Disheartened
Last week I received an email sent to all staff and students from Wake Forest University, which was issuing what it called a “timely warning concerning an incident of concern to the campus community.”[i] The email continued: “At approximately 4 a.m. today, Wake Forest University Police responded to a report of a sexual assault of a student. The incident is reported to have occurred in the student’s Taylor Residence Hall room between approximately 2 and 3:15 a.m. The Winston-Salem Police Department is investigating, with assistance by the Wake Forest University Police Department. The alleged offender is known to the victim.”
It made me think. This area is like a minefield, and I am ill equipped to comment on most of the topics surrounding abuse and assaults, in universities or anywhere else. But I do want to talk about one aspect, and that is ‘consequences’. I am going to make the assumption that this was a sexual assault by a male on a female student: not an unreasonable assumption, as this is so often the case, and it suits what I want to say. If I am right, this will almost certainly be yet another time where a young woman will live with the events of an early morning attack for years to come. As I read the email, it called to mind Marc Anthony’s speech to the crowd about Julius Caesar. You know the lines: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones; so let it be with Caesar.”
The evil that men do lives after them. So often the consequences from what is done to another person remain hidden, buried in the grief, fear or embarrassment of the victim, often complicated further by feelings of obligation to a parent, and the crippling anxiety of revealing something that might tear a damaged family further apart. Assaults continue, and the results are appalling: psychologically damaged women, and men, the result of a continuing barrage of verbal abuse and demeaning comments from a father; physically abused women whose husbands regularly beat and rape them; young women sexually abused by fathers and ‘uncles’; self-worth disappearing under the pick, pick, pick of never ending criticism. So much of that taking place out of sight, but living on for the victims for years, for some for the rest of their lives. If I am concerned about longer term consequences, it is because I have met several women over the years who have told me about a traumatic incident (or incidents) in their past, and some men too.
Usually invisible to others, assaults leave lasting consequences for their victims. However, every day we can see what might have happened at the time, given that such behaviour is a staple on television and in the cinema, with the risk some viewers are left inculcated with the seductive pornography of violence, excited by tales of fiendishly clever serial killers as these ‘thrillers’ leave the screen full of maimed and mutilated dead women; yes, almost always women. With little desire to examine the consequences, and after spending as much time as possible on the crime, almost glorifying the details, the story often ends on a downbeat note, a smart investigator catching the ‘perp’ in the last few minutes.
Inevitably, the same question keeps reappearing. Is this behaviour getting better, or worse?
I am sure you read about Alek Minassian, who drove a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in downtown Toronto. Mr. Minassian wrote a post on Facebook about what he claimed was the arrival of an “incel rebellion.” Standing for “involuntarily celibate,” it appears this term is used with pride among an online subculture of misogynists who say they hate women for depriving them of sex. Never heard of the term before? Nor had I. But I learnt that incels have a disturbed fixation on sex and women, believing that everyone else is having sex, that is to say everyone except them.[ii]
Like every subculture, they have their own language:
“It isn’t surprising that in a subculture where women are considered extremely shallow, stupid, and evil … Incels see women as either “Stacys,” who are hyperfeminine, attractive, and unattainable and who only date “Chads” (muscular, popular men who are presumed to sleep with lots of women), or “Beckys,” the “average” woman. Women in general are also referred to in dehumanizing terms such as “femoids” or “FHOs (Female Humanoid Organism).”[iii]
Whether or not there is an incel rebellion, we know sexual violence continues, and today it seems more and more cases are being reported. This is said to be a consequence of victims more willing to talk about what has been done to them, and the media more determined to uncover aggressive behaviour. I suspect that’s true, although I can’t be certain. Can anyone?
As you read these stories, are you disheartened? The #MeToo movement has certainly had an impact. Powerful men are facing significant consequences for predatory behavior. For some, a small number including such well-known people as Bill Cosby, punishment is being exacted. But not for most. As one commentator has made clear, the question is “what should happen to the #MeToo-ed men who aren’t headed to court.”[iv] It’s a good question since this is the majority. As journalist Katie Baker goes on to comment: “if we want the #MeToo movement to be about more than just which celebrity will be the next to fall, or whose comeback must be stopped — if we want it to lead to real, lasting and widespread cultural change — we need to talk. About what we do with the bad men.”[v]
She suggests history might help us, and in her article goes on to discuss the outcomes of moves to reduce campus sexual assault. Over the past five years, most universities have introduced far better and more transparent ways to deal with incidents, trying to demonstrate fairness in often fraught situations. They have been expelling students and teachers found guilty of misconduct or worse, and more complaints are being addressed. Better, yes. As good as it should be? We know that doesn’t appear to be the case.
However, Katie Baker raised one other question that really worried me. What happens to the (mainly men) expelled from a university? As she describes it “I watched institution after institution simply “pass the trash” — a term for what happens when schools let reportedly abusive faculty [or students] flee elsewhere, without alerting their new employers to the allegations against them.” Once thrown out, those same people started applying for new jobs, in many cases going back to being a teacher, or a student at a new university. We can already see the same process taking place with the high profile cases outside the universities. Long term consequences for the victims; short term obstacles for the aggressors.
