#MeToo: Essays...Part I

#MeToo: Essays About How and Why This Happened, 

What it Means and How to Make Sure It Never Happens Again 

by Lisa Perkins

I established a 30-day free trial account on scribd to mainly listen to the audiobook of poetry, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, to satisfy the 2020 Read Harder Challenge prompt #8.

I rarely listen to audiobooks and didn't wish to pay for something I wouldn't listen to again. 

If you happen to listen to this, be sure to listen to his interview at the end. 
It is definitely noteworthy! I did find Reynolds' narration to be wonderful 

and would highly recommend this audiobook.

However, I will also own the actual book and read it as well. 

Just because I overall prefer a book in my hands. But on to #metoo.

I wanted to read a collection of essays regarding the #metoo movement.

I wanted a bit of introduction to some of the stories out there.

Another Goodreads member had read this and recommended it. 

And since I had another 2 weeks left of that 30-day free trial, I decided I would read the ebook on scribd. Just because... This ebook was published by Smashwords.com.

Not a publisher with which I am familiar. They have a very intimidating message in the "Smashwords edition, license notes" to be sure to purchase this book and any more copies of this book that you may wish to gift to others so they can also read it. 

Okay. Fine. I get that. "Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author." 

Again. I agree wholeheartedly. But...

On page 10 of 165 (actually the first page of text) 

there is a VERY obvious typo--defiNed rather than defied!

It is such a glaring error because the sentence is about a woman 

who literally DEFIED the nondisclosure agreement she had signed. 

Obviously, this particular book could have used a good editor's scrutiny just one last time!

Or maybe even a mediocre editor's once over...but whatever. 

I am reading it for free. What did I expect? So onward and upward...

Perkins begins by detailing two encounters she had with 

"totally out of place sexual behavior within a work environment."

These two stories alone enraged me! We can be so gullible and naive when young, 

can't we? She admitted she had never told anyone 

nor had she written about these experiences, until now. As she states:

We have to tell our stories, point the finger, shame this behavior and make it stop.

And if we have to do it every day for the next month, or year, or decade, we have to make that commitment. (p 13)

Agreed! We may well need to do this for the rest of our life!

...we have to change how we look at the behavior, and make sure that there are consequences. (p 14)

We are not a mob. We are a movement. (p 14)

And, as she notes, this movement which Patricia Douglas initiated clear back in 1937 in Hollywood, through Anita Hill's brave testimony, is now a worldwide/global call to action!

Back legislation to change the nondisclosure laws in the workplace. (p 14)

I remember being horrified when I learned this was even a thing! 

And a perfectly LEGAL, often used thing, at that! 

That was with regard to Donald Trump's own sexual antics revealed during the 2016 Presidential election. (And how has that worked out for our country?)

I love this quote:

Don't just lean in. Take the reins. (p 14)

I did read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead as part of our campus Office of Women Book Club about six months after its release in 2013. 
I felt the main point it made was that each individual should have the right to choose 
what they do with their life, regardless of gender. 
But I know the book received some negative reactions...so this did make me chuckle.
Perkins states her goal is "to reach people in the most permanent ways possible" and to achieve that end, the paperback version of this book is being sold at cost.
So pass this book around. Share it with your sons, brothers, fathers, 
your daughters, sisters, mothers, your co-workers and friends. 
Read passages to them, if they won't read it for themselves. 
Leave it on the desk of someone who should know better. 
Help us make this movement more than a hashtag. (p 15)

1937. That is the year Patricia Douglas became the first woman to publicly call out the studios (MGM specifically) for such behaviors. At the age of 20 she was one of 120 women to show up for an audition for You Must Remember This. Each woman was "fancied up" and "given a skimpy outfit" and taken to a party thrown for studio executives and 300 salesmen, as the evening's entertainment. (In addition to the 500 cases of scotch and champagne.) Patricia (and all the other women) were repeatedly sexually assaulted and eventually Patricia was raped. Since MGM owned everyone and everything at that time, nothing came of the criminal charges filed although a grand jury was convened). Civil lawsuits went nowhere, but Douglas persevered and finally tried to file a lawsuit in federal court, to which her own lawyer did not appear, nor any of the MGM bigwigs, so it was dismissed. However, this 

was "an apparent legal first" in that "a female plaintiff 

made rape a federal case, based on its violation of her civil rights. (p 21)

Even when interviewed at the age of 86, Douglas stated

"It ruined my life. It absolutely ruined my life"...

