Behaving decently

I've read a lot of the commentaries and articles dealing with Brett Kavanaugh--whether he lied or didn't, what he lied about, his indignation and self-righteous anger on the stand, and so on. Personally I just don't trust him, since he appears to have lied about words like boofing and devil's triangle, among others (both of which have clear sexual connotations). He wants to make us believe that he was a decent young man with only the best motives where women were concerned. I don't believe that he was so decent. Any time massive amounts of alcohol are involved in order to have a 'good time', a decent mindset and decent behavior go out the window. It's guaranteed that something will go wrong or someone will get hurt. During my teenage years, young men drove when they were drunk, and ended up hurting (or killing) themselves and often others. One young man, quarterback of his high school football team, ended up a paraplegic after a horrific car crash that killed another occupant in the car. And so on. Driving drunk was not unusual then, but that changed dramatically when I reached my mid-twenties and MADD (Mothers against drunk driving--see https://www.madd.org/about-us/our-story/ for more info) forced the drinking age laws to change.

Society often says 'boys will be boys' whenever their 'bad' behavior is brought up, whether that bad behavior is sexual, alcohol-related, or drug-related. We let teenage boys off the hook when we use that expression, as though they somehow deserve to be excused for their bad behavior. They don't, and neither do the teenage girls who behave similarly. Unfortunately, it's often teenage girls who end up getting hurt more often than teenage boys, especially if sexual assault/rape enters the picture.

I know that it's possible that men and women can change, so I won't argue that point. I went to school with male and female bullies, most of whom grew up and became well-functioning, non-bullying adults. But nevertheless, they were not very nice persons when we were growing up. Their behavior was not excused however in my day; it was clamped down upon by parents and schools. All forms of sexual harassment and abuse should also be clamped down upon--by parents, schools and workplaces--whenever it appears. We don't need a lot of new regulations and laws; they exist already. We need to have them enforced; we need to enforce them. The abusers and harassers should be punished. Rapists should go to prison for a minimum of twenty years. They should not be rewarded with cushy positions and a 'get out of jail free' card whenever they've done something wrong. Angry privileged white men defend each other and protect each other. They let each other get away with bad behavior. They call in favors, they make deals, they pay off those they've abused/raped, and they get away with it. They are above the law and are allowed to remain there. They whine about the impact of hearings and investigations on their families; but they never once stop to consider the impact of their sexual assaults/rapes on the women they assault/rape, and on the families of those women. The narcissism, selfishness, and sociopathic tendencies in these men are appalling. Sociopaths are defined by behavior that is antisocial and often criminal; they lack a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. That pretty much sums up the behavior of many of the male politicians in government these days, as well as many of the men in the entertainment business and in the business world generally. It seems to me that many men simply hate women, and I really don't understand why. How we got to this point, I don't know.

I leave you with an excellent opinion article--Decent Men Don't Do These Things--published in The New York Times on September 24th: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/kavanaugh-sexual-assault-blasey-testimony.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

It's food for thought. I believe we need a national movement (like MADD) that stresses the urgency of learning how to behave decently again. We could hope our current president embraced such a movement and learned something from it as well.

The day of reckoning is here

It is perhaps no coincidence that there are so many sexual abuse scandals happening all around us--in politics (Brett Kavanaugh), in the Catholic church (pedophile priests), in the entertainment industry (#metoo, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby), and in the workplace (where to start--there are so many stories of bad bosses and toxic workplaces). These worlds were the playgrounds of men for many years, far too many years. Centuries of power placed in the hands of men, many who behaved indecently toward others, some who did not. The former behaved in ways that kept women and minorities out of the circles dominated by men, or if women and minorities were allowed in, kept them out of positions of power via harassment, abuse, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse. Make no mistake--all forms of harassment and abuse are power plays--exertions of power by the strong over those they perceive as weaker than they are. The harassers harass because they can, because they have the license to do so. They have enough power and money to prevent those they harass from fighting back and demanding justice. They can victimize others, but those others may after some time refuse to be labeled as victims and may fight back, and that is what is happening now in 2018, after years of not fighting back. The 'weaker' parties are ultimately not victims of the powerful. But the centuries-long imbalance between the powerful and non-powerful perpetuated the bad behavior by the powerful. I think what is happening now, however extreme it may be, is necessary in order for us to move forward as a nation and as a civilized world society. This bad behavior is not just occurring in the USA.

