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by lusen
3646 days ago
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our cultural environment gives us a bias toward downplaying the problem of rape and sexual harassment. i've found this thought experiment helpful in exploring bias: rape is torture. for some it is worse than murder. sexual harassment is aggression. for some it is worse than being punched in the face. how would you feel if someone at your work murdered or punched someone else? how would you feel if there was a systemic cultural inequity such that 1 in 3 people could expect to be murdered or punched at some point in their life? ps - the opposite of rape (bully) culture is nurturance (support) culture. |
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I think a lot of well intentioned folks are in this category. I don't think it's helpful for those folks to be skewered (ala extreme social justice style) for their difficulties. But with that said, it's the sum of their difficulties and those of society at large that may create room for these kinds of situations. I mean, for a very long time, we as a society had ethical arguments for slavery. I don't think it's beyond reason to think that later generations will look at the way survivors of sexual assault are treated by society the way we look at how slaves were once treated with society: shame and wonder at how anyone could let that happen, and yet an uneasiness at realizing that in the context of the historical period, it makes total sense. Humanity is capable of some really unsettling things.
I don't know the details of this particular case, and I would hope (although even courts have difficulties with this) that justice is found in the courts. But I must say, the allegations make my stomach churn precisely because they don't seem unrealistic. I've heard stories and seen folks do things like this with the brazen presumption that no one would stop them. Sadly, they can be right to some extent. I've done what I can to put those situations to a stop (you can only really do it if executive leadership is on your side and also not rotten in the same way the toxic individual is), but the fact remains -- it's a problem, even if it's sometime subtle and hard to notice or do anything about.