This post will stick forever, so let me make one thing clear: this is my private opinion as a private person and I am proud to be a heterosexual white male. (Does not make me more powerful in life, a rapist per so or a Nazi pig.) No need to call up my company or clients and have them fire me. Because, if this is your only thinking, we deserve the right to call you a snowflake and wish you a great time in your social justice warrior safespace.
The hashtag #metoo against Weinstein sounds like a really solid social media campaign. But let me ask you a few questions:
- Why didn't the victims inform the police, HR, whistle-blower hotline, etc. first?
- Why does the alegations against that boss come to our attention so many years later?
- Why didn't you tell your family and friends, so others could have been warned?
- Why do we get the impresson that your career was more important at that time?
- WHY DID YOU WORK FOR SUCH AN ASSHOLE? (I too quit my job because of an asshole boss.)
I believe this social media campaign is wrong and has one huge flaw: men and women are still sexual and social beings. We cannot wake up, leave home, go to work, think about our work only, come home and then for the first time only think about sex. Yes we try, but can we really?
I am married, faithful and happy about my career and family. Nevertheless, I sometimes get aroused seeing a woman, if she appears attractive to me. Am I therefore an unfaithful pig or potential rapist? Should I use drugs or other means to reduce my basic feelings? No, because I am not an American I do not use drugs for every problem. At work even my Christian wife talks about relationship, sex and other topics with her female co-workers. Why? Because our life, as much as we want to disconnect, still centers around us being reproductive. Media, advertising, social media – they all bombard us with having fun, looking good, dressing well, appearing proper, etc.
But, here is the point that really disturbs me: we all know this “kind of classy woman” in the office, showing too much, touching others while speaking, giving mixed signals all the time, and still being harassed by some bossy moron or sleazy male coworker at the end of the day. Why? Because one fact should not be denied: some women really know how to turn men around, to get what they want. I liked #metoo until I heard that Angelina Jolie is a “victim” as well. Seriously? This woman told media she loves to play with knives and has nothing against a woman in bed here and then. Do you really think that she, even proclaiming she knows how to use a knife in self-defense, was raped by Weinstein? Or, maybe she flirted too much and it got too serious, too soon, too uncontrollable for her…?
Am I make women the willing victims here? NO!
Can we please stop looking for the answers in everything with social media hashtags? Muslim terror attacks cannot be undone with hashtags either. Maybe instead of being a silent victim, women should do what the Internet really allows our society: open up to others, inform the world, and take action. And maybe, that cute flirty behavior to get a favor from a male coworker, maybe it could be misunderstood by the wrong guy and maybe women should sometimes rethink such actions as well.
P.S.: My personal favorite was a HR manager at an US company, teaching us the basics of workplace ethics and policies against sexual-harassment. We could literally see the top half of her big boobs because she dressed like…, what is the word,... UNPROFESSIONELL!