It’s been a while since men at my school considered it appropriate to make a retirement speech suggesting that a male teacher was putting moves on a teenage girl. Ten years? Maybe longer. Maybe not so long ago. Not long enough.

I heard them make such remarks and others. The promise of a better grade if a girl would lose ten pounds. “She’ll thank me.” The detailed speculation about what a girl might have done at a weekend party, spoken in the Library where other students could hear. Those are mild examples, much worse was suggested at that banquet. A school guidance counselor got up and left the room that evening. Unlike him, I went to the Ladies until the speech was over. I couldn’t leave because I was making a speech about someone else later in the program, a decent man who did not find his peers’ bawdy humor the least bit funny.

Did I say anything to anyone about the off-color remarks? I believe I did. Was there a reaction? Not so’s you would notice. My distress was not important. My professional opinion did not count. I was being fussy or a “feminazi” or needed to get a sense of humor.

Worse happened.

This was the world I lived in. Mostly, it still is.

I am expected to ignore inappropriate remarks, pretend they do not embarrass or offend me, that there is such a thing as harmless “locker room talk.”

The experiences of women have not changed enough since that evening. Teachers, coaches, and school safety officers have had inappropriate romantic relationships with students. Local cops. Prominent members of the community. That is, they have had a romantic relationship with a minor student, which is never appropriate. The girl is inevitably blamed when this becomes known. Her own peers, even the girls, blame her. They may even ostracize, harass, and threaten her. I remember this from my own days as a young girl. The girl is blamed. Did she do something stupid? Probably. It’s why we have rules about minors. Young people do stupid things all the time. It’s our job as adults to stop them, not to tempt them. But adults do tempt them, and then they step away. The man denies improprieties publicly, and perhaps privately feels he has done no wrong. Clearly the girl tempted him.

Stupid girl.

A Senator is called a disgrace and forced from office for making decidedly inappropriate gestures. The person calling for that man to abandon his career, makes specific and crude remarks. Each man claimed afterward that he was only joking. Only one of them removed himself from office.

Neither one was Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein or Humbert Humbert. Only one was a buddy of a convicted pedophile, also accused of sexual harassment, also accused of physical harassment . . . and President.

Unless the offender is a democrat, the President blames women. Naturally.

A “Lolita” is a colloquialism for a “sexually precocious girl.” “No one knows . . .” It’s easy to forget that Lolita is not the main character of the novel by that name. The main character is a middle-aged man who marries a mother in order to gain access to her 12 year old daughter. TWELVE YEARS OLD. He grooms and abuses that child. Lolita, the title character, will end up ruined, pregnant, and dead. But no one throws the term “Humbert” around like a dirty joke. It’s the adolescent girl (who died, remember?) whose pain becomes a dirty joke tossed at girls.

It’s easy to see how men excuse their indiscretion and abuses. For one, they have been encouraged to be assertive and certain. Aggression is rewarded, but hesitation is a weakness. Doubt is a weakness. Apologizing is weakness. Among men, that it. The rules are different for women. And, of course, for men in our society, being weak is absolutely not an option.

Being weak as a woman is allowed, even encouraged and considered attractive. Willingness to doubt, to question our own actions, to rethink, change our minds, apologize . . . all allowed, but then this humility is also often used against us. But demonstrating assertiveness and certainty? “Unladylike.” “Offensive.” “Aggressive” and ugly in “the weaker sex.” A woman projecting that sort of confidence unleashes a landslide of ugly words. Do I need to list them all here? “Unlikeable.”

Both men and women are caught in this terrible stereotype of gender-enforced behavior. The narrow, brutal definitions of what it means to be a woman or man allow us scant wiggle-room for individuality, male, female, or anyone else.

But when strength is considered a character flaw and weakness is considered attractive . . .

And when we talk about it. Out loud. Oh, dear. When we try to defend ourselves . . . that’s just not something we should be talking about. Right?

This year, a dear colleague is retiring. I am not attending the banquet. The banquet on the year I retired was not offensive, but absurdly wounding, and as a retiree I do not feel compelled to attend ever again. My friend will be given a good speech (I know who is in charge) and I wish him well. There is not a wisp of scandal associated with him, and times have changed enough that no one would find it amusing to invent or exaggerate a sorry and humiliating (for someone else) story for the occasion.

Times have changed, but not enough. Too many in power believe they have a lock on decency. And they are wrong.

 

 

 

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