tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/metoo-51088/articlesMetoo – The Conversation2024-03-07T19:24:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2241532024-03-07T19:24:11Z2024-03-07T19:24:11ZWhat are the four waves of feminism? And what comes next?<p>In Western countries, feminist history is generally packaged as a story of “waves”. The so-called first wave lasted from the mid-19th century to 1920. The second wave spanned the 1960s to the early 1980s. The third wave began in the mid-1990s and lasted until the 2010s. Finally, some say we are experiencing a fourth wave, which began in the mid-2010s and continues now.</p>
<p>The first person to use “waves” was journalist Martha Weinman Lear, in her 1968 New York Times article, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/03/10/archives/the-second-feminist-wave.html">The Second Feminist Wave</a>, demonstrating that the women’s liberation movement was another <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">“new chapter</a> in a grand history of women fighting together for their rights”. She was responding to anti-feminists’ framing of the movement as a “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">bizarre historical aberration</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/718868">Some feminists</a> criticise the usefulness of the metaphor. Where do feminists who preceded the first wave sit? For instance, Middle Ages feminist writer <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/bibliomania/2023/08/30/christine-de-pizan/">Christine de Pizan</a>, or philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wollstonecraft/">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>, author of <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman-9780141441252">A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</a> (1792). </p>
<p>Does the metaphor of a single wave <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">overshadow</a> the complex variety of feminist concerns and demands? And does this language exclude the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/718868">non-West</a>, for whom the “waves” story is meaningless?</p>
<p>Despite these concerns, countless feminists <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317322421_Finding_a_Place_in_History_The_Discursive_Legacy_of_the_Wave_Metaphor_and_Contemporary_Feminism">continue to use</a> “waves” to explain their position in relation to previous generations.</p>
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<span class="caption">A second-wave International Women’s Day rally in Melbourne, 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/society-and-culture/gender-and-sexuality/international-womens-day-rally-melbourne">National Archives of Australia</a></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-whitlam-government-gave-us-no-fault-divorce-womens-refuges-and-childcare-australia-needs-another-feminist-revolution-202238">The Whitlam government gave us no-fault divorce, women's refuges and childcare. Australia needs another feminist revolution</a>
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<h2>The first wave: from 1848</h2>
<p>The first wave of feminism refers to the campaign for the vote. It began in the United States in 1848 with the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/women-fight-for-the-vote/about-this-exhibition/seneca-falls-and-building-a-movement-1776-1890/">Seneca Falls Convention</a>, where 300 gathered to debate Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments, outlining women’s inferior status and demanding suffrage – or, the right to vote.</p>
<p>It continued over a decade later, in 1866, in Britain, with the presentation of a <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/presenting-the-petition/">suffrage petition</a> to parliament.</p>
<p>This wave ended in 1920, when women were granted the right to vote in the US. (Limited women’s suffrage had been introduced in Britain two years earlier, in 1918.) First-wave activists believed once the vote had been won, women could use its power to enact other much-needed reforms, related to property ownership, education, employment and more. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vida Goldstein.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vida_Goldstein#/media/File:Vida_Goldstein-01.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>White leaders dominated the movement. They included longtime president of the the International Woman Suffrage Alliance <a href="https://cattcenter.iastate.edu/home/about-us/carrie-chapman-catt/">Carrie Chapman Catt</a> in the US, leader of the militant Women’s Social and Political Union <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emmeline-Pankhurst">Emmeline Pankhurst</a> in the UK, and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spence-catherine-helen-4627">Catherine Helen Spence</a> and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goldstein-vida-jane-6418">Vida Goldstein</a> in Australia. </p>
<p>This has tended to obscure the histories of non-white feminists like evangelist and social reformer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sojourner-Truth">Sojourner Truth</a> and journalist, activist and researcher <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett">Ida B. Wells</a>, who were fighting on multiple fronts – including anti-slavery and anti-lynching – as well as feminism. </p>
<h2>The second wave: from 1963</h2>
<p>The second wave coincided with the publication of US feminist Betty Friedan’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-feminine-mystique-9780141192055">The Feminine Mystique</a> in 1963. Friedan’s “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/powerful-complicated-legacy-betty-friedans-feminine-mystique-180976931/">powerful treatise</a>” raised critical interest in issues that came to define the women’s liberation movement until the early 1980s, like workplace equality, birth control and abortion, and women’s education. </p>
<p>Women came together in “consciousness-raising” groups to share their individual experiences of oppression. These discussions informed and motivated public agitation for <a href="https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HaeberlenPolitics">gender equality and social change</a>. Sexuality and gender-based violence were other prominent second-wave concerns. </p>
<p>Australian feminist Germaine Greer wrote <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007205011/the-female-eunuch/">The Female Eunuch</a>, published in 1970, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">urged women to</a> “challenge the ties binding them to gender inequality and domestic servitude” – and to ignore repressive male authority by exploring their sexuality. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50, Germaine Greer's fearless, feminist masterpiece</a>
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<p>Successful lobbying saw the establishment of refuges for women and children fleeing domestic violence and rape. In Australia, there were groundbreaking political appointments, including the world’s first Women’s Advisor to a national government (<a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/audio/landmark-women/transcripts/landmark-women-elizabeth-reid-181013.mp3-transcript">Elizabeth Reid</a>). In 1977, a <a href="https://www.whitlam.org/women-and-whitlam">Royal Commission on Human Relationships</a> examined families, gender and sexuality. </p>
<p>Amid these developments, in 1975, Anne Summers published <a href="https://theconversation.com/damned-whores-and-gods-police-is-still-relevant-to-australia-40-years-on-mores-the-pity-47753">Damned Whores and God’s Police</a>, a scathing historical critique of women’s treatment in patriarchal Australia. </p>
<p>At the same time as they made advances, so-called women’s libbers managed to anger earlier feminists with their distinctive claims to radicalism. Tireless campaigner <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rich-ruby-sophia-14202">Ruby Rich</a>, who was president of the Australian Federation of Women Voters from 1945 to 1948, responded by declaring the only difference was her generation had called their movement “<a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-296328435/findingaid">justice for women</a>”, not “liberation”. </p>
<p>Like the first wave, mainstream second-wave activism proved largely irrelevant to non-white women, who faced oppression on intersecting gendered and racialised grounds. African American feminists produced their own critical texts, including bell hooks’ <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Aint-I-a-Woman-Black-Women-and-Feminism/hooks/p/book/9781138821514">Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism</a> in 1981 and Audre Lorde’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/198292/sister-outsider-by-audre-lorde/">Sister Outsider</a> in 1984. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bell-hooks-will-never-leave-us-she-lives-on-through-the-truth-of-her-words-173900">bell hooks will never leave us – she lives on through the truth of her words</a>
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<h2>The third wave: from 1992</h2>
<p>The third wave was announced in the 1990s. The term is popularly attributed to Rebecca Walker, daughter of African American feminist activist and writer <a href="https://alicewalkersgarden.com/about/">Alice Walker</a> (author of <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/alice-walker/the-color-purple-now-a-major-motion-picture-from-oprah-winfrey-and-steven-spielberg">The Color Purple</a>). </p>
<p>Aged 22, Rebecca proclaimed in a 1992 Ms. magazine <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200404030632/http:/heathengrrl.blogspot.com/2007/02/becoming-third-wave-by-rebecca-walker.html">article</a>: “I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave.” </p>
<p>Third wavers didn’t think gender equality had been more or less achieved. But they did share <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464700119842555">post-feminists</a>’ belief that their foremothers’ concerns and demands were obsolete. They argued women’s experiences were now shaped by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2016.1190046">very different</a> political, economic, technological and cultural conditions. </p>
<p>The third wave has been described as “an <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/meet-the-woman-who-coined-the-term-third-wave-feminism-20180302-p4z2mw.html">individualised feminism</a> that can not exist without diversity, sex positivity and intersectionality”. </p>
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<span class="caption">Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UCLA</span></span>
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<p>Intersectionality, <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf">coined</a> in 1989 by African American legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, recognises that people can experience intersecting layers of oppression due to race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and more. Crenshaw notes this was a “lived experience” before it was a term. </p>
<p>In 2000, Aileen Moreton Robinson’s <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/talkin-up-to-the-white-woman-indigenous-women-and-feminism-20th-anniversary-edition">Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism</a> expressed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s frustration that white feminism did not adequately address the legacies of dispossession, violence, racism, and sexism.</p>
<p>Certainly, the third wave accommodated <a href="https://paromitapain.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/10.10072F978-3-319-72917-6.pdf#page=112%22">kaleidoscopic views</a>. Some scholars claimed it “grappled with fragmented interests and objectives” – or micropolitics. These included ongoing issues such as sexual harassment in the workplace and a scarcity of women in positions of power. </p>
<p>The third wave also gave birth to the <a href="https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/brief-history-riot-grrrl-space-reclaiming-90s-punk-movement-2542166">Riot Grrrl</a> movement and “girl power”. Feminist punk bands like <a href="https://bikinikill.com/about/">Bikini Kill</a> in the US, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/28/pussy-riot-beaten-jailed-exiled-taunting-putin">Pussy Riot</a> in Russia and Australia’s <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbknev/little-ugly-girls-tractor-album-single-premiere-2018">Little Ugly Girls</a> sang about issues like homophobia, sexual harassment, misogyny, racism, and female empowerment. </p>
<p>Riot Grrrl’s <a href="https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/riotgrrrlmanifesto.html">manifesto</a> states “we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak”. “Girl power” was epitomised by Britain’s more sugary, phenomenally popular Spice Girls, who were accused of peddling “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/14/spice-girls-how-girl-power-changed-britain-review-fabulous-and-intimate">‘diluted feminism’ to the masses</a>”.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Riot Grrrrl sang about issues like homophobia, sexual harassment, misogyny and racism.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The fourth wave: 2013 to now</h2>
<p>The fourth wave is epitomised by “<a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol25/iss2/10/">digital or online feminism</a>” which gained currency in about <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">2013</a>. This era is marked by mass online mobilisation. The fourth wave generation is connected via new communication technologies in ways that were not previously possible. </p>
<p>Online mobilisation has led to spectacular street demonstrations, including the #metoo movement. #Metoo was first founded by Black activist <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/tarana-burke">Tarana Burke</a> in 2006, to support survivors of sexual abuse. The hashtag #metoo then went viral during the 2017 Harvey Weinstein <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/28/1131500833/me-too-harvey-weinstein-anniversary">sexual abuse scandal</a>. It was used at least <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563221002193">19 million times</a> on Twitter (now X) alone.</p>
<p>In January 2017, the <a href="https://www.womensmarch.com/">Women’s March</a> protested the inauguration of the decidedly misogynistic Donald Trump as US president. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Womens-March-2017">Approximately 500,000</a> women marched in Washington DC, with demonstrations held simultaneously in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Remembering-Womens-Activism/Crozier-De-Rosa-Mackie/p/book/9781138794894">81 nations</a> on all continents of the globe, even Antarctica.</p>
<p>In 2021, the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/8564388">Women’s March4Justice</a> saw some 110,000 women rallying at more than 200 events across Australian cities and towns, protesting workplace sexual harassment and violence against women, following high-profile cases like that of Brittany Higgins, revealing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/29/brittany-higgins-bruce-lehrmann-defamation-trial-evidence-stand-rape-allegations-liberal-party-ntwnfb#:%7E:text=Bruce%20Lehrmann%20has%20brought%20a,Wilkinson%20are%20defending%20the%20case.">sexual misconduct</a> in the Australian houses of parliament.</p>
<p>Given the prevalence of online connection, it is not surprising fourth wave feminism has reached across geographic regions. The Global Fund for Women <a href="https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/movements/me-too/">reports</a> that #metoo transcends national borders. In China, it is, among other things, #米兔 (translated as “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/61903744-9540-11e8-b67b-b8205561c3fe">rice bunny</a>”, pronounced as “mi tu”). In Nigeria, it’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-F0Gi0Lqs">#Sex4Grades</a>. In Turkey, it’s #<a href="https://ahvalnews.com/sexual-harrasment/dozens-turkish-womens-organisations-issue-statement-backing-latest-metoo-movement">UykularınızKaçsın</a> (“may you lose sleep”). </p>
<p>In an inversion of the traditional narrative of the Global North leading the Global South in terms of feminist “progress”, Argentina’s “<a href="https://www.auswhn.com.au/blog/colour-green/">Green Wave</a>” has seen it decriminalise abortion, as has Colombia. Meanwhile, in 2022, the US Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-but-for-abortion-opponents-this-is-just-the-beginning-185768">overturned historic abortion legislation</a>.</p>
<p>Whatever the nuances, the prevalence of such highly visible gender protests have led some feminists, like <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2020.1804431">Red Chidgey</a>, lecturer in Gender and Media at King’s College London, to declare that feminism has transformed from “a dirty word and publicly abandoned politics” to an ideology sporting “a new cool status”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-sex-positive-feminist-takes-up-the-unfinished-revolution-her-mother-began-but-its-complicated-189139">Friday essay: a sex-positive feminist takes up the 'unfinished revolution' her mother began – but it's complicated</a>
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<h2>Where to now?</h2>
<p>How do we know when to pronounce the next “wave”? (Spoiler alert: I have no answer.) Should we even continue to use the term “waves”?</p>
<p>The “wave” framework was first used to demonstrate feminist continuity and solidarity. However, whether interpreted as disconnected chunks of feminist activity or connected periods of feminist activity and inactivity, represented by the crests and troughs of waves, some believe it encourages binary thinking that produces <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2016.1190046">intergenerational antagonism</a>.</p>
<p>Back in 1983, Australian writer and second-wave feminist Dale Spender, who died last year, <a href="https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/feminism/radical-books-dale-spender-theres-always-been-a-womens-movement-this-century-1983/">confessed her fear</a> that if each generation of women did not know they had robust histories of struggle and achievement behind them, they would labour under the illusion they’d have to develop feminism anew. Surely, this would be an overwhelming prospect.</p>
<p>What does this mean for “waves” in 2024 and beyond?</p>
<p>To build vigorous varieties of feminism going forward, we might reframe the “waves”. We need to let emerging generations of feminists know they are not living in an isolated moment, with the onerous job of starting afresh. Rather, they have the momentum created by generations upon generations of women to build on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Crozier-De Rosa receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>We’re used to describing feminism in ‘waves’, from the first in 1848, campaigning for women to vote, to the current fourth wave, in the age of #metoo. But do waves still work to describe feminism?Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, Professor, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173112023-11-09T16:13:38Z2023-11-09T16:13:38ZHow To Have Sex: landmark film wants to change how we talk about consent<p>Written and directed by <a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/molly-manning-walker-interview-2023">Molly Manning Walker</a>, How to Have Sex is a powerful rites-of-passage drama that follows the tale of three 16-year-old girls on a post-GCSE bender in the party resort of Malia, on the Greek island of Crete.</p>
<p>I sat through most of this film feeling painfully uncomfortable. It authentically captures, in documentary fly-on-the-wall style, the riotous, noisy mayhem of my own teen years, partying on cheap booze and obsessing over boys. But now I am also watching as the mother of Gen Z teenagers. </p>
<p>Like those in this film, they are navigating a murky post-MeToo environment, where the lines of sexual consent are blurred and often misinterpreted, leaving women vulnerable to sexual abuse.</p>
<p>Walker skilfully recreates the excitement of a party holiday through the eyes of her spellbinding protagonist, the bubbly, gregarious Tara (Mia Mckenna-Bruce) and her two besties – Skye (Lara Peake) and Em (Enva Lewis). </p>
<p>The director’s history in cinematography shines through. Her debut feature realistically captures frenetic neon party scenes, as well as the complexity of female friendships and the overwhelming confusion, fragility and isolation that descends, through heart-wrenching close ups of Tara.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">How to Have Sex trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Wowing at Cannes</h2>
<p>The film won the <a href="https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/press/press-releases/un-certain-regard-winners-list-2023/">Un Certain Regard prize</a> at this year‘s Cannes Film Festival. Established in 1998, the prize celebrates innovative cinematic styles and storytelling by new and emerging filmmakers from around the world. </p>
<p>This is a significant win. Not only has there only been one previous UK winner (<a href="https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/beautiful-people/">Beautiful People</a> in 1999), but it’s also only the third time a woman has won this prize in its <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_Certain_Regard">25-year history</a>. In 2021 the Russian filmmaker Kira Kovalenko won for <a href="https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2021/razzhimaya-kulaki-unclenching-the-fists-as-seen-by-kira-kovalenko/">Unclenching the Fists</a>. And the French duo Lise Akoka and Romane Guéret won in 2022 for <a href="https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/les-pires/">The Worst Ones</a>.</p>
<p>The Cannes Film Festival has a problematic history when it comes to championing <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-complicated-history-of-women-at-cannes-film-festival-164911">women filmmakers</a>, so to have consecutive wins by women filmmakers in this category in the last three years is encouraging. Especially as the prize money of €30,000 (£26,000) is in place to support filmmakers with their future projects. Research shows that women face shocking hurdles making their <a href="https://www.anothergaze.com/second-coming-women-filmmakers-struggle-get-second-features-made/">second feature</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-oscar-nominations-again-for-female-directors-how-the-industry-can-better-support-diverse-filmmakers-200475">No Oscar nominations again for female directors: how the industry can better support diverse filmmakers</a>
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<h2>The film’s impact</h2>
<p>On screen sexual violence against women is frequently dramatised <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221011-female-rage-the-brutal-new-icons-of-film-and-tv">by male directors</a>, but this is beginning to be challenged by female filmmakers. Recent examples include Emerald Fennel’s Oscar-winning <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/how-promising-young-woman-refigures-the-rape-revenge-movie">Promising Young Woman</a> (2020), a dark comedy revenge drama starring Carey Mulligan who sets out to make men pay for acts of sexual violence against women.</p>
<p>In my research, I explore and reflect upon the intersection between friendship and sexual violence in fiction and documentary filmmaking through the lens of the feminist classic <a href="https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/8y2q2">Thelma & Louise</a> (1991). Alarmingly little has changed in the 30 years since Thelma & Louise first screened. A <a href="https://www.unwomenuk.org/safe-spaces-now">2021 survey</a> found that 97% of 18 to 24-year-old women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment.</p>
<p>Thelma & Louise’s themes of women’s agency, friendship and societal constraints, sparked conversations about sexual violence and the representation of women on screen. Similarly, Walker’s film provides a thought-provoking and nuanced portrayal of the complexity of consent. </p>
<p>Walker has spoken about her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/oct/08/molly-manning-walker-how-to-have-sex-interview-cannes-london-film-festival">personal experiences of sexual assault</a> at the age of 16. She has expressed her desire for this film to be a talking point for all age groups and genders to <a href="https://girlsontopstees.com/blogs/read-me/molly-manning-walkers-sexual-revolution">discuss consent</a> openly and honestly, and drive change. </p>
<p>The reaction of critics and the audience alike at the screening I attended suggested this film is already making an impact, evoking powerful emotional responses and encouraging people to open up about their experiences. </p>
<p>Walker is a new and exciting director and this film, which was supported by the BFI and Channel 4, also highlights the importance of backing diverse voices and narratives in British independent cinema.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The powerful rites of passage drama follows the tale of three 16-year-old girls on a post-GCSE bender in a party resort in Crete.Lucy Brown, Professor of Film and Television Practice, London South Bank UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097142023-10-19T15:17:53Z2023-10-19T15:17:53ZHow Vivien Leigh survived Hollywood before #MeToo<p>Vivien Leigh’s achievements in cinema were extraordinary. Known for her glamour and beauty, the actress rose from a bit-part player to become one of the most famous women in Hollywood, playing Scarlet O’Hara in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/">Gone with the Wind</a> in 1939. And November 5 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the two-time Oscar winner. </p>
<p>But Leigh also worked in an era of deeply ingrained inequality, sexism and racism in the Hollywood industry. The lessons from her life and career arguably take on a new meaning in the wake of <a href="https://metoomvmt.org">#MeToo</a> and <a href="https://www.timesupuk.org">#TimesUp</a>, and the changes they have wrought on women’s agency and equality in the industry since 2017.</p>
<h2>Career control</h2>
<p>Like many of the whistleblowers of #MeToo, Leigh arrived in Hollywood as a young and highly ambitious actress hoping that a personal connection with an important industry figure would lead to her big break. She put herself in the running for one of the most coveted roles of all time in Gone with the Wind by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/22/vivien-leigh-life-on-screen">showing up</a> on set with her then lover, actor Laurence Olivier, demanding the attention of producer David O. Selznick. </p>
<p>The career which followed was punctuated by two Best Actress Academy awards and public struggles with mental health. It was also presided over by powerful men in the industry, from director Alexander Korda to Selznick. </p>
<p>Leigh worked in a period where female stars were contracted, controlled and crafted. Her working partnership with Olivier afforded her a mentorship which she deeply valued, but also placed her in his shadow. Theatre critic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/arts/critic/feature/0,,567652,00.html">Kenneth Tynan</a> famously hounded her with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/08/from-the-observer-archive-the-fiery-life-of-vivien-leigh-remembered-in-1977">negative reviews</a> of her theatre work – always in direct contrast to his admiration of Olivier’s achievements.</p>
<p>Letters from her <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/39639">archive</a>, which I have studied, also reveal her difficult experiences on set, particularly during Gone With the Wind, where she was made to work 16 hour days for six days a week with extremely limited rest and sleep, often in conflict with her director Victor Fleming.</p>
<p>But Leigh worked in an era where outrageous misogyny was an industry norm in many regards. Take, for example, the treatment of Judy Garland on the set of The Wizard of Oz by the ultra-powerful producer Louis B. Mayer. Garland, who was just 16 at the time, was subjected to sexual harassment and physical and psychological abuse throughout her time at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/retropod/judy-garland-and-the-long-history-of-me-too-in-hollywood-1/">MGM</a>.</p>
<p>Leigh also crossed paths with stars whose abuse at the hand of male industry figures has been well documented. Marilyn Monroe took over the role that Leigh had played on stage in The Prince and the Showgirl in 1957, for example, co-starring with Olivier. Monroe had written a piece for the fan periodical <a href="https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=mpmag">Motion Picture Magazine</a> a few years earlier titled <a href="https://archive.org/details/wolves-story/mode/2up">Wolves I Have Known</a>, calling out the sustained sexual harassment she had faced from men in the industry from the earliest days of her career. </p>
<p>And Leigh herself portrayed a character who suffered at the hands of abusive and controlling men: most famously in her role as the ageing southern belle Blanche in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044081/">A Streetcar Named Desire</a>.</p>
<h2>Actress or Activist?</h2>
<p>But what would Leigh have made of #MeToo? After all, she was no stranger to a protest. She led a rally through London in July 1957 campaigning against theatre closures while sporting a distinctive eye-patch (the result of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/oct/07/biography.features1">domestic violence</a> in her own marriage). That same year she loudly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/jul/13/archive-a-cue-for-miss-vivien-leigh">protested</a> in the House of Lords against the demolition of the St James’s Theatre. </p>
<p>Yet her public causes were focused more on the arts and on patriotism than inequality and gender. It’s also important to remember that she essentially stood on the sidelines when others around her stepped forward to address intersectional inequality, where people encountered discrimination because of gender and race, for instance, in the industry within which she prospered. </p>
<p>When African-American actress Hattie McDaniel was barred from the 1940 Academy Awards ceremony, it was co-star <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/539316/remembering-hattie-mcdaniel-75-years-since-historic-oscar-win">Clark Gable</a>, not Leigh, who threatened to boycott unless she was allowed to attend.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Vivien Leigh accepts her Oscar in 1940.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Age and (in)visibility</h2>
<p>Leigh rarely commented on the gendered nature of her experiences despite her high profile status in Hollywood. The restrictions she experienced as a female star became more pronounced as she aged, however. </p>
<p>Though she died in 1967, aged just 53, she had been struggling to gain any significant roles for more than a decade. Like many other actresses of her era, she was a victim of the extreme fetishisation of youthfulness and sex appeal that has only recently begun to shift in Hollywood. </p>
<p>Leigh made 19 films in total, but only three after she turned 40. Her struggle to find meaningful roles as she aged now seems a stark contrast with the thriving careers of other A-List female Oscar winners post-#MeToo. Stars such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392397.2022.2157296">Kate Winslet</a>, as my recent research has shown, are enjoying access to a wide range of roles as they enter middle age. </p>
<p>Reframing the careers of classical stars like Leigh through the lens of #MeToo reminds us that the movement isn’t just about <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41594672">Harvey Weinstein</a>, but about a system of gendered power that has run through the industry from its classical period to the present day. </p>
<p>Were Leigh working today, perhaps she would have reaped some of the benefits of the movement. And what an intriguing body of work she may have produced into her later years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Smithstead received funding for this research from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>As Hollywood continues to reckon with its past, Vivien Leigh’s story is a reminder of the challenges faced by women, even the most successful ones.Lisa Smithstead, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138342023-10-17T12:19:52Z2023-10-17T12:19:52Z#UsToo: How antisemitism and Islamophobia make reporting sexual misconduct and abuse of power harder for Jewish and Muslim women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553742/original/file-20231013-15-4fnj3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C2585%2C1779&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Six years after the #MeToo hashtag went viral, women in minority communities still face extra challenges addressing harassment and abuse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressSexualHarassment/a42b9d74f7c841c9a068c04d5e3e14ab/photo?Query=metoo&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=846&currentItemNo=40">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>October 2023 marks the anniversary of #MeToo: six years since <a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/919659438700670976">actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet</a> calling for women to speak out about experiences of abuse went viral and helped launch a global movement. Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/metoo-five-years-later-hollywoods-crafts-community-1235228124/">film sets</a> and office buildings to college campuses and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/silence-is-not-spiritual-the-evangelical-metoo-movement">religious communities</a>.</p>
<p>Many articles about #MeToo and religion focus on large churches, such as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/sexual-misconduct/metoo-goes-church-southern-baptists-face-reckoning-over-treatment-women-n880216">the Southern Baptist Convention</a> – spaces that are mostly white and Christian. Yet the phrase “Me Too” was first coined as a rallying cry against abuse by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/books/tarana-burke-unbound-metoo.html">a Black Christian activist, Tarana Burke</a>, back in 2006. Meanwhile, the perspectives of women in minority racial, ethnic and religious groups were often overshadowed – a focus of <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/research-projects/research.html">my research on Jewish studies and gender</a>.</p>
<p>These women face added challenges when they break the silence around sexual misconduct and abuse of power, as I document in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/UsToo-How-Jewish-Muslim-and-Christian-Women-Changed-Our-Communities/McGinity/p/book/9781032430355">my book “#UsToo</a>.” Many Jewish and Muslim women of color navigate three kinds of oppression simultaneously: sexism, racism and antisemitism or Islamophobia. </p>
<p>My interviews with dozens of women illustrate how race and religion affected their experiences of sexism, underscoring the need to normalize speaking out.</p>
<h2>’Dirty laundry’</h2>
<p>Jews and Muslims both experience prejudice, making them hesitant to <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/we-too/">draw attention to something negative</a> that others could weaponize. It is often harder for minority victims to speak out about abuse because they <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/07/it-s-time-for-muslims-to-talk-about-sexual-misconduct-among-our-islamic-preachers/">do not want to disparage their own faith communities</a>, for fear of fueling hated.</p>
<p>This problem is not exclusive to Jewish or Muslim communities but rather a general problem for all subcultures. Publicly airing communal “dirty laundry” is seen as precarious, both for the individual and for the ethnoreligious group. </p>
<p>Jewish and Muslim women in the United States are diverse, from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/">different levels of religious observance</a> to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/07/26/demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/">ethnic identity</a>. For many, though, cultural taboos make it harder to speak out, compounding concerns about antisemitism and Islamophobia.</p>
