Human interactions don’t always follow scripts, and methods to solve human problems aren’t always obvious. The truth is that what seems the straight forward method to solve a problem involving human behavior can end up being the least effective. In this case we’re talking about agency–our ability and right to make decisions for ourselves, decisions that will affect our own lives.
We’re going to take a round-about trip, but first, I have a question: Are women equal with men? Not the same, not just alike, but worthy of the same consideration, respect, freedom, and rights that men have? If you answer no, then you might as well stop reading. On the other hand, I could ask the same about blacks, Muslims, Jews, gays, Asians, and Hispanics.
It comes down to this, if “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal” is true, we need to listen to all those people I listed above. If we truly believe in loving our neighbor as ourselves, we need to listen to all those people I listed above. Today, I want to talk about women. I have listened to women over the past few years, and it’s been eye-opening.
Women in Movies
Let’s start with a movie: Passengers, with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. It’s a science fiction tale about a generation ship where everyone is asleep for years as the ship travels interstellar space. Pratt, for unknown reasons, wakes up. He spends a year alone and starts obsessing over Lawrence’s picture in the computer. Eventually, he wakes her up. The thing is, she got on that ship to start a new life on a distant planet–a new job, a new home, in a new place. In other words, she had hopes and dreams, but none of those mattered, because Pratt was lonely. He is important, and she is not. His dreams and desires matter. Hers do not.
There’s another movie that isn’t much better–Disney’s Frozen. Our princess, Anna, goes off in search of her sister with the mountain man, Kristoff. It turns out he’d been raised by trolls. And when Anna meets them, they say her betrothal to Prince Hans doesn’t matter. (Hans turns out to be a bad guy, but at the time we don’t know that. More, he didn’t have to be the bad guy if the writers didn’t decide Anna should be with Kristoff after she’d already chosen Hans. So the writers didn’t respect her agency either.) The point is, Anna chose Hans, but her choice was not important. It didn’t matter to the writers, and it didn’t matter to the trolls. It didn’t even matter to Kristoff. (The trolls flat-out said her betrothal didn’t matter.)
How many of you noticed either of these things? I didn’t. I had to have them point out to me by a woman. In other words, this disregard for what women want is so ingrained in our culture that we don’t notice it. (As my high school history teacher said, “We don’t notice propaganda we agree with.”)
Wives, Mothers, Sisters, and Daughters
Here’s the thing: this disregard for women is the basis of rape culture. What she wants doesn’t matter, because the guy wants to have sex. It shows up in lenient sentences for rapists (because it might ruin his life. What about hers?) It shows up in trials where the woman is blamed for getting raped. And in the end, your sister, your mother, your daughter, your girlfriend or wife, when she is walking down the street in any town big enough that she doesn’t know everyone, has to always be aware of the men around her. She has to watch and take care not to get raped.
Look at the headlines and you can see it. It’s always, “A woman was raped in the park!” Never, “A man raped this woman in the park.” Do you see the difference? It’s passive voice versus active. About men being responsible versus women.
It’s even worse. Ask the women in your life, the ones you care about and love, if some man in public has ever grabbed their boobs or butt. I guarantee that almost every one of them will say yes. And that, my friends, is sexual assault. A man grabbed her boobs without permission, and probably thought this behavior was just fine, even expected. It is not.
This makes me angry. My daughter should be able to walk down the street without being afraid. She should be able to stand in a crowd without being pawed and molested.
It is time for us men to stop it.
Teach Your Children Well
If we teach our children agency–that they have a right to their own lives, their choices, their careers, even their own bodies, then we can end rape culture. But we specifically have to teach our daughters this, and we have to teach our sons that our daughters have agency in their own lives. And that boys have no right to interfere with anyone else’s agency. And thus we teach boys they have to get a girls consent, a woman’s consent, to do anything. Because without consent, they deny her agency, her personhood. Without consent she is just an object, that’s an abomination.
One of the best descriptions of rape and consent I’ve seen is a comparison to boxing. If two men (or women) decide to get in a ring punch each other in the nose, it’s a sport. If one guy decides to punch someone in the nose, it’s felony assault, a crime. That is the difference between consent and lack of consent. And note: in the middle of a bout, if one boxer throws in the towel, he has now withdrawn consent. Thus, if the other boxer punches him then, it is no longer a sport. It’s assault.
If we teach girls (and I do mean children–that we use the term girl to describe women is also indicative of the problem) that they are responsible for their own lives, that they can make their own decisions, and then teach boys that the girls have a right to agency in their own lives, things will start to change. This is the long-term solution for women being afraid to walk down the street.
A Surprising Side-effect
And remember how, at the beginning, I said solutions to human problems are not always obvious? How I was taking a long, round about trip? Here is the destination of that trip. There is another side-effect of ensuring women have agency in their own lives (and that men respect that agency): these women decide when it is and is not time to have a child. The result is that unwanted pregnancies drop to almost zero (it’s never entirely zero because you can have equipment malfunctions and other accidents). And if unwanted pregnancies disappear, then abortions also disappear (again, not entirely zero because there will always be medical reasons). So, if you are against abortion and want abortions to stop, then fight for the agency of women and girls in their own lives.