Power and Harassment

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

From what I can tell, almost nobody in society writes about individual “power.” It seems to be a blind spot, as if it were a sordid subject to us. Perhaps because we think Jesus wouldn’t be “turned on” by having power. Neither would my father: Grandmother told me Dad was a very decent man. Not a coincidence.

I’ve only come across two sources regarding power: Philosopher Bertrand Russel wrote a book called Power, and an angry Mark Twain wrote a political tract after he was angry at the wide spread denial that folks in the Belgian Congo were having their hands chopped off. (This was well before the “Belgian atrocities” of World War I, where the English, safely across the channel, stockpiled hands for Belgian children, to give to them after the war was over) As Twain put it, too bad for the king of Belgium that someone had invented the Kodak camera. Photographs were included. Twain also sketched stick figuers of the big king and his little subjects, to show the king wondering why so many are so eager to be bowing down to him. The king sure liked his power.

Happily, I live in a new century.

It was Joss Whedon, maker of Buffy the Vampire Slayer who said, “Recognising power in another does not diminish your own.” My dad would agree. To me that goes for "equal rights" too. Too bad some males still think of “equal rights” as a fixed pie (or zero sum game) thinking that if you give equal rights to females then somehow males have less rights. No wonder that, according to one blogger, (link) it’s easier for him to rebuke racists than to correct men who wish to harass.

In my own time, when the women’s liberation movement started, I remember society was innocent about the general connection of male power to liberation issues. I remember very well how society had great difficulty making the specific connection that rape could be for power and violence, not simply lust and love. Back then, people were very surprised to hear that plain nuns in shapeless clothing would be raped. For power. Today I think we mostly know this, we mostly know that a rapist can hate women. But now I am wondering exactly how much we still have left to learn.

I wonder, because recently I found a piece on street harrasment. I already knew public harrassment existed: Back during my young “meaning of life” days my girlfriend told me how angry she was to be yelled at from passing cars so bloody often. I believed her, even though this was back in the 1970’s when women were still disbelieved if they claimed there was harrassment for ordinary “didn’t ask for it” women. I haven’t read much about harrassment down the years, but after finding that piece last week I can see that society in the 21^st century still has a blind spot.

According to the writer, many men believe that their fellow males are being friendly, merely wanting a girlfriend, when they call out a supposed “compliment” or call, “Hey baby…”

As I understand it, the writer speculated that men don’t discourage such harrassment by fellow males because they think a poor over-confident harrasser is merely trying to find a girlfriend, that maybe he’s an unfortunate guy who lacks the social skills to go onto social media dating sites, or enter a singles bar, or get a membership with a hobby or club

Apparently, what men in our society don’t understand is that the harrasser isn’t trying to be friendly: If the woman does not ignore him, if she acts friendly back, then the harrassment escalates… always… escalates far past the point where any reasonable adult would ever want to be that guy’s friend. In other words, the harrasser is lying about wanting a perfect stranger to be his girlfriend. The secret sordid issue is power; the harrasser can’t feel “power over” the lady being harrassed until she stops being friendly.

If normal men don’t “get it” about their fellow males engaging in harrassment then I guess it’s because society still has a blind spot about indiviuals wanting power.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

June

2016

Footnotes:

~Here’s a leftist cartoon that includes a man of innocence.

~To find pages of informative links on the web, I would recommend combining the search terms “Scalzi” and “Harassment,” as writer John Scalzi said he wouldn’t attend any science fiction convention that did not have an anti-harassment policy.

~Here’s a writer dealing with a fellow male. At first you may want to skim past the “being a writer” context-setting of the first several paragraphs, and just go down to the paragraph near the photo that begins, “I saw the heroine of our story sitting on the BART.”

~I managed to dig up the blog that prompted me to write today’s piece. It’s lengthy. Scroll down to the October 30^th entry.

~At the risk of being disloyal to the U.S. war on terror, and “playing into the hands” of extremists against democracy...  I will note that at the Alexndra Writers Centre my teacher for Personal Essays, a gentle white-haired baby boomer, has a Saturday morning class for women to write about their personal experience of how the “equal rights movement” still hasn’t succeeded. 

