Me too, and good looking girls

[2ndRateMind]

So, I suspect a little disengenuity in respect of all these women complaining about sexual harassment. Doubtless men could behave better. And doubtless men should.

But this business about beautiful actresses complaining about how men behave rings a few alarm bells with me. Fact is, these women are beautiful. Fact is, they earn their living out of that beauty. If they weren't beautiful, they wouldn't, most of them, have a job at all. And the reason that beauty has social traction on the world, the reason why they earn their inflated salaries, is because beauty is sexually attractive.

Seems these girls want to have their cake, and eat it too. If they don't want sexual harassment, they can forego the fashion and jewelry and make up and perfume and sundry that enhances sexual attractiveness. But if they are unwilling to do that, they shouldn't be altogether surprised if men hit on them, and want to have sex with them.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Rufus21]

So, if they get advances from men they do not want relationships with, as well as men they do, it just goes with the territory, and should not be considered in any way astonishing.

Using the word "advances" is very misleading. We are not talking about people asking for a date. We are talking about illegal quid pro quo situations where women are expected to barter sexual favors for employment. There is also ongoing harassment after they get a job. These are not what I would brush off as "advances". We cannot just say "That is just the way the world is; you need to learn to take the rough with the smooth" and not try to fix the underlying problem.

I read nowhere in the scriptures that the eleventh commandment is 'Thou shalt be politically correct'.

Is there anything in there about showing compassion? Like helping the victims of crimes instead of blaming them? Anything about fighting immoral business practices? Does the bible oppose illegal sexual activity? Aren't those the Christian things to do even without a commandment telling you to do them?

On the contrary, I am insisting that women are persons, moral agents, who must accept the consequences of their actions.

You are ignoring the fact that many of these women are very accomplished, highly educated professionals. They are not just gold diggers trying to find a rich man to get them pregnant. Undoubtedly there are a few like that, but reducing all of them down to that level is degrading. Looking at all women like that is what caused this problem in the first place.

To spell out the argument, women want to be beautiful to gain a wealthy and faithful spouse, who can and will support them through pregnancy, child-birth and child-rearing while their own economic prospects are impaired. And they are prepared to invest a lot of money in fashion, cosmetics, surgery, whatever, to achieve that beauty, and gain that spouse.

That may be ONE reason that SOME women want to be attractive. That is not the reason my wife wants to be attractive, and I doubt most women would agree with that description. Everyone wants to feel attractive. Shaming people for it is not going to solve the problem.

On the other hand, if we could stop these quid pro quo crimes from happening then the smart women would not be criminalized and the gold diggers would not get jobs they don't deserve. Isn't that a better solution?

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 11 by Rufus21]

Hmmm. I think you might read a little evolutionary psychology; you might find it interesting, even enlightening. The idea is not that all women all consciously trade sex with beauty for wealth, which would reduce them all to the status of prostitutes, but that this is the unconscious, underlying, biological, genetic tendency. On the other hand, the converse, that men tend to be willing to trade wealth for sex with beauty, whether that be directly in cash or just buying a wine and dine experience, is less controversial.

And what worries me about this media storm is that we are not just talking sexual 'harassment' of wrongful proportion, but any unwanted sexual advances at all. Here in the UK, we have had an example of a Member of Parliament, Micheal Fallon, feeling obliged to apologise for repeatedly putting his hand on a woman's knee, 15 years ago. Apparently, he was encouraged to desist when the woman, a journalist, said that if he did it one more time, she would punch him in the face. I think this was not so much a threat, as merely a jocular warning that his advances were not appreciated.

That sort of robust response seems an entirely appropriate reaction to the individual situation, rather than moaning generally about how awful men are in general when women go out of their way to encourage and make themselves the target of that awfulness.

I really think we need to keep a sense of proportion over this one; neither men nor women are all saints; but neither are they all irretrievably lost sinners. Demonising either sex is inappropriate. Where criminal activity has occurred, it should be dealt with by the courts, but behaviour that is not criminal, just unappreciated by the recipient, is not necessarily wrong, even if it is wrongly targetted.

As the above journalist, Julia Hartley-Brewer, herself pointed out, there are more things more wrong with the world that deserve our prior attention more than indulgence in this particular teacup-sized-storm.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Rufus21]

I think you might read a little evolutionary psychology; you might find it interesting, even enlightening.

That sounds interesting but not really my cup of tea. I'm less interested in where these urges come from and more interested in how to handle them appropriately. I'm sure the psychology is very enlightening, but keeping up with the social side of things is as far as my interest takes me.

And what worries me about this media storm is that we are not just talking sexual 'harassment' of wrongful proportion, but any unwanted sexual advances at all.

Perhaps the media storm in the UK is broader than here in the US. Over here we're primarily talking about rape, unwanted groping, and inviting actresses to your hotel room to watch you shower. Not exactly the sort of things you expect on a job interview. The reason the scandal is so big is because so many people knew about it and didn't do anything to stop it.

As you said, the case in the UK seems like it was more about minor inappropriate behavior. The "Me Too" movement is more about the long-standing criminal behavior that was tolerated by numerous people. I agree that there a far bigger problems in the world, but this one is a little more than a teacup sized storm here in the US.