The day of reckoning is here. We simply cannot continue down the path on which we have been going. We know about all of the things that were wrong in the past, even the recent past. What we need now is change. We need open doors, we need a breath of fresh air. Out with the dinosaurs (of which Trump is one), in with the new. New ways of thinking and behaving. Transparency and integrity in leaders, be they men or women. Ethical behavior, justice for all. We have to believe again and to have hope. As is written in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The word 'men' can be stricken from this document and replaced with 'people', so that everyone understands that this document grants these freedoms to all, not to just one gender. It will be an extremely painful process to reckon with past grievances, but it is high time that we did. All real change is painful.

Zero tolerance for sexual harassment

Globally, the sheer number of women who have told their stories of sexual harassment in the #metoo campaign astounds me. Here in Norway, 487 actresses joined the campaign, and many of them told their stories anonymously to the newspaper Aftenposten (https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/metoo/aftenposten-487-kvinnelige-skuespillere-tar-et-oppgjoer-mot-sex-trakassering-og-overgrep/a/24189361/). When you read their stories, it is both heartbreaking and infuriating. Over 1000 artists in the music branch in Sweden did the same, and my reaction was the same. Who do these men think they are? And how did we get to this point in 2017? Where women are groped, probed, and violated against their will? Many of the stories describe attempted rapes—criminal behavior in other words. Do these men think they can get away with treating women like this? Apparently they do, because in truth, they get away with it, and have gotten away with it. None of the sexual harassers here in Norway have been named and shamed. Personally, I think they should have been, but it hasn’t happened and isn’t likely to happen. That makes it all the more important that men like Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose are held accountable for their disgusting behavior. I am glad that they are toppling, one after the other. I have zero sympathy for them, because they had zero sympathy for the women they abused. My reaction to most of them is that they can rot in hell.

But the entire campaign begs a larger question. Why are men behaving this way, and where were their parents in all of this when they were young boys? Why didn’t their parents teach them respect for women and for others generally? Did their schools fail them also? I went to Catholic school and we were clearly taught right from wrong from day one. Is it so difficult to behave correctly, to behave decently, and to behave respectfully? No it isn’t. It’s just that these harassers did not want to behave. They wanted what they wanted, when they wanted it, and it didn’t matter that the women didn’t share their desires. These men had immense power, and they abused it, as many men in power are wont to do. Otherwise, the old saying would never have been uttered by Lord Acton—‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. These men are corrupt degenerates, loathsome individuals, and terrible people. Perhaps they can change, but most likely they will not unless they are forced to do so, or forced to spend some time in jail for rape/attempted rape.

It infuriates me that some men (and a few women) are already calling for an end to the #metoo campaign, giving as the reason that not all men are sexual harassers. We already know this; #metoo is about some men's behavior, not all men's. But this is not the point. It is not up to men to decide when this campaign is to end. It is not their call. We have to be able to discuss this horrible behavior ad nauseam if need be. It has to be made clear over and over that men do not own women. They do not have any say over women’s bodies. Women are not their property; that idea went the way of the dinosaurs at the beginning of the 20^th century. The only way things will change is when the discomfort is so great, so painful, and so crystal clear, that male leaders and male employers wake up and do something about this behavior. If the campaign makes some men uncomfortable, good. That tells me that they are being hit close to home. Are they closet harassers? Do they have their own episodes of harassing behavior of which they are ashamed? That’s just too bad. Deal with the shame and the discomfort, the insecurity, and the nagging feeling that you are not good enough. Deal with feeling uncomfortable around women, of not knowing what to say. Drop the arrogance and the power plays. Drop the brutality. Drop the attempts to be cool in the eyes of other men. Drop the bullshit and learn to behave as a decent human being. Step up to the plate and call a spade a spade when you see sexual harassment of women. Call it out for what it is. Don’t stay silent, don’t be complicit. We’ve had enough of that in society. Stand up for women, treat them as your equals, be kind, be fair, be good men. 