<p>The Jewish concept of “lashon hora,” for example – Hebrew for “idle gossip” – sometimes deters women from <a href="https://jewishlink.news/lashon-hara-and-abuse-cover-ups/">calling out bad behavior</a>. Likewise, text in the Quran refers to talking about someone else’s actions <a href="https://zakirnaikqa.wordpress.com/tag/eating-the-flesh-of-your-own-brother/">as “backbiting</a>” – literally, “eating the flesh off your brother.” </p>
<p>The #MeToo movement has lessened the likelihood that, going forward, women will be shamed for speaking out. Women I spoke with recalled being warned previously against raising concerns within their communities and being told it would ruin the career or even the life of the abuser. However, these concepts continue to cause concern among those who do.</p>
<h2>Risks of silence and interdependence</h2>
<p>The insularity, sense of connection and interdependence within some minority communities can be conducive to abuses of power. Jewish philanthropy leader Maxyne Finkelstein <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/we-must-own-our-responsibility-as-women/">has referred to the sense of familiarity in some Jewish organizations as “living room syndrome</a>”: the tendency to act more casually than in a community or organization where people do not share as much cultural background.</p>
<p>In a poll of 2,376 people <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2019-predicting-and-preventing-islamophobia/">from many different faith groups</a>, Jews were the second-least likely to report unwanted sexual advances from a faith leader to law enforcement: just 12% of victims told police, according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. <a href="https://religionnews.com/2023/08/17/disobedient-women-and-churchtoo-stand-up-to-sexual-abuse-in-evangelicalism/">As in other religions</a>, however, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/08/14/ny/study-communal-orgs-prone-to-abuses-of-power">sexual misconduct and abuse of power</a> exist in many kinds of Jewish spaces, from <a href="https://www.jta.org/2019/03/18/lifestyle/how-jewish-summer-camps-are-talking-about-consent-in-the-age-of-metoo">summer camps</a> and foundations to synagogues and academia.</p>
<p>In June 2018, I publicly shared my experience of a prominent sociologist using the pretense of professional advice to sexually harass and assault me. Given his status, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2018/06/21/ny/american-jewrys-metoo-problem-a-first-person-encounter">my op-ed</a> was shared widely. Word spread quickly in the Jewish community, and other women came out of the woodwork about his behavior.</p>
<p>Initiatives around #MeToo in the Jewish community have taken off in the past few years. One of the most visible was the 2018 founding of the <a href="https://srenetwork.org/">SafetyRespectEquity Network</a>, which brought Jewish organizations together under one umbrella to strive toward eliminating sexual harassment and misconduct, as well as discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. <a href="https://www.jewishsacredspaces.org/">Sacred Spaces</a>, incorporated in 2016, is another organization that brings Jewish values to its work addressing and preventing abuse.</p>
<h2>Walking a tightrope</h2>
<p>Like Jewish women of color, many Muslim American women are triple minorities: female in a society where women are still “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/10379/the-second-sex-by-simone-de-beauvoir-newly-translated-by-constance-borde-and-sheila-malovany/">the second sex</a>”; a religious minority in a predominantly Christian country; and often judged by the color of their skin. Being <a href="https://philarchive.org/archive/FATNTMv2">a triple minority</a> exacerbates the challenges of speaking out about sexual harassment and assault.</p>
<p>In many ways, Muslim women of color had a steeper hill to climb than Jewish women, given the xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-muslims-are-portrayed-negatively-in-american-media-2-political-scientists-reviewed-over-250-000-articles-to-find-conclusive-evidence-183327">that have been prevalent in the U.S.</a> since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for ‘Breaking Silence’ (2017)</span></figcaption>
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<p>Nevertheless, some Muslim women affected by sexual misconduct have been working for years to bring it out of the communal closet and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/02/26/588855132/-mosquemetoo-gives-muslim-women-a-voice-about-sexual-misconduct-at-mecca">into the public eye</a>. In 2004, for example – two years before the phrase “Me too” was coined – a Muslim woman named Robina Niaz started <a href="https://www.tpny.org/services/">Turning Point</a>, an organization that offers counseling, advocacy and youth programs to help women and families understand that sexual abuse and violence are not their fault. </p>
<p>In 2017, Nadya Ali – a Ph.D. student in biology at the time – directed <a href="http://www.breakingsilencethefilm.com/">the film “Breaking Silence</a>,” which aimed to raise awareness of abuse in Muslim communities. Voted <a href="https://m.imdb.com/event/ev0003612/2017/1">best short documentary</a> at the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival, the film underscores that taboos around discussing sex did not prevent abuse; instead, they protected sexual predators and silenced women whom they abused. </p>
<p>Researchers found that although unwanted sexual advances from faith leaders were no more prevalent among Muslims than other faith groups, Muslims were slightly more likely than other victims to report the incident to law enforcement: 54% compared with 44%, according to <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2019-predicting-and-preventing-islamophobia/">the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding</a>. In almost all other religious groups, women are more likely to report sexual violence to another member of their faith community than to law enforcement – whereas many Muslim women are more comfortable telling strangers about being sexually abused than telling their own community.</p>
<p>Many of the women I interviewed live on a tightrope: calling out the patriarchy and sexual misconduct they experienced, while defending their community against anti-Muslim stereotypes. </p>
<p>The Muslim communal response to #MeToo includes organizations to combat gender-based violence. <a href="https://hearttogrow.org/">HEART</a>, a sexual health and reproductive justice organization founded in 2009, offers education and resources to discuss sexual relationships and violence. More recently, FACE, which stands for <a href="https://facetogether.org/">Facing Abuse in Community Environments</a>, has investigated sexual, physical, financial and spiritual abuses. <a href="https://inshaykhsclothing.com/">In Shaykh’s Clothing</a>, founded in 2017, works with individuals and institutions to prevent abuse, hold abusers accountable and educate Muslims about recognizing abuse and standing up to it.</p>
<p>Despite this progress, many Jewish and Muslim women are still apprehensive about reporting coreligionists, as are women in larger Christian communities. The United States has not yet normalized reporting, and neither have our faith communities. Sharing women’s stories and organizing for change – while battling antisemitism and Islamophobia – will keep the #MeToo movement moving, which I believe will create a better world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213834/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keren McGinity does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In minority faith groups that already face hate, women who have experienced harassment sometimes fear bringing negative attention to their community.Keren McGinity, Research Associate, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2022232023-04-05T15:14:18Z2023-04-05T15:14:18ZHow Playboy cut ties with Hugh Hefner to create a post-#MeToo brand<p>Hugh Hefner launched Playboy Magazine 70 years ago this year. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/28/business/media/playboy-hugh-hefner.html">The first issue</a> included a nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe, which he had purchased and published <a href="https://www.biography.com/actors/marilyn-monroe-playboy-first-issue-didnt-pose">without her knowledge or consent</a>. </p>
<p>Hefner went on to build the Playboy brand off the backs of the countless women featured in its pages, whose beauty and performance of heightened feminine sexuality have entertained its readers for generations.</p>
<p>Approaching its 70th anniversary in December, Playboy has radically shifted. With the magazine <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/playboy-closes-print-magazine.html">no longer in publication</a>, the <a href="https://people.com/home/playboy-mansion-sold-for-100-million/">Playboy Mansion sold</a> to a developer and London’s last remaining Playboy Club <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce6V6ZXNnST/">closing in 2021</a>, what is the future for Playboy? The brand is changing to keep up with the post-#MeToo world.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/hugh-hefner-playboy-and-being-a-man-during-the-cold-war-84841">Hefner passed away</a> one month before allegations against film producer <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41594672">Harvey Weinstein</a> surfaced in 2017 giving momentum to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-a-year-on-media-troll-women-when-journalists-should-be-tackling-causes-of-sexual-abuse-104804">#MeToo movement</a> (which saw survivors of sexual assault and harassment speak out against their abusers). </p>
<p>In recent years, many have <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjvyvw/dont-mourn-for-hugh-hefner">re-evaluated Hefner’s legacy</a> and relationships with women. The 2022 docuseries <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuWdBMon3EU">The Secrets of Playboy</a> (which aired on Channel 4 in the UK) detailed sexual misconduct accusations against Hefner from several ex-girlfriends, including model Sondra Theodore and TV personality Holly Madison.</p>
<p>Hefner and Playboy’s relationship with women has been complicated. Playboy was <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2017/09/hugh-hefner-playboy-magazine-abortion-rights.html">an early supporter of abortion rights</a>, helped <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/17/opinion/rape-kit-history.html">fund the first rape kit</a> and was at times an <a href="https://zora.medium.com/what-happened-to-playboys-first-black-cover-girl-25f48b985edb">early proponent of inclusivity</a> (for example featuring transgender model, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tula-transgender-playboy-model_n_7638670">Caroline “Tula” Cossey</a>, in its June 1981 issue). But most women featured in Playboy have fit within <a href="https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/images/article/magazine/1702/WIRED_1702_Infoporn.pdf">a narrow beauty standard</a> – thin, white, able bodied and blonde.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Hefner’s personal relationship with his much younger girlfriends reportedly <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/holly-madison-hugh-hefner-drugs-tried-buy-me-will-2015106/">followed patterns</a> of control and emotional abuse. Ex-girlfriend Holly Madison described Hefner as treating her “like a glorified pet” in her memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole (2015).</p>
<p>Hefner’s passing meant he evaded reckoning with the #MeToo movement. Playboy, however, responded, <a href="https://medium.com/@playboy/an-open-letter-to-our-team-community-9e3f1a68b0aa">releasing a statement</a> in which it affirmed support for the women featured in The Secrets of Playboy and called Hefner’s actions “abhorrent”. </p>
<p>The statement declared that the brand was no longer affiliated with the Hefner family and would be focusing on aspects of the company’s legacy that align with values of sex positivity and free expression.</p>
<p>Today, Playboy is a very different company from the one Hefner launched nearly 70 years ago. Roughly <a href="https://medium.com/@playboy/an-open-letter-to-our-team-community-9e3f1a68b0aa">80% of Playboy staff identify as women</a>, according the company and its motto has changed from “Entertainment for Men” to “Pleasure for All”. Shares in the company are publicly traded and 40% of its board and management <a href="https://www.plbygroup.com/leadership">are women</a>.</p>
<p>The company has also moved towards more creator-led content through its app, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshwilson/2021/10/18/playboy-pushes-forward-the-release-of-its-platform-centerfold-to-rival-onlyfans/?sh=fef7ca338cd1">Playboy Centerfold</a>. Similar to subscription content service <a href="https://theconversation.com/onlyfans-has-a-split-identity-it-needs-to-declare-its-support-for-adult-content-creators-169358">OnlyFans</a>, Playboy Centerfold allows subscribers to view content from and interact with its creators, which it call “bunnies”.</p>
<p>On the app, creators – or bunnies – are able portray their own bodies however they wish, putting the power back in their hands. Perhaps Playboy’s future is no longer in serving the male gaze, but instead the very audience Hefner dismissed in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34471653">his first letter from the editor</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80 Playboy is meant for you … If you’re somebody’s sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The bunnies next door</h2>
<p>The stars of Playboy’s mid-2000s reality series, Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, are also enjoying a resurgence among fans.</p>
<p>The Girls Next Door launched in 2004. The show focused on the lives of Hefner’s three girlfriends, Madison, Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson. It became E’s best <a href="https://www.nexttv.com/news/ratings-girls-next-door-delivers-e-34269">performing</a> show and cultivated a new <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/09/the-e-reality-show-the-girls-next-door-was-the-best-thing-hugh-hefner-ever-gave-us.html">female audience</a> for Playboy.</p>
<p>The Girls Next Door was a story of complicated empowerment despite patriarchal interference. Its three female protagonists went from being known solely as some of Hefner’s many blonde girlfriends, to celebrities in their own right. </p>
<p>They each ultimately broke up with Hefner, leaving the Mansion and going on to lead successful careers.</p>
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<img alt="Bridget Marquardt and Hugh Hefner with Holly Madison and Kendra Wilkinson wear glamorous clothing on a red carpet photoshoot." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516480/original/file-20230320-3036-r24sy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516480/original/file-20230320-3036-r24sy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516480/original/file-20230320-3036-r24sy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516480/original/file-20230320-3036-r24sy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516480/original/file-20230320-3036-r24sy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516480/original/file-20230320-3036-r24sy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516480/original/file-20230320-3036-r24sy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bridget Marquardt and Hugh Hefner with Holly Madison and Kendra Wilkinson in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bridget-marquardt-hugh-hefner-holly-madison-108016850">s_bukley/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The show’s depiction of Madison, Marquardt and Wilkinson as empowered, fun-loving and complex individuals, who found joy and agency through expressing their sexuality was perhaps what drew <a href="https://nypost.com/2007/08/06/why-women-love-girls-next-door/">so many female fans to the show</a>. However, amid the girls’ fight for agency, Hefner retaliated. </p>
<p>The series shows that he maintained final say in every Playboy photograph of the girls, as well as imposing <a href="https://screenshot-media.com/culture/toxic-masculinity/playboy-bunny-reality/">strict curfews</a> and spending allowances.</p>
<p>In Madison and Wilkinson’s memoirs, Down the Rabbit Hole (2015) and Sliding into Home (2010), they claim that production consistently undermined them. They refused to pay them for the first season, didn’t credit them until season four and <a href="https://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2015/06/holly-spills-delicious-playboy-secrets/">aired their uncensored nude bodies</a> in foreign broadcasts and DVD releases without consent.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Holly Madison, one of the Girls Next Door cast, on life at the Mansion.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Fan interest in The Girls Next Door remains strong. In August 2022 Madison and Marquardt launched their podcast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/playboy-playmates-rewatching-girls-next-door-for-girls-next-level-podcast-is-high-art?ref=scroll">Girls Next Level</a>, where they interview previous playmates and interact with fans. They also recap episodes from their own points of view, unpacking their experiences of working on the show. </p>
<p>Having reached <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CoOItP0PeEV/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=">10 million downloads</a> as of February 2023, the success of the podcast – 14 years after the last episode of The Girls Next Door – speaks to the cultural legacy of the Playboy brand. It also shows that despite Hefner’s original editor’s note, Playboy resonates with some women.</p>
<p>Playboy is now in a post-Hefner era, where the imagery of women found within old issues of Playboy can serve as inspiration for others to enjoy their own sexuality. Whatever the future has for the company, the concept of Playboy has become public property – be that in the appearance of <a href="https://jezebel.com/playboy-bunny-halloween-costume-1849683128">Playboy bunny costumes</a> each Halloween, the popularity of cheeky Playboy logo tattoos or branded lingerie and clothing.</p>
<p>In a post-#MeToo era, the women of Playboy are speaking up and taking over. With the mansion gates closed, the bunnies are finally reclaiming the brand as their own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202223/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daisy McManaman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Playboy approaches its 70th anniversary, an expert in the brand asks – is there a place for Playboy in the post #MeToo world?Daisy McManaman, PhD Candidate, Centre for Women's Studies, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995182023-02-09T01:20:30Z2023-02-09T01:20:30ZCamp Cope leaves the Australian music industry forever changed by their fearless feminist activism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509047/original/file-20230208-14-jfu51w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1198%2C797&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Run for Cover</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian indie-rock trio Camp Cope announced yesterday they are splitting up. They leave behind an industry forever changed by their fearless feminist activism, and a legacy of empowered young fans.</p>
<p>Over the past few years, the issue of the Australian music industry’s “chronic gender inequality” <a href="https://theconversation.com/harder-faster-louder-challenging-sexism-in-the-music-industry-58420">has gained prominence</a>. Public call-outs, grassroots initiatives and numerous reports show the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/01/a-very-low-glass-ceiling-sexism-and-harassment-rife-in-australian-music-long-awaited-report-finds">significant disadvantage</a> women are faced with, on and off stage. </p>
<p>Sexual harassment, violence and discrimination are rife across the industry – for audiences and musicians alike. Its prevalence, according to academic Rosemary Hill, is “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-sexual-abuse-and-exploitation-rife-in-the-music-industry-167852">a catastrophe for women’s musical participation</a>”.</p>
<p>This lack of representation is inextricably linked to broader issues of sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination. These inequalities are, of course, far greater for Aboriginal women, women of colour, and LGBTIQ+ and gender-diverse cohorts.</p>
<p>As the industry reckons with its #MeToo moment, Camp Cope, along with other musicians like <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-m-still-gagged-jaguar-jonze-on-the-cost-of-speaking-out-20220707-p5azw6.html">Jaguar Jonze</a>, have been at the forefront of hundreds of women tirelessly working for safer, more equitable conditions.</p>
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<p>Despite music scenes having a reputation for being progressive, inclusive and tolerant, they remain male-dominated and masculine-coded spaces, and women who do participate in these spaces, as musicians, creative workers or audiences, are faced with significant systemic risks.</p>
<p>The findings of the 2022 <a href="https://musicindustryreview.com.au/">Raising their Voices Report</a> are bleak, but not surprising: pay disparity, high rates of sexual harassment, harm and bullying, and a culture that facilitates abuse and protects perpetrators.</p>
<p>The report emphasised that “Entrenched industry norms, culture, systems and behaviours which disadvantage and discriminate against women underpin their low representation in the music industry…” and that “..Women’s overall lack of power and influence in the music industry has broad ramifications for their experiences and treatment” </p>
<p>It is this culture that Camp Cope have tirelessly stood up to (often to their own personal and professional detriment), and in so doing, helped change the trajectory of an Australian music industry that has for too long been male, pale, and stale.</p>
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<h2>Who are Camp Cope?</h2>
<p>Formed in 2015, Camp Cope is comprised of three women, Georgia “Maq” McDonald (guitar/vocals), Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich (bass) and Sarah “Thomo” Thompson (drums).</p>
<p>Their music is honest and heartfelt, with leading basslines and a distinctly Australian punk-rock twang. Nominated for a slew of awards, including the ARIA Best Rock Album in 2018, the group has been known as much for their outspoken resistance to sexism and discrimination in the industry as they have for their music. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-sexual-abuse-and-exploitation-rife-in-the-music-industry-167852">Is sexual abuse and exploitation rife in the music industry?</a>
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<p>Camp Cope made <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/news/julia-jacklin-shouts-out-camp-cope-falls-festival-gender-line-up/9306734">headlines</a> across the Australian music scene when they called out the popular Falls Festival, held across multiple locations on the East Coast of Australia, for the lack of women in the lineup while on stage. </p>
<p>From spearheading the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/aussie-musicians-join-melbourne-band-camp-copes-ittakesone-campaign-to-fight-sexual-harassment-at-gigs-20160909-grcec5.html">#ItTakesOne campaign</a> for increased safety at gigs and festivals, and demanding equal representation on festival lineups, to publicly calling out sexism, Camp Cope has done significant work to fight entrenched <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/08/you-expect-us-not-to-call-you-out-c">sexism in the industry</a>, and broader society.</p>
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<p>At least, they have raised public awareness, which has helped to prioritise women’s safety and equal participation in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jan/30/australia-national-cultural-policy-revive-culture-federal-government">government cultural policy</a>, as well as in local music scenes. At most, they have equipped a generation of fans with the strength and vocabulary to do the same.</p>
<p>Following the unexpected announcement of the split, obituaries poured out on Twitter from industry peers and fans expressing sadness and celebrating the profound and lasting impact Camp Cope had on the industry and their lives. </p>
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<h2>They’re just a band though, right?</h2>
<p>Wrong. The impact of Camp Cope on their audience cannot be understated. My 2020 study on the impact of Camp Cope on young women’s idea and identity formation highlights the real and lasting significance on these participants’ lives. The response to Camp Cope’s split from fans on Twitter yesterday further demonstrates this. </p>
<p>Over the course of eight years and three albums, Camp Cope defined a feminist agenda for a generation of female music fans who seldom saw themselves, their stories and values articulated in the mainstream. </p>
<p>My research interviewed fans of Camp Cope on their experiential and emotional connection to the band. The findings show a real and lasting impact on young women’s understanding of themselves and their worlds. Through engaging with Camp Cope, fans forged and activated self and collective feminist identities, becoming empowered to challenge sexism in their everyday lives. </p>
<p>Camp Cope’s music imbued messages of rage, love and solidarity. Their message inspired fans to speak out against injustices, to be angry, to take up space, and to even start their own bands. </p>
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<p>Their song <a href="https://youtu.be/yOI8NGJ6SdI">The Opener</a> became a battle cry for fans. The scathing, irony-drenched song calling out self-proclaimed progressive men in the scene who reinforce inequality through everyday sexism and only booking women as the opening act – if at all. When Camp Cope shouted, their audience shouted back in unity. </p>
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<p>Encouragement and visibility are key to engaging and empowering other women to participate in music. Fans saw confidence, outspokenness and strength in Camp Cope and that helped them to become more confident, outspoken and strong in their own personal identities. Through shared emotional and experiential connections, fans also established collective identities, aligning themselves with Camp Cope’s feminist beliefs and feminism within the #MeToo era more broadly.</p>
<p>Beyond confidence and inspiration, Camp Cope represents a safe space for fans to heal from sexual harm. Songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQURwvZ6wGI">The Face of God</a> assure fans that “yes, that was abuse”, and that “sexual assault was never your fault”.</p>
<p>Camp Cope’s split may well leave a hole in the hearts of fans, but their legacy is an industry on notice and the promise that maybe, someday soon, it will be different.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The study of Camp Cope fans' idea and identity formation mentioned in this article was undertaken at The University of Adelaide, with Dr. Kim Barbour. </span></em></p>Australian feminist indie-rock outfit Camp Cope have been leaders at a critical juncture for gender equality in the music industry.Freya Langley, PhD Candidate, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1888962022-10-13T19:21:47Z2022-10-13T19:21:47ZFriday essay: fame, male privilege and a media circus – revisiting Errol Flynn’s rape trial 80 years on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489484/original/file-20221013-23-g6fut9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3982%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Errol Flynn pictured in 1939 along with headlines surrounding his rape trial</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP and Author Provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual and colonial violence.</em></p>
<p>Eighty years ago, the Pacific War felt close to Los Angeles. In October 1942, America was still reeling from the attacks ten months before on Pearl Harbor. Across the Pacific, Americans and Australians were locked in titanic battles against the Japanese on air, land and sea, especially in the Solomon Islands. </p>
<p>On October 17, as Japan launched a vicious attack on American forces on the island of Guadalcanal, news of an Australian-born man much beloved by Americans hit the papers. It was the first report of a stunning and dark LA story that would consume public attention. </p>
<p>Actor Errol Flynn was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl at a party in Bel-Air. Flynn’s woes multiplied four days later when two more charges were brought against him for twice raping a 15-year-old girl aboard <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-15/errol-flynn-hellraiser-visit-to-queensland-towns/100373874">his yacht</a> a year earlier.</p>
<p>So began a salacious, high-stakes, Hollywood saga, opening a window onto a very different world of men than those fighting the war. In this privileged realm, sacrifice and suffering were nowhere to be found. And this test of the statutory rape laws involved arguably the biggest film star of the day. </p>
<p>Seven years earlier, Flynn had transformed from an Australian nobody – “a Warner Brothers stock player like a million others” – to a Hollywood idol thanks to his casting in the title role of the 1935 film Captain Blood. Flynn quickly became an iconic action hero. His was a mix of physical beauty, devilish charm, gallantry and a raw colonial masculinity enacted in fighting scenes. He was so often armed with swords he earned the sobriquet of “swashbuckler”. </p>
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<p>By 1942, Flynn had made 19 films and was famous for his performances in Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Robin Hood (1938), The Sea Hawk (1940), and as the US hero, George Armstrong Custer, in They Died With Their Boots On (1940). </p>
<p>He was also famous for embodying a new type of promiscuous, white masculinity rebelling against the suffocating confines of monogamous marriage. Flynn was a blend of eugenic perfection and frontier manhood familiar to both American and Australian audiences steeped in the national legends of conquest. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488884/original/file-20221009-78090-g8xev5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flynn with Olivia de Havilland in the original trailer for The Adventures of Robin Hood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In late 1942, legal proceedings began against Flynn over the three charges of statutory rape in relation to the Bel-Air party and his yacht. At the same time, film-goers were watching him play an Australian air-force pilot, Terry Forbes alongside future US president, Ronald Reagan, in a stirring but improbable anti-Nazi drama, Desperate Journey. </p>
<p>As America’s war rapidly escalated, Flynn, along with hundreds and thousands of others had tried to enlist in the US armed forces. (Flynn had been granted American citizenship just before his trial). Rejected because he had tuberculosis, he was thus confined to performing war heroism on screen. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JttiUOQeIis?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Colonial privilege</h2>
<p>Flynn may have acted the soldier many times, but his colonial persona was drawn from real life. Born in Tasmania in 1909, Flynn’s childhood was scarred by his parents’ troubled marriage. He performed poorly at school and was expelled from institutions in Tasmania, London and Sydney. From age 18, Flynn spent almost six years in Australia’s colonies of Papua and New Guinea. Between 1927 and 1933, he tried to strike it rich in a range of occupations and enterprises, from government service to managing copra and tobacco plantations to running inter-island vessels, dynamite fishing, gold-seeking, and labour recruiting. </p>
<p>Unlike thousands of other men of his generation who became soldiers from 1939, it was only in New Guinea that Flynn was armed and ready to combat the local people, a standard practice in that parlous colonial world.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-papua-new-guinea-really-is-part-of-australias-family-wed-do-well-to-remember-our-shared-history-159528">If Papua New Guinea really is part of Australia's 'family', we'd do well to remember our shared history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488882/original/file-20221009-58516-72oc4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Errol Flynn pictured in 1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the New Guineas, Flynn learned the creed of being a white colonial man and all the powers and privileges, especially sexual privileges in a violent setting, this afforded. Years after the fact, Flynn not only acknowledged numerous intimate encounters in New Guinea but that he had them with very young girls. He argued that age did not matter there. </p>
<p>Flynn was part of a colonial world where such intimacies were pervasive. And, as the New Guinea colony’s administrator once candidly put it, New Guinea women’s “like or dislike” of forming relationships with Australian men “was not of the least importance”. It was here that Flynn said he became a “man”. New Guinea cast a long shadow over Flynn’s identity and imagination, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/45535121/Wild_Colonial_Boy_Errol_Flynn_s_Rape_Trial_Pacific_Pasts_and_the_Making_of_Hollywood">shaping his desire for young girls and sex infused with power</a>. </p>
<p>When Flynn, aged 33, appeared in a Los Angeles court in October 1942 for his arraignment on three statutory rape charges, his <a href="https://calisphere.org/item/7a87f5d4e84ed5cadf441eaec19bd0b8/">two teenage accusers</a> were drawn out of obscurity. In August 1941, 15-year-old Peggy Satterlee had been on day trips with her sister on Flynn’s boat, the Sirocco. He then invited her on a longer voyage during a shoot for Life magazine. Satterlee claimed on the first night, after he had spiked her drink with liquor, Flynn came to her room and raped her. The following night, she alleged, he lured her to another cabin and raped her again. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489293/original/file-20221012-24-h1tqhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Betty Hansen (centre).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://tessa.lapl.org/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/12506">Betty Hansen</a>, meanwhile, had graduated from high school in Lincoln, Nebraska in June 1942 before moving to LA, where her older sister lived. While working at a drug store, a Warner Brothers studio employee invited her to the Bel-Air Party to meet Flynn. He told her Flynn might be able to get her work in the movies “if she played up to him”. </p>
<p>Betty complied and after Flynn gave her a drink, she felt ill. He took her upstairs where she said he undressed her and had sex with her. </p>
<p>Yet it was deemed that both girls had committed “crimes”: one had later undergone an abortion and the other had performed an illegal “sex act” with another man and was in “protective custody” throughout the subsequent legal proceedings. </p>
<p>Flynn denied the charges, arguing instead that the girls were trying to get rich by making accusations against him. Flanked by his two attorneys, he walked a corridor “crammed with curious women” and fans to hear the evidence against him. Proceedings did not go his way and the case proceeded to a preliminary hearing on the three statutory “morals offenses”. </p>
<p>Immediately after this hearing Flynn started planting the seeds of a great conspiracy story involving studios and politicians in which he was framed, an argument he pushed once the case was over. “It is very strange,” he said, “that I am now charged with an alleged offense that supposedly took place more than a year ago.”</p>
<p>Appealing to the wartime patriotic mood, Flynn concluded, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>recently I became an American citizen and have absolute and abiding faith in American principles of justice. I am confident my innocence will be demonstrated in court beyond any doubt.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488891/original/file-20221009-58516-mwbb1c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">News of the rape allegations in the Los Angeles Times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Smiles and glances</h2>
<p>In November, a preliminary hearing was held into the three charges. Would Flynn’s legions of fans, especially women, desert him now he was accused of rape? Those questions were answered by the capacity crowds gathered outside the courtroom hoping to catch a glimpse of the star. Fortunate fans got seats inside the court to witness the proceedings, which would determine if Flynn would face a trial and a possible 50-year jail term. </p>
