Earlier this year, I was potentially going to be in a situation where someone who previously assaulted me was going to do it with impunity and with approval. I was able to remove myself from that environment, but it stuck with me how some women (who were aware about this problematic person, refused discourse because it was “drama,” propagated lies about me, and were friends with him!) behaved, and how I was shamed and excluded. Even now this is a situation that deeply wounds me.
I couldn’t help but to think about The Handmaid’s Tale. One of the most important, and often ignored, motifs of the The Handmaid’s Tale is that women can help create and maintain the rules and system of patriarchy that continues to subjugate women and treat women like second-class citizens. Women alone cannot dissolve “the patriarchy,” but we certainly could move towards true solidarity amongst each other.
As a society, we need to call out patriarchy, we must discuss and dismantle toxic masculinity, we must demand that our male allies prove their allyship by acts of service, but we also need to hold women accountable. Princeton economists have this theory called “last-place aversion;” people who are near the bottom are the most likely to give money to the person one rank above them instead of the rank below. Why? Because they will still be able to maintain a feeling of superiority, at least they weren’t the last person picked at dodgeball. This theory is applicable to any social hierarchy, including patriarchy.
When #MeToo experienced a resurgence with Weinstein, there was a lot of discourse on the tightly knit social structure that protected him, even though everyone knew. One of the most alarming revelations was that women protected him and turned a blind eye when he raped other women, and it’s because of “last-place aversion.” While they knew that they could potentially be next, they did know they weren’t the current victim and therefore they avoided last place.
Some of these same women, like Oprah Winfrey, who have been accused of knowing Weinstein was a predator, have also given public #TimesUp speeches, and they have spoken on behalf of sexual assault victims and promise to stop these monsters. They may genuinely want to stop a system that thrives on domination and consumption of women, and they may genuinely believe that everything needs to improve. But they truly aren’t about the intifada because it could affect their social capital/currency and put them in last place. Another more harrowing thought; they may also secretly support patriarchy because they know that at least “women like them” are safe from the egregious maltreatment, like how Serena Joy in The Handmaid’s Tale helped create Gilead, where she lacks a voice, but she isn’t monthly raped. We need to socially ostracize men who are sexual predators/abusive.
Social dynamics and humans are sticky because the same person can be a different human being to different people. The wider your network, the more people you will inevitably encounter, and you will be put into situations where you interact with individuals who dislike each other. Another reason why Weinstein was protected was because of how kind and supportive he was to those he didn’t rape. I don’t believe in groupthink: I am not going to dislike you just because my friend dislikes you. I am going to dislike you if you do something that goes against my fundamental code of ethics or against how I would treat people based on my personal definition of right versus wrong. Most people believe they operate that way, however the truth is, most people only care about how people treat them partly because of last-place aversion. When you don’t socially isolate unrepentant people who have a repeated and consistent history of going against your code of ethics, you no longer are operating out of integrity, you are operating out of convenience.
I don’t want to live in a world in which we can know that someone has sexually assaulted another human being, yet we still continue to support, encourage, and enable them because they are fun and the man with the most. Social capital should never be worth your soul, even if you become “last place.”
