizing to the pregnant woman?
‘Have you thought this one through?’ is one example of what not to say. Don’t worry – the person intending to push a human being out of a very small hole and subsequently house and care for that small human for the foreseeable future has, in all likelihood, given it a bit of thought.
Worried about how they’ll juggle childcare with their job? The chances are they are, too, but they’ve probably got a plan to make it work. Concerned they’re not taking their job seriously enough? Relax – considering they’re the one that’s been doing the job up until now and are intimately acquainted with its challenges and demands, they’ve probably got it covered.
2. Am I treating it as an anomaly rather than a normal part of life?
Much of the criticism seems to stem from the idea that pregnant women are selfishly swanning off to satisfy their desire to ‘have it all’, to the detriment of taxpayers/business owners/neglected children (delete as appropriate). Let’s stop and realize how ridiculous an idea that is. A child is not a luxury accessory, but a normal – though not, of course, essential – product of a human life.
