Me Too, You Too, Us Too, We Too: Strengthening the #MeToo movement, together
The first time #MeToo floated across my newsfeed, I was confused. The second time I saw it, I was frustrated. The third time, downright annoyed. Now, resolved.
I’ve had a disconcerting issue with the movement since it began. My problem centered around some troubling dichotomies that I hold deep inside. As a woman, I am empowered and proud to see such unified strength. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to publicly expose your own sexual trauma. The movement has taken an historically shameful experience and made it a source of unity, empathy, and power.
As a human, I am ashamed and upset to see such divided progression. People of all genders (and non-genders) are victims of sexual aggression and violence every day. Isolating women as the primary demographic in the movement, and focusing almost exclusively on heterosexual aggression, ignores the true underlying problem: some people feel that they are entitled to sex. Mutual pleasure does not factor into these people’s minds, and this defect underlies rape, sexual assault, sexual aggression, and even harassment.
This kind of violence is committed against all genders, by all genders.
That said, I fully recognize the statistics (which are most certainly skewed because men are socialized to hide any and all forms of victimhood because it’s not “manly”). Women experience sexual aggression, violence, and harassment at significantly higher rates than men (these stats are based on the gender binary, which I personally reject, but that’s an entire other conversation). That is a fact, and there are widely accepted statistics to back that up.
For the purposes of simplifying this post, I am going to speak to the experience that I am familiar with: being a woman in a pervasive, hetero-centric rape culture. I’m sure many can relate.
Recently, numerous public figures have been exposed for the monsters that they are. Weinstein, being unequivocally guilty, with decades of horrifying accusations and ample evidence indicting him, has suffered (rightfully) in the public eye and will (hopefully) now have to deal with the consequences of his crimes. He is a repeat offender, who repeatedly and relentlessly used his power over women to force them into sex and sexual favors. His case is clear-cut: he’s a certified piece of shit™.
Other cases are not so easily defined, and that’s where things get sticky. The most recent case, the one that inspired this post, revolves around Aziz Ansari. For those who don’t know who he is, he is a popular comedic actor/writer whose work tends to showcase more progressive ideals.
One outstanding example is from the Netflix series Master of None, a show he co-created, directed, and starred in. There is a season 1 episode titled “Ladies and Gentlemen,” that showcases the everyday ways that sexism impacts women’s lives. The episode takes a “day in the life” approach, showing how the typical course of an evening can be vastly different for men than it is for women. Ansari’s character struggles to identify these micro-aggressions simply because he is not the brunt of them, and that was a refreshing exposure of a dark reality. This is just one example of many that showcase Ansari’s progressive intentions.
In the past week, a story was published online that presented a young woman’s real-world experience with this “progressive” actor. I can only provide a quick summary, and I highly encourage you to read the original story for full context. In sum, the woman and Ansari met at an event, flirted a bit, exchanged numbers, went on an awkward date, got back to his place, he pressured her into sex, she left crying.
This narrative is all too familiar, and the reactions have been all over the place. There are some who have vilified Ansari and call for an end to his career. Most, like The Atlantic and The New York Times, are downplaying the encounter and labeling it simply, “bad sex.” The most common critique is that this kind of story undermines the entire #MeToo movement, which is where I stare at my laptop, agape.
The debate around whether or not Ansari’s career should be affected by this is a separate issue than what I care to discuss. The consequences for this situation center around extremely complicated specifics that none of us can fully weigh in on having not witnessed the encounter firsthand. All of the articles that have shifted the blame from Ansari to the young woman seem to imply that this was merely a case of a dude being awkward. Again, I strongly encourage you to read the original article.
From the description of the encounter, Ansari seems well beyond “not in tune with women” and more along the lines of “not really caring about the woman’s comfort or pleasure.” This is a shared experience for many, many women that often ends with feeling pressured into having sex despite having reservations or outright objections. And that is the real issue here.
To claim that this story undermines the entire #MeToo movement trivializes the movement itself. This stance assumes that #MeToo is only about bringing down men in high positions of power, or only about dictionary-definition rape. #MeToo is about so, so much more. One of the movement’s biggest strengths is that it highlights how tragically commonplace sexual aggression and violence toward women (and many other genders) is. The breadth of its impact arose from the fact that so many women/people are able to relate and commiserate about such terrible experiences.
#MeToo was as much about exposing abuse by people in power as it was about highlighting the everyday challenges that women face, like sexual harassment and sexual aggression. This story is another piece of a complicated puzzle that requires difficult discussions. If anything, having such a delicate situation thrown into the public eye has benefitted the movement by forcing people to have these awkward, uncomfortable, gritty conversations that get at the real heart of the issue: the normalization of sexism (against people of all genders).