<p>His lawyers inflicted damage on contrary versions of events. But Satterlee vividly recalled Flynn “attacking” her on his boat in ways that were “so savage” she feared “he would murder me”. The judge thought he had a case to answer and sensationally, Errol Flynn was ordered to stand trial. </p>
<p>When Flynn’s trial opened on 11 January, 1943 his performance in the courtroom was arguably the most consequential of his career. The young accusers were photographed and subject to even greater scrutiny as they appeared in court without any measures to protect their anonymity. It was free public entertainment of the most titillating kind. Much of the testimony was deemed unprintable in family newspapers. </p>
<p>So sensational had this trial become that <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/75898454/7414553">crowds of women</a>, from girls to grandmothers, clamoured for entry into the courtroom. Medical teams were on hand “in case fans fainted and had to be resuscitated”. Barricades were erected to hold back crowds that began gathering two hours before the court doors opened. When they did open, identifications were checked to ensure no woman younger than 21 was permitted; so unsuitable was the content of the case for delicate female ears. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489520/original/file-20221013-24-ammf7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crowds outside the courtroom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The much younger accusers were given no such protections at all as the prosecution, and the press, applied maximum pressure to the teenagers. </p>
<p>Outside, women crowded around the courthouse, grabbing at Flynn as he passed by, giving him words of encouragement, begging for autographs, even souveniring buttons ripped from his bespoke suits. </p>
<p>He received thousands of letters from adoring, mostly female, fans. His films had become sellouts, so Warner Brothers rushed his next film, ironically titled Gentleman Jim, through production. Flynn’s rape trial had not only added lustre to his star, it was “extraordinarily good for business,” one newspaper reported. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488886/original/file-20221009-59215-6ch5ae.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The film Gentleman Jim, in which Flynn starred as heavyweight boxing champion James J. Corbett.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">idmb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women played critical roles as accusers, witnesses and onlookers but arguably the most important women in this whole affair – for Flynn at least – became the jurors. </p>
<p>Flynn’s defence team wanted an all-woman jury, a tactic the prosecution opposed. A pool of potential jurors were questioned for nearly three days about whether they believed in a “Hollywood double standard – one for actors and actresses and another for non-professionals” (but notably not a sexual double standard for men and women) and whether they were willing to “waive their modesty for the duration of the trial”.</p>
<p>They were asked </p>
<blockquote>
<p>if the complaining witnesses […] cried on the witness stand, would you sympathise with them or would that cause you to pity them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A nine-woman and three-man jury was empaneled. Along with their names, occupations and street addresses, photographs of the jurors were published prominently. The women were housewives, the three male jurors were a retired grocer and insurance salesman, a retired civil engineer and a utility company employee. </p>
<p>Dressed in dark and dour attire as “respectable” middle-class ladies, at first glance the women jurors seemed unlikely candidates to empathise with Flynn. But he did his best to ensure their sympathies lay with him.</p>
<p>Across the courtroom, he exchanged “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/202376989?searchTerm=Errol%20Flynn">glances and smiles with the motherly ladies</a>” as one newspaper reported, and as the trial progressed it became clear Flynn stirred something in these women, though they were “mature, to say the least, and many bespectacled and plain”. </p>
<h2>Suspect virtue</h2>
<p>Flynn’s lawyers went after the accusers with vengeance. The young women were nervous and stumbled over the forensic examination of events presented to them; they came across to the jury as scheming liars. </p>
<p>Also, the defence team was at pains to stress that these were working-class girls, poorly educated and supervised and their virtue very suspect. </p>
<p>Their short sexual histories were forensically examined (Flynn’s famously prolific sexual history was considered irrelevant) and used to sway the jury’s opinion about who was the innocent party. </p>
<p>The defence also hammered the notion that the charges against Flynn were a money-making scheme. The judge deemed the vivid account of Satterlee inadmissible. He therefore took the most relevant and revealing piece of evidence out of the case. </p>
<p>Witnesses at the Bel Air party gave conflicting accounts. Meanwhile, a medical examiner examined Satterlee after the yacht trip and reported “evidences of recent molestations” – but this was discounted in court because the doctor was a woman. A photographer also testified that Satterlee was distressed after the boat trip ended. But essentially, the case boiled down to the testimony of the girls against that of Flynn.</p>
<p>After his lawyers demolished the accusers, it was Flynn’s turn to take the stand. “Unsmiling and serious”, according to the Chicago Daily Tribune, Flynn did not deviate from his “firm, blanket denial” that he was guilty of any misconduct. He emphatically denied having sex with either girl though he acknowledged taking Satterlee on his yacht and meeting Hansen at the party. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488888/original/file-20221009-58588-2je82q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flynn did not deviate from a firm, blanket denial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">imdb</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In dramatic cross-examination, Flynn’s lead attorney stood in the middle of the courtroom and “thunderingly” asked a series of short questions covering the allegations against him. Flynn “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140455761?searchTerm=Errol%20Flynn">answered with dramatic, staccato negatives</a>”. </p>
<p>Then it was the deputy district attorney’s turn to examine the witness. Despite “gruelling questioning”, Flynn did not “budge”. It was a brilliant performance. </p>
<p>When the prosecutor made his final arguments, he <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78467194?searchTerm=Errol%20Flynn#">implored the jury</a> to see through Flynn’s “charm”. Flynn “has used his great acting ability for reprehensible purposes”, he said, but he should be treated the same as every other man, and be sent to prison for his crimes. </p>
<p>Flynn’s lead attorney saved his grandest performance for the last. He urged the jurors to “set Flynn free and return him to Hollywood as one of its brightest stars”. Flynn was an honourable man “set upon by two scheming girls with their charges of statutory rape”. </p>
<p>According to AAP, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/167645222?searchTerm=Errol%20Flynn">the attorney Jerry Geisler</a> shouted to emphasise his arguments. He even leapt into the witness box, squeezed his “plumpness into a chair” and “turned on a female impersonation act”, crossing his legs and aping one of the accuser’s diction. </p>
<p>The judge <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/231749431?searchTerm=Errol%20Flynn">warned the jury</a> it must regard the testimony of both accusers “with great care and caution”. </p>
<p>He also told the jurors that “a birth certificate was only prima facie evidence and not conclusive”, essentially arguing that Flynn was fooled into thinking the accsuers were older than they were, so carnal knowledge (even if it had happened) was not at issue. The jury was left with the clear assertion that these two young women were the predators. </p>
<p>On February 6, the jury returned its verdict. </p>
<p>When the three “not guilty” verdicts were read, Flynn leapt from his chair and rushed to the forewoman, before giving each juror, even the two elderly men who were the holdouts in his acquittal, his deepest thanks and gratitude. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488892/original/file-20221009-78090-jwsrre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flynn shakes hands with the jury after the verdict.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The courtroom erupted. A crowd of “semi-hysterical” women mobbed Flynn outside it. “My confidence now has been justified in essential American justice. I really mean it”, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2620470?searchTerm=Errol%20Flynn#">he declared</a>. “I didn’t become an American citizen for nothing.” </p>
<p>Reading about Flynn’s trial today, one sees it through the lens of the resurgence of deeply conservative forces in America reacting to the gains in social empowerment women have made. Abortion, for instance, is once again a crime in numerous states. </p>
<p>The public spectacle also brings to mind <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/johnny-depp-amber-heard-defamation-trial-summary-timeline-rcna26136">Johnny Depp’s defamation case against Amber Heard.</a> The legal issues in this recent trial were completely different – Depp was suing for defamation. But the case mobilised legions of Depp fans around the courthouse and on the internet who heaped scorn on Heard. Depp’s most beloved film role is the swashbuckling pirate, Jack Sparrow. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-johnny-depp-amber-heard-defamation-trial-shows-the-dangers-of-fan-culture-182557">The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial shows the dangers of fan culture</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Errol Flynn was one of the first film stars to contend with fame on a mass and intense scale. His trial was a media circus, in which his male privilege was preserved. He had defeated what he termed, in echoes of colonial New Guinea, “the head-hunters of California”. His teenage accusers, lured to Hollywood’s bright lights, were compelled to participate in a traumatic court case in which the industry’s exploitation of young women was briefly exposed. </p>
<p>Though they were cast as scheming predators, the two girls tried to return to obscurity and rebuild their lives after the trial. It would take the #MeToo movement in 2017 – 75 years later – for the systematic abused embedded in Hollywood’s structures of power to be taken seriously. </p>
<p><em>Patricia O'Brien’s forthcoming book is a world history written through a biography of Errol Flynn.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia A. O'Brien received funding as a Future Fellow from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>In October 1942, Errol Flynn was one of the world’s biggest movie stars. When two teenage girls accused him of rape, his trial became a public spectacle and an insight into sexual double standards.Patricia A. O'Brien, Faculty Member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; Visiting Fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University., Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1918412022-10-12T16:03:43Z2022-10-12T16:03:43Z#MeToo in space: We must address the potential for sexual harassment and assault away from Earth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489385/original/file-20221012-25-vyx3sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5472%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are fewer women than men astronauts involved in research, training and missions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CH W/Unsplash)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A new dawn of space exploration is upon us. NASA aims to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/">land the first woman and person of colour</a> on the moon by the end of 2025, and send a crew on a year-and-a-half long mission to Mars in the 2030s. </p>
<p>To ensure a safe and pleasurable journey to the final frontier, national agencies such as <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a> and private companies such as <a href="https://www.spacex.com/">SpaceX</a> must address both the technical and human factors associated with working and living in space. Yet, the realities of sexuality and intimacy in space are mostly omitted.</p>
<p>How will people be able to live for prolonged periods of time in the isolated, confined and extreme conditions of spacecrafts and other planets? How will people navigate falling in love, having sex and beginning and ending relationships under such conditions? How will people deal with the stress, limited choice of intimate partners and issues related to consent? And how will sexual harassment or assault be prevented or addressed?</p>
<p>On Oct. 15, 2017, #MeToo ushered in a global movement against sexual harassment and assault. As researchers exploring human factors in space and space sexology — the study of intimacy and sexuality away from Earth — we argue that it is time to plan for the future of #MeToo in space.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/love-and-rockets-we-need-to-figure-out-how-to-have-sex-in-space-for-human-survival-and-well-being-167515">Love and rockets: We need to figure out how to have sex in space for human survival and well-being</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sexual assault and space research</h2>
<p>On Dec. 3, 1999, Judith Lapierre, a Canadian nurse and social medicine researcher, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/space-researcher-quits-over-sexual-harassment/article4162149/">embarked on a 110-day Mars simulation experiment aboard a Mir Space Station replica in Moscow</a>. Lapierre was the only woman in an eight-member crew. </p>
<p>One month into the study, the Russian chief commander discussed running an experiment where Lapierre would be treated as the crew’s sexual object. On New Year’s Eve, he stated it was time to “do the experiment,” and forcibly grabbed and kissed Lapierre despite her repeated requests to stop. </p>
<p>Lapierre notified the <a href="https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/">Canadian Space Agency</a> and informed her Austrian crew commander, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/space-researcher-recounts-her-horror/article4162603/">who immediately demanded action from the local and international management</a>. </p>
<p>When interviewed by the media after the experiment, Lapierre opened up about her expectations of a safe, harassment-free and violence-free working environment. Yet some Russian news outlets blamed and misrepresented her as depressed and the cause of unrelated problems, <a href="https://archive.macleans.ca/article/2000/4/17/a-space-dream-sours">including a physical altercation between Russian crew members</a>. </p>
<p>The aggression during the simulation experiment were reduced to cultural differences. And since then, Lapierre’s time in the space sector <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6955149">became an uphill battle because she spoke out</a>.</p>
<p>As she describes in Rudolph and Werner Herzog’s 2022 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14960976/"><em>Last Exit: Space</em></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When that mission finished, it really influenced my whole career because I thought this would be the start of my research project with the space agency or the start of my field of work, but I was just totally pushed out of the system.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pwwgU-64mKY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption"><em>Last Exit:Space</em> explores what space colonization means.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Other research contexts</h2>
<p>Lapierre is not alone. Sexual harassment has also happened in other contexts
similar to the extreme conditions of actual and simulated space environments. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/documents/USAP%20SAHPR%20Report.pdf">2022 report commissioned by the National Science Foundation (NSF)</a> showed that out of the 290 female respondents, 72 per cent and 47 per cent agreed that sexual harassment and sexual assault, respectively, are a problem in the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). As one of the survivors reported: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I know none of this is news to you, it’s just a known fact around station. It’s so self-evident that [it’s] barely worth speaking out loud. [Sexual assault and sexual harassment] are a fact of life [here], just like the fact that Antarctica is cold and the wind blows.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The NSF report highlights the lack of adequate prevention, reporting and response systems, as well as the lack of support for victim-survivors and the lack of trust in human resources and USAP leadership. And only a minority of the leadership agreed that sexual harassment (40 per cent) and sexual assault (23 per cent) are a problem in the USAP. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/antarctic-stations-are-plagued-by-sexual-harassment-its-time-for-things-to-change-189984">Antarctic stations are plagued by sexual harassment – it's time for things to change</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>This is not limited to the USAP. In 2021, employees of the aerospace companies <a href="https://www.space.com/19584-blue-origin-quiet-plans-for-spaceships.html">Blue Origin</a> <a href="https://www.space.com/spacex-sexual-harassment-allegations-lawsuits">and SpaceX</a> came forward with an alarming array of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.lioness.co/post/bezos-wants-to-create-a-better-future-in-space-his-company-blue-origin-is-stuck-in-a-toxic-past">open essay</a>, a group of 21 current and former employees of Blue Origin denounced a sexist work culture, inappropriate behaviours toward women and cases of sexual harassment by senior leaders.</p>
<h2>No end in sight?</h2>
<p>For humankind to safely take its next steps into the universe, the culture of space exploration must change.</p>
<p>These harrowing events call for national agencies and private space companies to adopt a proactive stance against sexual harassment and assault. NASA and other space organizations must go beyond implementing <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/533577main_45013-Anti-Harassment_Brochure-Final.pdf">basic anti-harassment policies</a>. They must devote the necessary resources to put in place proper prevention, reporting and response infrastructures, including the support and protection of victim-survivors.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a mural in relief showing astronauts approaching an unseen something" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489386/original/file-20221012-21-dusw08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Clear guidelines need to be in place to prevent and address sexual assault in space.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Max Tcvetkov/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This may include the creation of separate oversight entities composed of sexologists and qualified health and psychosocial professionals. This may also include investing in <a href="https://www.mic.com/life/sex-in-space-research-space-sexology">the study of human relationships and sexual health in space</a>. </p>
<p>Victim-survivors need to be part of the conversation and solutions, every step of the way. This is essential to ensure the safety of Earth-based and space environments, and ethically conduct much-needed scientific research on human spacelife. </p>
<h1>MeToo taught us that collective action is powerful. And in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2021.2012639">words of Lapierre</a>:</h1>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is time, more than ever, to meet the real challenges of space exploration, with honesty, transparency, and by recognizing that Earth’s unacceptable behaviors are also Space’s unacceptable behaviors for a spacefaring civilization.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Emily Apollonio, CEO of Interstellar Performance Labs, co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191841/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Santaguida has received funding from Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Société et culture (FRQSC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Dubé received funding from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé (FRQS) and receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judith Lapierre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If history is any indication, space exploration will need to contend with and prevent sexual harassment and assault during missions and training.Maria Santaguida, PhD Candidate, Psychology of Human Sexuality, Erotic Technology & Space Sexology, Concordia UniversityJudith Lapierre, Professor, Nursing Science, Université LavalSimon Dubé, Postdoc Research Fellow, Kinsey Institute, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1919722022-10-06T12:17:06Z2022-10-06T12:17:06ZAbuse in women’s professional soccer was an ‘open secret’ – the ‘bystander effect’ and structural barriers prevented more players from speaking out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488302/original/file-20221005-26-e96y9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C4727%2C2816&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fans of the Portland Thorns hold protest signs during a game in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NWSLInvestigationSoccer/58c8718fb762417fbaa3c206e66073ac/photo?Query=women%27s%20soccer%20report&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=43&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Steve Dipaola</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/sports/soccer/soccer-abuse-power.html">An investigation has found</a> that widespread abuse of players in U.S. women’s professional soccer existed despite some of the behavior of coaches being “an open secret.”</p>
<p>Based on more than 200 interviews, <a href="https://www.kslaw.com/attachments/000/009/931/original/King___Spalding_-_Full_Report_to_USSF.pdf?1664809048">the report</a> – led by former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates – highlighted systemic verbal and emotional abuse against players, and sexual misconduct by coaches.</p>
<p>The allegations open a number of important questions regarding how such behavior was allowed to continue in a post-#MeToo society and after high-profile instances of abuse in other U.S. sports, notably <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/12/13/1063798289/nassar-abuse-survivors-settlement-gymnastics-olympics">women’s gymnastics</a>.</p>
<p>However, as <a href="https://www.clemson.edu/cbshs/about/profiles/index.html?userid=hkettre">social scientists who</a> <a href="https://www.sjsu.edu/people/robert.marx/">study sexuality and violence</a>, we have another question: What are the barriers preventing people from reporting instances of abuse? </p>
<h2>The role of bystanders</h2>
<p>The report into women’s soccer notes that although certain players did “doggedly” report misconduct, others were hesitant to come forward. Many players <a href="https://www.kslaw.com/attachments/000/009/931/original/King___Spalding_-_Full_Report_to_USSF.pdf?1664809048">mentioned structural barriers</a> to reporting. For example, some said that even if they had wanted to report misconduct, “they did not know how or where to make their report.” Others thought it was “futile” to report misconduct, given the failure by teams and the league to address the issue. These statements indicate serious structural issues within women’s soccer that need to be addressed by those in power.</p>
<p>Still, some players did not feel a sense of responsibility for taking action. These players said <a href="https://www.kslaw.com/attachments/000/009/931/original/King___Spalding_-_Full_Report_to_USSF.pdf?1664809048">they thought it was</a> “not their story to tell” or they did not want to act on “rumors.”</p>
<p>This reflects what the research tells us about a phenomenon known as the “bystander effect.”</p>
<p>Over 50 years of research has documented a <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2011-08829-001">bystander effect</a> in which witnesses fail to intervene, often because they assume someone else will take action. Research applying the bystander effect specifically to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9581-5">sexual assault</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518777555">and misconduct</a> has revealed that witnesses fail to intervene for a number of common reasons: they do not notice the misconduct; do not believe it is their responsibility to intervene; do not believe they have the skills to intervene; or are inhibited by the belief that those around them will negatively judge them for intervening. </p>
<p>Witnesses to sexual misconduct often fail to intervene for one or more of those reasons. </p>
<p>The report on women’s soccer found that <a href="https://www.kslaw.com/attachments/000/009/931/original/King___Spalding_-_Full_Report_to_USSF.pdf?1664809048">players</a> often didn’t think it was their responsibility to report, or they feared retaliation if they did – often through unfavorable trades to other teams. </p>
<p>What is clear from the report is that some sort of “bystander training” is needed in women’s soccer to help stop further abuse. Such training has proved to be effective with other populations, such as college students.</p>
<p>Bystander training programs strive to sensitize people to the warning signs of sexual assault and misconduct – like a young man leading a young woman into an isolated place – and provide them with skills so that they will know how to intervene when necessary. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.10078">these programs</a> might teach participants to speak up when hearing sexist jokes or witnessing sexual harassment, walk a friend home when he or she has had too much to drink, start a conversation with a young woman who appears to be uncomfortable with her date, or call the police.</p>
<h2>Bystander training appears to help</h2>
<p>We were curious about the effects these bystander programs have on the behavior of witnesses to sexual misconduct. So in a 2018 study, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0927-1">we analyzed data</a> from over 6,000 college students across the United States and found that programs designed to prevent sexual assault by increasing onlookers’ interventions do have a meaningful effect on bystander behavior. Compared to peers who did not participate in a bystander program, college students who did participate reported a greater ability to intervene and greater intentions to intervene, should a situation require it.</p>
<p>Most important, those who participated in a bystander program reported actually engaging in more bystander intervention behaviors than those who did not participate in a program. On average, these participants reported two more instances of bystander intervention in the months following the bystander program than their peers who did not attend a bystander program. Simply put, bystander programs are successful at encouraging bystanders to intervene when witnessing sexual misconduct or its warning signs. </p>
<p>Although we looked specifically at college students, we believe the findings apply to other populations.</p>
<p>The report of widespread abuse in women’s soccer reminds us that sexual misconduct is common in society and that its prevention is a communal responsibility. </p>
<p>As researchers who study sexuality, violence and prosocial behavior, we believe that bystanders need to keep their eyes open and speak up on behalf of potential victims. Our research demonstrates that having been educated about bystander strategies leads to greater intervention. As a society, we should strive to become better bystanders by noticing warning signs, knowing strategies to intervene and remembering that we have a collective responsibility to prevent sexual misconduct and assault.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Portions of this article originally appeared in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/bystander-effect-and-sexual-assault-what-the-research-says-104360">previous article published</a> on Oct. 5, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Hensman Kettrey has received funding from the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Marx does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new report has highlighted ‘systemic’ verbal, emotional and sexual abuse of women’s soccer players. Many feared retaliation if they spoke out, while others didn’t think it was their place.Heather Hensman Kettrey, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Clemson UniversityRobert Marx, Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Development, San José State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765652022-03-07T19:07:40Z2022-03-07T19:07:40ZIs the #MeToo era a reckoning, a revolution, or something else?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449738/original/file-20220303-25-bebnlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=824%2C20%2C2987%2C3049&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women's solidarity march, Sydney, 21 January 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The world”, declares Laurie Penny on the first page of their new book, “is in the middle of a sexual revolution.” And unlike earlier sexual revolutions, this one is for real – provided we eradicate capitalism, fascism and the patriarchy. </p>
<p>With this call, it’s business as usual for British writer and activist Penny, who has never sugar-coated their feminist and radical politics.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Sexual Revolution: Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback - Laurie Penny (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Penny – who is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns – first came to public attention in the 2000s with the blog Penny Red and regular columns in left-leaning outlets like the Guardian and New Statesmen. A steady stream of books followed, with arresting titles like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unspeakable_Things">Unspeakable Things</a> (2014) and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/bitch-doctrine-9781408881606/">Bitch Doctrine</a> (2017), in which Penny dared to call out the sexism of the radical-left circles in which they moved. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449648/original/file-20220302-34218-l4zwix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449648/original/file-20220302-34218-l4zwix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449648/original/file-20220302-34218-l4zwix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449648/original/file-20220302-34218-l4zwix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449648/original/file-20220302-34218-l4zwix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449648/original/file-20220302-34218-l4zwix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449648/original/file-20220302-34218-l4zwix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>Anticipating the first-person feminism of Australia’s Clementine Ford, among others – and updating the 1970s mantra ‘the personal is political’ for a new generation – Penny has often shared difficult and intimate personal experiences, from anorexia to masturbation to sexual assault. And while they have been what would now be described as “extremely online”, they have also gone in person to where the action is, whether taking part in the Occupy movement or travelling to Greece to observe the financial crisis up close.</p>
<p>Given all that Penny has been writing and protesting about for well over a decade, it was inevitable that they would write what could broadly be described as a #MeToo book – indeed, most of their six previous books have been #MeToo books of a kind. Penny deserves recognition for writing about sex and power in unapologetically feminist terms when mainstream feminism was widely considered to be in the doldrums, passé, and/or no longer necessary. </p>
<p>Still, it’s no longer 2007 – which, as well as being the year Penny started blogging, was also the year that African American activist and survivor Tarana Burke launched the #MeToo movement, her hashtag raising awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault. </p>
<p>Since 2017, when #MeToo went viral and then global, countless words have been written about it by feminists, including Burke, whose memoir <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250621757/unbound">Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement</a> (2021) is essential reading. Penny is entering a crowded field, inviting the question of what is new and distinctive about the grandiosely titled Sexual Revolution: Modern Fascism and the Feminist Fightback. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449659/original/file-20220302-21-d2p819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449659/original/file-20220302-21-d2p819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449659/original/file-20220302-21-d2p819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449659/original/file-20220302-21-d2p819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449659/original/file-20220302-21-d2p819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449659/original/file-20220302-21-d2p819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449659/original/file-20220302-21-d2p819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tanara Burke launched the #MeToo movement in 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-personal-is-now-commercial-popular-feminism-online-79930">Friday essay: The personal is now commercial – popular feminism online</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At their best, Penny offers a rousing and enticing prediction for what sits on the other side of the #MeToo era. For Penny, the present moment is one in which “sex and gender are in crisis”. #MeToo is part of a “Great Reckoning” that almost nobody saw coming, because “when it came, it came from women”. </p>
<p>We are now “living through a profound and permanent alteration in what gender means, what sex means, and whose bodies matter”. </p>
<p>Everywhere “women, men and LGBTQ people … are walking quietly away from the expectations posed on them by thousands of years of patriarchy”. The changes underway promise “ways of life that are not based on competition, coercion and dominance but on consent, community and pleasure”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449737/original/file-20220303-23-rtz2pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laurie Penny.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet rather than telling us more about the “paradigm shift” that is remaking “our civilisation”, Penny’s book mostly explains the present moment by covering similar terrain to their earlier titles, with some new piecemeal research and updated terminology. </p>
<p>Frequently, Penny’s declarative mode undercuts rather than generates analysis. The abrupt pivots throughout suggest a book written in some haste. Anecdotal evidence and personal experience drive the narrative and analysis, so much so that Penny’s own journalism is alluded to rather than showcased. </p>
<p>For instance, Penny tells the reader that they have spent years “researching and attempting to understand the mindset behind the incel and ‘men’s rights’ and ‘seduction’ communities” and that the “problem is getting worse”. But rather than properly extrapolate, Penny references a few random studies and concludes with an ode to the heroes of the global pandemic – “not fighters or soldiers”, but “doctors, nurses, care workers and community leaders”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/incel-violence-is-a-form-of-extremism-its-time-we-treated-it-as-a-security-threat-138536">'Incel' violence is a form of extremism. It's time we treated it as a security threat</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The flashpoints of sexual and gender politics</h2>
