Do Men Know that #TimesUp?
Ever since the anonymous woman “Grace” came forward about her experience with Aziz Ansari, I have been thinking about how this moment provides both a challenge and an opportunity for the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.
Previous allegations against media men were very cut-and-dry, obvious cases of sexual harassment or assault. But the account from “Grace” requires a lot more nuance to unpack. Doing so requires us to move beyond questions of strict legality and take an unflinching look at the root issues in our sexual culture. For the #TimesUp movement to be successful, I think it needs to spearhead this social awakening.
For weeks now I have been consumed by a feeling of despair because I am tired of just how many voices it has taken to bring us to this moment of reckoning, the sheer volume of trauma uncovered. And despite the multitude of women exclaiming their pain, we continue to see little to no alteration of male behavior (besides the lip service of a #TimesUp pin, many worn by known abusers — looking at you, Franco).
Ansari, it should be noted, is just the latest in a long procession of “good men” who turn out not to deserve the title. With Ansari his offense is especially galling, considering he has built his comedy career and television series “Master of None” on his ostensibly feminist persona. He literally wrote a book about how not to act in dating/sex. This hypocrisy is even more upsetting than his non-apology. Betrayal from a “good man” is more harmful than bad behavior from a man no one expects to be good, because people are then so much quicker to defend the “good man” and disbelieve the victim. Men like Ansari know the power of creating a “nice guy” shield to protect themselves from accusations. His career will be fine. Meanwhile, a lot of his fans (myself included) feel betrayed.
But the more “nice guys” that are accused, the more paranoid women feel. Who can we trust? Should we ever really believe a man when he says he’s a feminist and an ally to women? Or are these feminist men just engaging in performative allyship and saying what they know we want to hear from them in order to earn our trust?
Most men do not want to do the work on themselves and with each other to examine their preconceived notions about how sex should be, what is and isn’t allowed, and how communication between partners should go. They do not want to self-reflect, because they have been conditioned to always put their desires and needs first. Many of them truly do not recognize the pain they are inflicting on women because they never feel compelled to listen. As a society, we have allowed men to claim plausible deniability for far too long.
Perhaps the biggest issue is that in the sexual realm, the burden of gate-keeping always falls on women. Men are infantilized and allowed to “not know any better” because they are just acting out scripts and behavior seen in pop culture and porn. If an encounter turns harmful, the woman is blamed for either a) not protecting themselves beforehand, b) failing to communicate in the moment (despite evidence from studies that show men are unable to listen to and understand women during sex the way they do in non-sexual situations), or c) for afterwards “regretting” the encounter. Unfortunately, men know that they can get away with anything short of legal assault just by playing the “boys will be boys” card. In this way, “bad sex” that is in fact very harmful has become normalized.
Women organize our daily lives around this assumption that we must protect ourselves, lest we be blamed for an assault later on. We police ourselves and limit ourselves, while men are free to do whatever they want. Men don’t think twice about going to a show alone, walking outside at night, wearing their favorite outfit to work, or any other number of choices that women have to carefully consider. In our everyday interactions with men, we have to assume bad intent at the get-go or be chided for naiveté later on. And when it comes to rejection, often a “soft no” is seen as a safer route than an outright no to avoid escalating the encounter to violence.
Something has to change. We need accountability (even just a decent apology and acknowledgement of wrongdoing) for sexual encounters that are not criminal but still harmful. I think the #TimesUp movement is well-poised to lead this change, while still keeping a focus on its legal advocacy work. After all, #TimesUp is lead by actresses that are some of the best storytellers in America. If anyone can start a discussion and help us work through our collective sexual dysfunction, it’s them. And I hope more women like “Grace” add their voices to the conversation.
But at the end of the day, we need to see some heavy-lifting done by men. I don’t have any easy answers about how to make that happen, but this cultural moment has to be more than women shouting into the void. Men need to start listening, and actually hear. And the next time they’re tempted to ask “why didn’t she just leave?” they should ask themselves why women feel like there’s nowhere to go.