I think about that a lot wrt the whole George/Pattie/Eric situation. It seems pretty evident to me that a significant reason they didn't get divorced sooner was bc George felt responsible for Pattie financially and was worried she'd struggle to adjust to a different lifestyle. I wonder if that would've led to resentment on his end? When she left him for Eric he said he was relieved she could carry on as she had before. A lot to unpack there. Idk about Ringo/Maureen but I assume it was relevant. Maybe moreso since she didn't have a career to fall back on. You can def. see how wives and ex-wives of rock stars were vulnerable. I'm sure it was very difficult for Pattie to leave Eric for the same reasons, and he essentially left her nothing.
The second part of your post made me think of how women sexually harassing men also isn't taken seriously. There's a story of the stripper they used to play backing for oggling a teenage George and ofc the Jayne Mansfield one where she groped them. I sometimes wonder if other things happened to them.
Oh there is SO much to unpack in regards to George and marriage lmao. I don't have the quote rn, but when George helped his sister, Louise, get out of an abusive relationship, he told her that she didn't need to get married again because he could financially take care of her so there was "no point." Which feels like it carries a lot of implications about what he saw as the point of marriage for women, and maybe by extension the point of marriage for women as opposed to men.
(Though, tbf, Louise also had a lot of money troubles in her life, and she and George eventually fell out over Louise profiting off his name against his wishes. So it is technically possible that he just meant financial security was Louise's primary concern regarding marriage, because maybe he knew she was prone to having financial difficulties.)
Anyway, even taking that into account, I think in combination with his comments about Pattie it does paint a picture of someone who was very aware that women were often forced to stay in bad marriages for financial reasons. He almost seemed to have a utilitarian view of it, like "you get my money and I get your time and attention, and that's a fair deal." Which, to be fair, wasn't an unusual perspective in the mid 20th century, and wasn't incompatible with having a romantic and passionate view of marriage as well.
Also, yes, I totally agree with you about harassment of men. I think the beatles experienced a lot of shit that was very much sexual harassment and I'm not surprised that they were all pretty traumatized by beatlemania. They had strangers breaking into their homes, stealing their shit, literally mobbing them on the street and trying to grope them -- even when it's sold as "oh what silly little fangirls," that's still going to mess you up. Something about the infantilization of female sexuality and how attraction to women is seen as inherently violent and degrading while attraction to men is inherently cute and harmless, etc etc, but basically I think we often underestimate how aggressively dehumanizing and sexually degrading fangirl stuff can get when it crashes into their real lives.
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
prguitarman
blakekathryn
izzy806
gummygunk
