Tumblr, 2016\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nThere are several items to consider here, but the key one is the last line:\u00a0\u00a0it’s also a society where women don’t have a clear and unambiguous way to say no.<\/em>\u00a0 This is important – at one point, not that long ago, society gave women no way to say “yes.”\u00a0 This meant that “no” was ambiguous, and men had to rely on other clues to interpret the “no.”\u00a0 Clues like tone of voice, choice of clothing, whether or not she is drinking – these are all things that men have had to rely on to determine what was meant by “no,”\u00a0 Not coincidentally, these are all suggestions on various “helpful” lists on what women should do to not get raped; basically, don’t do anything that can be interpreted in any way as “no” meaning “yes.”<\/p>\nThis is, of course, a very restrictive way to live, and women have been striving to move past that.\u00a0 It is evidence of the progress being made that\u00a0Baby, It’s Cold Outside<\/em> is now uncomfortable – we don’t live in that society any more.<\/p>\nOr rather, many of us don’t live in that society any more.\u00a0 Societal change does not often happen overnight, and a large portion of the population still lives as though women cannot say “yes.”\u00a0 They still live as though if a woman says “no” it is a mystery to unravel.\u00a0 They teach their children this same thing, so that this piece of history is handed down from generation to generation.\u00a0 The problem is, as identified above, this leaves a lot of room for “misunderstanding” and “misinterpreting.”<\/p>\n
And projection.\u00a0 A lot of projection.\u00a0 When things are ambiguous, it is easy to see what you want to see, as though it were some sort of societal Rorschach test.\u00a0 Of course, we are the heroes of our own stories, so anything we project of course falls in our favor.\u00a0 This is why Mr. Kavanaugh does not remember any sexual assault happening – because, to him, what happened was not assault.\u00a0 It was simply his interpreting a “no” as ambiguous, which he had to do because he was not aware that a woman could say “yes.”\u00a0 What’s more, he cannot conceive that a woman would not want him, and thus all “nos” must be these concealed “yeses.”<\/p>\n
This is not dissimilar to Donald Trump’s attitude as evidenced by his infamous quote from the\u00a0Access Hollywood<\/em> bus incident, where he says,\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWhen you\u2019re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.\u201d\u00a0 In Trump’s mind, it would be irrational not to want him because he is, as he says, “a star.”\u00a0 He is rich and famous; therefore, everything a woman does is indicative of her desire for him.\u00a0 This is what happens when you combine the narcissism of Trump with that societal Rorschach test; every action is interpreted as ambiguous.\u00a0 Every contestant who enters one of his beauty pageants, every woman who says “no,” every woman who even meets him – they all become fair game.<\/p>\nEven when not taken to the extreme of Trump, this mindset is pervasive – Mike Pence, for example, famously does not meet with women other than his wife one-on-one; this is an extension of that belief that everything a woman does is indicative of desire (and, possibly, and extreme amount of distrust or jealously from Karen Pence).\u00a0 This is, of course, aided by women who continue to live in the society where they cannot say “yes,” especially if they come from a large community of such women.\u00a0 The evidence they have firsthand is that this is still the way society works, and thus it only reinforces the notion that they can consider these protests from women for the sake of their body to be simply for the form of the matter.\u00a0 \u00a0Men like this don’t actually need to listen to the protests, the don’t need to consider things from another’s viewpoint – they see themselves as playing by the rules, and those protests are just a natural consequence of playing the game.<\/p>\n
It is bad enough, of course, that men like this still exist; that they have not stopped to take the pulse of society and alter their actions.\u00a0 \u00a0Some men have grown and learned; they have retrained themselves to the new rules of society and issued apologies for their previous actions.\u00a0 It is, unfortunately, the ones who have doubled down – the ones who not only are not apologetic, but insist that this is the way society should work – it is these men who are in power in Washington D.C.\u00a0 They are trying to do everything in their power to maintain or reinstate the society they are familiar with, to make sure that the rules are what the are comfortable with.\u00a0 This is, of course, a conservative approach, one of the rare times that lower-case conservatism actually overlays with upper-case Conservative ideology.\u00a0 In this administration, however, this society is one of cronyism and personal loyalty – loyalty not to country or position, but to an individual, and doing everything to further the ambitions of that one individual.\u00a0 There really is no way to correct this other than voting them (or the people supporting them) out of office.\u00a0 Protests don’t work on them, they consider these protests from others for the sake of their country to be simply for the form of the matter.\u00a0 Men like this don’t actually need to listen to the protests, the don’t need to consider things from another’s viewpoint – they see themselves as playing by the rules, and those protests are just a natural consequence of playing the game.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In which I explore the more themes interwoven through the Kavanaugh drama being played out in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":648,"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}