To the Men Whose Response to #MeToo is to Stop Talking to Women
By: K. Elaine Taylor
Tags: Sexual Harassment, Metoo, Society, Sexual Assault, Feminism

#MeToo is a movement to raise awareness regarding how many women have been treated, well, inappropriately in a sexual manner. It isn’t necessarily specific to the workplace, but it gained the most traction traction due to celebrities, especially actresses, coming forward to discuss the sexually inappropriate behavior directed at them by, well, men in their workplaces.

While, yes, there are people who are not men who behave in sexually inappropriate ways, and anyone of any gender can be a victim, and some of those people have also spoken up, the main issue I want to discuss today is specifically men who have responded to the #MeToo movement by, well, behaving in what is honestly a very questionable manner. So for anyone who wants to complain about ‘generalizing men’ — I’m specifically discussing a very specific group of men, who also happen to be very vocal, often quite powerful, and just flat out obnoxious. If that does not apply to you, chill it with the #notall garbage. If it does apply to you, please maybe consider why you’re doing what you’re doing.

It boggles my mind how people can see a movement that says ‘don’t touch me or request sexual favors for career advancement or insert any of the other many sexually inappropriate things that happen to women on a regular basis here’ and respond with ‘ok, well then I just won’t be caught alone with women anymore’ instead of, oh, I don’t know ‘wow, that’s gross behavior, I should make sure I don’t act that way!’

The number of false accusations of sexual misconduct is minuscule and are, quite frankly, often very predictable and easy to pinpoint, while the majority of cases of people who behave sexually inappropriately end in very light punishments in comparison to their crimes or are never even punished at all as cases are dismissed before they get anywhere. Not to mention that the majority of cases, historically and currently, go unreported or aren’t reported until years later out of fear — fear of losing a job, fear of workplace harassment, fear of being passed over for promotions for daring to report an office darling, fear of being mistreated during the process by, well, pretty much everyone, and so on. There just isn’t a strong case for false reporting when there’s almost always more punishment than gain from speaking up about this issue.

Even in the infamous case of Harvey Weinstein, his lawyer tried to claim he was innocent because this kind of behavior was a common practice in the industry, and they totally had the choice to walk away (even though Harvey would destroy their careers if they did walk away ), as though that’s supposed to make it all ok. Gee, lots of men do it so women shouldn’t be upset? Seriously?

(And, please, save any ‘woe poor rich people’ speeches — Weinstein’s case is as public and broadcast as it is because its happening to wealthy people, but it happens every day to thousands of women across all classes. Just because they aren’t making national headlines, that doesn’t mean it only happened to some wealthy actresses.)

I do understand that a lot of people seem to have different definitions of what sexual misconduct is, but if you are in any way treating a person you work with as a sexual object instead of a person, you are behaving inappropriately and that’s not ok, and that behavior needs to change. Women should be able to go to work (and anywhere else, including their own homes among their own family, but this is about the workplace first and foremost) and expect to be treated as human beings. They should be able to expect their performance and abilities to be evaluated equally against their peers and not against the size of their boobs or how they turned the other cheek when their boss touched their shoulder without their permission, and they should especially be allowed to work and advance in the workplace without having sexual favors demanded of them. Which is what Weinstein did, repeatedly — he held back the careers of women who would not provide him sexual favors or put up with his sexual misconduct in the process.

At work, sexual misconduct can translate to such acts as touching someone you barely know, or even, say, are just meeting for the first time in an interview, on any part of their body without permission, touching inappropriate parts of your body around coworkers or potential future coworkers, staring at inappropriate locations on the body, or making inappropriate comments — claiming ‘it’s a joke’ or that you didn’t mean anything by it does not make it ok. All of these acts are inappropriate and in the realm of sexual misconduct. And if you don’t understand why, then I’d wager you’ve never been in a situation where someone did this to you and meant it to be sexual, regardless of how you felt about the matter. You can usually tell who meant it and who didn’t based on who apologizes, how sincere the apology is, and if they change their behavior willingly or if some upper management or legal team has to step in. If you’re only apologizing because someone is making you or if you’re angry that someone told you not to act that way, then you really need to re-evaluate yourself and how you view and treat those around you.

Additionally, just because you don’t mean it that way, that doesn’t mean you have a free pass to behave in that manner at any point. There are a lot of cultural norms that exist because groups of people were excluded for a long time. That doesn’t mean those norms are ok. Society isn’t a stagnant, never changing thing. People fully expect there to be bumps and mistakes, but what we need is an honest effort to recognize ‘wow, that isn’t ok, I’m going to do better.’ What we need is an agreement to change, and to include those groups that weren’t included previously when making those changes.

It’s really telling of someone’s character when asking them to treat women as people instead of sexual objects is considered ‘too far.’ It’s also telling that asking men to treat women as people instead of sexual objects has been met with men reacting with terror at the thought, instead of just, you know, treating women as people instead of sexual objects.

A lot of guys do get it , and are already treating women as people — and we definitely don’t talk about them enough. On an anecdotal level, my male supervisor shook his head in annoyance when another male supervisor in my office reacted with fear, not wanting to have one-on-one meetings with his female subordinates. “If you’re doing your job correctly, this isn’t a problem.” He treats women like people. And, no, he’s not gay.

On a grander scale, you can look at all the many many men who have responded to this with ‘wow, that’s gross!’ and ‘I’m sorry if I ever did anything like this’ as strong examples of men getting it. And there have been men who acted a bit too sexually towards women, and apologized when it was pointed out to them.

And then there are the ones who have decided they need to impede women’s careers out of fear.

There’s a very distinct contrast between these sorts of men.

And I do sincerely question the morals of those men who simply can’t handle this request. It is not that hard to treat women as people, and yet, they refuse to do so, and react with fear when told they must now. Well, technically they still don’t need to, especially the ones holding power. They get to decide to impede women’s careers instead, because they’d rather hurt people than stop treating them like sexual objects.

If you see women as equal human beings, then you would not treat them this way. Either of these ways, really — as sexual objects or as creatures to be feared when they stand up and say ‘I am not a sexual object!’ You would simply treat them as an equal human being. Because women are people.

If that scares you, then you’re the problem.