The tables have turned and thank God for that

I've been writing about harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace for many years now. I've experienced both personally as have any number of other women I know. This is not just an American phenomenon, I can attest to that. Norwegian academia has its share of bullies and sexual predators who have run roughshod over the younger women and men who work for them. Some of us just got sick and tired of sweeping the bad behavior under the rug, as so often happens here. In the name of what--preserving the Scandinavian belief that those types of behaviors don't happen here--in purportedly gender-equal countries? They do, and I am here to attest to that fact.

Academia has traditionally been a conservative, male-dominated white collar profession. And there are many good men in academia who have behaved respectfully toward the women and men they lead. I know a lot of them and I am glad to know them. They better the lives of the people who work for them, because those people get the chance to grow professionally without having to succumb to the brutality and/or lust of their employers. But now is the time in society to shed light on the darker sides of life, and harassment and sexual harassment are the darker sides. If you have experienced them, you know this to be true. It taints so much of what should have been a good experience--having a career and growing professionally. The bullies and pigs can make you sick, physically and psychologically. It's easy (and wrong) to tell victims not to take it personally. How else can they take it? The bullying and/or disgusting behavior are aimed at them personally. I am so glad that the tables are turning now in society and that the sexual predators and bullies are being called out, named and shamed. It's their turn to suffer. They deserve it.

Society has dealt too much in victim-shaming. The days when I would let that happen are long-gone for me. They were gone a long time ago, the first time one of the pigs opened his mouth to say something disgusting or off-color to me. Or the first time a domineering and bullying man at work opened his mouth to tell me to shut mine. I told him to shut his. I also told him that he was the rudest man I knew, and he is. He's an old man now, and you could wonder why he's never learned how to behave properly. But he hasn't and he never will. Dealing with him is like dealing with a tantrum-prone child--boring, dissatisfying, and ultimately pointless. You deal with them simply by putting them in their place. And if you are labeled a bitch for doing so, well, then you are a bitch in some people's eyes, but they are not the eyes I care about.

I am re-posting today a piece I wrote back in October 2016 about sexual harassment in the workplace. The only thing that's changed is that more of this disgusting behavior is coming to light. And that makes me happy.

https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/search?q=sexual+harassment

My post about sexual harassment from October 2016

I wrote a post called Defining sexual harassment in October 2016, and am re-posting it today. It is worth re-reading, if only to remind myself of what sexual harassment is, what some workplaces have done about it, and how nice the world would be for both genders if it simply disappeared. But of course bad behavior never just 'disappears'. It has to be fought tooth and nail before change comes about. I believe that time has come.

https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/search?q=sexual+harassment