<p>There’s no doubting Penny’s ambition. Across 14 chapters, most with an arresting if formulaic opening (“Pain is political, and so is pleasure”; “Heterosexuality is in trouble”; “Sooner or later, every revolution comes down to who does the dishes”), Penny covers the flashpoints of contemporary sexual and gender politics, including #MeToo and the backlash against it. </p>
<p>Much of what is argued is easy to agree with: capitalism exploits some people and bodies more than others; women continue to carry the weight of domestic and caring labour; economic and sexual exploitation are not separate issues, but are intimately linked. </p>
<p>In the chapter focussed on work, Penny refreshingly moves #MeToo beyond the realm of celebrity to other industries, such as hospitality, agriculture and domestic work. They devote the most attention to sex work as paradigmatic of all labour under capitalism. Yet Penny cuts short rather than enhances another promising thread by focusing on arguments that have been made more powerfully by others. These include sex workers themselves, as showcased in the anthology <a href="https://www.feministpress.org/books-n-z/we-too">We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival</a> (2021). </p>
<p>The organising themes of sexual revolution, modern fascism and feminist fightback provide some cohesion, but not in an especially sustained or persuasive fashion. </p>
<p>In Penny’s telling, “modern fascism” is a catch-all term that includes “neo-masculinist” strongmen like Putin, Bolsonaro, Trump and Johnson, the “overwhelmingly White men” who voted for them (a claim in need of some qualifications), incels, the far right, and any man experiencing a crisis or threat to his masculinity. It is a “brutal political backlash” provoked by “changes in the balance of power between men and women”. </p>
<p>Now, it is clear that authoritarian governments everywhere are much more likely to take away women’s rights than extend them, as Penny covers in a chapter on reproduction that focuses mostly on the US. But to make the case that “modern fascism” is best understood as a backlash against feminism requires more work than Penny is willing to do. </p>
<p>Other feminist thinkers have offered far more probing and genuinely disturbing accounts of contemporary misogyny, including another British journalist Laura Bates, in her book <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Men-Who-Hate-Women/Laura-Bates/9781471152269">Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pick-up Artists</a> (2020)</p>
<h2>The genealogies of #MeToo</h2>
<p>Like “modern fascism”, the “feminist fightback” is taken as a given, rather than something to be accounted for or documented. Penny prefers sweeping statements about “the greatest challenge to the social order in this century” coming from </p>
<blockquote>
<p>women, girls and queer people, particularly women, girls and queer people of colour, finally coming together to talk about sexual violence and structural abuse of power. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Furthermore, the “feminism” most often referenced is not the left, black or trans feminisms Penny seems most aligned with. It is the “choice”, neoliberal, mainstream feminism she criticises (as have many other feminists in far more encompassing fashion). For a self-proclaimed feminist book, Sexual Revolution is sparsely populated with actual feminists and largely bereft of feminist history. It is as though #MeToo came from nowhere.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449705/original/file-20220303-25-o8bie6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449705/original/file-20220303-25-o8bie6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449705/original/file-20220303-25-o8bie6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449705/original/file-20220303-25-o8bie6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449705/original/file-20220303-25-o8bie6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449705/original/file-20220303-25-o8bie6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449705/original/file-20220303-25-o8bie6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tania Serisier’s Speaking Out is an important work of feminist genealogy.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Genealogies have been identified and scrutinised by Tania Serisier in her important book <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-98669-2">Speaking Out: Feminism, Rape and Sexual Politics</a> (2018), among many others, including Tarana Burke. Yet in place of proper details about “feminist fightback”, we get Penny’s intervention: sexual revolution. </p>
<p>Cognisant that the concept of “sexual revolution” comes with hefty historical and cultural baggage (though not to the extent that they engage with relevant critiques), Penny attempts to rehabilitate it anyway. This sexual revolution, writes Penny, will deal “not just with sexual licence but with sexual liberation” – as though they are the first rather than umpteenth person to make this argument. This “new sexual revolution is a feminist one”. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449687/original/file-20220303-23-1yb3iyx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449687/original/file-20220303-23-1yb3iyx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449687/original/file-20220303-23-1yb3iyx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449687/original/file-20220303-23-1yb3iyx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449687/original/file-20220303-23-1yb3iyx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1219&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449687/original/file-20220303-23-1yb3iyx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449687/original/file-20220303-23-1yb3iyx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1219&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea of sexual revolution as unfinished business is decades old. So are expressions of what a “feminist” sexual revolution might entail. Penny’s update is to advocate for consent as the fundamental basis of the new sexual and economic order. Of course! But if we are at the midpoint of a sexual revolution, as Penny suggests, there is very little sense of positive developments in the sexual sphere. </p>
<p>Instead, Penny’s focus is overwhelmingly on how dire heterosexual relations are and how abhorrent the sexually desiring woman continues to be.</p>
<p>Sexual Revolution is a bulldozer of a book in which Penny opts for full-throttled polemic instead of nuanced analysis at almost every turn. There has always been a place for such books in the feminist canon, and Penny brings flair and spirit to the task. But beyond its potential value as a primer for contemporary feminism, it is difficult to discern who Sexual Revolution is written for.</p>
<p>I suspect most readers are already familiar with “patriarchy”, “rape culture”, “toxic masculinity”, “intersectionality”, and other key terms. </p>
<h2>From the rote to the muddled</h2>
<p>Though Penny was once a welcome feminist voice at a time of “post-feminism”, Sexual Revolution reads as outdated, or not up to its proclaimed task, despite its contemporary focus. It suffers from comparison with other books which have tackled similar material with more depth and insight. </p>
<p>The major titles of the #MeToo era have involved forensic investigative reporting. <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/586563/she-said-by-jodi-kantor-and-megan-twohey/">She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Started a Movement</a> by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, and <a href="https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/ronan-farrow/catch-and-kill/9780316486637/">Catch and Kill</a> by Ronan Farrow, both released in 2019, focussed on the case of film producer Harvey Weinstein and the women he targeted.</p>
<p>Penny promises a more wide-ranging and grassroots approach to sex and power, but only really skims the surface. In contrast to the polyphonic format of numerous anthologies, including the edited collection <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781760785000/">#MeToo: Stories from the Australian Movement</a> (2019), Penny’s voice eclipses the voices of people she knows have often been marginalised, including Indigenous women, women of colour, and trans, queer and non-binary people. </p>
<p>Penny is attentive to the racial and racist dynamics of both the far right and mainstream (or White or carceral) feminism. But these discussions are too condensed to take root and sometimes read as rote. “Quite apart from being ethically suspect,” Penny states, “any movement to end exploitation that fails to centre race is intellectually useless.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449710/original/file-20220303-25-1ul693u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449710/original/file-20220303-25-1ul693u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449710/original/file-20220303-25-1ul693u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449710/original/file-20220303-25-1ul693u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449710/original/file-20220303-25-1ul693u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449710/original/file-20220303-25-1ul693u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449710/original/file-20220303-25-1ul693u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sara Ahmed, author of the groundbreaking book Complaint!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In terms of connecting the dots between White feminism and political Whiteness, a more illuminating book is Alison Phipps’ <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526155801/">Me Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism </a>(2020). Phipps carefully and powerfully draws out the racist logic of what has come to be known as “carceral feminism” – an approach that advocates for increased policing, prosecution and imprisonment as key strategies for combating violence against women - evident in some parts of the #MeToo movement. </p>
<p>Penny’s book is muddled by comparison in the solutions it offers for dealing with perpetrators of sexual violence. As for the victims, Penny is sensitive to how and why they are often dismissed as “mad” or unreliable, but Sara Ahmed’s recent book <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/complaint">Complaint!</a> (2021) takes the subject much further and in new directions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/carceral-feminism-and-coercive-control-when-indigenous-women-arent-seen-as-ideal-victims-witnesses-or-women-161091">Carceral feminism and coercive control: when Indigenous women aren't seen as ideal victims, witnesses or women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Proper comprehension of what consent entails is at the heart of Penny’s sexual revolution. Given that it was only last year that <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-18/nsw-sexual-consent-app-proposed-by-mick-fuller/100015782">NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller thought a consent phone app was a good idea</a>, Penny’s promotion of “real, continuous, enthusiastic sexual consent” is welcome. </p>
<p>Yet as Kathleen Angel persuasively argues in <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/4032-tomorrow-sex-will-be-good-again">Tomorrow Sex Will be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent</a> (2021), the contemporary fixation on consent as the solution to the pervasive problem of sexual violence can place additional burdens on women, including the need to know emphatically what they want sexually. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449686/original/file-20220303-23-zrsfrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449686/original/file-20220303-23-zrsfrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449686/original/file-20220303-23-zrsfrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449686/original/file-20220303-23-zrsfrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449686/original/file-20220303-23-zrsfrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449686/original/file-20220303-23-zrsfrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449686/original/file-20220303-23-zrsfrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In making this argument, Angel hardly disavows the “bare minimum” of consent as central to contemporary sexual ethics. But she’s also sceptical about the very notion of “sexual revolution” that Penny so heartily advocates. Her book’s title is a reference to philosopher Michel Foucault’s highly influential <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-history-of-sexuality-1-9780241385982">critique</a> of what he saw as one of the delusions of the earlier so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s – that tomorrow sex will be good again.</p>
<p>As Penny recognises, #MeToo is not a stand-alone event or movement, but an expression of wider social patterns. It is a tipping point in understanding the ubiquity of sexual and gendered violence. It has galvanised feminism, and redirected and refocused contemporary discourses around gender and sex. </p>
<p>But its effects are too varied, diffuse and contradictory for the sledgehammer treatment Penny favours. Other feminist thinkers, such as British academics Amia Srinivasan and Jacqueline Rose, have pursued far more generative approaches. Srinivasan has productively revisted the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_sex_wars">feminist “sex wars”</a> in <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374721039/therighttosex">The Right To Sex</a> (2021), while Rose has consistently turned to psychoanalysis, most recently in <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/general-books/current-affairs-politics/On-Violence-and-On-Violence-Against-Women-Jacqueline-Rose-9780571332717">On Violence and Violence Against Women</a> (2021).</p>
<h2>A reckoning</h2>
<p>Penny is more successful in capturing the affective dimensions of the #MeToo era. On this front, Sexual Revolution is a worthy successor or companion to Soraya Chemaly’s <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Rage-Becomes-Her/Soraya-Chemaly/9781471172120">Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger</a> (2018) and Rebecca Traister’s <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Good-and-Mad/Rebecca-Traister/9781501181818">Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger</a> (2018), two early responses to #MeToo and the Trump presidency. These books are clearly part of the same zeitgeist, as their almost identical subtitles indicate. </p>
<p>While Penny clearly shares their faith in the political potential of rage (not all feminists do), Sexual Revolution is more useful is in its reflections, right at the end of the book in an extended endnote, on “trauma politics”. </p>
<p>Penny writes that “pain is not supposed to be part of the political conversation”. But it has become so, and the connections or continuities between intimate and structural forms of violence have become much more explicit.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449703/original/file-20220303-19-4l1jsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449703/original/file-20220303-19-4l1jsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449703/original/file-20220303-19-4l1jsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449703/original/file-20220303-19-4l1jsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449703/original/file-20220303-19-4l1jsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449703/original/file-20220303-19-4l1jsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449703/original/file-20220303-19-4l1jsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brittany Higgins addresses the National Press Club, Canberra, 9 February 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Where Penny leaves us is where Australian journalist Amy Remeikis begins in <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/amy-remeikis/on-reckoning">On Reckoning</a> (2022), her recently released and already bestselling monograph: the moment at which the complicity of modern politics in gendered violence is made starkly and painfully apparent. </p>
<p>For Remeikis, this was the day after former parliamentary staffer Brittany Higgins went public on 15 February 2021 with the allegation that she had been raped by a male colleague in Parliament House in March 2019. Some 24 hours later, Prime Minister Scott Morrison addressed the nation. At the prompting of his wife Jenny, Morrison declared that “he’d been reminded to think of the situation as a father”. </p>
<p>A parliamentary reporter, Remeikis was at work, typing out the Prime Minister’s words. She was first traumatised, then enraged by them: “Somebody else’s daughter. We always have to be somebody else’s daughter.”</p>
<p>Soon after, Remeikis shared her own experience of sexual violence in the Guardian, becoming a spokesperson for survivors in the process. On Reckoning powerfully reiterates and extends her key point that being “thought of as someone else’s daughter is not empathy”. It obliterates the experiences of real, rather than imagined victims. It sets limits on whose pain can even be conceived. Is it any wonder then, writes Remeikis, that “First Nations women, women of colour, trans and culturally and religiously diverse women have found it so hard to be heard?” </p>
<p>In the #MeToo era, the word “reckoning” has been used so often it can slip into meaninglessness. But Remiekis – like another Australian journalist Jess Hill, in another recently released essay with an almost identical title <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/reckoning-how-metoo-changing-australia">The Reckoning: How #MeToo is Changing Australia </a>(2021) – imbues it with fresh force.</p>
<p>As records of Australia at a moment of profound cultural change, they offer vital local and personal perspectives of a global phenomenon that has – among its many effects – reinvigorated feminist writing for the mainstream, mostly for the better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176565/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zora Simic receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Laurie Penny’s new book Sexual Revolution offers a muddled perspective on this moment of profound cultural change, in contrast to Australian journalist Amy Remeikis’ powerful new work.Zora Simic, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1722102021-11-24T13:57:44Z2021-11-24T13:57:44ZZadie Smith: how the Wife of Willesden brings to life Chaucer’s tale of sex and power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433500/original/file-20211123-20-82ghqz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1200%2C671&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">They call her The Wife of Willesden.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/the-wife-of-willesden/">Marc Brenner</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It could be easy to assume that <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-canterbury-tales-by-geoffrey-chaucer">The Canterbury Tales</a>, a collection of stories written in Middle English at the end of the 14th century, would not hold much relevance to contemporary debates about sexuality and empowerment. </p>
<p>But as Zadie Smith shows in her new adaption and her first play, this definitely isn’t the case. <a href="https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/the-wife-of-willesden/">The Wife of Willesden</a>, is a high-spirited take on Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath”, one of the 24 stories in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. </p>
<p>The Canterbury Tales tells the story of a group of 31 pilgrims who meet while travelling from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, South London, to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury, Kent. Chaucer’s pilgrims - including Alysoun, the Wife of Bath - take turns telling stories on their travels. </p>
<p>Smith’s tale takes place during a pub lock-in – with locals celebrating the Borough of Brent winning the <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/arts-and-culture/current-culture-projects/london-borough-culture/london-borough-culture-2020-brent">London Borough of Culture 2020</a>. It was this win that led to Smith (Brent’s most famous writer) being commissioned to write a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59307100">literary celebration of the borough</a>. This is what prompted her to recreate Chaucer’s Wife of Bath in a modern form.</p>
<p>In the original text, audacious Alysoun gives the longest prologue of all of Chaucer’s pilgrims, describing how she has been married five times. She tells her tale about a knight of Camelot who rapes a maiden. As a result, the knight is sentenced by Queen Guinevere to find out what women want most. </p>
<p>For a year he has no luck, but he finally meets an old hag who gives him the answer and in return, he promises to repay her as she wishes – a rash promise he’ll soon regret. The answer turns out to be that women desire “sovereignty” over their husbands, and the knight’s promise means he ends up forced to marry the hag. Luckily for him, she also has the magical capacity to be a beautiful maiden, provided he grants her autonomy to choose which form she takes.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/nov/21/the-wife-of-willesden-zadie-smith-kiln-review-rare-earth-mettle-royal-court">The Wife of Willesden</a>, Smith takes audiences from the medieval Southwark Tavern to the present-day Sir Colin Campbell pub on Kilburn High Street. And it is here we meet the red dress-clad, fake Jimmy-Choo sporting, cunnilingus-loving Alvita, played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0673907/">Clare Perkins</a>. </p>
<p>The tale told by Alvita, a 21st-century Wife of Bath, moves the location from the court of King Arthur to 18th-century Jamaica. Smith weaves medieval, contemporary and colonial contexts together with fiercely lewd humour that echoes Chaucer’s own bawdiness.</p>
<h2>Shame and Choice</h2>
<p>The lesson of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath about female sovereignty is particularly poignant because Chaucer was <a href="http://www.umsl.edu/%7Egradyf/chaucer/cecily.htm">embroiled in a rape case</a> of his own. Not much is known about the case other than the fact that Chaucer was released in 1380 from a charge of “raptus” made by Cecily Champaigne, the daughter of a London baker. </p>
<p>“Raptus” in court documents could indicate sexual assault, but also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/07/document-casts-new-light-on-chaucer-rape-case">abduction</a> for an arranged marriage. But whether or not the Wife’s Tale held personal significance to Chaucer, he chose to add the crime of rape to the tale and had Alysoun tell a story about sexual violence and choice. In fact, the rape does not appear in any of the source texts he worked with when writing his version.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Opening page of The Wife of Bath's Prologue Tale, from the Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433502/original/file-20211123-15-bc54ba.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Opening page of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue Tale, from the Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wife-of-Bath-ms.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In many ways, Chaucer’s Alysoun is a woman well ahead of her time. She condemns biblical scripture and medieval writings about women’s “chaste” conduct in marriage, arguing that God gave people reproductive organs to use, and she will use hers for profit and pleasure. Alysoun rejects literature that advises women to dress to protect their modesty. Instead, she wears scarlet stockings and new shoes – and goes on pilgrimage to be seen and to potentially woo a new lover. </p>
<p>Alvita is an unashamedly sex-positive woman in her mid-50s. She, like Alysoun, has been married five times. And, in Smith’s rough iambic couplets that render Willesden’s multicultural London dialects into verse, Alvita explains how she refuses to be told, by society, the church, her husbands, how to behave or dress:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My thing is: you want to think you’re a saint?<br>
Fine. But don’t slut-shame me because I ain’t</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Women’s Voices</h2>
<p>In Chaucer’s time, Willesden was itself a place of pilgrimage, not least for what was thought to be a black Madonna shrine, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/virgin-mary-in-late-medieval-and-early-modern-english-literature-and-popular-culture/walsingham-or-falsingham-woolpit-or-foulpit-marian-shrines-and-pilgrimage-before-1538/0036FA1CFF1396B17C2043C40661CDA0">known as Our Lady of Willesden</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black Madonna and Child" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433491/original/file-20211123-21-28hxf3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=663&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black Madonna and Child statue of Our Lady of Willesden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Our_Lady_of_Willesden_-_black_madonna.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Smith plays on this by taking Chaucer’s “gat-tothed” (gap-toothed) Alysoun, imagining her as Alvita: “gap-toothed like (pop-star) Madonna”, a smile which Alvita tells us, “suits us both; symbolises passion”. </p>
<p>The comparison with the singer is one of the many instances where Alvita pleads that her many spouses should not treat her like the virgin she assuredly isn’t, but rather as an empowered, independent and experienced partner. </p>
<p>As with Chaucer’s Alysoun, Alvita rated three of her five husbands as good, because they were old and she was able to manipulate them, while two were bad: younger men who cheated, lied and abused her. </p>
<p>Smith’s adaptation uses Chaucer’s references to sexual desire, domestic violence and freedom of choice to explore contemporary concerns such as the sex-positive movement, #MeToo, and incels culture or “<a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a20078774/what-are-incels/">involuntary celibates</a>”. Indeed, Alysoun’s arguments about clothing and sexuality become strikingly relatable to Alvita’s critiques of “slut-shaming” and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/men-sexual-assault-clothes-women-victim-blaming-rape-a8792591.html">victim-blaming</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman in red dress flirtatiously sits on man's knee in a pub." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433503/original/file-20211123-23-1nnfrnv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433503/original/file-20211123-23-1nnfrnv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433503/original/file-20211123-23-1nnfrnv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433503/original/file-20211123-23-1nnfrnv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433503/original/file-20211123-23-1nnfrnv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433503/original/file-20211123-23-1nnfrnv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433503/original/file-20211123-23-1nnfrnv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zadie Smith transports Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath to 21st-century northwest London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/the-wife-of-willesden/">Marc Brenner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alvita is a thrilling (and perhaps troubling) reminder of the way that the concerns of Chaucer’s medieval characters are still relevant today. Though Smith’s more inclusive rendering gives a voice to those silent in the original text, like Alysoun’s “gossib” (close friend) who becomes Alvita’s outspoken “ride-and-die bitch”, Zaire. </p>
<p>Ultimately though, at a time when even famous women can struggle to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/59338205">tell their stories</a> against powerful men, such tales about female agency have never been more crucial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Hanna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Zadie Smith’s first play delivers on what women want.Natalie Hanna, Lecturer in English, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1723752021-11-24T13:41:23Z2021-11-24T13:41:23ZWhat the Peng Shuai saga tells us about Beijing’s grip on power and desire to crush a #MeToo moment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433556/original/file-20211123-19-1v6two5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C88%2C4217%2C2719&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Forced into the darkness?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/shuai-peng-of-china-serves-during-her-ladies-singles-second-news-photo/964537912?adppopup=true">Cameron Spencer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chinese tennis star <a href="https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/32671331/photos-missing-chinese-tennis-star-peng-shuai-posted-online">Peng Shuai’s apparent disappearance</a> may have ended with a <a href="https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/32671331/photos-missing-chinese-tennis-star-peng-shuai-posted-online">smattering of public events</a>, which were <a href="https://www.insider.com/videos-peng-shuai-missing-chinese-tennis-star-questions-remain-2021-11">carefully curated</a> by state-run media and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/peng-shuai-video-china-tennis-b1961474.html">circulated</a> in online clips. But many <a href="https://www.insider.com/videos-peng-shuai-missing-chinese-tennis-star-questions-remain-2021-11">questions remain</a> about the three weeks in which she was missing, and concerns linger over her well-being.</p>
<p>Peng, a former Wimbledon and French Open doubles champion, had been out of the public eye since Nov. 2. 2021 when she penned <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/04/peng-shuai-accuses-zhang-gaoli-of-sexual-assault-in-deleted-post/">a since-deleted social media post</a> accusing former Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual misconduct.</p>
<p>In the U.S. and Europe, such moments of courage from high-profile women have built momentum to out perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault and give a voice to those wronged. But in the political context of today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) – a country that tightly controls political narratives within and outside its borders – something else happened. Peng was seemingly silenced; her #MeToo allegation was censored almost as soon as it was made. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://ccc.princeton.edu/people/yan-bennett">scholars of</a> <a href="https://www.cdu.edu.au/staff/john-garrick">Chinese legal culture</a> who have watched as the nation has become increasingly repressive under the premiership of Xi Jinping, we believe the mysterious disappearance – and brief reappearance – of Peng should be viewed within a broader sociolegal context. The episode shows that when presented with a potential pivotal #MeToo moment, Beijing is prepared to violate its own legal principles and respond with a state-media controlled operation aimed to chill any challenge to CCP authority.</p>
<h2>Claim of a sexual assault</h2>
<p>Peng’s Nov. 2 post on Weibo, the popular Chinese social media platform, reads like an open letter to Zhang, a retired but still powerful member of China’s Communist Party elite. </p>
<p>In it, the tennis star alleges coercion, duress and sexual assault. <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/03/china/china-metoo-peng-shuai-zhang-gaoli-intl-hnk/index.html">Peng wrote</a> to the 75-year-old Zhang:
“Why did you have to come back to me, took me to your home to force me to have sex with you? … I couldn’t describe how disgusted I was, and how many times I asked myself am I still a human? I feel like a walking corpse.”</p>
<p>The post was quickly taken down and Peng disappeared. But it sparked widespread international outrage. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/peng-shuai-tennis-stars-leaders-demand-boycotts-serena-williams-naomi-osaka">Current</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/BillieJeanKing/status/1459985672715046913">former athletes</a> expressed <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrissieEvert/status/1459848382307086342">concern</a> over Peng’s safety, including <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2021/11/17/shocked-tennis-star-osaka-posts-where-is-peng-shuai">Naomi Osaka</a> and <a href="https://people.com/crime/serena-williams-joins-athletes-speaking-out-about-missing-chinese-tennis-player-as-un-asks-for-proof-of-whereabouts/">Serena Williams</a>. The hashtag #WhereIsPengShuai started trending.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1460723353174433793"}"></div></p>
<p>Chinese state media responded by publishing a message purportedly from Peng, stating that “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59325399">everything is fine</a>.” But it was met with <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/17/china-state-media-release-supposed-message-from-peng-shuai/">deep skepticism</a> across the international community. Even with her reemergence at public events, concerns over her safety remain.</p>
<p>Behind the saga, however, is a clear message: It is dangerous to publicly criticize even a former senior Chinese Communist Party official. The party does not want any American-style <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/11/china/sexual-assault-mic-intl-hnk/index.html">#MeToo movement in China</a>, as it is hostile to any grassroots movements that challenge its authority.</p>
<h2>Being ‘disappeared’</h2>
<p>Peng’s disappearance also shows how authoritarian instruments of control are triggered by politically sensitive matters that contradict Communist Party narratives.</p>
<p>Such control of any sensitive narrative in China is commonplace with the CCP. Just ask <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56448688">Jack Ma</a>, the former head of Alibaba, or movie star <a href="https://global.tuidang.org/2021/09/14/who-was-behind-the-mysterious-disappearance-and-reappearance-of-international-star-fan-bingbing/">Fan Bingbing</a>. Ma, who was the richest man in China and a worldwide celebrity, criticized the Chinese financial industry. This criticism led to his <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2021/06/24/what-really-happened-to-jack-ma/?sh=40f4ced47c7e">quick disappearance from public view</a>. Thereafter, his <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2021/06/07/the-sad-end-of-jack-ma-inc/?sh=653e68e7123a">ANT Group IPO was quashed and assets disassembled and appropriated by government-controlled entities</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/04/fan-bingbing-mysterious-disappearance-chinese-film-star-elite">Fan also disappeared</a> from public view and eventually resurfaced, only to be fined for tax evasion. It appeared that the Communist Party considered her conduct may have had a <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/,fan-bing-bing-missing-chinese-government-social-responsibility-hollywood">corrupting influence on socialist values</a> with displays of wealth and glamour out of sync with Xi’s revival of Maoist concepts such as “<a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/11/22/chin-n22.html">common prosperity</a>.” </p>
<p>In Peng’s case, her story directly contradicted the Communist Party’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/reconsidering-the-history-of-the-chinese-communist-party">official narrative</a> of harmonious relations between people and Party. In particular, her allegations contradict the narrative that women, who <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/ol-women.htm">purportedly “hold up half the sky in China”</a>, enjoy <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/world/feminist-activism-china-social-death-amid-clampdown-women-speaking-out-1307000">gender equality under this government</a>.</p>
<p>Peng, for challenging this view, was given a taste of being canceled from China’s history and stripped of her rights under the Chinese constitution to seek justice in relation to her serious allegations. Indeed, the Chinese government has a history of unjustly detaining people involved in contentious cases, limiting their capacity to talk freely, and <a href="https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/china/after-wta-us-rights-group-questions-chinese-media-claiming-peng-shuais-safety.html">forcing statements</a>. </p>
<p>Under Xi, China enjoys a self-described “<a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/18/c_136688445.htm">socialist democracy with 'Chinese characteristics’</a>,” in which “<a href="https://www.mfa.gov.cn/ce/cegv//eng/bjzl/t225536.htm">the citizens’ basic rights are respected and guaranteed</a>.”</p>
