In #MeToo era, women demand changes
Esther J. Cepeda says too many are coming forward with stories of harassment and rape to be disregarded as partisan plants.
Would it surprise you to learn that even in academia — a supposed bastion of liberalism and equality — women are two and a half times less likely than men to ask questions in academic seminars?
In a new article published in the journal PLOS One, researchers crunched data on 250 talks at 35 institutions in 10 countries as well as survey responses from about 600 academics in various disciplines around the world. Their conclusion: Both men and women sometimes don’t ask questions when they want to but, unlike men, women said they hesitated for reasons like “not feeling clever enough” or not being able to “work up the nerve.”
It’s a particularly important finding because these numbers were collected before President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, and they will doubtlessly shift dramatically now that the Trump era has opened the floodgates to unprecedented ire toward women — and what is quickly becoming a muscular backlash to it.
During the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, we got to see a nominee to the Supreme Court — usually an avatar of balance and temperance — display stunning impertinence to a female senator. He responded to Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s question about whether he’d ever blacked out by turning the question around on her, as if she were the one accused.
After a break, during which he surely consulted with his lawyers, Kavanaugh apologized to Klobuchar. But it doesn’t change that, based on the judge’s fiery demeanor, the outcome would have been much different had the tables been turned. As Klobuchar commented to CBS the day after: “If I was in his courtroom and acted like that, he would have thrown me out.”
At a bare minimum, no doubt. A few days later, there was the spectacle between Trump and Cecilia Vega, ABC News’ senior White House correspondent. Trump picked Vega to ask the first question at the Rose Garden news conference announcing the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
As Vega reached for the microphone, the president remarked, “She’s shocked that I picked her. She’s in a state of shock.”
Vega responded: “I’m not. Thank you, Mr. President.”
Trump, with a snide tone said, “That’s OK, I know you’re not thinking. You never do.”
Vega was, no doubt, incredulous and visibly annoyed as she said, “I’m sorry?” — not as an apology but as in, “Come again?”
But Trump dissembled and said, “No, go ahead.”
The next day, at a rally in Mississippi, Trump repeatedly mocked Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers. Trump called those who support Ford — another way of saying “women” — “really evil people.”
During the years of Trump’s candidacy and presidency, people of color have felt that white Americans have been emboldened to proudly admit to their racist beliefs and take them out on unsuspecting darkskinned men and women.
The same goes for misogyny, a condition as old as the hills. But hatred of women — actual violence inducing hatred against women — gained momentum after Hillary Clinton’s failed run for president.
Absurdly, in the era of #MeToo, with its well-attended women’s marches and a raft of female officeseekers in the upcoming midterm elections, there’s an emerging narrative being pushed by some on the right that posits that it is men who are in danger — of being victimized or having their lives ruined by the angry women they’ve mistreated.
Don’t worry, this male victimhood narrative isn’t going to take. There are too many women out there willing to come forward with their stories of humiliation, abuse, belittlement and rape to be disregarded as partisan plants, deployed to escalate the culture wars between the right and left.
And, based on what I’ve seen so far, there are too many men who care about the physical and emotional safety and well-being of the mothers, sisters, wives, friends, colleagues and bosses in their lives to pretend that we aren’t in the middle of a watershed moment in history.
One in which men will become acutely aware of the potential consequences of disrespecting women and change their behaviors accordingly.
It may not happen as soon or as quickly as we would like, but right now this correction feels inevitable.
The world has changed a lot since 2016, and it has made women find their voices. And, increasingly, they aren’t satisfied with just asking questions — they’re demanding answers.