To reduce this situation down to simply “bad sex” normalizes the sexual aggression that is so central to the story. The point isn’t that she had a bad night. The point is that this is a normal date for most women: quick dinner and awkward small talk, then being overtly pressured into sex (and/or being treated as though that is their only purpose). If you cannot grasp the reasons she didn’t “just walk out” then you probably have extremely limited experience with being pressured into sex. It sucks. Like, really, really, really sucks. It is not mutual, and you can hardly call it consensual.
This does not mean Ansari is anywhere near the same level of monstrous as people like Weinstein. It does mean that he has contributed to the sexist culture of mistreatment. Good-intentioned people can make horrible mistakes. Just because a person did not intend to hurt someone doesn’t change the fact that they did, or that they should have to face some consequences for it. Additionally, having made a harmful mistake does not mean that a person is incapable of learning and changing.
There are plenty of alternatives to what could have been done in that situation. For starters, he could have very easily listened to her when she expressed discomfort and responded with a simple, “Wow I’m so sorry I’ve made you feel uncomfortable! Let’s relax and you can tell me what you want or when you’re ready.”
Pretty easy, right? Okay, let’s try another: instead of telling her what to do, putting her hand on his dick, pushing his fingers in her mouth, and repeatedly using her as a sex object, he could have taken the time to ask, “What would you like to do?” or even, “Are you enjoying this, or is there something you’d like me to do differently?”
Pretty amazing what a consent check-in can do.
There are so many men that have had extreme emotional reactions to these news stories, centering primarily around defending Ansari’s decisions to repeatedly pressure this woman into sex. When I see these kinds of reactions, it makes me wonder: is the defensiveness really for Ansari, or is it for yourself? Perhaps these men have done things in the past that closely resemble Ansari’s actions, and to hear women explain how these actions hurt makes these men question every sexual encounter they’ve ever had.
And you know what? Good. This should make people think more about sex and consent, because that is a discussion that has been glossed over time and time again. Those feelings of discomfort that many men are feeling in the face of stories like this are minuscule compared to the breadth of pain and suffering that women have endured for millennia. Discomfort is good, it means you have room to grow, so long as you stop rejecting it and take the time to learn from it.
One thing (of many) that I love about my husband is that, when I initially expressed my frustration with the current situation, the first thing he did was start mentally chewing on all the ways that people get overtly or subconsciously pressured into sex against their desires. He brought up the fact that women are socialized to consider “providing sex” a central aspect of heterosexual marriage. If a woman goes a long time without wanting to have sex, an unspoken expectation builds up. The husband wants sex, and it is her duty to fulfill that.
In this sense, the woman is pressured to have sex as a “duty” rather than an organic desire. This is yet another pervasive fallout of sexist culture, and the pressure doesn’t even have to arise from the husband because it has been ingrained in women since birth. How messed up is that? The pressure to provide or perform sex can arise internally as well as externally. This subversion is even more challenging to identify and face, because there’s nothing to point the finger at but a mirror. I myself face this internalized expectation often, and fighting myself has been significantly more challenging than fighting the fallout of being raped.
The second thing my husband did was apologize for any past situations where he may have inadvertently put pressure on me to have sex. He did not get defensive. He did not shift the blame. He did not try and make excuses or justify actions. He confronted the potential issue head-on and with genuine concern for me, rather than for himself. That is support. That is listening. That is taking in new information and choosing to learn from it rather than reject it in favor of vilifying the message. His reaction is one of many excellent options for how a good-intentioned person can productively cope with reflecting on their past actions.
Of course it’s great to be vocal and stand up and have the courage to scream “no” in the face of sexual bullying and harassment, but not all people have the lion’s roar within them. Many have been taught through experience to stay silent and “deal with it” because that stance has kept them alive. If you have the strength to fight in situations like this, you should use that strength in two helpful ways: 1) Stand up for those that do not, and 2) share that strength with others so that they too can develop their lion’s roar.
Ansari projects a forward-thinking, feminist-supporting persona, yet when it came down to living up to that persona he fell far short. The young woman in the story was not angry about being rejected. She was hurt because once again she has been treated as less than human. As an object whose sole purpose is to sexually please a man. She was upset because she hoped that for once she would be treated better, and once again she was horribly let down.
I sincerely hope this kind of disappointment is foreign to you. For most women, this kind of dismissive objectification is the norm. Ansari and Weinstein may not be in the same league when it comes to sexual aggression, but they are playing in the same general sport. The only way to win is to leave the game and start listening to the people that have been hurt by it.