<p>But the response to Peng, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-14/china-control-covid-origin-message-detention-zhang-zhan/13056420">amongst others</a>, shows that rule of law has become a ruthless, blunt force instrument wielded by party leadership. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.hoover.org/press-releases/hoover-institution-releases-essay-former-chinese-communist-party-insider-about">Cai Xia</a>, former professor at the Central Party School of the CCP, argued in June 2021: “the regime has degenerated further into a political oligarchy bent on holding on to power through brutality and ruthlessness [and] has grown ever more repressive and dictatorial.”</p>
<p>Cai continued: “A personality cult now surrounds Xi, who has tightened the Party’s grip on ideology and eliminated what little space there was for political speech and civil society.”</p>
<p>In Peng’s case, her “being disappeared” appears to be an attempt to kill several birds with one arrow: crush dissent, stem any Chinese #MeToo momentum and instill fear about criticizing CCP officials because, as the vanguard of the Communist Party under <a href="https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/09/01/in-china-xi-jinping-thought-now-compulsory-learning-for-students-in-primary-schools-to-graduate-programs.html">Xi Jinping Thought</a>, they must always be seen as virtuous. In short, “Xi Jinping Thought” is a set of policies and ideas taken from the various writings and speeches of General Secretary <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202111/24/WS619d6b6da310cdd39bc7715e.html">Xi</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Fight to the end’</h2>
<p>Peng’s allegations came at a particularly sensitive time for the CCP. It came just as Xi was preparing to deliver a <a href="https://hongkongfp.com/2021/11/12/china-ruling-party-leaders-pass-historic-xi-resolution/">historical resolution</a> aimed at further cementing his grip on power.</p>
<p>“The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered a key phase, and risks and challenges we face are conspicuously increasing,” <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/don-t-expect-an-easy-life-and-be-ready-to-struggle-chinese-president-xi-jinping-warns-officials/ar-AAO1Dbb?ocid=uxbndlbing">Xi remarked</a>, while vowing to “fight to the end” with any forces that attempt to subvert the party’s leadership.</p>
<p>“Any forces” apparently includes anyone who criticizes or challenges the Communist Party – even one of its own international sports stars making serious allegations against a former party official.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What happens when a Chinese #MeToo moment meets authoritarian legality?Yan Bennett, Assistant Director for the Paul and Marcia Wythes Center on Contemporary China, Princeton UniversityJohn Garrick, University Fellow in Law, Charles Darwin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1657962021-09-17T12:10:21Z2021-09-17T12:10:21ZAndrew Cuomo’s initial refusal to resign echoes executive harassment dilemmas for employers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421431/original/file-20210915-28-1kovc1l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=37%2C28%2C6253%2C4159&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stubbornly fought sexual harassment charges, as many executives do in business.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-call-on-new-york-gov-andrew-cuomo-to-resign-news-photo/1231480530?adppopup=true">Scott Heins/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/08/03/biden-calls-for-cuomo-to-resign-after-bombshell-report-details-pattern-of-sexual-harassment/?sh=5b8d4f1b3ff4">President Joe Biden</a> and many <a href="https://dailyorange.com/2021/08/ny-leaders-governor-andrew-cuomo-resign-sexual-harassment-report/">other public leaders</a> called for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign after an official <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.08.03_nyag_-_investigative_report.pdf">report</a> in August concluded that Cuomo had “engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment under federal and state law.”</p>
<p>Even before the <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.08.03_nyag_-_investigative_report.pdf">report</a> was released, many New York politicians had called for Cuomo to resign after a growing number of women alleged the governor had engaged in “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/everyone-calling-for-cuomo-resign.html">inappropriate touching and comments.</a>” </p>
<p>Cuomo ignored those calls and challenged the charges. But after facing <a href="https://wbng.com/2021/08/09/judiciary-committee-sets-deadline-for-cuomo-legal-team-to-give-evidence/">possible impeachment proceedings by the New York Assembly</a>, he decided on Aug. 10, 2021, to resign from his position. His resignation became effective 14 days later.</p>
<p>From my <a href="https://works.bepress.com/michael_z_green/178/">research as a workplace law scholar</a>, I have found a number of executives who, like Cuomo, have attempted to defend their actions as mere misunderstandings after being charged with complaints of sexual misconduct or harassment.</p>
<p>Cuomo’s challenge of the charges against him – which he carried out over many months – is one more example of the difficult prospects organizations face when one of their top executives is charged with scandalous and harassing behavior, but decides to contest those allegations. </p>
<p>As an investigation proceeds, an executive’s alleged misdeeds can hurt companies’ reputations and internal workings and lead to <a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-movement-finds-an-unlikely-champion-in-wall-street-with-the-new-weinstein-clause-100938">significant devaluing of stock or even bankruptcy</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="McDonald's golden arches sign in New York City." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421432/original/file-20210915-21-14vaapc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">McDonald’s fired CEO Steve Easterbrook after he engaged in a consensual relationship with an employee that violated company policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-mcdonalds-logo-is-displayed-on-a-restaurant-following-news-photo/1179909312?adppopup=true">Kena Betancur/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>CEOs face #MeToo</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/05/20/725108825/top-reason-for-ceo-departures-among-largest-companies-is-now-misconduct-study-fi">“Scores of CEOs were knocked down after allegations of sexual misconduct in 2018,”</a> reported NPR. The <a href="https://metoomvmt.org/">#MeToo movement’s</a> efforts to uncover executive harassment also contributed in part to the departure of high-ranking executives who were among <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2020-01-08/metoo-contributes-to-2019s-staggering-ceo-departures">the more than 1,600 business leaders</a> who left their jobs in 2019, according to U.S. News & World Report. Most of these 2019 departures included resignations, retirements and terminations due to routine business changes. Some of the specific exits were due to alleged wrongdoing of corporate leaders, including 20 departures after business scandals, 15 following allegations of professional misconduct and three <a href="https://35e5308vr2q35dq3y1cuvrbs-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Dec19-CEO-Report.pdf">specific instances of sexual misconduct</a>. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/04/19/anticipating-harassment-metoo-and-the-changing-norms-of-executive-contracts/">analysis of CEO executive employment agreements</a> demonstrates how organizations may suffer when their leaders exit. </p>
<p>The study’s researchers say that “CEOs are protected by written contracts that … limit the companies’ ability to terminate CEOs without paying significant severance pay. These provisions typically contain a handful of narrowly drafted grounds on which a company can fire a CEO ‘for cause’ (thereby avoiding financial liability),” but those grounds rarely include sex-based misconduct.</p>
<p>In the face of such damaging charges, executives may legitimately want to protect their reputations by fighting to deny the validity of the charges. Or they may want to exit with financial benefits in place – even while pressure mounts on the organization to terminate the executive.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/04/19/anticipating-harassment-metoo-and-the-changing-norms-of-executive-contracts/">empirical study’s authors</a> found that companies have responded to the #MeToo movement by adding language into contracts to allow them to fire executives immediately without waiting for an investigation to be completed when related to sex-based misconduct.</p>
<h2>New rules</h2>
<p>Companies have also started to strengthen their policies to prohibit even consensual sexual behavior between a subordinate and an executive. These actions recognize the power differentials that muddle the question of consent in such relationships.</p>
<p>As an example of these company policy changes, McDonald’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/mcdonalds-ceo-fired-steve-easterbrook.html">terminated its CEO</a> in 2019 after discovering his consensual relationship with a subordinate. His actions violated a newly developed policy. The CEO agreed with the board’s termination decision and acknowledged that he had exercised “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/mcdonalds-ceo-fired-steve-easterbrook.html">poor judgment</a>.” </p>
<p>McDonald’s gave the CEO stock options and other payouts of up to an estimated $40 million at the time of termination. After later discovering emails allegedly reflecting additional sexual misconduct with subordinates, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/mcdonalds-sues-to-recover-severance-from-fired-ceo-claiming-he-lied-about-affairs-with-employees-11597064924">McDonald’s sued the CEO seeking return of the payouts due to claims of fraud</a> and concealment of information. </p>
<h2>Prolonging the harm</h2>
<p>Because <a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/mcdonalds-ceo-fired/">an organization’s brand</a> can be severely damaged by the misconduct of its executive, organizations do not want to prolong the harm in situations in which the executive stays in the position and attempts to deny and challenge the charges. </p>
<p>Once the executive admits to, or cannot deny, some of the behavior, but still wants to contest the charges as being a misunderstanding, as in Cuomo’s case, employers have to decide whether to face the costs incurred by a long investigation versus the costs of a premature removal of an executive. </p>
<p>In the McDonald’s situation, quickly removing the CEO rather than conducting a long investigation prevented the company from damaging its reputation. </p>
<p>But discovering additional misconduct only afterward that may have justified firing the CEO without any compensation was costly. On the other hand, if an investigation ends up vindicating the executive, the company may have to pay the executive for any harm created by rushing to judgment in deciding to terminate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The entrance to New York City's Eataly food market." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421434/original/file-20210915-24-u1fwmh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Famed chef Mario Batali gave up his restaurants and his stake in Eataly Markets a year after multiple sexual harassment allegations surfaced against him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/customers-exit-eataly-a-50-000-square-foot-emporium-devoted-news-photo/1128860766?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h1>Tainted interactions</h1>
<p>Legal scholar Charlotte Alexander has <a href="https://theconversation.com/power-imbalances-are-at-the-root-of-sexual-harassment-but-statements-like-andrew-cuomos-dont-acknowledge-that-inconvenient-fact-158401">explained</a> how an alleged harasser with significant power over subordinates such as Cuomo should look at his behavior from the perspective of the subordinate – not what the powerful harasser thought he was doing. </p>
<p>Instead, Cuomo spent months continuing to deny any wrongdoing. He forced a costly investigation to be undertaken by the state instead of acknowledging that some of his behavior might be viewed differently from the perspective of the subordinates involved, as he did when he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/nyregion/cuomo-resignation-speech-transcript.html">gave his resignation</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://works.bepress.com/michael_z_green/178/">In my research</a>, I found many executives want the chance to defend themselves against the accusations. They try to circumvent any organizational concerns. This approach might work when a powerful executive is initially charged and the inappropriate behavior has not become widespread. </p>
<p>But Cuomo’s story and similar stories of executives I studied show a pattern of behavior involving many women that taints interactions with all other current and future subordinates. Those tainted interactions include perceptions of favoritism whenever an executive with a history of misconduct offers any form of benefits or work privileges to a co-worker. Staff can be hesitant to get involved in necessary mentoring relationships out of a fear that misconduct by the executive might ensue.</p>
<p>With #MeToo expectations changing the dynamics, a major takeaway from the Cuomo situation is that employers, whether in the private or public sector, may need to establish more immediate procedures to remove executives to prevent workplace harms. The <a href="https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/new-york-state-assembly-impeachment-investigation-costs-into-governor-cuomo-are-capped/71-9b25355e-e8f1-4e26-b8da-abf2953410ad">costly</a> Cuomo investigation further demonstrates this point, even though it involved the Legislature’s procedures for impeachment of a government official.</p>
<p>Employers may need to respond more quickly when an executive admittedly engages in misconduct with subordinates that affects the overall organization – even if the executive does not resign immediately or believes no misconduct occurred.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Z. Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>CEOs in private industry who have been accused of sexual harassment can cost their companies if they do as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo did and fight the charges.Michael Z. Green, Professor of Law and Director, Workplace Law Program, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1638202021-07-03T22:57:32Z2021-07-03T22:57:32ZWith support for Bill Cosby, Phylicia Rashad becomes just one of several deans to tweet themselves into trouble<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409536/original/file-20210702-23-unqsqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C6%2C4082%2C3028&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students at Howard University are already calling for Phylicia Rashad's resignation as dean. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/phylicia-rashad-attends-david-makes-man-clips-and-news-photo/1124931798?adppopup=true">David Becker/Getty Images for The Blackhouse Foundation</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For acclaimed actor Phylicia Rashad, July 1, 2021 was the <a href="https://newsroom.howard.edu/newsroom/static/14391/howard-university-announces-legendary-actress-alumna-phylicia-rashad-dean">official first day</a> on the job as dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University. But some hoped it would also be her last.</p>
<p>The day before, Rashad had sent out a <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/07/01/howard-university-phylicia-rashads-cosby-tweet-lacked-sensitivity/">controversial Tweet</a> in support of her onetime “TV husband,” Bill Cosby, after a court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/arts/television/bill-cosby-conviction-overturned-why.html">overturned his sexual assault conviction</a>. “FINALLY!!!!” Rashad wrote in the Tweet. “A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” This prompted <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/phylicia-rashad-bill-cosby-howard-university/">critics</a> and <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9748435/Howard-Students-call-Bill-Cosbys-former-star-Phylicia-Rashad-FIRED-supporting-him.html">Howard students</a> to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/phylicia-rashad-faces-calls-step-down-dean-after-bill-cosby-support-1605961">call for her resignation</a>.</p>
<p>Here, George Justice, an English professor and author of “<a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/how-be-dean">How to Be a Dean</a>,” offers insights on the controversy surrounding Rashad.</p>
<h2>Does Phylicia Rashad have the credentials to be a dean?</h2>
<p>Phylicia Rashad does not have the typical credentials of an academic dean. Most deans have served anywhere from 10 to 30 years as full-time faculty members. They also tend to have served as chair of their department or as an associate dean first.</p>
<p>But Rashad has a wealth of relevant professional experience, which can be as important as academic credentials for a school of fine arts.</p>
<p>Perhaps best known for her role on “The Cosby Show” as Clair Huxtable, Rashad’s Huxtable character was once <a href="https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2004/may/09/on-the-tube-she-was-the-mother-of-all-mothers/">voted in a poll</a> as “<a href="https://www.starnewsonline.com/article/NC/20040504/News/605090029/WM">TV mom closest to your own mom in spirit</a>.” Rashad is also <a href="https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/phylicia-rashad">no stranger to college campuses</a>. She has <a href="https://www.drama.cmu.edu/2015/02/20/phylicia-rashad-teaches-master-classes-school-drama/">taught master classes</a> at colleges and universities <a href="https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Phylicia-Rashad/">throughout the country</a>. She also served as the <a href="https://news.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/denzel-washington-endows-fordham-theatre-chair-scholarship/">first Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/dean-of-fine-arts-college-of-fine-arts-at-howard-university-2243951620">job description</a> for her current role as dean calls for 15 years of progressively responsible experience in management as well as “political adeptness” and “good judgement.” It also calls for “excellent oral and communication skills,” the ability to “relate well to the college’s diverse constituencies,” and the “inclination to be a visible spokesperson for the college.”</p>
<p>It’s hard to square that with the controversy in which she finds herself enveloped as dean of Howard’s <a href="https://newsroom.howard.edu/newsroom/static/14391/howard-university-announces-legendary-actress-alumna-phylicia-rashad-dean">recently re-established</a> College of Fine Arts. The college is to be <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/howard-university-names-fine-arts-college-after-chadwick-boseman-n1268666">named after Chadwick Boseman</a>, the late “Black Panther” star who is also an alumnus of the school. </p>
<h2>Does your book cover anything close to this controversy?</h2>
<p>My book opens with the famed <a href="https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/higher_education/racial-climate-at-mu-a-timeline-of-incidents-in-fall-2015/article_0c96f986-84c6-11e5-a38f-2bd0aab0bf74.html">2015 campus protests at the University of Missouri</a>, where I taught from 2002-2013 and served as graduate dean from 2011-2013. In that instance, the deans <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-missouris-deans-plotted-to-get-rid-of-their-chancellor/">teamed up</a> to help oust the campus chancellor and university system president for what was seen as their <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/11/09/the-incidents-that-led-to-the-university-of-missouri-presidents-resignation/">weak response to student protests</a> regarding racism on campus.</p>
<p>Since deans represent the academic aspirations – and integrity – of their faculty and students, they need to speak up on matters of grave importance to the colleges they oversee. Typically, when deans themselves create controversies, particularly those associated with race, gender, sexuality or religion, they resign or are fired.</p>
<p>For example, Sonya Duhe, the newly appointed journalism dean at my home institution – Arizona State University – was fired shortly after she accepted the position in 2020. Her undoing came after she <a href="https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/new-asu-journalism-school-dean-under-fire-over-alleged-racist-incidents">Tweeted support for “the good police officers who keep us safe”</a> on “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/arts/music/what-blackout-tuesday.html">#BlackOutTuesday</a>” – a day of protest on June 2, 2020 that followed the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57618356">police murder of George Floyd</a>. The Tweet prompted scrutiny that led to revelations that she had been accused of <a href="https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/new-asu-journalism-school-dean-under-fire-over-alleged-racist-incidents">demeaning students of color</a> at her previous institution. Specifically, it was alleged that she would tell them their hair was too curly or their complexion was too dark for them to be “camera ready.” Duhe is reportedly <a href="https://www.wdsu.com/article/former-director-of-loyola-universitys-communication-program-sues-school-paper-university/36468746">suing Loyola and its campus newspaper</a> for publishing a series of articles that portrayed her as racist.</p>
<p>In 2007, the University of California-Irvine withdrew an offer to have Erwin Chemerinsky serve as law dean. Chemerinsky wrote that the offer was rescinded after then-university chancellor Michael Drake told him he was “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/news/la-oe-chemerinsky14sep14-story.html">too politically controversial</a>” for an op-ed he wrote <a href="https://www.latimes.com/la-oe-chemerinsky16aug16-story.html">criticizing a federal regulation for death row inmates</a>.</p>
<p>And Ronald Sullivan, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/ronald-sullivan-was-fired-harvard-does-it-matter/589471/">first black faculty dean to preside over a dorm at Harvard</a>, was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/ronald-sullivan-was-fired-harvard-does-it-matter/589471/">fired as dean</a> over his work as a lawyer on behalf of disgraced filmmaker Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein is currently serving <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51840532">23 years in prison</a> for rape and sexual assault. Sullivan retains his position as a <a href="https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10870/Sullivan">tenured faculty member</a> in the Harvard Law School.</p>
<h2>Are there any other comparable cases?</h2>
<p>Two recent cases that made national news are those of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/05/18/yale-dean-placed-on-leave-after-writing-about-white-trash-and-other-insulting-comments/">Dean June Chu at Yale</a>, who was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/us/yale-dean-yelp-white-trash.html">suspended and never resumed her position</a> over writing Yelp reviews that suggested “white trash” would particularly like a certain restaurant. Dean Leslie Neal-Boylan of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell was fired, allegedly for an email <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2020/07/02/university-of-massachusetts-nursing-dean-fired-for-saying-everyones-life-matters/">stating “everyone’s life matters”</a> – a variation of a slogan meant as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-offensive-to-say-all-lives-matter-153188">critique of the Black Lives Matter mantra</a> – in the wake of the George Floyd murder.</p>
<h2>Do deans have to play by a different set of social media rules?</h2>
<p>Absolutely. Howard released a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CQxLAM-oBBh/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=3ebcb06f-09a0-422e-9dc1-f0edf93d5070">statement</a> after Rashad’s supportive tweet of Cosby saying that “personal positions of University leadership do not reflect Howard University’s policies.” In my experience, that is a highly unusual statement and indicates deference to Rashad that might not be shown to other high-level administrators by their employers. Research has shown that college presidents use social media <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/university-leaders-reach-out-through-social-media/">to bolster their institutions but are afraid of making mistakes</a>.</p>
<p>After backlash to her Tweet, Rashad sent out <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/howard-university-students-and-alumni-are-furious-with-phylicia-rashads-support-of-bill-cosby">another Tweet</a> that stated: “I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward. My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth.” Rashad also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/cosby-rashad-apology/2021/07/03/1181d1ec-dc0d-11eb-9bbb-37c30dcf9363_story.html">issued an apology on July 2 for her initial Cosby Tweet</a>, but it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/cosby-rashad-apology/2021/07/03/1181d1ec-dc0d-11eb-9bbb-37c30dcf9363_story.html">has not been enough to assuage some of her critics</a>.</p>
<p>Most deans and other university administrators that I follow have bland social media accounts. Their postings are mostly filled with praise for their institutions and self-praise for the great job they do with students, faculty and the community.</p>
<h2>How does Title IX come into play here?</h2>
<p><a href="https://sites.ed.gov/titleix/">Title IX</a> of the Educational Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination in American higher education. This includes sexual harassment and assault. Most universities, <a href="https://www2.howard.edu/title-ix/officers">including Howard</a>, employ Title IX administrators who advise campus leadership and conduct investigations on campus. <a href="https://dailynorthwestern.com/2020/05/10/sports/new-title-ix-regulations-no-longer-require-mandatory-reporting-in-colleges/">Until 2020</a>, federal law required leaders to be “mandatory reporters” who must pass along any information about possible incidents of harassment. Howard’s policy includes deans in the category of “<a href="http://dev.www2.howard.edu/title-ix/home">responsible employees</a>,” who are “expected” to report incidents to the Title IX office. Many of these incidents at universities relate to sexual matters among faculty and students, often with complicated power dynamics. As a “responsible employee,” and as leader of the School of Fine Arts, Rashad practically and symbolically represents the university’s compliance with Title IX. To her critics, her support of Cosby calls into question her ability to carry out that role.</p>
<p>This is a particularly important issue at Howard, where in 2016 students protested against the university’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/22/howard-u-students-protest-saying-victims-of-sexual-assault-deserve-better-treatment/">perceived inaction over sexual assault on campus</a>.</p>
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<h2>What factors will affect Rashad’s fate?</h2>
<p>As my book describes, her role as dean will involve hiring faculty, attracting students and working with the community. This includes raising funds to support the work of her school and the university at large. Prior to the Cosby controversy, Rashad may have been well-positioned to do these things based on her experiences and stature. But amid <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/phylicia-rashad-draws-critics-and-dismissal-calls-for-defending-bill-cosby/3136773/?amp">calls for her ouster</a>, it remains to be seen whether the strengths she brings to the position will outweigh this controversy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Justice is Principal in Dever Justice LLC, a higher education consulting firm.</span></em></p>A single Tweet the day before she took over as dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University has led to calls for Phylicia Rashad’s ouster. A scholar on college deans weighs in on what’s next.George Justice, Professor of English, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1604892021-05-11T08:45:54Z2021-05-11T08:45:54ZSexual misconduct in film and TV: how intimacy coordination can help to address the historic issue<p>Allegations of serial sexual misconduct by more than 20 women <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/apr/29/actor-noel-clarke-accused-of-groping-harassment-and-bullying-by-20-women">against British actor, director and producer Noel Clarke </a> have revealed a grim picture about the state of the UK film and television industries. At time of writing, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/may/07/noel-clarke-accused-of-sexual-harassment-on-doctor-who-set">more women have come forward</a>. </p>
<p>Four years after the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the rise of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/metoo-45316">#MeToo</a> movement, it’s clear there’s still an extraordinary amount of work that needs to be done to make film and television production cultures safe for workers - especially women.</p>
<p>As feminist media studies scholars who recently began a two-year study into <a href="https://cstonline.net/intimacy-coordination-and-new-depictions-of-sex-and-consent-in-contemporary-uk-television-drama-by-susan-berridge-and-tanya-horeck/">intimacy coordination</a> in UK television culture, we believe that intimacy coordinators play an essential part in wider efforts to stop sexually predatory and abusive behaviour in entertainment. </p>
<h2>What do intimacy coordinators do?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/25/normal-people-intimacy-coordinator-works-sally-rooney-sex-scenes">Intimacy co-ordinators</a> help to plan and choreograph intimate scenes (including sex scenes), mediating between actors and a range of roles – including writers, directors, costume designers and prop departments – to ensure that actors feel comfortable with every aspect and stage of the process.</p>
<p>Intimacy coordination ensures that on-set production practices are safe for all involved and that intimate and sexual representations are handled transparently and with care. While this role was developed prior to the #MeToo and Time’s Up campaigns, it’s taken on greater significance following heightened awareness of gendered abuses of power in film and TV.</p>
<p>Testimonies of abuse in this field draw attention to the fact that these aren’t isolated incidents, but rather part of a pattern of behaviour. As with Weinstein, in cases like these it’s alleged that many industry figures are aware of sexually abusive and inappropriate conduct and yet do not speak out. While the silence of bystanders is often framed as cowardice or moral failure, there are structural reasons that allow those who abuse their power to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1282832">“hide in plain sight”</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/staying-in-grace-why-some-people-are-immune-from-scandal-until-theyre-not-140908">Staying in grace: Why some people are immune from scandal – until they're not</a>
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<p>Although it’s imperative that abusers are held accountable for their actions, it’s equally vital that reports about sexual abuse in British film and TV are positioned in relation to a wider context of gendered structural abuse and workplace harassment in the sector.</p>
<h2>Sexual mistreatment in Hollywood</h2>
<p>There’s a long history of female actors being treated as objects on and off screen. In her recent memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice,<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/03/sharon-stone-on-how-basic-instinct-nearly-broke-her">Sharon Stone</a> reflects on what it was like to perform sex scenes as an actress in the 1990s. On the set of Basic Instinct (1992), which Stone starred in, the actor has recounted how she felt manipulated into the infamous police interrogation room vagina-shot, which she saw on screen for the first time in “a room full of agents and lawyers”.</p>
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<p>On a Desert Island Disc episode from 2000,<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/desert-island-discs/id342735925?i=1000517611839&fbclid=IwAR3hlaW5Sx2AXyr6xU186gFW5rfGszBXvEf-3V_LceDdUB9UvikB-dPmfgc">Kathleen Turner</a> told then host Sue Lawley that when she first arrived to shoot for Body Heat (1981) director (Lawrence Kasdan) expected her to do a nude scene without advance warning. When she expressed how nervous she was, her male co-star, William Hurt, reportedly pulled her aside and told her to drink a bottle of wine to relax herself. Though Turner frames the anecdote as humorous rather than abusive, it indicates a casual lack of regard for female actors around shooting sex scenes. </p>
<p>In a disturbing example from the 1970s, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/dec/04/actors-disgust-last-tango-paris-rape-scene-confession-bertolucci">Maria Schneider said that she felt a “little raped</a>” by both director Bernardo Bertolucci and actor Marlon Brando during the infamous anal rape scene in Last Tango in Paris (1972), which was shot without obtaining her consent. </p>
<p>It’s important to remember what it was like for actresses in the pre-intimacy coordination world - and often continues to be like for them without well-established production guidelines. That it’s taken so long for the male-dominated entertainment industry to allow space for such a role, let alone grant intimacy coordination the cultural legitimacy it deserves, is telling.</p>
<h2>A culture of consent</h2>
<p>Among many disturbing revelations about sexually predatory and abusive behaviour in the British film industry are accusations of coercing women into performing naked auditions, filming women without their knowledge and sharing video footage of these auditions with others. </p>
<p>Following allegations against Clarke, Kaya Scodelario, the former star of UK teen drama, Skins (2007-2013), <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/kaya-scodelario-naked-audition-noel-clarke-b1840159.html">posted a Twitter thread</a> in which she recounted being asked to take all her clothes off for a first audition with a big-name director (who she has yet to name publicly). She explained that it was only her agent’s refusal to let this happen that saved her from an exploitative - and potentially dangerous - situation.</p>
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<p>Intimacy coordinators have also been using Twitter to advise actors that no screen tests or auditions should ever involve nudity. As Lizzy Talbot, an intimacy coordinator who worked on the set of Bridgerton, tweeted <strong>important information</strong>: </p>
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<p>Ita O’Brien, author of the <a href="https://www.intimacyonset.com/intimacy-on-set-guidelines.html">Intimacy on Set guidelines</a> and a forerunner of intimacy coordination, <a href="https://twitter.com/ItaOB/status/1388532555834695681">has also issued a statement</a> calling for the dismantling of toxic behaviour and abuses of power in the industry.</p>
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<p>In <a href="https://www.timesupuk.org/find-help/guides/">response to recent allegations</a>, charity Time’s Up UK highlights how important it is to organise around “<a href="https://www.timesupuk.org/find-help/guides/">safety guidelines</a> to help people working in entertainment understand they have (…) a right to report sexual harassment and misconduct, free from prejudice and fear.” In the largely freelance and highly competitive film and television sector where speaking out has traditionally led to fears of being blacklisted, this advice is particularly important. </p>
