"Although it’s awful to say we can’t make ourselves look as attractive as possible without being knocked down and raped."
I never thought of this before, but Gaveston got me thinking. This statement can be read two different and very opposed way. One is that what Lansbury was about to say was "awful" but in her mind true. The other is that she's distancing herself from the main clause because it's not only awful but inappropriate and wrong.
Now that I consider that second reading, I can almost hear Lansbury putting it that way, and so I think that may very well have been her meaning. Not a misquote but a quote capable of wide misinterpretation.
"It should be obvious the law hasn't settled yet when the same remark by a man to his female colleague may be harassment or not merely based on HER mindset. Is the guy required to be a telepath?"
Not an expert on this area of law. But the oft-used phrase "unwanted sexual advance" seems very problematic to me as a keystone of wrongdoing. In any escalating series of sexual overtures there is almost always an initial advance. Sometimes the other party has made it clear that that advance will be welcome. But at other times there is uncertainty as to how that "initial advance" might be received. In which case, how is the party initiating that first advance to know whether the "first move" will be "wanted" or "unwanted?" Hell, in the real world, the party receiving that "first advance" may not even be certain how she or he feels about it, whether she or he wants it for sure, doesn't want it for sure, or is unclear about how she or he feels about it (the jury may still be out; or it may merely be flattering or intriguing but not a total greenlight). And if what has preceded that "first move" in the other party's behavior makes "wanting" the "mover's move" fairly obvious, that seems a very subjective determination on the part of the mover. And if the movee's prior behavior makes the move clearly welcome, isn't what the movee has presented also a "first move?" And, if so, how would the movee know that their "first move" (or "pre-first move" would be wanted?
Sometimes, I think this way of thinking about it is retrogressive and sexist. That it relies for a foundation on outdated if somewhat adjusted notions that men always want sex and that it's up to the woman to make her receptiveness to an overture known - that there is nothing untoward or threatening about the woman making her interest known but that there is something agressive about the man being the first to somehow broach the subject of desire. It's as if we went from an era in which no good "girl" would behave in that way (making her interest known) to an era in which no gentleman would make the first move without getting complete assurance from the woman that such a move would be welcome; that a woman who has exhibited no overt sexual interest should be presumed to not be interested in a man (i.e. that only women who show such an overt interest could be romantically or sexually interested - problematic and resting on outdated standards of "sexual" and "chaste" women), and that the power, which used to be entirely with men has now perversely switched to women (at least when this is all happening legally - which is not to suggest that it does not often happens otherwise); and how does this apply when the two parties are not of opposite gender?
I am putting this out there not to defend any of the clearl allegations of impropriety against Weinstein, Rose, Spacey etc.., but to ask how the rules apply in less clear circumstances. Is it always wrong for a man to make an advance twoard a woman in a workplace unless the woman has already made clear her interest? If so, how is the woman making clear her interest not perhaps a potentially unwanted sexual advance toward the man itself? Or is this rule not about male v female but about someone in a position of authority versus someone operating "under" that authority?
Either way, if an advance by itself is not what makes it unlawful but rather that advance's being "unwanted," how is the person who makes the advance supposed to know that the move is wanted or not until it's been made and responded to?
Again, these questions may not be significant under the rules as they now exist (my understanding of the rules may be very incomplete), but the media coverage is certainly making it sound like "unwanted" is the dispositive factor. That seems a very problematic standard as it in many circumstances would, as Gaveston said, require the initial mover to be telepathic.
Updated On: 11/29/17 at 12:10 PM