Weighing in on sexual harassment in the workplace

I came to Norway in October 1989, and began working as a senior research technician in January 1990. I remember many things about that time, but one thing that stands out is the behavior of the research institute leader at that time (now deceased). While he was friendly to me, he was also someone I felt uncomfortable around. I found his jokes to be rather stupid, e.g. wondering if I or my family were in the Mafia because I had ancestors who were born in Italy. The first week I was at work and he met me in the hallway, he said hello and went on his way. An hour or so later, he returned with an oversized lab coat for me to wear, so that my mini-skirt would be ‘covered’, as he put it. I guess he found me too tempting for the men who worked there--a young woman working among them who wore her skirts above the knee together with high-heeled boots. I found his behavior odd, but thought no more about it. As the months went on, I was told that he and his wife were religious people and had served as missionaries in Africa for a period. I am not sure why that mattered, as I found him to be a man whose spiritual qualities were quite rusty, whereas his physical (read—sexual) needs seemed to matter more. He was already in his sixties when I started to work there. I’ve written about him before, but the stories concerning him bear repeating, because he was a man who behaved in a sexually-harassing way. No one would have called it that then, but they would now. If I commented on his behavior to the others I worked together with, they would tell me that’s just the way he was, to ignore him, he was harmless, etc. But still I never felt comfortable around him, and I am not so sure he was as harmless as they wanted me to think. I was together with him in an elevator one day, just us two, and he cornered me and began to ask me if I knew the difference between the Norwegian words fytte and fitte. The former is usually used as part of an expression to denote irritation, e.g. fytte fan (similar to ‘goddamn it’), whereas the latter is the slang word for pussy. Of course I didn’t since I was just starting to learn Norwegian, so he of course had to explain the difference to me, and I know he enjoyed doing so. He enjoyed having that power over me, enjoyed that I felt uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to get off the elevator. Perhaps he enjoyed testing to me to see how I would react. After all, I came from New York City, sin city in his eyes for all I knew. I’m sure that’s how he felt about it. His wife was a pleasant older woman who was probably sick to death of his flirting with younger women. Because for all his religious leanings, he really was a dirty old man. I have seen him dance with younger women and grab their breasts, and I know that he grabbed the rear end of a female Brazilian scientist who promptly told him where to go. That story was relayed to me along with several others that cemented his reputation as a dirty old man, at least to me. He was also not interested in giving credit to those who actually did the work on research projects; he planned who were to be the authors on a research article before the work for it had even started. His view was that the only people who could be included as co-authors on an eventual article were those with PhDs and MDs. At that time, I had a Master's degree and was considering starting PhD work. One of my colleagues, a male MD, protested that this was unfair, as I did, to people like me who would actually do the work. I am forever grateful that he did that, but it didn't change this leader's mind. I can tell you that my interest in helping this leader was null. The project never got started because there was no one to do the work. He was a sexist pig who hid his proclivities under the cloak of religion.

Through the years there have been other men who have behaved similarly, commenting on ‘the view’ if you happen to bend over, or telling jokes about ‘a bush’. Or drunk male scientists at research conferences who danced with the younger women there, and who were all over them which resulted in their having to be forcibly removed from the dance floor by some good men because they would not let go of the women. I’ve witnessed all of these things.

Why do I bring up these behaviors today? Because these types of behavior do not belong in the workplace. After this past week’s revelations of how Harvey Weinstein treated many of the actresses who were working in the films his company was producing, I see the importance of calling a spade a spade. Weinstein’s behavior borders on/is criminal, especially if he did indeed rape some of the women who have called him out on his behavior. Sexual harassment in the workplace really is a terrible thing. There is already enough harassment and bullying in the workplace (including academic workplaces where the balance of power lies firmly with male mentors and leaders) against women by powerful men, and if you add in the sexual component, it becomes a nightmare for many women to have to go to work each day. When you are young, you don’t always know what to say when someone treats you like this. You may blame yourself first. The smart thing of course is not to do that, but I don’t know too many women who have managed to blame the men first, to fight back or to challenge their harassers. It's very easy for those who have never experienced harassment to say that they wouldn't stand for it, that they would fight back, etc. The harassers have the power and control, and most women do not. If women complain or stand up for themselves, they are labeled as difficult and out-of-control. Consequently, they are not considered for leadership positions and are otherwise frozen out of the old-boys club. And that’s the problem. When I was younger, the old-boys club thought they could get away with treating women as sex objects and making them feel inferior, and not much has changed now that I’m older. Power-hungry men still run the show, and some of the perquisites include being able to have women at their beck and call. And there will always be women who undermine other women in order to curry favor with the old-boys club. These are the women who will tell you to ignore their behavior, or he didn’t mean it, or it’s worse at other workplaces, or he’s really a nice guy, or he's never done that to them. There are some men who say the same things. These are the women and men who wake up years down the road (perhaps when their own daughters become victims of sexual harassment), when it’s too late to do anything about it except to regret that they feigned ignorance or deliberately ignored abuse when they could have spoken up and supported those who needed their help. They have to live with their guilty consciences. Frankly, I don’t care about them or what happens to them. 

