One Woman is Too Many

One of today's trending news stories is the abduction and murder of a young British woman by a police officer as she was walking home.  It has sparked a hashtag war on social media between #NotAllMen and #TooManyWomen.

The Not All Men supporters are missing the point.  Yes, we understand that not all men are predators, but from a woman's perspective, they might as well be.  From an early age we are taught to not dress provocatively, to carry our keys in our fingers, to not go out after dark alone.  Why are boys not taught to not harass women?

Even the media narrative focuses on women.  "So many women were raped last year" instead of "how many times men raped women".  "How many girls were harassed" instead of "how many men harass girls". And so on.

Ask almost any woman and she will tell you a story.  I have many, starting from when I was FIVE.

I was in Kindergarten. A boy in my class chased me, and other girls, so he could flip their skirts and see their underwear.  Complaints to the teacher were met with the 'boys are boys' argument.  I never wore skirts to school again, except for my high school graduation.

When I was 12, two boys in my Grade 7 class bullied me regularly and stole my lunches when the teacher wasn't looking.  I complained and the teacher told me that they were only doing that because they 'liked' me.  I developed trust issues toward boys and men after that.

When I was 18 I was on the bus going to meet a friend.  A man sat next to me, tried to put his arm around my shoulders, and flirted with me.  I pretended I was deaf and signed some ASL, and he moved away.

I was 20, a friend of mine was getting married.  Her fiancé approached me one day, grabbed my hand and forced me to touch him, telling me that my friend 'didn't like to do that'.  I yelled and pushed him away.  When I told my friend what a sleaze her fiancé was, she didn't believe me and married him anyway. (They had a messy divorce a few years later.)

I was 22, my then-boyfriend had invited me to his place for a home-cooked dinner, and then expected something more afterwards.  I refused.  He pinned me down on his bed (he was a large man) so I couldn't leave.  He told me 'I'm raping you' and laughed when I tried to escape.  I had to bite him on the face to get him off me.

When I was 28, my then-husband would come up with any excuse to watch me get dressed, peek in on me when I was in the shower, and sneak up behind me for an unwanted tickle or grope.  When I protested, he would accuse me of not giving him enough 'attention'.  His demands nearly cost me my job, as I arrived at work late several days in a row after being guilted into giving him what he wanted early in the morning.  Our divorce papers cited irreconcilable differences, but the reality was that I had a nervous breakdown due to the sexual and emotional abuse.

Reaching a healthier mental state took years and two rounds of therapy with psychologists.

I'm proud to say that now I'm a much more confident woman, but the haunting memories will always reside in the back of my head.  I don't fear men, but I still find myself being careful.  It'll probably take a very long time, if ever, for women to not need to watch out for themselves at every step.

Overprotection

The estate of Dr. Seuss has decided to no longer publish six of his books due to stereotypical imagery that many people might find offensive.  It's certainly within their rights to do so, and they feel that it's in line with modern sensibilities.

I understand why, but I also have to ask: what are you so afraid of?  That people might take these images as commonplace?  Or that the images might actually cause people to think about their attitudes?

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence was banned in many countries until 1960 because of its sexual language and use of then-unprintable four-letter words.  That book is tame in comparison to many published works today.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was heavily censored because of its depictions of class systems and racial injustice.  Now in many places it's taught as part of the high-school curriculum.

The Harry Potter series was banned in many places because of the depiction of "witchcraft".  Seriously?  It's a work of fiction.  It's no less an espousal of magic as, let's say, the Xanth books by Piers Anthony or the works of Edith Nesbit.

The mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer once sang, "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd."  I've always taken that to mean that anything can be found offensive if one looks hard enough, and that seems to be happening with increasing frequency.  Not to mention the hypocrisy of challenging certain works while leaving out others.

If we ban Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for vulgarity and racism, why not ban Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice for its slander of Jews?  If we ban Huckleberry Finn for its use of the N-word, why not ban the Bible for its portrayal of slavery and the patriarchal domination of women?

Where does it end?  Should The Flintstones be censored because one of the episodes depicts a judo instructor with squinty eyes, big teeth, and an accent?  Should The Honeymooners be banned because Ralph Kramden frequently threatened his wife?

Just because sensibilities evolve doesn't mean the past needs to be removed or erased.  We have to accept that in certain eras and cultures, people are portrayed in a certain way in some people's opinions.  We don't have to share those opinions.  Instead, use them as a teaching moment to say "this is wrong now, and here's why".  Don't sweep it under the rug.

Some have said: "A disclaimer on a kids' book?  Really?"

Yes, really.  There are disclaimers on the Looney Tunes, on many TV shows from the 60s and 70s, and even The Muppet Show (which had an episode removed from the lineup because the guest was later convicted as a sex offender).  I grew up on such shows and could well understand the difference between uninformed attitudes and satire, but many people do not.

Instead of locking "objectionable" material in a vault, people need to be taught how to think for themselves and view the world in the shades of grey that it is, not in black and white.

Incidentally, Dr. Seuss also wrote Horton Hears a Who, that declares "A person is a person no matter how small" and Come Over to My House that offers "Some houses are marble, some are just tin, but they're all alike when a friend asks you in".  It's entirely possible that he became aware of his own questionable content during his frequent travels and wrote certain books as a kind of implicit apology for what had come before.

Try to understand the work for what it is, not for the perception or the politics.