A Sexual Harassment Primer (It's Really Not that Complicated)

Let me start by phrasing it in geek:

Sexual harassment != Telling a dirty joke

Sexual harassment != Complimenting a colleague

Sexual harassment != Flirting

Any of these things can = generally unprofessional behavior. But, to each workplace its own. And what's unprofessional behavior in one office, might well be the status quo in another.

Sexual harassment, on the other hand, is just one of the many established, crystal-clear, and obvious-to-everyone-involved-in-it-no-matter-how-much-they-pretend-its-not forms of bullying that take places every day (but less so, on a positive note, much less so) in America.

Sexual harassment is something you do *at* someone, not *with* someone. If the person on the other end is not enjoying it, is uncomfortable with it and, especially, if their discomfort is the reason you're doing it, that's sexual harassment. Is the reason you're hurling the comments and behavior around because you want to underscore which side of the power dynamic you stand on? That's sexual harassment.

To wit, during the halcyon days when I was a newbie cocktail waitress at the bar, I remember being on the wrong end of sexual comments and behavior that made me really uncomfortable a lot. And the reason the fellows in question enjoyed hurling the comments and behavior my way was because they thought it was hilarious that it made me uncomfortable. If it didn't bother me, they wouldn't do it. Thus, to the Herman Cain defenders of the world, it was my fault they did it because if it didn't bother me, they wouldn't do it. Which is kind of like saying it was my fault I got the broken rib because if I'd been wearing suitable body armor they wouldn't have felt like punching me. Does that seem hyperbolic? Is a little hyperbole really worse than entrenched, cultural victim-blaming (hint: it's not).

How about another example: if you're out with your buddies and you compliment the waitress on her nice ass, you're not doing it to pay her a compliment. You're doing it because it makes you feel like a bug guy in front of your friends at the expense of the waitress.

And, you know that's why you're doing it. You know what sexual harassment is. Stop acting so dumb. I know that decades of lazy sitcom stereotypes and beer commercials have tried topawn off the notion that men only act like assholes because they're too dimwitted to know how to behave like civilized people, but, come on, you're not. You know you're not. You know what sexual harassment is. Grow up.

Illegals!

It always surprises me when people don't understand why they shouldn't use the expression "illegals." It reminds me of arguments I used to have with my grandmother when she'd talk about "that colored fella." I start off gobsmacked and then recognize that I'm only being asked to explain the offense because the other party is defensive and looking to project their guilt the other way (which is pretty much the ne plus ultra when it comes to right-wing propaganda).

That said, I'm happy to explain. It's why I blog!

The phrase "illegals" is designed to evoke a certain people. It is not meant to describe anyone walking around in a state of illegal activity. We didn't refer to Jack Abramoff or Ken Lay as "illegals," despite the deep, damaging quagmire of illegality they subjected the whole fucking country to. Nor do we refer to people who fail to pay taxes as "illegals," (mostly, we call them 'Republican Donors'). Shoot, I bet when you heard Rick Perry and Mitt Romney trying to out "illegal" each other, no one even pictured that cute Australian guy you used to know with the expired student visa.

No, the phrase "illegals" is meant to evoke a very particular kind of person. I'm actually surprised that Herman Cain didn't bust out a phrase like "Senor Illegal," since his since of humor is just that sophisticated.

The phrase "illegal" is artful and does exactly what it's meant to do: strip the humanity away from the person it's ascribed to so that we* can feel OK about sending them back to Mexico, away from their homes. This way, we can ignore the fact that deportation rips husbands away from their wives, and mothers away from their children. It's not a real person who's lived here for twenty years, it's not a part of a community. It's not some American teenager's Mom. It's an "illegal," not an actual person that we are sending back to a kind of poverty that we don't understand in this country (yet...).

And, while we're at it with these goddamn illegals (who are also called "parasites" because the most important thing is that this is not a person), let's talk about those anchor babies who've lived here for 17 and a half of their 18 years. You know, there was a plan to let them join the military for a couple of years in exchange for legal status. Well, fuck those guys! No matter how much service you give to our country, you're still an illegal parasite. Go back to that place I'll call your home even though you've never fucking lived there.

And, as a special added bonus, we can hurl about the invective "illegals" as an easy peasy way for the rest of us to feel smug about our own legal status. After all, our ancestors followed the proper channels to get here! It doesn't matter that what constituted a "proper channel" back in the old days was to jump on a boat and get herded through Ellis Island, after which you could look forward to spending a great deal of time getting shit on by the nativist, xenophobic assholes who'd been here longer. Nativist, xenophobic bullshit is our birthright, motherfucker! My grandfather didn't stare down a "No Irish Need Apply" sign just so some illegal Mexican could wash dishes at the Denny's.

I got ranty. Sorry. This phrase "illegals" makes me very angry. But let me try to appeal to the better angels of the nativist, xenophobic right-wingers out there: you know who you sound like when you get all snobby and paranoid about the extant culture of the country? You sound like the fucking French is who you sound like. Enjoy your freedom fries.