<p>But intimacy coordination isn’t the sole answer to fixing structural inequalities. Nor is it the only way to make women safe in an industry with such stark gendered power imbalances, especially as some allegations of abusive behaviour take place off set. What it can help with, however, is <a href="https://www.intimacyforstageandscreen.com/guidelines.html">establishing clear guidelines</a> around what is and isn’t acceptable. That includes seeking explicit consent, looking at approaches to auditions and screen tests, requiring greater transparency over the filming processes of intimate and sexual scenes, ensuring closed sets and advocating for actors’ boundaries to be respected. Prioritising these measures is an important – and necessary – step forwards.</p>
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<p><em>The Rape Crisis England and Wales national freephone helpline is open daily from 12:00 - 14:30 and 19:00 - 21:30: 0808 802 9999<br>
The Rape Crisis Scotland national freephone helpline is open nightly 6pm-midnight: 08088 01 03 02</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160489/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Berridge receives funding from British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Horeck receives funding from BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants. </span></em></p>It’s not the sole answer to fixing structural inequalities, but as a profession committed to addressing harassment and abuse on set, it’s clearly neededSusan Berridge, Lecturer in Film and Media, University of StirlingTanya Horeck, Associate Professor in Film, Media & Culture, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1595142021-04-29T12:23:06Z2021-04-29T12:23:06Z#MeToo on TikTok: Teens use viral trend to speak out about their sexual harassment experiences<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397693/original/file-20210428-13-1th7r6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C4928%2C3280&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Girls face lasting negative effects of sexual harassment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/sad-girl-in-her-bedroom-royalty-free-image/1051068192?adppopup=true">FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/teen-girls-seek-out-safe-spaces-online-in-their-own-metoo-movement/">recent TikTok video</a> that has been liked by <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@emileegrant1/video/6940756521949089029">almost half a million</a> people encourages girls to record themselves putting one finger down for every time they have been sent unsolicited dick pics, begged for nudes, catcalled, repeatedly asked out after already saying no, and forced to do something sexual when they didn’t want to.</p>
<p>Similar videos about sexual assault posted by young women became popular in 2020. The <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@emileegrant1/video/6940756521949089029">new video</a> is aimed at teens and focuses on sexual harassment. By calling attention to how common sexual harassment is for teen girls, the “Put a finger down: Sexual harassment edition” video has become the 2021 TikTok teen version of the #MeToo movement of 2017.</p>
<p>This trend brings together two nearly universal realities in the lives of teen girls: the ubiquitous presence of social media and the daily barrage of sexual harassment. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tuYEhtgAAAAJ&hl=en">developmental psychologist</a>, I think this trend showcases how teens have developed a modern way of coping with a long-standing problem. </p>
<h2>Teens online</h2>
<p>Pre-COVID-19, a Pew Research Center poll found almost half of teens in the U.S. reported <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/">being online “almost constantly.”</a> Over the past year as they were stuck at home during <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22295131/social-media-use-pandemic-covid-19-instagram-tiktok">remote schooling</a>, teens relied on social media even more to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0478">cope with the forced social isolation</a>. </p>
<p>Lockdowns and remote learning are <a href="https://theconversation.com/teens-are-wired-to-resent-being-stuck-with-parents-and-cut-off-from-friends-during-coronavirus-lockdown-136435">especially painful for teens</a>, because they are at the developmental stage when the need to connect with peers is at an all-time high. </p>
<p>At the same time that teens are spending <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22295131/social-media-use-pandemic-covid-19-instagram-tiktok">more hours of their day on social media</a>, the content of what is getting posted has become increasingly focused on <a href="https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2020/09/16/covid-19-is-changing-how-why-and-how-much-were-using-social-media/">social issues</a> and “real-life” challenges and worries.</p>
<h2>Epidemic of teen sexual harassment</h2>
<p>It only makes sense then that a popular post on social media addresses one of the biggest sources of stress in teen girls’ lives: sexual harassment. Research with middle school and high school girls has shown that in fifth grade <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.11.010">one out of four adolescents have experienced sexual harassment</a> in the form of sexual comments, jokes, gestures or looks. By eighth grade it is one in two. My colleagues and I have found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01151.x">90% of girls have experienced sexual harassment at least once</a> by the end of high school. </p>
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<p>It occurs so commonly, and in public spaces like hallways and cafeterias, that by middle school almost all students (96%) have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272431610396090">witnessed sexual harassment happening at school</a>. If it isn’t in the school building itself, it is on their phones: <a href="https://www.planusa.org/full-report-the-state-of-gender-equality-for-us-adolescents">four out of five teen girls</a> have had at least one friend who has been asked by a boy to send a “sexy or naked” picture.</p>
<p>These sexual harassment experiences don’t leave girls unscathed. Girls <a href="https://www.aauw.org/resources/research/crossing-the-line-sexual-harassment-at-school/">describe sexual harassment as making them feel</a> “dirty – like a piece of trash,” “terrible,” “scared,” “angry and upset” and “like a second-class citizen.” Seventy-six percent of girls report feeling unsafe because they are girls at least once in a while. </p>
<p>The more sexual harassment girls experience, the more likely they are to feel <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.01.006">emotional distress</a>, depression and embarrassment, have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2007.00523.x">lowered self-esteem</a>, suffer from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9431-5">substance abuse</a> and have suicidal thoughts. Their attitudes about their bodies <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0165025419870292">become more negative</a>, with many girls not liking their own bodies and starting to have the kinds of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028247">eating behaviors that can lead to eating disorders</a>. And the more sexual harassment girls experience, the more likely they are to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1077801215599079">suffer in school, be absent more often and disengage from academics</a>.</p>
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<h2>Coping in isolation</h2>
<p>Yet, despite the damage it is inflicting, girls rarely talk about their experiences. Even though they report feeling scared, angry, helpless and embarrassed, they rarely report the harassment to teachers or parents and rarely tell the harassers to stop – largely because of worries about the social consequences. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.planusa.org/docs/state-of-gender-equality-2018.pdf">More than 60%</a> of teen girls worry about retaliation, “that the other person would try to get back at” them if they confronted or reported the harasser. More than half of girls worry that people wouldn’t like them if they said something, or worry that people will think they are “trying to cause trouble” or “just being emotional.” Half think they won’t be believed. </p>
<p>So, instead of saying something, more than 60% of teen girls say they try to “forget about” or “ignore” the harassment, chalking it up to “just part of life” as a girl. The problem with trying to ignore sexual harassment is that it does not work. Decades of research on the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.1.87">most effective ways to cope with stressful events</a> shows that seeking social support and confronting the source of the stress are much more effective coping strategies than trying to downplay or ignore the problem.</p>
<h2>Virtual – but beneficial – connection</h2>
<p>So, while the latest social media hashtag fad might seem trivial, talking about sexual harassment experiences in a TikTok video is likely profoundly beneficial. Teens use social media to connect with others. Research has shown that, although passively scrolling through others’ social media feeds can lead people to negatively compare themselves with others, which can contribute to feeling envious of others’ seemingly better lives, actively using social media – by posting their own thoughts – <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12033">can increase a person’s sense of social connections</a>. </p>
<p>Social connection, in turn, leads to greater psychological well-being. This social media effect seems especially true for girls: In studies in which girls used social media to honestly talk about themselves, they perceived greater social support, and their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2010.0374">well-being and positive feelings got a boost</a>.</p>
<p>This sense of honest social connection is particularly important for teens who have been sexually harassed. Our research has shown that teen girls are more likely to stand up for themselves and confront perpetrators of sexual harassment when they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.21727">believe their peers support them</a>. If honest disclosures on social media about their experiences help teen girls feel connected with others, they may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.4.464">feel empowered to say something in real life</a>, too.</p>
<h2>Putting a spotlight on sexual harassment</h2>
<p>Beyond helping the girls who make the videos, this recent social media trend likely also benefits the people watching the videos. The 2017 #MeToo movement made <a href="https://www.planusa.org/docs/state-of-gender-equality-2018.pdf">more than half of teen girls</a> feel that they could tell someone about what happened to them. It helped them feel less alone. </p>
<p>It also helps label these pervasive everyday behaviors as problematic. It is good for girls to recognize this doesn’t have to be just a “part of life.” </p>
<p>It is also good for boys to see that girls are not flattered by these behaviors. Our research shows boys sexually harass girls <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12150">largely because their friends do it</a> and because it <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-013-0320-1">becomes the norm</a>. They often think this is how boys are supposed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0743558420933224">express romantic interest</a>. Boys are rarely taught what sexual harassment is, and they often don’t realize how upsetting it is to girls. </p>
<p>Maybe these 45-second videos, instead of being just a fad, can be the public service announcement all teens need.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christia Spears Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A viral TikTok video is helping girls bear witness to the harassment they experience at school.Christia Spears Brown, Professor of Psychology, University of KentuckyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1575512021-03-30T11:38:01Z2021-03-30T11:38:01ZWomen frequently experience sexual harassment at work, yet few claims ever reach a courtroom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391875/original/file-20210326-20-8eensu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=226%2C46%2C4978%2C3418&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Unwanted touching in the office is an all-too-common experience for women.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/sexual-harassment-at-work-royalty-free-image/1216847792">anyaberkutiStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/cuomo-sexual-harassment-nursing-homes-covid-19.html">Sexual harassment allegations</a> against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, including at least three from current or former aides, are a reminder of just how commonplace unwanted touching, propositioning and other inappropriate behavior is in the workplace. </p>
<p><a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/54/3/articles/seiner.html">My recent research</a> explores the prevalence of toxic work environments – like <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/its-the-cuomo-way-former-staffers-describe-toxic-workplace-under-governors-relentless-thumb">the one described in Albany, New York</a> – and just how startlingly common sexual harassment at work is.</p>
<p>I discovered that even when women try to find justice by suing their alleged abusers, their cases rarely see a courtroom.</p>
<h2>An all-too-common experience</h2>
<p><a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/54/3/articles/seiner.html">My own extensive review</a> of numerous studies, surveys and reports shows that sexual harassment at work is a <a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/54/3/articles/seiner.html">very common occurrence</a> for women, <a href="https://www.edisonresearch.com/sexualharassmentworkplace/">regardless of age or income level</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2011.00300.x">numerous studies</a> and surveys reveal that the share of women who experience sexual harassment at work could be <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/select-task-force-study-harassment-workplace">as low as 25%</a> or as <a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/54/3/articles/seiner.html">high as 75%</a>. The actual numbers varied considerably, depending on industry, location and how the question was worded, but they were generally quite high. </p>
<p>This kind of <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964">unlawful conduct</a> occurs across all sectors of the economy, but recent studies show a high prevalence of sexually hostile conduct associated with workers in the <a href="https://www.edisonresearch.com/sexualharassmentworkplace/">gig economy</a> and the <a href="https://perma.cc/FL6S-JTK7">fast-food</a> industry.</p>
<h2>Winning claims gets harder</h2>
<p>Perhaps most troubling is the perception – and <a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/54/3/articles/seiner.html">unfortunate reality</a> – that engaging in this conduct will result in no real consequences. Indeed, among women who have experienced unwanted sexual advances in the workplace, almost all reported that <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11990/1893">male harassers usually go unpunished</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/54/3/articles/seiner.html">My review of case law and data</a> bears this out.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2017/03/is-sexual-harassment-a-crime.html">vast majority of sexual harassment claims</a> are pursued through the civil courts and <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment">Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964</a>. Unlike prosecution under criminal law, civil plaintiffs <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/remedies-employment-discrimination">may sue for damages</a>, and the burden of proof is lower in these cases. </p>
<p>Additionally, criminal cases <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-happens-when-sexual-harassment-cases-go-to-court_b_5a451d98e4b06cd2bd03de8b">typically require more egregious conduct</a>, such as a sexual assault, though some claims may proceed in both courts. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment">Under Title VII</a>, harassment victims may sue their employer for sexual conduct that is deemed unwelcome, severe or pervasive, and when the employer has failed to properly act. </p>
<h2>The Supreme Court raises the bar</h2>
<p>But, as the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/us/25roberts.html">has become increasingly conservative</a> under Chief Justice John Roberts, it has added <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/supreme-courts-new-workplace/83109F79F885301B81C127B3B693667A">additional procedural hurdles</a> for all employment discrimination victims, including those pursuing sexual harassment claims.</p>
<p>Most notably, in cases <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/550/544/">brought in 2007</a> and <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/556/662/">2009</a>, the Supreme Court articulated a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1477519">rigid new standard</a> for bringing civil claims – that the plaintiffs must allege a “plausible” claim for relief – which makes it far harder for workplace victims to bring them. </p>
<p>The plausibility standard is <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3269469">particularly difficult</a> for employment discrimination plaintiffs to satisfy. These claims often require a showing of discriminatory intent, which can be difficult to establish early in a case.</p>
<p>The court also made it harder for women to aggregate their discrimination claims after it raised the threshold for all class-action lawsuits in a <a href="https://casetext.com/case/wal-mart-stores-inc-v-dukes-2">2011 case involving Walmart</a>. This <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2232349">raised the bar</a> for women who sue their employers alleging pay and promotion discrimination. The same higher standard now applies to class-action sexual harassment claims as well. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/harassment">often easier for a victim to prevail</a> when a supervisor is involved in the unlawful conduct because, where a hostile work environment is established, the burden of proof shifts to the employer to show that it acted responsibly. But in 2013, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-556">court changed who counts as a supervisor</a> in the workplace, limiting it to someone with the power to hire, fire, promote or otherwise tangibly affect the accuser’s employment. </p>
<p>An analysis found that this <a href="https://archive.thinkprogress.org/exclusive-43-sexual-harassment-cases-that-were-thrown-out-because-of-one-supreme-court-decision-787793f93ac2/">quickly resulted</a> in 43 case dismissals. </p>
<p>Claims of sexual harassment with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency established to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, have <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/statistics/charges-alleging-sex-based-harassment-charges-filed-eeoc-fy-2010-fy-2020">remained quite consistent</a> over the past decade. Of the 6,500 to 8,000 or so cases each year, only about 3% to 6% ever <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/11/28/565743374/sexual-harassment-cases-often-rejected-by-courts">make it to a jury trial</a>.</p>
<p>What happens to the thousands of other cases is less clear because of the many variables and mixed reporting standards. Cases may be dismissed early in the case, during discovery or even right before trial. Compiling this data in any meaningful way <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/30/pf/sexual-harassment-data/index.html">can be difficult</a>, if not impossible. </p>
<p>To add to this problem, many other cases are settled, often pursuant to a <a href="https://fortune.com/2020/09/18/nda-workplace-sexual-harassment-discrimination/">nondisclosure agreement</a>, which means the parties can’t talk about what’s in it, so the exact outcome in these cases may never be publicly known. Indeed, many potential claims may even be settled before a case is ever filed, further skewing any case data in this area.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo gestures with his hands during a news conference with the seal of New York behind him" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391818/original/file-20210325-15-bxfaj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391818/original/file-20210325-15-bxfaj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391818/original/file-20210325-15-bxfaj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391818/original/file-20210325-15-bxfaj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391818/original/file-20210325-15-bxfaj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391818/original/file-20210325-15-bxfaj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391818/original/file-20210325-15-bxfaj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gov. Cuomo has resisted calls to resign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakCuomo/4b1759158b6d458e8a34772a2866cb09/photo?Query=cuomo&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8836&currentItemNo=5">Brendan McDermid/Pool Photo via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rejected claims</h2>
<p>My analysis of some individual harassment claims is still quite revealing and shows that the courts are – in many instances – failing to give these claims the attention they deserve. These courts seem to be requiring an almost impossible level of detail by the plaintiffs early in the case.</p>
<p>For example, in one recent case, a federal court dismissed a claim in which the alleged victim, a customer service agent and administrative assistant, asserted in part that her co-worker <a href="https://casetext.com/case/looney-v-simply-aroma-llc">rubbed his genitals against her buttocks</a>. In rejecting the claim, the court <a href="https://casetext.com/case/looney-v-simply-aroma-llc">found the allegations insufficient</a>, concluding that the victim “fails [to] offer sufficient factual detail that would allow the court to reasonably infer the frequency in which [the co-worker’s] actions occurred over the course of her employment with [the employer].” </p>
<p>Another court <a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/54/3/articles/seiner.html">dismissed a claim</a> in which the alleged victim, who <a href="https://ecf.ksd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2015cv7843-36">worked as a janitor at a manufacturing facility</a>, maintained that she was instructed by a manager not to speak with other workers without permission “because she was a married woman” and that her fellow employees would be “trying to sniff that.” The court held that the worker did not allege enough detail in the complaint to provide sufficient “facts to raise her right to relief above the speculative level.” </p>
<p>And in a case in which a prison worker alleged that she was required to observe while “a female visitor masturbated in front of a male inmate” and overheard lewd language, the <a href="https://casetext.com/case/kleehammer-v-monroe-county">court found</a> that there was not “a plausible hostile environment claim,” at least partially as a result of the court’s belief that the worker could not establish that any of the conduct occurred “because of Plaintiff’s sex.” In reaching this decision, the court specifically relied on the newly rigid plausibility standard adopted by the Supreme Court. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Given the difficulty women have prevailing on these claims, it may not seem surprising that Cuomo has mounted a defense and <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/everyone-calling-for-cuomo-resign.html">resisted calls to resign</a> from not only his Republican rivals but members of his own Democratic Party as well. </p>
<p>Until employers and others are held to account in court for this type of unlawful harassing conduct, I believe that there will not be any relief for thousands of victims of sexual harassment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157551/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph A. Seiner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A review of some cases offers a window into why very few civil sexual harassment claims make it to trial.Joseph A. Seiner, Oliver Ellsworth Professor of Federal Practice & Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1325162020-06-18T20:05:15Z2020-06-18T20:05:15ZFriday essay: training a new generation of performers about intimacy, safety and creativity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340839/original/file-20200610-34696-tptqz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C7%2C1755%2C978&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjdlOWYwZjYtMmE5Mi00NGRkLTk1YmYtMGY5ODYyZjExYjkzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTMxMTUxNDI@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,999_AL_.jpg">Normal People/IMDB</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his surprisingly dark and often shocking account of life at a New York performing arts school, Alan Parker’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080716/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Fame</a> (1980) exposes the way youthful exuberance and vulnerability are easy prey for those who manipulate and abuse their position. </p>
<p>The fim depicts public humiliation, shaming, racism, attempted suicide, drug abuse and homophobia. But perhaps the most horrific sequence is when aspiring actress Coco (played by Irene Cara) is preyed on by a sleazy filmmaker. She turns up for a sham screen test and is coerced into removing her blouse. </p>
<p>“You’re acting like a dumb school kid … I thought you were a professional,” the older man cajoles as he manipulates her inexperience to achieve his own ends. The film’s narrative treats such behaviours as the inevitable reality of a highly competitive and hierarchical working environment. </p>
<p>“Performers aren’t safe,” declares one of Coco’s fellow students shortly after her trauma. “We’re the pie in the face people remember.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i4mkRwkQRoQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Fame exquisitely captured the vulnerability of creative students in 1980.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Forty years since Fame hit screens, in the wake of the #MeToo movement and as we <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/no-sex-please-were-skittish-film-and-television-enter-postvirus-world/news-story/3ce672203499d543e244b2543a2d2a52">emerge from COVID-19 physical distancing measures</a>, there is still more that can be done to protect those seeking to pursue careers in the performing arts. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-stand-so-close-to-me-understanding-consent-can-help-with-those-tricky-social-distancing-moments-139293">Don't stand so close to me – understanding consent can help with those tricky social distancing moments</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Harrassment and power</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/acting-unpleasantly-why-harassment-is-so-common-in-the-theatre-87374">High-profile cases</a> in the industry as well as more recent <a href="https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2018/third-performing-arts-students-sexually-harassed-survey/">incidents</a> in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/15/education-sector-yet-learn-lessons-metoo-critics-say">training sector</a> locate sexual harassment and exploitation within hierarchical power structures that provide a fertile breeding ground for abuse. </p>
<p>Within the context of performer training, the blurred boundaries between personal and professional modes of communication – together with a tendency to confuse the need for “professional discipline” with “passive obedience” – produces an atmosphere of uncertainty and self-doubt. Students can feel completely disempowered. </p>
<p>While abusive behaviours are by no means exclusive to the entertainment industry or performing arts education, traditional power structures and outmoded values provide a natural home for offenders.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.ism.org/images/images/Equity-ISM-MU-Dignity-in-Study-report.pdf">British Dignity in Study</a> survey conducted of 600 students at
specialist drama schools, music colleges, conservatoires,
dance colleges and universities in 2018, a staggering 57% had experienced inappropriate behaviour. And 57% of those students did not report the behaviour. </p>
<p>Some perceived it as “culturally acceptable”; others feared the perpetrator or reputational damage. Of the students who did report concerns, 48% remained dissatisfied with the outcome and 79% of this group indicated no corrective action was taken.</p>
<p>If the situation in the UK feels alarming, then that in Australia offers <a href="https://witnessperformance.com/luckily-i-had-a-breakdown-sexual-harassment-in-australian-performing-arts/">little evidence to the contrary</a>. </p>
<p>Performer Candy Bowers has written about <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2018/11/13/australian-theatre-we-have-problem">sexually abusive behaviour</a> as a student. When she reported the incident – unwanted comments about her body by an older man who then forcibly tongue-kissed her onstage without consent – her tutors urged to “get used to it, stop being so sensitive, toughen up”, and even to “take it as a compliment”.</p>
<h2>Inside the actors’ studio</h2>
<p>A number of professional organisations and training institutions have developed detailed codes to confront the issues faced, notably <a href="https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com:443/89c218af-4a5a-00a2-9d83-3913048b3bc7/8aed35e5-c92c-4096-a89d-b2343c6ce0c3/1.%20Screen%20Industry%20Code%20of%20Practice.pdf">Screen Producers Australia</a>, the <a href="https://royalcourttheatre.com/code-of-behaviour/">Royal Court Theatre in the UK</a> and the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/policies/showdoc.aspx?recnum=PDOC2018/470&RendNum=0">University of Sydney</a>. But little work has been done to develop practice-based, experiential approaches to enable and empower the most vulnerable. </p>
<p>Training institutions have tried to communicate standards via lectures, handouts, and pre-rehearsal briefing sessions. </p>
<p>Reams of detailed legal documentation or standardised presentations may reassure institutions they’ve met their duty of care obligations – but how many 18-21-year-old dancers, singers, actors or technicians will actually take the time to fully engage with or read through a litany of complex clauses or phrases, let alone understand them? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342335/original/file-20200617-94101-17q94qr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Performing arts students have unique tools at their disposal for exploring uncomfortable terrain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMWZhYmY2ZGMtY2NmMC00OWU2LThkZmItZDZjNmViOTA3OGZmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc5Mjg0NjU@._V1_.jpg">Rise/IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If we are genuinely to change the pervading culture, alternative strategies are needed. These strategies should not be solely dependent on intellectual processes, but also engage physicality and the use of gesture, the senses, and emotional intelligence. Sexual harassment, objectification, bullying, humiliation, homophobia and racism are all forms of oppression to be addressed in real, not academic, terms.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/acting-unpleasantly-why-harassment-is-so-common-in-the-theatre-87374">Acting unpleasantly: why harassment is so common in the theatre</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Empowering change</h2>
<p>Acclaimed Brazilian theatre practitioner <a href="http://augustoboal-oppression.weebly.com/biography.html">Augusto Boal</a> developed forms of theatre practice to bring about social and political change. </p>
<p>Known as the <a href="http://www.actingnow.co.uk/what-is-theatre-of-the-oppressed/#:%7E:text=The%20Theatre%20of%20the%20Oppressed,the%201950'ps%20and%201960's.&text=From%20his%20work%20Boal%20evolved,thinking%2C%20action%2C%20and%20fun.">Theatre of the Oppressed</a>, the technique utilises live facilitation, imagery, dialogue and role play to empower communities and find solutions to social problems, such as homophobia. </p>
<p>Using this kind of approach to illustrate, unpick and interrogate the hierarchical structures in our training institutions – between those who have status and power (including professional practitioners, producers, teachers) and those who do not (students, technicians, supporting staff) – could prove vital in moving us forward. </p>
<p>And we can do it with what we do best. Performance has momentum. Using the medium to speak with those who are training in the performing arts could provide the platform from which to initiate change.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qTA1b4rlTXI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Theatre of the Oppressed tackles homophobia.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At Edith Cowan University’s Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), we are currently in discussion with the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) to look at developing experiential, practice-based approaches to #MeToo training for performing arts students. </p>
<p>Those who deliver training at WAAPA will complete #MeToo and intimacy training. Interactive role-play and assertiveness coaching will build emotional intelligence and develop confidence in transactional communication. By “acting out” scenarios of harassment, coercion, or sexism we can experience their impact, test practical responses and make explicit what is not acceptable. </p>
<p>These steps will impart agency to young performers, but also help ensure their safety and welfare. Training that is genuinely creative and empowering liberates self-belief and the confidence to speak. </p>
<p>Instead of assuming that performing arts students are innately possessed of such qualities, we need to think about imparting them from the moment they arrive. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y7XkD9d5sY0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Drama students at York University discuss intimacy choreography and score the intensity of intimacy scenes and actions.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Action on set</h2>
<p>The training sector must embrace the important role of the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/intimacy-directors-choreograph-sex-scenes_n_5b0d87dae4b0fdb2aa574564">intimacy director</a>. Like fight directors, choreographers or stunt co-ordinators, this role focuses on the need to remove risk and ensure the highest possible standards of safety on film and theatre sets as well as in the TV studio. </p>
<p>Excellent work is being done in this area by organisations such as <a href="https://www.intimacyonset.com/">Intimacy on Set</a> which offers a range of training packages as well as advice on ensuring safe working practices and protocols. </p>
<p>Ita O’Brien, the organisation’s founder, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-03/normal-people-game-thrones-sex-violence-ethics-film-tv/12205914">stresses</a> the importance of establishing a safe working environment: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>An injury can go from purely physical, to emotional and psychological – when someone’s body has been handled and touched in a way that is not suitable for that person … intimacy coordination work is about everybody being in agreement and consent … and about absolutely every detail serving character, serving story telling. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Referring to <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/how-do-sex-scenes-work">her work as Intimacy Coordinator</a> on the BBC/Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s award winning novel, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p089g8rs">Normal People</a>, O’Brien points to the vulnerability of the drama’s young leading actors (Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal) and offers an insight into how she approached early rehearsals. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Actors want to give their best. They want to say yes, but we had to create an atmosphere where they didn’t just say yes because they felt like they needed to …Everyone had the novel, so they knew what was required, but were they happy with it? </p>