If I didn’t join the class then it’s only because I don’t have enough experiences to write about. Her class is named after the 1970’s anti-brainwashing cartoon of a fish riding a bicycle. “A woman needs a man like a fish needs…”

Fender Bender for Life

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

My college teacher, Gerry Bruce, once told us once with a smile that he didn’t have to prepare any lessons for our class: By our actions we generated so many teachable moments. This was for our leadership 201 “how to lead a meeting” class, for in case we found jobs in a small town, and had to facilitate a community meeting.

It seems to me, likewise, that from my actions this week I could come up with my weekly essay topic, even as I am earnestly trying to generate a serious list of future blog files. If so, then my most instructive action of the last week has been a tiny fender bender. Ouch! I was slowly backing up and I hit a Nissan Pathfinder. To avoid any vested interest in being defensive I won’t write about the actual accident. To me, what are most interesting are the various “human factors.”

I have to smile: It’s strange how our young scientists, by coming up with new insights into physics, chemistry and plastics, are making the science publications of our parents obsolete… yet we are still reading Shakespeare plays from hundreds of years ago. We are still learning about humans, and the learning “just ain’t easy.”

In the diversity-and-assimilation file, I learned that a man might have a “strange” first name, yet still use learned academic words like “teensy weensy.” As in “scratches I could wipe out with a wet thumb, and a teensy weensy chip.” Actually, because his name was one syllable it was easy for me to learn (but he had to tell me how to spell it); a multi-syllable name I always have to write down.

In the technology-and-inventions file I learned that fiberglass is truly light. How light? If your fender is a little off, then don’t drive on the freeway. The grabbing wind does “strannnnge” things. Meanwhile, my modern car still comes with a few steel bars inside, but only the barest minimum, no more. After all, we have to get the fuel costs down somehow. Man, how I long for the days when you just smack a dent with a hammer. Incidentally, among certain young of Pacific rim Asians, young North American have a dubious reputation for being willing to drive cars with visible rust and dents. I put this down to American poverty roots, and love of fixing up old cars.

In the ego file, I found myself wanting to minimize or deny: I don’t have accidents, not me! And if I did, well, I’d think, “it doesn’t count—I can explain!” I found myself seriously wanting to get a rental car real fast, before anyone saw my fender. Obviously my ego was warping my truth. Not good. Surely I wouldn’t advise anyone else to wiggle and deny, so why do so myself? “Yes, but—”

This week I have learned something happy: Even when my ego is in “desperation mode” it takes surprisingly little self-talk, very little, to set myself straight again. “Tell the truth and shame the devil,” says I.

In my old family, sad to say, we didn’t have the word “self-talk” in our vocabulary, and our unspoken saying was, “There’s nothing wrong with this family…and don’t you dare tell anyone!”

As for surviving a family such as mine, a fortnight ago (In I am Not Oblomov) I posted a link to a radio interview of survivors of sibling abuse. After my fender accident, a man of my background told me he doesn’t ask for help the way other people do, because he doesn’t think he will get any help. I replied, “When I go to make a fender bender report at the police station I expect to be yelled at.” I told this to the nice cop at the station who responded, “Really?” And then, another cop who was there typing away nodded his head “yes” as the constable added, “…well, we could ask him to yell at you. (We all silently laughed)

Derision is not called for. My college instructor, a man of key phrases, used to tell us, “If you point an accusing or judgmental finger at someone else then you have three of your fingers pointing back at you.” Another phrase he would often say, after he gave us descriptive feedback, was “Defensive comments are not necessary.” Down the years, as you might imagine, I am still trying to be as good a chairman as he was; meanwhile every time I drive a tiny bit over the posted speed limit I know, sadly, I am still failing to be as good a driver as my driving instructor. Oh well. As Shakespeare could have said, it’s nice to live and learn.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

June

2016

Footnotes:

~Yes, I may exceed the speed limit when keeping within group traffic flow—that’s only common sense.

~I am reminded of two Chinese proverbs,

One good teacher is worth a ton of books

And

He who teaches me for a day is my father for life

Translated by Emil William Chynn

Copyright by Armand Eisen

Published by Andrews McMeel

Kansas City, Missouri