When all the rules
Harvey Weinstein sent the New York Times a statement after its story on him was published.
It begins:
I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.
I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office – or out of it. To anyone.
Oh come on. The rules about behavior and workplaces were not that different. They were not so different that everyone – women included – thought it was just fine for powerful men to make job-seeking women come to their hotel rooms only to jump out at them naked and demanding a “massage.”
That was not “the culture” then.
The culture then was very into getting rid of sexual inhibitions and shame, but oddly enough that is not the same thing as men forcing themselves on women. A great many men did think it was, that much is true, but funnily enough men are not the whole of the culture and not all men (yes, not all men) thought that way.
The renaissance of feminism was also part of the culture then, and feminists have the quirky idea that sex should be mutual rather than unilateral, and enthusiastically consensual as opposed to unilaterally imposed.
It doesn’t take 50 or 60 years to grasp that not very subtle point.
His blaming the 60s/70s is such bullshit. He might have noticed, he was paying off women for decades, and he might have noticed that was a sign he was doing something wrong:
Or maybe he means that paying women off was a 60s/70s norm, and he’s just now learning that’s not cool anymore. He might be correct about that.
I don’t think the rules were different in the 60s and 70s; it’s just that women kept their mouths shut because they had very little recourse in most cases. There really wasn’t a lot of options if a woman wanted to work. Unfortunately, that is still common in the culture today, as we’re finding out when one woman speaks out, and emboldens all the other women who have kept silent over the years (in EVERY field – philosophy, science, entertainment, military, everywhere).
Now we just need to get the same emboldenment for working class women; I guarantee they go through this, too, because I’ve been there. And they have even fewer options, because hourly. And often barely surviving. The power keeping women silent is strong.
So far as I can see the sexual revolution was basically a shift from sexual ethics being from ownership to consent.
IE: For all it was the era of “free love” – this was also the era in which marital rape started to be criminalised in the US.
Under neither ethical system would Weinstein’s behaviour be considered even slightly okay.
Rules? That men with wealth and power are ‘stars’ who expect women to ‘let them do it?’
Bronze Age ‘free love,’ droit de seigneur in the conference room.
John @4,
Apparently O.J. Simpson is still trying to assert his ownership of the ex-wife he murdered.:
Screechy Monkey: Well, that filled my bile-generation quota for the day.