Tuesday, October 17, 2017
The Protection Racket
jezebel.com: On Wednesday morning, BuzzFeed published a thinkpiece publicly revealing the fleeting existence of a list that began circulating among women in the media Wednesday afternoon, and was gone by Wednesday evening (a copy seemed to reappear late Thursday afternoon). Put briefly, the list, called Shitty Media Men, had roughly 70 names of men in the industry who were alleged to have engaged in a range of bad behaviors, from “creepy DMs” to allegations of sexual harassment, assault, and rape.
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This is going to be a difficult article for a white man to comment on, but I am going to give it my best shot. I think it is an good idea for people to have a way of calling out others who have harassed them in an attempt to protect other people from similar attacks. But I do not think that this was a very effective way of doing so. I can not think of another suggestion for a more effective way of doing this, so I will not say that it was a bad decision or poorly done. It is actions like these that help to progress the conversation in a way that may lead our society in a direction where everyone can feel safe and comfortable (for the most part) in their schools, workplaces, and lives in general.
Notice I said “people” and not “women” in this comment. This was intentional. It upsets me when men are removed from the side of potential victims in this conversation. I know that it is a bigger problem for women BY FAR. But it still happens to men, and I think it can be unsafe to gloss over this fact.
I agree with Cooper in the above statement that it's unfair and inaccurate to leave other genders out of this conversation because the reality is that men, transgender people, and non-binary people experience sexual assault as well as women. However, as the article states, I believe it's dangerous to begin to critique the methods used by these women to call out their assaulters, because this begins to shift the focus of the narrative from their experiences to the ways in which they choose to share it. While it is harmful to equate a man acting creepily on social media with confirmed rapists, we must focus on their stories instead of the way the list is presented itself. Some critics of this list label it "reckless" and "f-ed up", yet how are these the choice words about a spreadsheet in the wake of a discussion about sexual assault? It is not time to dissect and question the women's motives for calling out their abusers in the manner they choose to do so-- instead we must listen, offer support, and stand in solidarity with those who have been victims of sexual assault.
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