so disappointed in Germaine Greer

[patrickharviesorganicmuesli]

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/germaine-greer-me-too-harvey-weinstein-women-spread-legs-movie-roles-actress-a8173161.html

Who has said that women 'spread their legs' for Weinstein movie roles and 'it's too late now to start whingeing' re MeToo.

What a complete let down.

Yup. Hoping her comments have been misreported

What she said was

"If you spread your legs because he said 'be nice to me and I'll give you a job in a movie' then I'm afraid that's tantamount to consent, and it's too late now to start whingeing about that,"

I agree with her.

Prostitution is not rape. If someone decides to exchange sex for goods or services then they are not raped. If they were free to leave or say no at any point they have not been raped.

Greer speaks the truth.

Agree with Greer.

Choosing to sleep with someone for gain is prostitution. They chose to sleep with someone for a role arguably they shouldn't have had too and that is wrong but I agree with Germaine saying they had the choice and they chose the role

Everyone in Hollywood knew what went on. The casting couch has been a running joke for decades. If my boss asked me to suck his dick for a promotion I would likely break his jaw.

Greer must be incredulous seeing the likes of Streep campaigning against Sexual harassment.

But there are threats. Its not to just land the role, it is to avoid having your career ruined and never be able to work in the industry again.

I’m torn here.

I think she’s arguing that women should feel empowered enough to say ‘no’ at the time of the assault/event. Therefore, ‘whingeing’ some twenty years later that you were taken advantage of is pointless - it helps neither yourself nor those who came after you.

although perhaps Greer has a point in that there are two very different debates to be had and they have been mixed together, one is about what happens when you say no, and the other is about the casting couch and reasons that women didn't feel they could say no.

Coerced consent is not consent.

Me and my mum fell out about this.
Spread your legs once, get a small role. Then forever more spread your legs to anyone that asks.
Also question of who else is encouraging this leg spreading. Managers, entourage, parents ?
Lots of women are strong enough to say stuff your job, I’m not sucking your penis. Do we just abandon those that aren’t.

Idontdowindows

How do you define coercion? If it comes down to power then isn't any sex in a patriarchal society some kind of coercion?

Greer these days is just a professional controversialist. She loves the attention.

i think it is different - in one scenario there is choice, in the other (rape) there is not. You can argue about the validity of that choice, but you can choose not to go for that job etc, you can't choose not to be raped.

Yes I mean who needs women in films anyway? Stupid women expecting to have the job of their dreams, they should just go home and have babies. It's perfectly legitimate for men to take their hopes and dreams, the career they've worked so hard for and use it to coerce sex out of them. What do those women expect? They asked for it.

@thedailyshow I think that's a facetious question. We all know what coerced consent is. At least all women do....

If a woman has to have sex with a man or otherwise she cannot work in her chosen profession, then the consent is coerced.

If a woman has to have sex with a man or she won't have food, then the consent is coerced.

If a woman has to have sex with a man or she won't have a roof over her head, then the consent is coerced.

Or do I need to use smaller words maybe?

I agree with LeCroissant.

And also, whatever your views or the different arguments, what do people want to happen going forward. If what young women now see is just more victim blaming - all the 'oh they're winging' stuff - that isn't going to encourage them to speak up now and get things improved.

And EamonnWright, if someone's boss did ask them to suck his dick and they broke his jaw, they'd be the one being prosecuted and, the way things are at the moment, people would likely be quick to assume you were making things up.

whingeing, sorry

@IDontDoWindows

No idea why you were rude. I'd concentrate on mastering punctuation before worrying about your lexicon.

I'm baffled by the assertion that having sex in exchange for a role is prostitution, as though that somehow settles the matter. All that should tell you is that prostitution is coercion - where a person 'consents' to sex they don't want and would never have because they want/need something that the other person (man) is dangling in front of them. That women shrug their shoulders and say 'oh well don't whinge' makes my skin crawl - do you have so little respect for your fellow women, and yourself, that you don't see how fucked up that situation is? How unacceptable it is that men use this as a tactic to use women's bodies like wank receptacles?

I really dislike the sense that the women who did sleep for roles are 'sluts' and deserved to be used, as though they're the ones who should be ashamed. As usual the men, the people who actually created the whole situation and went ahead and used the body of a woman who didn't want to be there, are just let off scot free, as though they have every right to behave in such a disgusting way.

OP are you the reporter poster who was disappointed with Margaret Atwood?

I suspect that much of what was said there will be repeated here... misinterpretation of a well thought out feminist opinion is unlikely to garner 100% support!

I really dislike the sense that the women who did sleep for roles are 'sluts' and deserved to be used, as though they're the ones who should be ashamed. As usual the men, the people who actually created the whole situation and went ahead and used the body of a woman who didn't want to be there, are just let off scot free, as though they have every right to behave in such a disgusting way

Yet that isn t happening. At all. Hollywood is a hive of scumbags evidently.

As with the Atwood post, there will be a great polemic response.

Both sides will be right, and wrong. But Greer, like Atwood, made valid points, started valid debates, and should be cheered on for being brave enough to try and start a more open, less knee jerk discussion about this.

'Yet that isn t happening. At all. Hollywood is a hive of scumbags evidently.'

Sorry I don't understand. What's not happening?

It doesn't matter in any case what Greer's interpretation is, because it is clear from the testimony of the women attacked by Weinstein that even if some of the incidents could (if one squinted through half-closed eyes) be dismissed as a simple trade of sex for a film part, many more were straightforwardly and unequivocally sexual assault.

As for the "why didn't she just leave?" questions, I've been pondering this in connection with the Ansari case. I don't know what happened on that "bad date", but I do know that probably the bravest thing involved walking out. I want to explain why it's so hard to do - not just hard, absolutely fucking terrifying. In my case, I'd found myself alone in a room with a man who wanted to have sex with me (having invited me there on the purely platonic pretext of offering me a cup of tea). He had positioned himself between me and the door. He had stressed that it was a lovely quiet bit of the building with no-one within earshot. I had to get up and walk past him not knowing whether I would be raped. I made a split second judgement call that this particular man would not escalate to physical violence if he couldn't coerce me verbally, and it turned out I'd made the right call. But it was still fucking terrifying, and it was luck rather than judgement that I got away unscathed - rapists do not come with the mark of Cain tattooed on their foreheads.

Some women in the same situation subconsciously decide to acquiesce because then they still have the psychological defence mechanism of "it was just bad sex" open to them. Getting up to walk out makes it unequivocally rape, and you have to deal with the aftermath of it. I have every sympathy with a woman who can't find it in herself to take the chance on walking out.