<p>In my first rehearsal with director Lenny Abrahamson, and leading actors Daisy and Paul, I gave a presentation and showed all of them our intimacy guidelines. Then we worked on a scene that felt like a body dance. When we were done, everybody left knowing that everything would be handled in a professional way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Locally, actor Michala Banas is working behind the scenes at Melbourne Theatre Company <a href="https://www.mtc.com.au/discover-more/mtc-now-2020/the-intimate-details/#:%7E:text=Netflix%2C%20Amazon%20and%20the%20BBC,acknowledged%20leader%20in%20the%20field.">as an intimacy coordinator</a> and cites O'Brien as a mentor. </p>
<p>If we are to guarantee the physical, emotional and psychological safety of our students during rehearsals and performances, then the guidance of an Intimacy Director is no longer an optional extra, but an absolute necessity.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZTPJrhtxuQc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Intimacy coordinator Ita O'Brien conducted workshops with actors in Australia last year.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Safe space</h2>
<p>Fear for our safety or for those around us can only ever be negative and destructive. </p>
<p>In the performing arts, we require those whom we train to be imaginative, courageous and sensitive. We ask them on a daily basis to take risks, to be experimental, to make new discoveries and to trust in the collective power of the ensemble. </p>
<p>Ensuring the establishment of clear and unambiguous boundaries between the personal and professional, together with a working environment that respects the rights of the individual can only ever liberate the work. The right to liberty and security of person is a <a href="https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">universally declared human right</a>. The right to resist, openly challenge and report inappropriate or abusive behaviour in the workplace is not a favour that is bestowed upon us by tutors or institutions.</p>
<p>A safe space does not exclude the ardours of rigour and tenacity or even the quest for virtuosity and eminence. Moreover, it does not stifle creativity or artistic freedom. How could it? On the contrary, the freedom, security and trust that a genuinely safe space engenders makes the pursuit of performance excellence tangible and achievable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Shirley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Forty years since Fame showed the vulnerability of performing arts students, we can still do more to protect them. As we resume physical contact, we can use performance to renegotiate safe intimacy.David Shirley, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1297652020-02-27T14:11:15Z2020-02-27T14:11:15ZIn gender discrimination, social class matters a great deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317201/original/file-20200225-24664-llaj6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3690%2C2695&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women with less income and education may be hurt more by gender discrimination. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/waitress?license=rf&agreements=pa:77130&family=creative&phrase=waitress&sort=best#license">Getty Images / Sean Murphy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Harvey Weinstein guilty verdict in 2020 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/nyregion/weinstein-verdict-reaction.html">was a victory</a> for the #MeToo movement. “Today is a powerful day & a huge step forward in our collective healing,” wrote the actress Rose McGowan <a href="https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1232021353328529409">on Twitter</a>.</p>
<p>Still, sexism is pervasive in American culture. About 40% of U.S. women say they’ve experienced <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/14/gender-discrimination-comes-in-many-forms-for-todays-working-women/">gender discrimination at work</a>. Women’s work is often <a href="https://nyu-staging.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/sociological-approaches-to-sex-discrimination-in-employment">undervalued and underpaid</a>. And female job candidates are frequently subjected to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0003122416668154">extra scrutiny</a> during the hiring process, and have lower chances of landing the work they deserve.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=y4F1_zQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">We are scholars</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PEwucWsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">who study</a> how conditions in the workplace can contribute to health inequities and gender discrimination. </p>
<p>Research shows that sexism takes a large <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0022146518767407">toll on women’s health</a>, but women work at a variety of jobs where hours, expectations and cultures vary widely. While the Weinstein verdict may acknowledge the injustice of criminal sexual acts – and by extension, acknowledge the entire #MeToo movement – holding him to account took the efforts of more than 80 women, multiple investigative journalists and significant resources to pay attorney’s fees. For women without such resources, successfully challenging sexism can be much more difficult. </p>
<h2>Level of education makes a difference</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112780">2019 study</a> used 12 years of data from the <a href="https://gss.norc.org/">General Social Survey</a>, or GSS, to look into workplace discrimination in the U.S. – and just as critically, how that discrimination affects women’s health and well-being. </p>
<p>Specifically, we wanted to know if women’s levels of education influence whether they experienced gender discrimination at work. In the 1980s, the number of women earning college degrees surpassed men. Since then, women have <a href="https://pages.uoregon.edu/eherman/teaching/texts/DiPrete%20&%20Buchmann,%202013%20Briefing%20The-rise-of-women.pdf">obtained advanced degrees</a> at record rates. We wondered if women’s educational achievements altered their chances of encountering sexism at work. And because higher education generally opens the door to more financial and social resources, we wanted to know whether increased education helps women deal with the negative consequences of discrimination.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316940/original/file-20200224-24659-1nd00ah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316940/original/file-20200224-24659-1nd00ah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316940/original/file-20200224-24659-1nd00ah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316940/original/file-20200224-24659-1nd00ah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316940/original/file-20200224-24659-1nd00ah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316940/original/file-20200224-24659-1nd00ah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316940/original/file-20200224-24659-1nd00ah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women with more education report more discrimination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/concentrated-african-american-woman-brainstorming-royalty-free-image/956379138?adppopup=true">Getty Images / skynesher</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The findings</h2>
<p>In the GSS, about 10% of women reported gender discrimination in their current job. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/14/gender-discrimination-comes-in-many-forms-for-todays-working-women/">Consistent with other research</a>, women with higher levels of education reported higher rates of discrimination. Among those with master’s or doctoral degrees, it’s nearly 13%; for women with less than a high school education it’s 7%. </p>
<p>Why the difference? The most powerful explanation: highly educated women working in high-paying, professional jobs are more likely to work alongside more men. And women in those contexts are more likely to be targets of gender-based <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/89.4.1165">discrimination</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0730888408322008">harassment</a>. </p>
<p>Another reason: Women with less education typically hold less prestigious jobs, which offer fewer opportunities for raises or promotions. Trapped on the “<a href="http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1123&context=key_workplace">sticky floor</a>” of low-wage service or retail work, these women may not even have opportunities to collide with the glass ceiling. And they might recognize sexism less often simply because traditionally feminine traits – caring or deferring to others, for instance – are sometimes required of the job, expected or even taken for granted.</p>
<p>Just as critical: The GSS data shows gender discrimination is a source of stress and illness. We found that women who perceive discrimination experience lower self-reported levels of happiness, job satisfaction, sleep, mental health and overall health. </p>
<p>Lower-educated women may report less discrimination, but that does not mean all is well with them. Quite the opposite – we found that women in less-valued jobs actually show some of the largest health harms from discrimination.</p>
<p>On some level, that makes sense. Those with more education typically have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2378023118773158">greater resources</a> for coping with stress. Those resources include higher earnings, greater social support and better health insurance coverage. Also, the data does not distinguish between degrees of discrimination. Women with less education might experience more severe or hostile forms of sexism, while women in better-paying jobs may face more inequality due to missed promotions or raises, for example. </p>
<p>Gender discrimination is unfair, illegal, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12303">bad for the economy</a> and a public health issue. It hurts everyone, but it is much more harmful for poor and working class women. These findings should concern anyone interested in advancing health, well-being and social justice. And really, shouldn’t that be all of us?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women with less income and less education may be hurt most by gender discrimination.Catherine Harnois, Professor of Sociology, Wake Forest UniversityMatthew Andersson, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Baylor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1128132020-01-24T14:31:45Z2020-01-24T14:31:45ZWhat not to say when women talk to you about sexual harassment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275922/original/file-20190522-187185-aomcts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Justice Amoh/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The explosive 2017 <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/metoo-45316">#MeToo</a> campaign demonstrated just how many women had stories to share about sexual harassment and assault – and how many experiences had been kept silent until that point. In the wake of the collective outpouring online, sexual harassment is now a topic of everyday discussion. </p>
<p>While conversation itself is progress, it has also become clear that women are still having to expend a significant amount of <a href="https://theconversation.com/let-go-of-toxic-workplace-emotional-labour-in-2019-108245">emotional labour</a> to explain and justify their personal experiences to the men around them. That’s particularly the case when men decide to play devil’s advocate in these discussions. It immediately forces women into a corner where they must adopt a defensive position to argue the validity of their experience or reaction to it. This can be exhausting – hence the term “emotional labour”.</p>
<p>Having researched women’s experiences of sexual harassment in the public space for over three years, I began to notice common retorts when engaging in conversation with men about the prevalence and impact of such behaviour. These common rebuttals actively derail the possibility of a progressive and productive interaction.</p>
<h2>‘Worse things happen’</h2>
<p>It can be easy to trivialise sexual harassment – particularly when comparing it to more severe forms of sexual assault. It might seem like being leered at in the street isn’t as bad as actually being grabbed, but the harm of sexual harassment partly lies in its everyday and repetitive nature. The most normalised intrusions, such as leering, cat calls or wolf whistles, happen so regularly that they often go unmentioned or challenged. They are taken for granted. </p>
<p>But apparently “low-level” incidents of sexual harassment act to remind women of the risk of more invasive sexual assault or violence. That fear, in turn, affects their everyday experiences, making them feel more fearful and <a href="https://theconversation.com/have-you-ever-wondered-how-much-energy-you-put-in-to-avoid-being-assaulted-it-may-shock-you-65372">limiting their ability to navigate public spaces</a> in the same way a man might.</p>
<p>A 2018 survey covering 13 countries showed how men vastly underestimate the level of sexual harassment <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/perils-perception-2018">women experience in their lifetime</a>. Men estimated that 36% of women experienced sexual harassment, whereas the figures show closer to 60% (likely still an underestimate).</p>
<p>This is concerning as it affects the way we have conversations about sexual harassment. For men, it’s an abstract scenario or an “interesting” topic that isn’t that likely to happen. With that in mind, it’s easy to see how a point of view can be adopted simply for argument’s sake without understanding how high the stakes actually are for women. </p>
<h2>‘Not all men’</h2>
<p>It is not uncommon, when a woman is telling a story of sexual harassment, for men to take a defensive stance and act as if they are being personally attacked. It’s important to recognise that these discussions are not an attack on “all men” but on the perpetrators and a society that still functions in a way that allows this behaviour to <a href="https://victimfocus.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/dear-men-here-are-5-things-you-can-do-to-support-your-wife-or-girlfriend-in-a-sexist-world/">manifest and persist</a>. </p>
<p>Responding with “but not all men” insinuates that you are more concerned with how this situation affects you and your existence as a man, than the woman who has been harassed or assaulted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275924/original/file-20190522-187172-1wn6p04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275924/original/file-20190522-187172-1wn6p04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275924/original/file-20190522-187172-1wn6p04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275924/original/file-20190522-187172-1wn6p04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275924/original/file-20190522-187172-1wn6p04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275924/original/file-20190522-187172-1wn6p04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275924/original/file-20190522-187172-1wn6p04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Did he just say ‘not all men’?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Men are victims too’</h2>
<p>Men and boys are also <a href="https://theconversation.com/reynhard-sinaga-case-why-male-victims-and-survivors-need-their-own-support-system-129588">victims of sexual violence</a>, and arguably the stigma and shame for male survivors is exacerbated by the prevalence of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/us/toxic-masculinity.html">toxic masculinity</a>. Victimisation and vulnerability (especially of a sexual nature) does not sit well with society’s ideals of “being a man”. </p>
<p>However, recognising that women are disproportionately affected by sexual violence does not deny that it also happens to men and boys. Attempts to claim the issue as gender neutral only act to dilute the severity and impact that sexual harassment and abuse has on women’s everyday lives.</p>
<h2>‘Why didn’t you shout back?‘</h2>
<p>Feminist academic Liz Kelly <a href="http://sk.sagepub.com/books/rethinking-violence-against-women/n3.xml">theorised sexual harassment</a> as on the “continuum of sexual violence”. This is helpful in understanding that when sexual harassment occurs in public, the fear of escalating the situation often affects how women react.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311603/original/file-20200123-162240-1q1wmkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311603/original/file-20200123-162240-1q1wmkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311603/original/file-20200123-162240-1q1wmkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311603/original/file-20200123-162240-1q1wmkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311603/original/file-20200123-162240-1q1wmkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311603/original/file-20200123-162240-1q1wmkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311603/original/file-20200123-162240-1q1wmkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Morning commutes can be fraught experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luke Stackpoole/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You might not think a cat call or a prolonged gaze is dangerous but the woman on the receiving end doesn’t know whether that expression of attention is the end of the encounter or if it is going to turn into something more threatening. Exiting the situation to avoid a more serious incident is almost always the priority rather than speaking your mind. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://theconversation.com/he-just-pulled-my-hand-in-to-his-lap-what-its-really-like-to-be-assaulted-on-the-london-underground-88114#comment_1469872">research</a>, which focused on women’s experiences of sexual harassment on public transport showed exactly this – when a man masturbated across from them in an empty tube carriage, their primary concern was to get the hell out. </p>
<p>Telling someone how they should have reacted to sexual harassment is really just a form of victim blaming. Focusing on how the victim responded, rather than the behaviour of the perpetrator feeds into the dangerous narrative that it is a woman’s responsibility to keep herself safe from men, that she must alter her behaviour to exist in a world where sexual harassment is normalised to the point it is seen as inevitable.</p>
<h2>Own your response</h2>
<p>Sexual harassment is widely debated as a “women’s issue”. But the issue itself does not lie with women. It lies with men, or rather, it exists as a symptom of a society that allows sexist attitudes to fester. Yet the burden of combating sexual harassment (and other forms of sexual violence and gender inequality) still seems to fall predominantly on the shoulders of women. </p>
<p>If you play devil’s advocate, you can express a provocative, often belittling viewpoint without having to take ownership of it. That only makes it more exhausting for women to discuss a topic that affects their daily lives.</p>
<p>When confronted with the reality of sexual harassment, if men continue to respond in such a way, it acts to invalidate and silence women and their everyday realities. It doesn’t take much to listen, but it can make all the difference to how a story is told.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sian Lewis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When you play ‘devil’s advocate’, you minimise the problem.Sian Lewis, Associate Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology, University of RoehamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118422019-03-06T19:11:44Z2019-03-06T19:11:44ZHollywood may be able to afford #MeToo, but it’s a stretch for the Australian arts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262298/original/file-20190306-48426-1qmkjok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Australian arts industry is fraught with extreme financial pressures, a highly casualised workforce and endemic competition.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sarah is an aspiring actor, recently graduated from a prestigious acting school. She lands her first contract with a major theatre company to work with a respected director. The play includes performance of a simulated rape scene. Over the weeks of rehearsal, Sarah finds it difficult to get out of the role and relax. She becomes increasingly angry at her boyfriend and finds she can’t keep the role separate from her life. She can’t sleep well. Yet she is encouraged by the director to “ride the wave of emotion”. </p>
<p>Sarah speaks to the stage manager who has been tasked with the new role of mental health first aid officer in the company. She is told to seek help from a psychologist - who she can’t afford. The director is frustrated by Sarah’s increasing disconnection with the play as she goes through the motions. She completes the season. Nine months later she has not received a single call-back from any auditions, still isn’t sleeping and is working in a café to pay the rent</p>
<p>Sarah’s story is a composite of actors’ responses from the <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=499926749273237;res=IELHSS">2015 Actors Wellbeing study</a> and entirely emblematic of the state of affairs within Australia’s performing arts scene. </p>
<p>This industry is fraught with extreme financial pressures, a highly casualised workforce and endemic competition. The performing arts are also rife with preventable mental health issues, compromised physical health and addiction.</p>
<p>In short, this is no fertile garden for the #MeToo movement to gain root.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/out-of-character-how-acting-puts-a-mental-strain-on-performers-86212">Out of character: how acting puts a mental strain on performers</a>
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<p>The movement has undoubtedly opened up an important discourse, challenging the stigma of speaking out against exploitation and harassment in the arts and other industries. Live Performance Australia, Screen Producers Australia and the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance, in a joint initiative, have released a new code of practice on <a href="https://www.meaa.org/download/australian-screen-industry-code-of-practice-for-discrimination-harassment-sexual-harassment-and-bullying/">discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment and bullying</a>. This is a significant step.</p>
<p>However, the larger task remains to engineer a genuine culture shift at the grassroots of the arts; to adequately support artist wellbeing in a competitive and under-funded sector. Real culture change doesn’t come cheap. It takes money, time and resources and on that front, Australia is a long way from Hollywood.</p>
<p>In our competitive and underfunded sector, power relationships are ever present. It is simply too easy for an artist to not be selected for future contracts if they are perceived to have had mental or physical health issues in the past. Young artists have very strong motivation not to disclose such issues and risk succumbing to career-ending illness or injury.</p>
<p>Performing artists across Australia are thrust into the sector, usually <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/PR-08-2015-0220">with poor business acumen</a>, only to chase <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0255761414558653">intermittent</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1839-4655.2016.tb00365.x">largely unsupported contracts</a>. Serial unemployment in a chosen form of creative expression is considered the norm for the majority of those committed to an arts career, influenced in part by <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1839-4655.2016.tb00365.x">socioeconomic status and geographical location</a>.</p>
<p>Performance in every sense of the word requires the combination of talent and commitment. This naturally places stress on the mind and the body. Regardless of artistic discipline, there is a growing body of evidence that paints a disturbing picture of the health issues associated with being an artist. </p>
<p>Eighty four per cent of Australian orchestral musicians <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735613493953">have been reported</a> to experience sustained, performance-limiting pain.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262299/original/file-20190306-48444-d4deww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Many orchestral musicians experience sustained pain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Psychological risk factors such as disordered eating, sleep and social support <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jmrp/jdms/2017/00000021/00000003/art00001">have been related</a> to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2018.1544538">high frequency of injury in dancers</a>. Depression, substance abuse and suicide attempts <a href="https://www.entertainmentassist.org.au/our-research">were frequently reported</a> in a 2014 survey of nearly 3000 Australians working across the spectrum of performing arts genres.</p>
<p>Artists are often unaware of the healthcare support available to them and <a href="https://www.sciandmed.com/MPPA/journalviewer.aspx?issue=1221&article=2233">rely on teachers and arts management for such advice</a>. In turn, healthcare providers often aren’t aware of the demands of working as an artist and the severe effect incapacitation has on an artist’s identity and career.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-welfare-why-its-time-to-act-100736">Artists' welfare: why it's time to act</a>
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<p>Major arts organisations with adequate funding are leading the way in recognising health issues in the arts. Community organisations such as the <a href="http://www.aspah.org.au/">Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare</a> and the <a href="https://www.entertainmentassist.org.au/wellness/">Australian Alliance for Wellness in Entertainment</a> are building awareness and a network of support for the arts community. But these organisations all work in the face of the larger underfunded and casualised arts sector.</p>
<p>While the industry is certainly supportive of #MeToo in the broader sense, real change will only occur through structural change at its core.</p>
<p>The benefits and possibilities of bespoke health support in the arts are exemplified by initiatives such as the UK-based <a href="https://www.nidms.co.uk/">National Institute for Dance Medicine and Science</a> (funded by both the NHS and the community), which provides access to high quality, affordable, research-informed and dance specific health care. </p>
<p>Government and philanthropic funding to establish best practices in education and healthcare delivery is the next essential step in supporting the thousands of Australians whose profession and livelihoods are dedicated to arts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Hopper is the President of the Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Cariston Seton is Vice President of the Australian Society for Performing Arts Healthcare (ASPAH) and is a member of the Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA).</span></em></p>In our competitive and underfunded arts sector, power relationships are ever present. To address power imbalances, major structural change is needed.Luke Hopper, Lecturer, Edith Cowan UniversityMark Cariston Seton, Honorary Research Associate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1078882018-12-05T18:55:39Z2018-12-05T18:55:39ZExplainer: what does ‘gaslighting’ mean?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248898/original/file-20181204-133106-1jj9zm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer in Gaslight (1944), the film that inspired the now widely used term. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Metro Goldwyn-Mayer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shortlisted for the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2018 <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/shortlist-2018">word of the year</a>, “gaslighting” has well and truly found its way into contemporary thought and vernacular. </p>
<p>The term has recently been employed to explain the behaviour of contestants on <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/cat-bachelor-2018/">The Bachelor Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/monica-lewinsky-in-the-age-of-metoo">Monica Lewinksy’s experiences with the media</a> post-Bill Clinton, and the words of US President Donald Trump.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248896/original/file-20181204-133106-1xbxve8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248896/original/file-20181204-133106-1xbxve8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248896/original/file-20181204-133106-1xbxve8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248896/original/file-20181204-133106-1xbxve8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248896/original/file-20181204-133106-1xbxve8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248896/original/file-20181204-133106-1xbxve8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248896/original/file-20181204-133106-1xbxve8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Monica Lewinsky: in a recent essay she wrote of emerging from ‘the House of Gaslight’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sheri Determan/WENN.com</span></span>
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<p>But what, exactly, does it mean? Where did it come from? And why is it experiencing a resurgence today?</p>
<p>Gaslighting takes its name from the 1944 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036855/">Gaslight</a>, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer (itself based on the 1938 play Gas Light). In the film, Paula (Bergman) is deliberately and gradually manipulated by her husband, Gregory (Boyer), into believing she is insane. Paula’s late aunt’s priceless jewels are hidden in their house: if Paula is declared insane and committed to an asylum, Gregory can search for the jewels in peace.</p>
<p>One of his main tactics in convincing Paula she is losing her mind is his manipulation of the gaslights in their home. Whenever he sneaks off to the attic to search for the jewels, he switches on the lights in that part of the house: this leads all other lights to flicker and dim. Upon returning to Paula, he denies all knowledge of this, leading her to question her sanity. </p>
<p>In the film’s final scenes, Paula allows a policeman to enter the house while Gregory is preoccupied with his search. The policeman confirms that the lights are flickering, demonstrating that Paula is not insane. </p>
<h2>What does gaslighting look like?</h2>
<p>Gaslighting is a new term for a relatively old set of behaviours. If you’ve read the ancient Greek myth of <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_(metaphor)">Cassandra</a> (about a woman cursed to foresee true prophecies that others disbelieve due to her perceived mental instability), watched <a href="https://filmschoolrejects.com/westworld-the-truman-show-and-gaslighting-5b11b5d4816/">The Truman Show</a>, or listened to Shaggy’s hit song, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5fqunQ_4I">It Wasn’t Me</a> (in which a man tells his girlfriend it wasn’t him she saw having sex with another woman), you’ve seen gaslighting in action. </p>
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<p>Although it can cover various behaviours, the central tenet of gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person in order to erode their sense of self and sanity. </p>
<p>The behaviour itself is not always deliberate, in that the perpetrator may not have consciously set out to distort another person’s experience of reality. But gaslighting is often used as a method of power and control.</p>
<p>Common gaslighting tactics can include denial of the gaslightee’s experience (“That wasn’t what happened!”), escalation (“Why would you question this? I wouldn’t lie to you!”), trivialisation (“You’re too sensitive, this is nothing”), and countering (“That wasn’t what happened, this was”). </p>
<h2>Why now?</h2>
<p>Gaslighting’s re-emergence in our day-to-day vernacular is in part due to a wider societal focus on violence against women. As we move towards a broader understanding of what constitutes abuse, there is growing recognition that psychologically abusive techniques such as gaslighting are often used to unnerve and demoralise others.</p>
<p>Gaslighting is increasingly being recognised as a technique of abuse by groups such as the <a href="http://www.dvrcv.org.au/knowledge-centre/our-blog/gaslighting-stalking-and-intimate-partner-violence">Domestic Violence Resource Centre of Victoria</a> and <a href="https://www.safesteps.org.au/understanding-family-violence/types-of-abuse/psychological-abuse/">Safe Steps</a>. </p>
<p>The term also rebuts a common set of stereotypes: the “crazy ex-girlfriend”, the “bitches be crazy” or “<a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/10/psycho-bitch-the-trope-evolves-from-fatal-attraction-s-alex-forrest-to-gone-girl-s-amy-dunne.html">psycho bitch</a>” refrain and the “hysterical woman”. Gaslighting reframes these cliches: instead of asking whether women are indeed crazy, it questions the motivations of the accuser.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, gaslighting has <a href="https://yourstory.com/2018/10/metoo-gaslighting-begins/">also been used</a> to dismiss those who have employed #MeToo to speak out about their abuse. Comments directed to survivors that they must have “misread the situation” or “imagined the abuse” can in turn point to wider questions about a person’s sanity. </p>
<p>Gaslighting’s application in the public lexicon has become quite broad. For instance, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201808/trump-is-gaslighting-america-again-here-s-how-fight-it">many</a> <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/10/03/trump-classic-gaslighter-abusive-relationship-america-column/1445050002/">news</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/06/14/trumps-gaslighting-is-about-to-get-a-lot-worse/?utm_term=.305360676991">articles</a> have been written about Donald Trump’s so-called gaslighting behaviour towards the American public, in which he has tried to manipulate people into “doubting their reality”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248897/original/file-20181204-133100-1gzuoz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Donald Trump: various pundits have described his statements as a form of ‘gaslighting’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shawn Thew/EPA</span></span>
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<p>In a recent speech, for example, Trump criticised the media for its reaction to his trade tariffs policy, accusing it of broadcasting “fake news” and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340/donald-trump-what-you-re-seeing-and-what-you-re-reading-is-not-what-s-happening">telling people</a>, “what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening”. </p>
<p>But in describing Trump’s behaviour as gaslighting, we lose some of the word’s context: it was developed to describe behaviour altogether more intimate and controlling in nature, and difficult to escape.</p>
<p>Still, aside from the latter example, the growing usage of “gaslighting” as a term is broadly a good thing. It signifies a deeper understanding of what abuse looks like and the many forms it can take.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107888/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessamy Gleeson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The term ‘gaslighting’ is now liberally used but what does it mean and where did it come from?Jessamy Gleeson, Research Officer, School of Global, Urban & Social Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1078862018-12-05T18:55:07Z2018-12-05T18:55:07ZHow sport can tackle violence against women and girls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248415/original/file-20181203-194932-19bfsdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1194%2C5982%2C2470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thursday night football in the community of Wadeye, about 420 kilometres south-west of Darwin in the Northern Territory.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">J. Louth</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sport is central to the lives of many Australians. This isn’t simply a reference to participation levels, but the importance of sport as a social institution. Organised sport, from the elite level though to local community clubs, is a part of a complex social ecology that is an important part of our lives. </p>