Defining sexual harassment

Apropos my last post, about sexism and misogyny being alive and well--the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet, in a rather timely fashion, ran an article today about sexual harassment in academia. It was mostly depressing reading. Not only is sexual harassment underreported, there appear to be few to no rules and criteria concerning how to define it. Most of the behaviors described end up in a ‘gray area’, and most of the cases that are reported end up as a ‘his word against the victim’s word’ scenario. Few cases go further than university leadership, where they are reviewed and then dismissed. Generally, those who have been sexually harassed by their professors and mentors don’t report the harassment for fear that doing so will damage their careers. And why? Because it does. Because the focus falls on you, you become ‘the victim’. You become the center of unwanted attention. You become the difficult female employee who cannot take a joke. Because these male professors have a lot of power and prestige. They can make or break your career. So, like many of the women interviewed said, they put up with the gray area behavior.

What is sexually-harassing behavior in the academic workplace? That was a question that the article did ask. I said to my husband that maybe we have reached the point where we have to spell it out in black and white so that the rules and boundaries are clear, and crossing them gets you into big trouble. Most intelligent people I know have no problems with these boundaries; in fact, most men I have known in academia are not disrespectful toward women. It is the one or two rotten apples that spoil it for the many. Unfortunately, many of the rotten apples have an immense amount of power; they are institute leaders, department leaders, mentors, and so on. They know how to play the game, and how to use their power, and they do use it to subjugate women.

In my long experience in the workplace, here’s my list of how male mentors should not behave toward their female students. They should not be touching them, at all, anywhere on their bodies. They should not be hugging them or putting their arms around them. A handshake is fine. A smile is fine. They should not make sexual innuendoes or crude jokes about sex or about blow jobs or any other sexual activity to their students. They should not be having sex with their students. If a male mentor falls in love with his female student and the student reciprocates, then the appropriate conduct on the mentor’s part is to cease being that student’s mentor if both desire that the relationship continue. There are good reasons for this. If we love someone, we will support and defend them at the expense of others we care much less about. This cannot take place in the workplace; other students are bound to feel that the mentor favors the person he is in love with, and that is often the case. An already unbalanced work arena (academia) becomes even more unfair and unbalanced. I have seen all of the above-mentioned behaviors—institute leaders grabbing at the breasts of female students, a group leader starting off a dinner party by asking his guests, more than half of whom were females, if they knew what a blow job was. I’ve heard stories about male professors getting naked in their offices in an attempt to seduce their female students. Most common are the men who invade your private space, who cannot keep enough distance between you and them when they are sitting talking to you in a personal meeting. Then you have the men who ask inappropriate questions and are extremely interested in the intimate details of your relationship with your husband or boyfriend. In the end, it all comes down to and back to sex.

I simply did not expect to find these types of behavior in academic workplaces when I started out. I considered academia to be a noble profession, a cut above many others. My biggest disappointment about the academic workplace, after more than thirty years in it, is this. That to be treated as an equal, as a professional, remains a distant dream for many women. It has been hard enough for women in my generation to make inroads into the male-dominated academic arena and to be accepted as professionals. Adding sexual harassment into the mix is a bitter pill for those women who have experienced it. I always remember my father and how he treated me; he taught me to take myself and my intelligence seriously. I cannot ever remember him telling me that I could not reach this or that goal because I was a woman. He set me up for success in that respect; he was not a dinosaur, he was forward-thinking when it came to his daughters. I think he would have been as disappointed as I was and am to find out that academia is no better than many other professions when it comes to sexism and sexual harassment.