Here’s a recent story about one man’s plan for recovery. “Disgraced CBS anchor Charlie Rose is being slated to star in a show where he’ll interview other high-profile men who have also been toppled by #MeToo scandals. The move was revealed by editor, writer and women’s advocate Tina Brown … who added that she passed on the project.” A source was reported as saying “Tina said she’d just been emailed about co-hosting a new show with Charlie Rose, in which they’d interview Louis C.K., Matt Lauer and others caught up in the #MeToo sexual harassment scandals … Brown explained to the group that she was having none of it, and remarked, “These guys are already planning their comebacks!””[vi] Could this really be true? The story was in a media gossip magazine, but somehow it has the ring of authenticity.
I don’t want to be unfair, and I am aware there has been progress. As Katie Baker said, many universities have developed better procedures to deal with cases of assault. There is a greater understanding of due process, and transparent outcomes. But these are after the event (‘post hoc’ solutions as my colleagues would prefer to say). In several universities there are also attempts to reduce assaults, rather than relying on ‘passing out the trash’. Programs for students about diversity, respect, safe drinking and similar topics are being developed.
A recent article in The New Yorker by Jia Tolentino looked at the work Columbia University had undertaken on a somewhat different approach to reducing the risk of sexual assault. The approach, called SHIFT, Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation, focussed on the idea that students might be ‘nudged’ to behave more appropriately: “the idea is that small structural adjustments to student life could change how students interact with one another—help them find their moral compass more easily, feel more at home on campus”.[vii]
In her article, she goes on to explore how this might work, and concludes on a positive note:
“A version of this thinking applies to life in college: there are checkpoints and speed bumps that could decrease the likelihood of harm … There will always be people, mostly men, who experience a power differential as license to do what they want. But SHIFT proposes that it is possible to protect potential victims and potential perpetrators simultaneously, and that we are, at this moment, less eager to hurt one another than we seem to be.”[viii]
Steps in the right direction, for sure. But, what was that phrase about consequences? “The evil that men do lives after them”.
While I was writing this blog, I took a break for some coffee. Outside, spring had arrived (at last!): a clear blue sky, fresh green leaves on the trees, and lots of pollen to make me sneeze.
One scene caught my attention. I could hear a lot of honking: there were the resident Canada Geese, but their behaviour had changed. I watch one gander suddenly lower himself, stretch out his neck almost horizontally, and run hissing towards another. It was an attack. Of course, it’s breeding season, and hormones are raging. The usual gregarious behaviour on the pond has been replaced by monogamous couples splitting off from the rest, single males on the attack, and every so often males being forced to defend the females (not that you could describe actual mating behaviour between pairs as anything less than violent).
In another couple of months or less, the hummingbirds will be back. The one male who has taken over our garden and feeder will violently chase away anyone, male or female, who attempts to use his feeder, except for the odd moment when a female bird is allowed to sip some of the sugared water.
Is all this aggressive behaviour by birds or humans pre-programmed, genetic? Is it impossible to change? There are times when it seems we are the victims of our hereditary make-up, and the best we can do is keep trying new ways to keep our basic nature under control. Jia Tolentino suggested Columbia University’s project was based on the belief “it is possible to protect potential victims and potential perpetrators simultaneously, and that we are, at this moment, less eager to hurt one another than we seem to be.”
Am I disheartened by the recent spate of incidents and stories? Perhaps better described as cautious, I think. I want to believe that we have progressed and that we are less eager to hurt one another. I want to believe it, because I live in hope we can do better, that we are all working to create a kinder, more accepting society.
No, if I am truthful, I am disheartened. I don’t know what role testosterone plays in driving the assaults and aggression we see today. I am uncertain about the extent to which culture can change actions. The “Better Angels of Our Nature” suggests that the civilising influence of contemporary society reduces the free reign of more primitive behaviours [ix]: I want to believe Steven Pinker is right, but aggression seems to continue, whether it is through words or actions. I’m still overwhelmed thinking about the huge numbers of people continuing to suffer from past assaults. Whatever the trend, the evil that men do does live after them, largely hidden, unresolved, gnawing away at self-esteem and self-confidence.
PS: It turns out my timing was wrong. As I drank my coffee yesterday, I saw a familiar sight. A male ruby-throated hummingbird was giving me the evil eye: already prowling to repel any other birds, it was impatiently waiting for me to supply some sugared water into the feeder. No better angels in bird land!
[i] I am not sure what a “timely warning” is, and how it differs from an alert: perhaps a topic for a future blog?
[ii] A revealing and disturbing analysis can be found in the New York Times: ‘Sex and Shame: What Incels and Jihadists Have in Common’, by Simon Cottee, 30 April 2018
[iii] Rebecca Jennings, Incels Categorize Women by Personal Style and Attractiveness, Racked, 28 April 2018
[iv] What Do We Do With These Men? Katie J. M. Baker, New York Times, 27 April, 2018
[v] Op cit
[vi] Ian Mohr, ‘Tina Brown Says She Was Pitched Charlie Rose Comeback Show’, Page Six, 25 April 2018
[vii] Jian Tolentino, ‘Safer Spaces’, The New Yorker, 12&19 February 2018, page 40
[viii] Op cit, page 41
[ix] The title of Pinker’s thought provoking book, which was published in 2011 by Viking, part of the Penguin Group.