<p>This means it is vital that we acknowledge sport as a crucial learning place for gendered relations. In <a href="http://www.centacare.org.au/wp-content/uploads//corporate/Power-To-End-Violence-Against-Women-Report-2018.pdf">our research</a>, we examined how sport can be used as a “hook” to start conversations with men and boys around domestic violence and respectful relationships. Community leaders and role models can be harnessed to instil healthy attitudes in young men. In their absence, the sporting field can serve to sustain the <a href="https://www.ourwatch.org.au/getmedia/0aa0109b-6b03-43f2-85fe-a9f5ec92ae4e/Change-the-story-framework-prevent-violence-women-children-AA-new.pdf.aspx">drivers of violence against women and girls</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/violence-towards-women-in-the-video-game-red-dead-redemption-2-evokes-toxic-masculinity-106920">Violence towards women in the video game Red Dead Redemption 2 evokes toxic masculinity</a>
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<p>Working with <a href="http://www.portadelaidefc.com.au/community">Power Community Limited</a>, the community arm of the Port Adelaide Football Club and the <a href="https://www.nomore.org.au/">NO MORE program</a> in the Northern Territory, we examined the effectiveness of primary prevention family and domestic violence programs aimed at men and boys in distinctly different environments. Port Adelaide’s Power to End Violence Against Women program targets year 10 boys, primarily in metropolitan schools across Adelaide, while the NO MORE program, with a focus on football clubs, works across the NT, with an emphasis on remote Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>Sport is a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17430430903053224">social glue</a> and a focal point of activity for many families. At a much larger scale, our very sense of nation and what it is to be “Australian” is often defined through <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13573320309250">sporting prowess</a>. Sport also feeds into an Indigenous sense of manhood, so long as their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17430430903137910">indigeneity remains unthreatening</a> to the broader Australian community. Outward displays of indigeneity that do not conform are loudly rejected - think former AFL star Adam Goodes and his “war dance”.</p>
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<span class="caption">Former AFL star for the Sydney Swans was booed for weeks after he performed a war dance directed at opposition fans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What it is to be a man is performed through sport. Within this environment, boys are socialised to be tough, competitive, and to win – <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2159676X.2014.888588">success and status are core</a> to becoming and being a man.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/un-designing-masculinities-k-pop-and-the-new-global-man-22335">Un-designing masculinities: K-pop and the new global man?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the focus groups for participants from the Port Adelaide program, one student powerfully stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>men are taught not to show emotions … or you’ll be cut from the crop.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a sentiment that drives home how early boys are taught that they are measured against a particular idea of manliness. </p>
<p>However, we were also able to show that positive messages “stick”. Year 11 students, who had taken part in the program the previous year, recalled content on respectful relationships and positive bystanding. One student was adamant that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…after [doing] this course it is wrong not to step in.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The use of high-profile footballers assisted with the retention of key messages. Students and teachers universally saw the value in having AFL footballers contribute to the delivery of the program as a mechanism to “cut through” and get the attention of participants. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248417/original/file-20181203-194938-cem9lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Port Adelaide Player Ambassador Ollie Wines with students as part of the Power to End Violence Against Women program.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PAFC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The NO MORE program works with a range of stakeholders, including men’s groups and football clubs. Indeed, on the Tiwi Islands, a men’s group member declared that “It’s Aussie Rules or it’s nothing”.</p>
<p>Another Tiwi Islander made the point that by fixing themselves, they were fixing their community. Bridging between sport and primary prevention programs made complete sense to these men. They also spoke about the need for it to be taken into their schools as part of an Aboriginal-led movement.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-26/charlie-king-takes-no-more-to-santa-teresa-nt-in-road-back-home/9077978">Charlie King</a>, the founder of NO MORE, says this is indicative of every remote community that he has spent time in. For Charlie, an ABC sports commentator and Gurindji man, you will always “find small group of men who want to make a difference.”</p>
<p>In<a href="http://ropergulf.nt.gov.au/our-communities/ngukurr/"> Ngukurr,</a> in southeast Arnhem Land, we observed a NO MORE march that snaked its way through the community before gathering on the football oval. There the community came together to link arms as a show strength and connectedness to say “no more” to family and domestic violence.</p>
<p>While the beginning of a community movement and activation could be sensed, there was an understanding that this would take time. As one of the Elders who planned the event noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…you’re looking at generation after generation. This is a generational plan … because you might be a father and you might be a mother later on, it’s about what sorts of seeds you’re planting.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248419/original/file-20181203-194941-2mx3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248419/original/file-20181203-194941-2mx3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248419/original/file-20181203-194941-2mx3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248419/original/file-20181203-194941-2mx3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248419/original/file-20181203-194941-2mx3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248419/original/file-20181203-194941-2mx3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248419/original/file-20181203-194941-2mx3xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Community members link arms on the football oval to say ‘no more’ to family and domestic Violence, Ngukurr 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">J. Louth</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The comment is not dissimilar to one made by an AFL player involved in the Port Adelaide program: “The purpose is to impact the generations … getting the younger generations to know that [violence against women] is an issue and not to tolerate it.”</p>
<p>These are certainly gains, but care needs to be taken to ensure that the programs are not simply activating an ethos of “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0004865815587031">real men don’t hit women</a>”. Such a view, while advocating nonviolence, is one-dimensional and limited in that it arises from the very norms and attitudes that sustain regimes of gendered violence.</p>
<p>Sporting clubs, whether elite or local, are only just starting to examine their contribution to the reproduction of values and attitudes that permit behaviours – including silence – that contribute to violence against women.</p>
<p>With the onset of the #MeToo movement and wider anti-domestic violence campaigns, the footballing world has the chance to work with this momentum to change the narrative and disrupt harmful and systemic behaviours.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107886/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathon Louth receives funding from CatholicCare NT and Centacare Catholic Family Services</span></em></p>Primary prevention programs with a footballing focus aim to change behaviours and attitudes among men towards women.Jonathon Louth, Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Community Services Research, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073632018-11-29T19:11:16Z2018-11-29T19:11:16ZFour in ten Australians think women lie about being victims of sexual assault<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247887/original/file-20181129-170244-t6cfce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two in five Australian women have experienced physical or sexual violence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/oeghhMy5jz0">Jorge Flores</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four in ten Australians (42%) think sexual assault accusations are a way of getting back at men, according to the fourth <a href="http://ncas.anrows.org.au">National Community Attitudes Survey</a> (NCAS) on violence against women, released today. </p>
<p>Almost the same proportion (43%) believe women “make up” claims of abuse when going through child custody battles in court. </p>
<p>Yet research shows false allegations are rare. In fact, sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence are <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4530.0%7E2016-17%7EMain%20Features%7EReporting%20of%20crime%20to%20police%7E7">_under-reported to police</a>. </p>
<p>Violence against women is common, with <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4906.0%7E2016%7EMain%20Features%7EKey%20Findings%7E1">two out of every five Australian women</a> experiencing some form of physical or sexual violence since the age of 15, and much of it from a male partner or ex-partner. </p>
<p>NCAS is a federally funded survey conducted by the independent research organisation <a href="https://www.anrows.org.au/">ANROWS</a> in 2017. It involved 17,500 phone interviews with a representative sample of Australians aged 16 years and older. It’s the third such national survey, allowing us to compare responses with those in 2009 and 2013.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-culture-why-our-community-attitudes-to-sexual-violence-matter-31750">Rape culture: why our community attitudes to sexual violence matter</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s not all bad news. The results show a majority of Australians understand that physical assault, emotional abuse and controlling behaviour are forms of violence against women, and are common in our community. </p>
<p>Consistent investment in programs and campaigns has had a positive impact on reducing attitudes that support violence such as minimising and excusing. Out of a score of 100, the average score has reduced from 36 in 2013 to 33 in 2017.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247757/original/file-20181128-32221-g391hi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANROWS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Blaming the victim</h2>
<p>The survey found one in three Australians believe women are partly responsible for relationship violence if they do not leave a violent partner (32%). </p>
<p>Another third (30%) believe if a woman sends a nude image to her partner, she is partly responsible if he shares it without her permission. </p>
<p>When questions are asked about the role of alcohol in relation to violence, 8% attribute responsibility and blame to women who were raped while alcohol- or drug-affected. Some 12% of Australians absolve men of blame if they are alcohol- or drug-affected at the time they perpetrate rape. </p>
<p>Two out of ten Australians (21%) believe because women express themselves sexually in public it’s not surprising men think they can touch them without permission.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/be-careful-posting-images-online-is-just-another-form-of-modern-day-victim-blaming-64116">'Be careful posting images online' is just another form of modern-day victim-blaming</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When victim-blaming attitudes are held by a substantial proportion of people, or influential people such as police, <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/magistrate-condemned-for-comment-over-alleged-rape/news-story/373ccb8945be062a1dbe2e4759c8251e?from=rss-basic">judges</a> and health professionals, they can present barriers to victims seeking support or reporting the abuse. </p>
<p>Such attitudes also shift responsibility away from the perpetrators of violence, contributing to a culture in which perpetrator behaviour is at best not clearly condemned, or at worst, is actively condoned.</p>
<h2>Disregard for consent</h2>
<p>One in ten Australians believe if a woman is drunk and starts having sex with a man, but then falls asleep, it is understandable if he continues to have sex with her. </p>
<p>The survey also asked Australians to respond to a scenario where a woman takes her husband into the bedroom, starts kissing him, then pushes him away, not wanting to continue with sex. More than one in ten (15%) believed her husband would have been justified in having sex with her anyway. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247882/original/file-20181129-170250-rfbpp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many Australians seem unclear of what constitutes consent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/PLDkBHbM3Hc">Nicolas Thomas</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disregarding consent for touching women, sending nude photos or persisting with sex when a woman does not, or cannot give consent, are criminal offences in Australia.</p>
<p>These findings are significant because they indicate a concerning proportion of Australians are unclear about what constitutes consent, and the line between consensual sex and coercion. </p>
<h2>Mistrusting women’s reports</h2>
<p>As well as thinking women make up claims of abuse, one quarter (23%) of Australians believe women exaggerate the problem of male violence. </p>
<p>Almost a third (31%) believe that a lot of times women who say they were raped had “led the man on” and then had regrets. </p>
<p>Attitudes that suggest women lie to “get back at men” are particularly concerning in light of the high levels of violence against women, as well as under-reporting of these crimes. The fear of not being believed or taken seriously presents a barrier for women seeking help and support. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-still-trivialise-and-excuse-violence-against-women-31420">Australians still trivialise and excuse violence against women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Attitudes are a barometer of socially acceptable behaviour – and changing attitudes is often the first step toward changing behaviour. Attitudes can mean a perpetrator being held to account, instead of his behaviour being ignored. Or a bystander taking action, rather than turning a blind eye. </p>
<h2>And now for the good news</h2>
<p>One of the pillars of <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/women/programs-services/reducing-violence/the-national-plan-to-reduce-violence-against-women-and-their-children-2010-2022">The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022</a> has been to support attitude change as a first step to reducing prevalence of violence against women. </p>
<p>The NCAS survey shows there has been an increase in the understanding of violence against women, moving from an average score of 64 to 70, and improvement in support for gender equality moving from an average score of 64 to 66.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247758/original/file-20181128-32191-1luwim9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=266&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Knowledge of violence against women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANROWS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247759/original/file-20181128-32197-u7wmeb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Support for gender equality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANROWS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Exploring the detail of the survey questions shows an improvement on 27 of the 36 individual questions asked in both 2013 and 2017.</p>
<p>While there are specific areas of concern, Australians’ knowledge of, and attitudes towards, violence against women and gender equality are gradually improving. Most Australians do not endorse this violence. </p>
<p>Australian governments have invested heavily in campaigns and programs to reduce men’s violence against women over the past ten years and the current NCAS results show that there have been some rewards.</p>
<p>Changing attitudes and improving knowledge takes time, as well as continued policy and program efforts. It’s vital that governments, organisations and communities across Australia keep up the momentum if we are to ultimately see the end of attitudes that allow violence against women to occur. http://ncas.anrows.org.au</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Violeta Politoff, Senior Researcher for ANROWS on the National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence against Women.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107363/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristin Diemer is a Chief Investigator for the National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence Against Women and receives funding from ANROWS (Australian National Research Organisation for Women's Safety).0</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anastasia Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and Criminology Research Council. She is a Chief Investigator for the National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence Against Women and receives funding from ANROWS (Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety). Anastasia is also a member of the board of directors of Our Watch, Australia's national foundation for the prevention of violence against women. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Webster is a PhD student at the University of Melbourne writing her thesis on the NCAS. She has also been involved in project management of the NCAS since 2009.</span></em></p>Australians are more aware of domestic violence and sexual assault than before. But a worrying proportion blame victims for abuse, think women are lying, and don’t believe consent is always necessary.Kristin Diemer, Senior Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneAnastasia Powell, Associate Professor and ARC DECRA Fellow, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT UniversityKim Webster, PhD candidate, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064462018-11-29T19:05:25Z2018-11-29T19:05:25ZFriday essay: garish feminism and the new poetic confessionalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247642/original/file-20181128-32185-1flf5qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protestors at an anti-Trump rally in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Garish (adjective) Extravagantly bright or showy, typically so as to be tasteless.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>-Oxford English Dictionary</p>
<p>Stevie Nicks once wrote in her celebrated song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dsh9M6qnhE">Dreams</a>, “Have you any dreams you’d like to sell?” As a lyricist, she gathered up stories and told them back to us so that we might all contemplate (“In the stillness of remembering what you had/And what you lost”) who we really are. If secrets were spilt, and terror ensued, it was for the greater good of better knowing ourselves: as Nicks sings, “You will know, you will know”.</p>
<p>But that was Fleetwood Mac, that was the 1970s, and today the ethics of “story spilling” is another matter entirely. To be a writer of the confessional genres has unique risks that can routinely include, for example, excommunication and love lost in all quarters.</p>
<p>So why do it? This is also the key question for the confessional impulse fuelling the #MeToo narrative spill: what kind of good is being done, and for whom? </p>
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<p>For some women writers it is the core business of our work as a feminist artists and activists working to restore women’s sanity (in my case, with the secular metaphysics of poetry). It was Philip Larkin who claimed that poetry was an affair of sanity, and that the object of writing is to “show life as it is, and if you don’t see it like that, you’re in trouble, not life”. </p>
<p>Telling stories from the contemplative trauma pad, engineering them with the alchemy of poetry, and launching them into the world of what Nicks calls “You will know” is a garish business. For some of us, showing life in its full monstrosity — no matter what costume we must assume and even if it involves a loudspeaker and a hashtag — is the only business in town. It is also the only way to turn trouble away from its ruinous attachment to our lives, which are otherwise sometimes too horrible to bear.</p>
<h2>On horror</h2>
<p>Abjection is something we can understand as a horrible state that results from our reaction to a breakdown in meaning — in this place we are lost. While we are abject, crimes are committed on our watch — psychoanlayst and critic Julia Kristeva talks about Auschwitz, but we can imagine, for example, human conduct that results in the #MeToo movement. </p>
<p>Kristeva argues that art can purify our abjection, because it offers a cathartic opportunity. Confessional poetry — with all its small apocalypses — helps us to play with both language and its meaning, and offers us what Kristeva calls “a language of want” so that we can both write and run with our fears. Can poetry be so bibliotherapeutic? And is it always best to confess?</p>
<p>Telling stories against yourself invariably involves revelations that frighten or shock others. For life-writers, developing professional resilience to people’s reaction to your work is essential to building a career in this field. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, at the premiere of my first play on the Sydney stage, during interval and after the show, I was surrounded by well-intentioned guests, pressing their business cards into my hand, promising to put me in touch with their lawyer, or their therapist, or even their “man who takes care of things” (sometimes I wish I still had that business card). The play was about domestic violence; the story was not autobiographical in impulse. The writer risks being misunderstood whether writing fiction or nonfiction, and learning this was freeing.</p>
<p>Fast forward to another decade. “Why are you so drunk?” I’d asked my husband, who had been ploughed with drinks by sympathetic audience members at a festival poetry reading, feeling sorry for him having to put up with me writing and reading “such horrible” poems about him. But they weren’t. The poems were about a different husband. </p>
<p>Another time: a verse novel I’d written, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Screaming-Middle-memoir-verse-strange/dp/192523133X">The Screaming Middle</a>, about the daily grind and glory of being a mother (incidentally referencing children with mental ill-health) was at one stage celebrated by said children but subsequently used by them in daily family life as evidence against me and formed part of the plea to never write about them again. </p>
<p>Likewise, retrospectively my first memoir, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12727109-friday-forever">Friday Forever</a>, about postnatal depression (written before any of my three children could read or I had the emotional intelligence to comprehend that they would one day acquire this skill) made my children’s taboo list of things never to be read from at public readings. Why didn’t you ever apologise to me for being so violent? my current husband once asked, forgetting I had. Part of my apology had been outing myself in that memoir. </p>
<p>A writing colleague at a recent reading asked me if I’d pull a book or stop a reprint if my children, for example, asked me to. No. I would not. I did not, however, have the courage to voice that at the time, in front of an audience of academic writers who are well-versed in “capital E” ethics, because my ethical relationship to the confession is of a guerrilla warfare kind.</p>
<p>My honest answer is “capital N” no. I’d reprint the memoir, for example, and the verse novel, and include the letters and messages of thanks I’ve received from readers, all of which I’ve read to my children. </p>
<p>They’ve been sent to me from mothers “spelling” in psychiatric hospitals, from prisons, from ex-students, from absolute strangers, from family with whom I never speak — Thank you for talking about this on the page, we will never manage it in the flesh — all with the theme of, “If not for your book…”</p>
<h2>A form of disobedience</h2>
<p>My writerly acts of confession are garish, they are vulgar and dazzling both, but they are the only form of disobedience at many a woman writer’s legal disposal.</p>
<p>A poem about sexual assault may sound like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You ran into me bodysurfing. You were made of thunder and mirrors. You marshalled me to safety, the shark alarms sympathetic to your cause. You smelt faintly of salt and horror movies, lurking there beside the lifeguard, who declared me unharmed. You knew everyone on the beach. Your message transferred into me as if by gravity, like ink from a punctuating cartridge. You said you had a spare beachside apartment to rent (you owned the building) and a wife at home you’d like me to meet. You lied. You stood blocking your door, nagging for my number. You grew taller than your chandelier’s talons, rounder than your cellar’s aged barrels. You forced a pen upon me, I only want your number, a beautiful combination of physics and chemistry and engineering. I began to write on your grocery list which included garlic and nappies. Your hands were too soon filthy with rape and seed to fend off the nib and knob and mouth and thrust tube that prefaced your shroud. You were every woman’s uncle, the hand over our primary mouths, you were the bastard at every barbecue in history, the flasher in the church, the man in every dark. You were a poem I wrote with a cheap hotel pen instead of re-enacting your sad opera for the police. I liked the sounds of you both, your click, your clack, your leak of Chartres-blue blood. Your fatal snap.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>-Anatomy of a tragedy</p>
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<p>I wrote about an act of sexual abuse, (condensing a history of such), fictionalised as per this until now unpublished prose poem, although I had posted other poems about this incident on Facebook and Instagram. I felt healed in many ways from the show of support on those platforms. </p>
<p>I’ve told my husband, but not my children: we had other more important family stuff to deal with at the time, including one of my children being in hospital for an extended and frightening stay, and the arrival of a stepdaughter to live with us.</p>
<p>The poem above is my final response, for now, to sexual abuse. I did not go to the police because the man in question is a well-known local dignitary, and I had willingly gone back to his apartment (albeit having believed his trickery). </p>
<p>Plus, I was absolutely, utterly exhausted, and had what felt like a million essays to grade — if one surrendered every time one was sexually assaulted, I said to myself in my best 1950s movie star voice, who’d be alive to write about it? Something I also did not do was murder him. It’s a poem, not a pogrom.</p>
<h2>Garish feminist poetics: two snapshots</h2>
<p>Confessional poetry as a genre emerged in the 1950s and is famously associated with poet Robert Lowell, and (his pupils) Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Writers had suddenly become urgently interested in discussing personal subject matter that modernism had previously dismissed as less important — the private realm.</p>
<p>But the confessional poets were as interested in craft as they were their embrace of topics, pioneering new relationships to the patterns and sounds used in poetry: confessional poetry wrote a new kind of music to accompany those bold (fresh hell) interrogations of the self. Women writers and their self-revelation became the hallmark of confessionalism, developing as they did a personal style, which in turn exploded many a fixed idea about women and their usually mythological place in contemporary culture.</p>
<p>Then …</p>
<p>We could discuss Sylvia Plath or Sharon Olds, but they didn’t also start their own band, so let’s talk about Anne Sexton, who did (<a href="http://jamesdamnbrown.com/annesexton/index.html">Anne Sexton and Her Kind</a>)</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>You, Doctor Martin, walk <br>
from breakfast to madness. Late August, <br>
I speed through the antiseptic tunnel <br>
where the moving dead still talk <br>
of pushing their bones against the thrust <br>
of cure. And I am queen of this summer hotel …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>-from Anne Sexton’s You, Doctor Martin</p>
<p>Sexton once told her students at Boston University “I do not want to be known as the mad-suicide poet, the live Sylvia Plath,” but as her contemporary Adrienne Rich commented she nevertheless “auditioned for the role and rehearsed it in book after book until she wrapped herself in her mother’s fur coat and gassed herself in October 1974”. Should Sexton be best read “madly”? </p>
<p>Here we have a woman who was most violent against herself: Sexton threw her poetry — begun and nurtured through her therapeutic relationship with her first psychiatrist Martin T Orne — around like missile-sized deadly darts, but only after it had already done its ravaging work on her own self. But it is the other side of her personal bedlam that is most interesting: the garish declaration of herself against all social-contracts that constituted good taste for womanhood of that era.</p>
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<p>Something happened in America in the 1950s, and something particularly peculiar happened in Boston, where Sexton lived. Afterwards — let’s for now <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/waking-blue">borrow from poet Robert Lowell</a> and call it Mayflower Screwballism Unhinged — afterwards, there was a profound caesura in contemporary literary history. On the shoulders of this mood rode the confessional poets, and there to catch them when they fell were their Bostonian doctors. </p>
<p>The society that flourished within and around this co-dependent relationship changed the cultural aesthetics of a nation, and invented a new breed of feminism. It included a lot of sex, and suicide. To read that embrace as accidental, somehow defective, would be a lowering experience, and not one mindful of the spirit that funded the mood. Sexton is an important exemplar of this caesura. Confession is costly. But you can’t argue against the shift in literary time that Sexton caused with her poetry.</p>
<p>Now ….</p>
<p>There are so many women poets being garish in their own cultural and transnational ways that to single out one seems churlish. It is easy, for example, to name <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot">Pussy Riot</a> as the collective this-century version of Stevie Nicks, turing her “the personal is political” into their “the political is personal”. </p>
<p>Or easier still to name instapoet phenomenon <a href="https://torontolife.com/style/fashion/torontos-stylish-rupi-kaur/">Rupi Kaur</a> with her more than 3 million followers on Instagram, her impeccable credentials in artistic activism on behalf of women and the oppressed and her poetry collections that sell upwards of 2.5 million copies. </p>
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<p>But a shiny, extravagant example of the new feminist poetics where it can be seen to be read as tasteless in the most beguiling and political manner is the young British poet, filmmaker, actress, library activist, and model <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/greta-bellamacina-london-poet-model-filmmaker-harry-potter">Greta Bellamacina</a>. By “tasteless” I mean garish in the sense where garishness re-defines taste, is beyond established taste. By “tasteless”, I deliberately denigrate taste as a middle-class opiate that oppresses. </p>
<p>Bellamacina’s feminist negotiations under capitalism are spectacular. In the same way that Sexton slept with her (later) psychiatrist, Bellamacina metaphorically sleeps with her enemies, converting capitalism to her end. </p>
<p>While developing her signature poetic style, she also founded a successful London poetry press (with her husband, the conceptual artist Robert Montgomery). She has modelled in major fashion campaigns from Burberry to Mulberry having first negotiated a feminist incorporation into those campaigns (such as <a href="http://www.gretabellamacina.com/news-1/2017/10/8/poetry-reading-for-burberry">including poetry</a>, or promoting women as muses). Bellamacina’s engagement with consumption insists on a peculiar post-capitalist embrace: yes, she models for major international labels, but while doing so re-configures their ethical relationship to the personal. Via a garish methodology, the client is freshly recognised as a consumer of poetry as well as conventional fashion products.</p>
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<p>Not to mention the films, or her community work in this same domain, or the edited collection <a href="http://www.thenewriverpress.com/shop/copy-of-smear">Smear</a>, an anthology of contemporary feminist poets that sells at point-of-sale alongside the latest fashion offerings in Urban Outfitters. All this and more in the first quarter of a century of her life: garish is the new sublime.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The bed remains ancient in its ritual of worship<br>
a personal attack against strangers<br>
made up of all its own Trojan wars<br>
hung in literature, undebated.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>-From In the morning Penelope, Greta Bellamacina, commissioned by the National Poetry Library to respond to Homer’s Odyssey</p>
<h2>On amplification (#WhyIDidntReport)</h2>
<p>Fear, shame, even ignorance (“isn’t this just what happens?”), contribute to women’s being complicit in their own silence. Sometimes the loud voice of poetry married with a bit of garish confessionalism is much needed to recall women to themselves, to restore sanity, to relocate a self that is far away from trouble that has too often defined them.</p>
<p>Are we obedient, or disobedient, to the social order? I am both: we most of us are. But the time has come to be bolder, more courageous, more garish.</p>
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<span class="caption">Greta Bellamacina.</span>
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<p>Confessional poetry for the garish feminist is a method to manufacture some quality dissent, to not take our intellectual freedoms for granted, or allow them to be muted by our too-often abstract observations of unfairness, or our complicated relationships to exploitation. I have some other ideas, but for now, all I can manage is poetry.</p>
<p>Poetry, because when garish feminists write they develop a radical poetics that rise to and meet and imagine above and beyond women’s current #MeToo realities. Because to do so remains an avant-garde act, and we need that more than ever. </p>
<p>Garish feminism, because it grows out of and further contributes to the women’s movement (and we need that too). Because it inspires us to speak in new ways, with a transformative impact. Because Anne Sexton did not “moan” enough before she killed herself, and because Bellamacina and her kind have, as her New River Press logo says, “New Language for Sad Times”.</p>
<p>And because there is no other way I can fasten my gaze.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106446/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Bradley Smith is affiliated with New River Press as a poet whose work is included in their anthology of women's poetry.</span></em></p>Writerly acts of confession are garish, they are vulgar and dazzling, but they are the only form of disobedience at many a woman writer’s disposal.Susan Bradley Smith, Senior Lecturer Creative Writing, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.