"They put me through such misery. It took away all my confidence." (p 21)

Patricia was willing to go public again due to her advanced age.

"When I die, the truth dies with me, and that means those bastards win." 

Not today. (p 22)

Thanks to Raechal Leone Shewfelt and Lisa Perkins, that is not what happened. Patricia Douglas's story has seen the light of day... :)

A.M. Carley asserts that such abuse is common knowledge, especially when you consider the 2016 Presidential election when the current "Predator-in-Chief" was 'elected' by the electoral college, not by the popular vote. Carley cites the Stockholm Syndrome as the main reason so many "conservative white middle-class women voted Republican." 

They took on the views of their oppressors long ago. 

Now, like the rest of us, they're wedded to their story, 

and recalcitrant about ceding any ground. (p 30)

What should we do to fight back? Promote "girl power"! Educate all children, female and male, about when "physical contact feels unwelcome" and how to report it. But most of all, train society to believe such reports and act upon them. Empower all individuals so each person can think clearly and form their own attitudes and opinions without caving to the oppressors and their desires. Most importantly--MOBILIZE and VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE! 2020 is our year! 

But only if we exercise our rights. And, as Ambassador Susan Rice said on March 2nd as a Steward Speakers Lecture Series presenter in Indianapolis, Indiana, (I'm paraphrasing): It is not only imperative that YOU vote, but that you make sure all your family and friends vote as well! 

Jesse Berdinka writes in "The Bully Culture of the Weinsteins" what really resonated for him was not to be on the red carpet, but rather the idea of the "culture of constantly trying to be the best at something, trying to prove something." As Berdinka says, the Weinsteins always portrayed themselves as "two kids from Queens fighting and besting a system that didn't think they were good enough to get in." That attitude permeated all the way down the authority chain. He describes how anyone could move up in the Weinstein corporation and in fact, it was perhaps easier for those from the 'outside' to do so than the typical Ivy League grad...

The problem is you can't be the outsider forever. 

At some point you have to find something to be for instead of against. 

Scrappiness often turns into ego. Ego turns into anger. 

The culture was one where you had to make a choice. (p 40)

He describes how you had to become a bully to "fit in." And then rationalize that in whatever way you saw fit--typically self-medicating with alcohol and/or drugs. 

The real power of abuse isn't the big things. It's the subtle drip. 

The slow wearing down of a person, by small comments, looks or actions.

It wears on you day after day, sand blown hard even against the hardest of rocks. 

(p 42)

He admits to having witnessed absolutely reprehensible and unacceptable behaviors and doing nothing since they were not "crimes." But as he notes, is that our level of attention? Only when such behavior qualifies as criminal is it to be addressed? For him, it came down to a choice regarding what he valued as a person. He determined that he valued kindness, and he left the Weinstein corporation. 

Paul M. Sammon describes "The Big Ugly" as "pay to play" that has always existed in the underbelly of Hollywood. He is aware of many such alliances with "willing" participants. He describes several situations where he was able to extricate himself before anything untoward or unwelcome was offered to him directly. He credits a law enforcement background and knowledge for this 'sixth sense' of avoidance. Sammon also realizes that as a male he is certainly much more able to care for himself than females and doesn't even try to extend his own experiences to any others. He also has a 40-year-long successful marriage, so has found it easy to remember that any short-term pleasure is not worth risking that long-term committed relationship. 

I do know that I don't like bullying. Of any kind. To any gender. (p 50)

Sammon believes the "casting couch" culture will persist.

