It's our fault

[Seachangeshell]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/09/mariella-frostrup-13-year-old-sent-explicit-email-to-his-teacher?CMP=fb_hi

Whoops sorry- link fail. Just read this and the thing is I agree with most of what's she says. I'm just referring to the second and third paragraph where we need to do some 'naval gazing' and consider how we are to blame for sexual harassment because of our underwear shopping habits. Just so tiresome!
Will work out how to make a proper link!

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/09/mariella-frostrup-13-year-old-sent-explicit-email-to-his-teacher
Here it is. Second paragraph of Frostrup'x reply is what I'm referring to.

Ugh.

Women being complicit in patriarchy is horrible, no doubt, but women's complicity is not what causes patriarchy.

Patriarchy forces women to be complicit or be punished.

Seems she needs to vent her anger at handmaidens of the patriarchy somewhere. Which I understand, but an advice column is not really the place to do it. And to suggest we should do "navel gazing" ...

Navel gazing is what got us in that mess in the first place. We need to take action as a class. Look away from our navels and look at the world around us. Boycott Victoria's Secret as a class, if that's what she thinks is needed.

Where once we donned dungarees and burned our bras, today we’re queuing for Victoria’s Secret. If we really have earned the right to choose then what we’ve chosen is to perpetuate the presumption that our appearance matters more than what comes out of our mouths. It’s no longer something that we can blame on boys and men.

Is she taking the fucking piss?

Today 12:37 Seachangeshell

I just think it minimises the fact that this teacher was being sexually harassed. The comment about 'thinking more about what we look like than what comes out of our mouths' just grates on me.
I wear make up, dress up when i go out and I buy nice underwear but I don't post photos of myself in it and presumably neither did this poor teacher. I value my opinions and brain power more highly than my looks but I can't force men to think the same! And I get sexist comments in the street based on my appearance. So what should I do - wear a sack?
I know she's not really suggesting this at all and I would love young girls not to feel the pressure to share photos of themselves, value their intellects more highly, etc. I just don't think that this will prevent sexual harassment. Plenty of men are happy to target any woman or girl, no matter how she's dressed.

Yep. That and, if you're buying sexy underwear (which was completely hypothetical about the teacher anyway) then it's open season for all boys and men to send you lewd emails, and we 'can't blame them' for it.

But if I don't buy girly underwear and I wear dungarees and no makeup doesn't that make me a trans man?

I can't really see what she is saying if it's not - it's all our fault for buying VS underwear instead of bra burning and wearing dungarees. Perhaps I'm missing something.

I think she's disappointed that most women aren't feminists and expresses it really, really badly. (Also, it has nothing to do with this specific case.)

A woman's choice of underwear doesn't affect at all how much men and boys harrass her on an individual basis, but if we all were feminists, (of which the burnt bra is a symbol) we could combat male violence more efficiently.

Sometimes, it can be really, really hard to not hate other women for complying with patriarchy enthusiastically. (Granted, I most detest women who become misogynists in an effort to better save their male overlords, but I can see how a mere lack of feminist resistance might be disappointing, too.)

But if I don't buy girly underwear and I wear dungarees and no makeup doesn't that make me a trans man?

Yes, that's the world we live in.

(And actually, women who take on some silly gender identity are those I hate most. The femininity-performing women I know acknowledge that I do not do femininity and am still a woman. They do not view femininity as compulsory, at least not consciously. Transmen and female non-binaries, on the other hand ... THEY declare themselves non-women on no basis other than the fact that they don't do femininity. By which they declare me a non-woman, too, even if they don't "misgender" me ... which they often do.)

I think she raises an important point at the end by questioning had the father deferred responsibility to the mother as the boy 'lived' with her. If there is any navel gazing to be done it's to be done by fathers honestly asking what kinds of men the boys we raise will grow up to be?

Children of both genders need strong role models, so wether that's seeing more women visible in wider society or men modelling positive masculinity. We can only benefit from such reflection.

Part of the problem is that we women are complicit. Where once we donned dungarees and burned our bras, today we’re queuing for Victoria’s Secret. If we really have earned the right to choose then what we’ve chosen is to perpetuate the presumption that our appearance matters more than what comes out of our mouths

That has to be one of the stupidest things I've read in a long time.

Basically you can't be clever and pretty. Although Ms Frostrup may have just proven it true in her own case.

Why is it amazing that men should teach other males the right way to be? I feel like there is an implication in the way it's worded that it should be women doing this. Rather than an acknowledgment that actually it is actually right and proper and correct that it should be men role modelling in this way.

Didn't read that part of the article. There's a lot of internalized misogyny there, apparently.

I think many women don't expect men to do anything for feminism because they have given them up as lost cause.

But if this woman is applauding men doing somewhat less than their fair share in combating misogyny, as if they are doing something special, then it can't be that.