*I say "we" here purposefully. As a supporter of the president, I count too on the wrong side of this rant. Obama's record on deportation is shameful. And cruel. And stupid. He broke up all those families and sent all those people away from their homes so he could look tough on immigration to a bunch of nitwits who don't even believe he's a real American. I hope he gets better on this in his second term.

Teach Your Children (all of them.. both genders) Well

I was watching TV as I put together some packets for my Girl Scout meeting tomorrow (I still find it so surprising that I run a Girl Scout troop) when the innocuous sit com I was watching faded into the execrable Two and a Half Men. As has been stated on many occasions, I am an optimistic woman by nature, but the fact that that show is so overwhelmingly popular makes me almost as nervous for the future of humanity as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch does. That's not true... nothing scares me as much as that garbage patch and that's the truth, so let's focus on somewhat less terrifying piles of garbage.

The cold open joke was one about how men have the money and women reciprocate for money with sex because hahahahaha. I turned the TV off.

As a girl and as young woman, I totally accepted as gospel that boys want sex more so girls are responsible for saying no to the boys who are too overwhelmed by lust to be trusted to have good judgement. Girls are taught that... not necessarily by their parents, but by American culture at large. It's endemic. Or it was.

Fortunately, feminism has made great strides and there are lots of good feminists out there (male and female) raising good feminist kids.

So here's what you tell your kids (full disclosure: I read this on Jezebel and it struck me like a bolt out of the blue how simple it is... but I couldn't find the link because I didn't look very hard): no one should feel coerced into sex. Period. That's it in a nutshell. No one should have sex because they feel like they ought to. No one should feel like sex is something they're doing for someone else. No, please, baby, please, Imgonnadieifyoudon't. No, justforasecondbabyplease. No, ifyoulovedmeyouwould. All of that is coercive and it is rapey as hell.

To be very serious here, protecting your children against the rape culture (it's a real fucking thing, get over your defensiveness about it) does not mean teaching your daughters how to avoid rape; it does not mean lecturing your daughters about how they need to be careful about how they dress and where they go. It means educating your children (both genders) about the toxicity of coercion, in all its forms. It's about putting the responsibility for rape onto rapists - not victims of rape.

And, as a special bonus, you can tell your nephews or little brothers (honestly, this is not something anyone really wants to hear from Mom or Dad) that the great grand secret of the no-coercion rule is that they will not only get laid more, they will have much better (and more) sex. Because that old cliche about sex and pizza? Not true: there is bad sex and there is bad pizza.

So, remember this: our goal for our children's sexual education should not be to teach boys to respect and girls to protect female virtue; it should be to teach all our kids to respect the autonomy of their partners and their right to make their own decisions.

Sex isn't something girls give to boys, it's something girls and boys (and boys and boys and girls and girls) do with each other.

That is all.

My Hero!

Good googly moogly, you guys! Have I really not blogged for THIS long? I blame Laney - she's been going to bed later these days and by the time she finally hits the hay, I'm usually about done for. Plus Dr. Who is streaming on Netflix, and I just got to the David Tennant seasons. I love him.

But I've started many blogposts in my head during my long days, and through the various hazes of my various fatigues. But I wanted to write tonight to talk about my heroes.

It's long been my Middlemarch inspired philosophy that it's the small the simple expressions of humanity that make for real heroes. Like my neighbor, Jonathan, who came into my house in order to dispose of a tiny, almost dead baby mouse. Because not only did he dispose of the wee thing for me, he also went well out of his way to make me not feel stupid for being afraid of dealing with it myself. And then he had the kindness to express some regret for the death of this tiny thing. Little things like that count for a lot, I think. I am lucky to have such nice neighbors. And I will always believe that people who will just be kind when they don't have to are the real heroes of this world.

But sometimes the big gestures count too. And I cannot help but be overwhelmed by those people who've camped out overnight for a month and led marches and made their voices heard and who are, I really think, forcing us away from what I'd thought was a depressingly inexorable drift to the meannest right-wing ethos of America, to an eventual complete capitulation to the fucking plutocrats. These people have stood up, sacrificed convenience and ease, to say, "This isn't fair, this isn't the American dream, and I think the American Dream is something worth fighting for."

Because, you know, it seemed like for about ten years now, we lefties had sat back, wryly commenting on how incredibly fucked up the country had gotten. And, I enjoy a little wry commentary. But it doesn't really do anything except remind you that you're smarter than the poor saps who were willingly embracing it.

So, Christ on a cracker, I am fucking THRILLED to see the left move away from sarcasm and wryness and on into almost embarrassing earnestness. When I saw an amazing, idealistic, passionate crowd unabashedly singing along to This Land Is Our Land (god, I love that song) with Tom Morello, I got a little weepy and thought, well, the sarcastic, ineffective, smug worm has finally turned.

