Men -- it's time for serious change

Article here. Excerpt:

'Men, it’s time for change.

Call it a shift in power or a reculturalization. It’s well past time for men, especially in positions of power, to step up and call out peers’ abuses. Today it’s Harvey Weinstein. Earlier this year it was Bill O’Reilly. Next year it will be some other previously beloved celebrity, followed by a rash of stories of how everyone knew but no one acted. We know the many understandable reasons why those who experience harassment or assault, prominently but not exclusively women, might not act. There’s no excuse for other, powerful men not to step in.
...
No one should have to choose between a job and dealing with a “handsy” boss or co-worker. “That’s just the way it is” should be unacceptable in Hollywood or the restaurant down the street. And no one should ever be put in a position in which they feel the only way to get ahead is to play along or engage in a relationship, sexual or otherwise, that makes them uncomfortable.'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

The casting couch is transactional sex. This is SOP among primates. Females h@ving sex with high-status males to get things they want pre-dates homo sapiens. It isn't going to stop, mostly b/c females like transactional sex as a means of getting things from males. This happens all day every day between hookers and men, wives and husbands, etc. Society declaring transactional sex perfectly fine if there is what is called a "romantic relationship" in place but not if there isn't is both ludicrous and... it doesn't work. It happens anyway. And it'll keep happening.

The other issue is the harassing behavior: the groping, rude comments, etc. THAT is the problem needing addressing. Conflating transactional sex with that kind of harassing behavior isn't constructive. The two issues need to be separated.

Oh yeah... how frequently does women's behavior fit the definition of harassment? Pretty often. I've had female bosses do and say things to me that definitely fit the def'n of harassment, even in front of others. No one thought anything of it, incl. myself.

Of course I was a bit younger then and worked with women a lot more, given what I was doing.

Like0 Dislike0

Struck me not long ago... feminist separatism is now plausible.  The all-woman separatist groups formed in the '70s nearly all failed due to a lack of sustainability.  It requires numbers, skills, etc.  They simply lacked enough of both.  But today... it could be done.

I think given the level of misandry loose in western society there may be perhaps at least 10,000 women ready to live apart from the rest of American society in a separate colony, not unlike Sappho's mythical colony on Lesbos.  But the poetic inhabitants of her Brigadoon-esque colony were indeed separate from the rest of civilization, a bit too far away for them to be readily supportable by the rest of Greece had it been so.   If however a US state created a reservation out of some amount of land, legally similar to Indian reservations (and indeed, establishing a new such reservation only made up exclusively of women may be the easiest route to go for them), and modern infrastructure were built: roads, plumbing, houses, electrical, etc., it could work.

The new semi-autonomous region could have a name.  I like "Femina", Latin for "woman", but they could come up with anything, really.  If the land area were large enough, they could farm it using modern equipment.  Of course in general the residents would still be far from independent from men.  Men's inventions would be enabling their man-free lives: tractors, cars, electrical grid, etc.  But this is much like how Indian reservations are filled with latter-day American inventions: cars, phones, houses, etc.  Yet the Indians live separately from the descendents of Europeans, et al.  And just as reservation residents trade with outsiders, etc., so could the residents of Femina.  They could sell excess farm produce, any finished goods they make, etc.

Would 10,000 women be enough to maintain a first world living standard?  Depends on the skills they bring.  All kinds are needed: MDs, nurses, EMTs, hospital workers, electricians, etc.  But where the residents lacked necessary skills, they can do as the Indians do: they could allow needed specialists in to do necessary things.  Whether they permit male specialists or not'd be a matter of public policy for them to decide.  (Perhaps men, but only as escorted by a Femina security officer.  Oh yes, they'll need police, too, a judge, etc.   But I bet they can find these.)

This could work.  For real.

Question is, just how serious are feminist separatists?  If feminism thinks it will instead alter society at large to fit its vision, they'll be waiting a long time.  The separatists among them are right in that it'd be a lot more expeditious of them to create a separate, man-free space than it will to wait until all of society is marching to their tune.

Hey you radfem readers out there (and I know you're out there!), what say you?  This is the idea.  Just how serious are you about separatism?  The challenge is laid before you.  Will you pick up the gauntlet?

Like0 Dislike0