When I worked at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), I signed some form of contract as I remember, saying that I was bound to report any sexual harassing behavior that I experienced personally or witnessed around me. That was in 1993. I googled sexual harassment policies at UCSF today and this is what I found:
University of California – Policy Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment Friday, December 18, 2015: 
I. POLICY SUMMARY The University of California is committed to creating and maintaining a community dedicated to the advancement, application and transmission of knowledge and creative endeavors through academic excellence, where all individuals who participate in University programs and activities can work and learn together in an atmosphere free of harassment, exploitation, or intimidation. Every member of the community should be aware that the University prohibits sexual violence and sexual harassment, retaliation, and other prohibited behavior (“Prohibited Conduct”) that violates law and/or University policy. The University will respond promptly and effectively to reports of Prohibited Conduct and will take appropriate action to prevent, to correct, and when necessary, to discipline behavior that violates this policy on Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment (hereafter referred to as Policy). This Policy addresses the University of California’s responsibilities and procedures related to Prohibited Conduct in order to ensure an equitable and inclusive education and employment environment free of sexual violence and sexual harassment. The Policy defines conduct prohibited by the University of California and explains the administrative procedures the University uses to resolve reports of Prohibited Conduct.
Sexual Harassment:
a. Sexual Harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, unwelcome requests for sexual favors, and other unwelcome verbal, nonverbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when: i. Quid Pro Quo: a person’s submission to such conduct is implicitly or explicitly made the basis for employment decisions, academic evaluation, grades or advancement, or other decisions affecting participation in a University program; or ii. Hostile Environment: such conduct is sufficiently severe or pervasive that it unreasonably denies, adversely limits, or interferes with a person’s participation in or benefit from the education, employment or other programs and services of the University and creates an environment that a reasonable person would find to be intimidating or offensive. 
b. Consideration is given to the totality of the circumstances in which the conduct occurred. Sexual harassment may include incidents: i. between any members of the University community, including faculty and other academic appointees, staff, student employees, students, coaches, residents, interns, and non-student or nonemployee participants in University programs (e.g., vendors, contractors, visitors, and patients); ii. in hierarchical relationships and between peers; and iii. between individuals of any gender or gender identity. 
c. This Policy shall be implemented in a manner that recognizes the importance of the rights to freedom of speech and expression and shall not be interpreted to prohibit expressive conduct that is protected by the free speech and academic freedom principles discussed in Section III.F. 3. 
Other Prohibited Behavior 
a. Invasions of Sexual Privacy i. Without a person’s consent, watching or enabling others to watch that person’s nudity or sexual acts in a place where that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy; ii. Without a person’s consent, making photographs (including videos) or audio recordings, or posting, transmitting or distributing such recorded material depicting that person’s nudity or sexual acts in a place where that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy; or iii. Using depictions of nudity or sexual activity to extort something of value from a person. 
b. Sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 18. 
c. Exposing one’s genitals in a public place for the purpose of sexual gratification. 
d. Failing to comply with the terms of a no-contact order, a suspension of any length, or any order of exclusion issued under this Policy.

Norwegian academic institutions and universities do have similar policies, e.g. the University of Oslo's outlined here (https://www.uio.no/om/hms/arbeidsmiljo/prosedyrer/trakassering/). How well the policies are enforced is another story. Notice that the UC policy above does not spell out specific offensive behaviors; I would imagine that it doesn’t because women experience sexual harassment differently. And some sexually-harassing behavior is blatant, whereas other behavior is more subtle. The latter is the most difficult to identify and discuss and put an end to. Let’s hope the coming generations manage that. In the meantime, I can’t wait for the dinosaurs and the sexual harassers to become extinct.