So, here's my cry to the heavens: the American Dream isn't that anyone can be president, anyone can be a millionaire. That's a stupid misinterpretation. The American Dream is that anyone can make it here. You don't have to be born into wealth to have a nice life. We are all supposed to be able to do better than just get by. The American Dream is that you can work, have a home, and go to a doctor when you're sick. The American Dream is that you can raise a family, which means getting to spend some time with that family too. The middle-class IS the American Dream. And those hippies in Zucccotti Park, that's what they're fighting for.

And I, goddammit, I salute them. Their earnestness is worth more than all the sarcastic commentary in the world.

(but let's keep the sarcastic commentary coming to... I mean, I like that too).

In Which I Quote Wholesale from Douglas Adams

I read this paragraph tonight and just really enjoyed it, so I thought I'd pass it onto you all:

"He had discovered that the reason for the carnival atmosphere on Saquo-Pilia Hensha was that the local people were celebrating the annual feast of the Assumption of St. Antwelm. St. Antwelm had been, during his lifetime, a great and popular king who had made a great and popular assumption. What King Antwelm had assumed was that what everybody wanted, all other things being equal, was to be happy and enjoy themselves and have the best possible time together. On his death, he had willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival to remind everyone of this, with lots of good food and dancing and very silly games like Hunt the Wocket. His Assumption had been such a brilliantly good one that he was made into a saint for it. Not only that, but all the people who had previously been made saints for doing things like being stoned to death in a thoroughly miserable way or living upside down in barrels of dung were instantly demoted and were now thought to be rather embarrassing."

From "Mostly Harmless," by the late, lamented, wonderful and hilarious Douglas Adams. Everyone got their towels?

Some Pig, Indeed

This morning I was driving Laney to her tennis lesson and from the back seat, apropos of nothing, she says to me "The doctor in the book said it was the web that was the miracle not the words."

As those of you with chillun know, parenting is all highs and lows, valleys and troughs, one coming hard after the next. Count this one as a high. Big time*.

Last night was a Saturday night in the heart of the summer. After I read a chapter of "Otherwise Known as Shelia the Great" to Laney she grabbed a book from her bookshelf to read for a while before falling asleep. She chose "Charlotte's Web." I then wandered downstairs, poured myself a bourbon and sat down at the piano where, over a period of two or three hours, I'm pretty sure I came close to reanimating the corpse of George Gershwin so he could head into my living room, slam the piano lid down and say, "Look. Just... no. Stop."

I was deeply invested in playing Gerswhin terribly and it was a Saturday night in the middle of summer, so I was content to let Laney read for as long as she wanted. Turns out, she read the whole book.

We'd read it together before. The last time it was a purely collaborative experience because I was crying so hard by the end that Laney exhorted me, "Get it together, Mom!" and then took over the reading of it.

But then, last night, reading on her own she came across a passage that articulates the poetically rational philosophy that I've tried to impart to her for her whole life. The supernatural makes for great stories, but it's not real. Nature, however, is pretty fucking amazing. There are miracles all around you. Things grow and are beautiful and people are kind to one another and food tastes so good. So, rather than setting up worship of water turning into wine, enjoy water and, one day, enjoy wine. Appreciate the great art of nature.

Sigh. As usual, I'm not saying it well. That Chuck Darwin could turn a phrase:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

Or, the miracle is not the words, it's the web.

* Ain't I lucky to have such a smart, book-loving kid? She's also great in that she keeps me from getting all cocky about it. For example, as I write this, Laney is sitting on the other end of the couch, legs in the air in that way that only kids and yoga masters are comfortable in, reading a book. She looked up from and said, "Do you mind? I just farted at you." I kinda did.

Look, Just Don't Do that

Today after I parked my car, I read my email on my phone in the garage elevator. Terrible habit! I really need to stop that. One of the mails I read practically guaranteed a shit morning, navigating the murky waters of someone else's IT department. I hate dealing with other people's IT departments. So much. Don't you? Do you ever have to? It's the worst!

So, I left the garage kind of of lost in thought, trying to think of a good way to handle the situation. I crossed the street and headed into the CVS to buy my morning Diet Coke.

As I was about to walk through the door, a guy on a bicycle zoomed up right next to me, super close, and said, "Good morning," real chirpy right into my face. I was startled, under-caffeinated, and still mostly thinking about how to respond to the customer and so I didn't return his aggressive "good morning" in a timely enough manner. He wheeled away and said, real shitty-like, "I guess it's not then!"

God, that annoys me. And, you know what, it annoys every woman I know. It's more common corollary is the guy who demands of some girl he doesn't know that she smile. If he's older and southern, he'll probably also tell you that you're prettier when you smile. I hate that. Because the thing is, it's not flirting, it's not charming. It's aggressive and demanding. It's not a double-x chromosomal imperative to smile and be cheerful and make the world a pleasant place. Sometimes, we've got shit on our minds.

So a PSA, fellows, don't order strange women to smile. Don't get all up in their faces and demand pleasantries. It's onerous and obnoxious. Imagine how you'd feel if some strange guy felt welcome to complain about your insufficient cheer.

You'd hate that. So don't do it. Just, dont.