Misogyny isn’t film fiction, it’s real life
MORE than a week’s gone by, Harvey Weinstein’s seeking help for his ‘serious problem’, the victims continue to step forward and the conversation goes on.
The Hollywood mogul’s furtive fumblings, preposterous propositions and serious sexual offences have certainly struck a note.
Yes, it’s Hollywood. Yes, it’s the revelation of the underbelly beneath the golden sheen of La-La Land. Yes, it’s LA real-life revealed, not some Hollywood make-believe.
But there’s another reason why it rumbles on. It’s because the can has been opened. The worms are out. And, if you’re female, you know that a form of what’s been going on in Hollywood goes on in real life every day.
It’s a sort of – and I’m trying to put my finger on it here, a sort of climate of disrespect towards women, that we’re all complicit in. It’s illustrated in the way that older, maybe vergingon-the-plain-side women sort of look disapprovingly at attractive younger women. It’s a feeling that women in the workplace have each day... that they have to somehow continue to prove themselves. That if it’s clear someone in authority has his roving eye on you, you have to be even better at your job to prove to colleagues
It’s a climate of disrespect to women we’re all complicit in
that you’re there on merit. It’s when the ticket inspector on the train travels through saying “Thank you, Sir”, “Thank you, Sir”, until he gets to you, “Thanks love”. Grrr.
It’s in the restaurant, when the waiter gazes patronisingly at the little lady and places the bill near the man.
It’s the “Oh, we know why she got the job, don’t we?” It’s the “if you’re a smiley sort of person you must be stupid”. It’s the “ugly old cow”. It’s the “silly bitch”, It’s the “slag”. It’s the sort of hatred that if a woman dares to speak out about she’s hounded and insulted and vilified – just ask Labour MP Stella Creasy who was bombarded by a Twitter troll calling her a witch and threatening her with rape.
It’s the way religions demonise women and put virgins on pedestals.
It’s the everyday leering, the everyday objectification, the conceit we should be grateful for male attention. That we seek it. When we don’t.