The Cosby trial, Weinstein, the Kavanaugh senate hearings, the #MeToo movement…. How did we get here? It seems like every day another horrible story hits the news, and it hurts my heart every time, whether it is a high profile case, or another friend, family member, or acquaintance shares their experience.
“How did we get here,” isn’t the right question. The better question is, why have we failed to move beyond valuing some people more than others? There are many signs of this: women being given pelvic exams without their consent when anesthetized for unrelated surgeries (Forbes, 2018 https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2018/05/14/pelvic-exams-on-anesthetized-women-without-consent-a-troubling-and-outdated-practice/#6bfac8627846), women feeling like they can’t share their miscarriages or fertility problems for fear of being told to “get over it” or having their feelings discounted, the lack of support for both maternity and paternity leave after childbirth, and the many double standards for speaking in public. These all speak to the bigger issue that everyone is not being valued in the same way.
This is a societal issue that needs to be addressed in a more systematic way. We, as a society, have been too quick to pat ourselves on the back for “giving” women the same rights as men, “accepting” women in the workforce, and “allowing” women to work and have a family. See this article for a nice summary of where the U.S. has made advances and where we are still lacking (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/01/2017-womens-history-month/98247518/). My hope is that, with all the attention that sexual assault and harassment has gotten recently, society can move beyond the empty congratulations of the past, and come to a realization that society needs to change. So what can we do?
- Stop making this a partisan issue. History has set up this structure, but if we, as a society, choose to change, we can. Educate yourself and others when you see areas of inequity. All people have some masculine and some feminine qualities. We should all support each other.
- Be aware of your own biases. We all have some implicit biases, even if we try to not be biased in our overt actions. If you want to check yours, you can take the Harvard Implicit Association Test (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html). Once you find out you have a bias, the best way to improve is to have frequent and involved contact with people who are different from you and who represent different groups.
- Check yourself and your assumptions. A well-known social psychology phenomenon is to blame the victim. There is a long history of people doing this when people are the victims of crime, but especially for women who have been sexually assaulted. Why do we do this? People want to feel safe, and if they can explain why something bad happened to someone else, they feel like it won’t happen to them. They’re safe. It lets us live in the delusion that the world is always just, and we get what we deserve. This just isn’t true. In order to move forward, we have to catch ourselves when we begin to blame the victim, and put the blame where it belongs… on the perpetrator.
- A related idea is that some people claim that there is a plethora of false reports of sexual assaults. This is not true from a data science perspective. If an individual is accused of rape, “there’s a 90% chance she’s telling the truth (https://www.nsvrc.org/). If a second allegation of rape surfaces, data science tells us that the likelihood that he is a rapist rises to 98%.” (Heldman, 2018). People who have been sexually assaulted need our support. Believe them and support them. Additionally, when items surface in the news, this could stir up feelings of past traumas for survivors. Check on your friends and support them.
- Work to make changes in yourself, your family, and your community. Men need to speak up and support women in this effort (thank you to those who already do!). Research suggests that allies are more likely to persuade others to believe those in less powerful positions. In other words, men are more likely to listen to other men than to women when discussing issues related to the unfair treatment/abuse of women.
- Team up with organizations in your community that seek to improve society. Fight for policies that will support women in all areas. Countries that have made significant gains and improvements in women’s rights (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/women-full-list) made a conscious choice to set policies that support women, and the reported quality of life in those countries are higher for everyone (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/these-countries-have-the-highest-quality-of-life ).
This shouldn’t be a men vs. women debate, it should be an effort where everyone works together to make a better society.
