I woke up to tons of messages of best wishes for the #IWD2018; I usually don’t especially like to celebrate this day but this year I thought I could actually take the chance to voice my thoughts on feminism and, seeing its rise and relentlessness, on the #MeToo movement. Groundbreaking, I know - nobody does that, right?
I’ll start by saying that I’m no fan of either manifestation of the wish for empowering women, mainly because I find their premises flawed: how can you just aim at empowering women when there are so many bits and pieces and fragments of society that need attention? And with this I also mean to underline that white men deserve and need to be better listened to and understood, as they are too often overlooked and flattened to a one-dimension category.
To me, making women the absolute centre and scope of the action hijacks the objective itself of achieving equality. To me, a much better word than feminism would be individualism, as in taking into account every feature and desire on the face of every individual that stands in front of us. We should take the time to care about other people’s aspirations and respect and cherish their fierceness, wherever such fierceness lies. Educating new generations to grant women more space in society and rights only instills in them the pre-conception that those were given at a later point in history and weren’t always meant to be for women, too.
Linking this to the #MeToo movement, I have the feeling that the discussion is not being tabled in the right way: most of the times, including when Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek talked about it on the EU Confidential podcast, the issue is framed as a matter of biological genders (male and female) and of roles (perpetrator-victim) recognised in a sexual harassment dynamic. Cannot men and women feature as both victims and perpetrators in such scenarios? #MeToo seems to suggest the contrary and systematically encourages women to speak out and men to “do a lot more work” (as Ek himself said) to empower and give the right space and learn to respect women.
What I am wondering then is whether the lens used is the right one to really look at the issue and whether the link created by #MeToo between the role of victim and the female gender is justified and desirable. Although the fact that women statistically make up the majority of the victims of sexual harassment is a reality, I don’t want to deliberately ignore statistics here.
But what I also believe is that the narrative that’s being told is not part of the solution to the issue it addresses and, on the contrary, it could strengthen the stigma that already exists instead of eradicating it, i.e. that men usually harass women and that women are victims in our social system.
Indeed, I wouldn't say that the essence of the problem is the opposed narrative men-women, but rather the behavioural patterns that could be recognised as recurring features of harassment. All in all, maybe the attention should be equally focused on the psychological elements of both sides - to help victims heal and obtain justice, but at the same time to understand what triggers the perpetrator, ultimately to prevent similar behaviour to occur again.
Although I am very far from agreeing with the strongest statements forwarded in the letter signed, among others, by actress Catherine Deneuve, I could agree in principle with the critique moved that #MeToo is somewhat extremist in its position - mass-labelling behaviours and including in the same category crime perpetrators, rapists and people who innocuously dirty-texted. I don’t wish anyone to be lightly judged or excused and it’s crucial that everyone takes his own responsibilities, but do you think that #MeToo is the best way to achieve such goals? And do you think that creating a contrasting narrative between men and women is the core of the problem?
amandla
gamechangershow
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
germansingergirl
areudirty
jimmyeatworldofficial
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