Because demanding unwanted sexual favors is a smaller manifestation of our country's larger, ongoing, deeply troubling war against gender equality--a war which some men continue to wage by using fiscal threats and sexual coercion as anti-woman power tools. (p 51)

As successful actor, screenwriter, and producer Brit Marling states: 

The real danger inside the present moment...would be for us all to separate the alleged deeds of [Bill] Cosby, [Roger] Ailes, [Bill] O'Reilly, or Weinstein 

from a culture that continues to allow for dramatic imbalances of power. 

It's not these bad men. Or that dirty industry. It's this inhumane economic system 

of which we are all a part. As producers and as consumers. 

As storytellers and as listeners. As human beings. 

That's a very uncomfortable truth to sit inside. 

But perhaps discomfort is what's required. (p 52)

Agreed. Discomfort is the least of it. I feel that Harvey Weinstein being convicted AND jailed is just a start...

In "Wall Street Assets" Veronica Vera describes her early days on Wall Street, which included mind-blowing sex with one of the worst sexual predators, but the highest-earning salesperson, in a major Wall Street Firm. Of course, this man was retained at this firm because of his "success." At least "success" as measured in dollars of sales. Otherwise, he was one of the worst creeps! (Granted this was in the 1960's, but still...) Veronica did come around to a feminist mindset and has done well for herself and serves as a mentor to others in many ways. But that description of her first job and the sexual relationship with this guy...gave me the creeps! Seriously, I had to take a break from reading this and return to it. Ugh.

Camilla Saly-Monzingo provides some details of her life as a rock'n'roll runaway teen in the 1970's. Scary to read of the times she was raped and otherwise assaulted. And I keep asking myself: Why do these men feel this is "right"? Obviously, our society gives them permission to do as they please. Period. Fortunately for her, Camilla becomes a stable adult who serves as a teacher and mentor to others. 

This myth that men often cite, that the girls are hanging around, in my case 

in a club or backstage or in a hotel lobby, "because they want it, and that means "they were asking for it," has to be dissected, examined and addressed. 

I did want attention. I did want approval. I was a sexual being. 

But I did not want to be coerced, abused and raped. 

Those are very, very different things. (p 64)

While we do need to empower girls/females as Saly-Monzingo states, we must educate boys/men/all adults to realize their responsibility to others, but especially those younger than themselves/teens/children! 

We also have to teach men that, when dealing with young people, 

what looks to them like "I'm into it" doesn't give them license to do whatever 

they want, regardless of the power and age differential. 

And it is never okay to coerce or force sex on anyone. (p 68)

In "Consent: Breaking the Silence" Mary Billiter describes the initial sexual assault she suffered, at the hands of "a distant family relative" who began staying at her parent's house. He would come to her room at night, always when she was sleeping and rape/sexually assault her. She was 11 years old. And as so often happens, her parents blamed her for the nightshirt she wore. At this point in the story, I am saying out loud: "un-fucking-believable"! When the people on whom you should be able to rely the most to listen to and believe you and then protect you from further harm deny your truth, where the hell can/do you turn? As with many children--alcohol became the answer. To escape and mask the pain. Fortunately for Mary, a friend called her years later in the aftermath of a sexual assault she had suffered which prompted Mary to finally discuss and disclose her own sexual assaults. Billiter quotes some of the astounding statistics available: 

(1) 80% of female rape victims are assaulted before the age of 25

(2) One of every six American women has been the fiction of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime

(3) Nine of every ten victims of rape are female

(4) Per a survey conducted by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) focused on what the sexual assault survivor was doing when the crime occurred:

48% were sleeping

29% were traveling to or from school or work

12% were working

7% were attending school

5% were doing an unknown or other activity

No matter the situation, sexual assaults are 

physically debilitating, emotionally draining, unimaginably traumatic and shameful.

There is no timetable for when someone will heal form a sexual assault. (p 74)

Since I am about halfway through this book, I am ending this Part 1 review here...

you can find Part 2 here!

Happy reading!

~Lynn