A few months ago, I read Aziz Ansari’s excellent book, Modern Romance, about how dating has changed along with our latest technology. He didn’t offer easy solutions as to when to respond to a potential date’s texts, but he described modern dating quandaries in a way that made a lot of people feel like they weren’t alone. I just wanted to plug that book when I had a chance because I enjoyed it a lot.
Earlier this week we talked about Ansari’s fresh and realistic take on race and the media as shown in his highly acclaimed new Netflix series, Master of None. Not only does Ansari address relationship and race issues in his show, he also tackles sexism. In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Ansari discusses the inspiration for his show, why he chose to work with Netflix instead of his old Parks and Rec employer, NBC (although it’s NBC that’s a no brainer), and why he tackled sexism in one of his recent episodes. He says so many wise and interesting things I’m not going to be able to quote it all, so go to The Daily Beast to read the full interview. I’m mostly focusing on the sexual harassment stuff because we haven’t covered that yet.
How did the show land on Netflix?
I met up with Alan [Yang], the co-creator of the show, and said, “Let’s do a show,” and he said, “I’m down.” We went and pitched it around a bunch of places and everyone was into it, but Netflix said, “We want to do it, and we’re ready—go shoot ten episodes.” There wasn’t even a pilot or any of that. And I’d enjoyed working with Netflix on my specials, so they seemed like they believed in us, and would do well by us. We wrote for a couple of months while I was on Parks, then I wrote for a couple of months at the beginning of this year, we started shooting for 12 weeks in late March, edited it, and it was done.The sexual harassment episode, “Ladies and Gentlemen,” is one that a lot of people will be talking about. It’s so pertinent to what’s going on today—on social media, in particular. Lena Dunham had to quit managing her own Twitter account because she was getting so much nasty stuff in her mentions.
Oh yeah. Go on any famous woman’s Instagram and there are crazy death threats in the comments everywhere. No one is giving Drake death threats—only female celebrities get that. It’s f–ked up. I don’t understand it. I don’t know how you can be that disgusting of a human being to write those things, and also, if you’re not aware that it’s happening overwhelmingly more to women than it is to men, you’re an idiot who’s detached from reality.
The seed of that episode came from a bit during my Madison Square Garden special where I’d talk about women getting followed home by creepy dudes, and I’d ask during the bit, “Raise your hands if you’re a woman and you’ve been followed home,” and everyone would raise their hand. And then all the other women would look around and go, “What the f–k?!” Then, I’d ask all the guys if they expected all the women to raise their hands, and none of them really did. They couldn’t believe it. I thought it was interesting that this is happening, yet so many people are unaware of it. And the problem is people aren’t talking about it. What I’ve learned, as a guy, is to just ask women questions and listen to what they have to say. Go to your group of female friends and ask them about times they’ve experienced sexism at their job, and you’ll get blown away by the things they tell you. You’ll think, “What the f–k? This is way darker than anything I’d imagined.”
Do you think it’s getting better when it comes to women being represented in comedy?
I don’t think so! Not really. I mean, there are a handful of people, but not really. Women are half the population! Things like Scandal and Inside Amy Schumer are recent things. As far as how we like to deal with stuff on our show, I just watched what Mike Schur did on Parks where he had a very diverse writers’ room of gender and ethnicity, and I think that really helps to have a bunch of different voices and perspectives, and that’s what we did on our show. You need to have an empathetic worldview that’s open to voices other than your own.
I haven’t seen the sexual harassment episode of Master of None yet, it’s called Ladies and Gentlemen, as I’m trying to pace myself with the show. It’s taking a lot of restraint! (Plus if I watched it before I wrote this up I would be tempted to give you a recap and no one wants to read all that. I tend to gush when I love something.)
The more I hear from Ansari, the more I want to go watch all his standup specials and all his shows in one sitting. He’s talking about issues that don’t personally affect him and yet he cares and is able to explain they matter. I admire the fact that he brings up the percentage of women on the planet vs. how we’re shown in the media. This reminds me of Geena Davis’s point that we’re 51% of the population and are barely shown in major roles on television and in the movies. Yes we are making inroads but we’re still far off where we need to be and Ansari seems to get that.
Also, in terms of the death threats that female celebrities get on social media, I don’t understand why this is still happening years and years after the issue came to light. Death threats should be an automatic and immediate ban on Instagram, Twitter and all social media, and the IP and username should get traced and reported to authorities. There should be a division of every social media company that is dedicated to eradicating trolling. You report a threat, it gets sent to someone and evaluated, and boom the person is banned. Yes this can result in false positives and it needs to be handled with clear rules and there needs to be an appeals process. The fact that it has gone on for so long really speaks to Twitter especially trying to bury their heads in the sand and not address it.
After I wrote this story, I saw that Ansari had written an editorial for the NY Times about diversity in Hollywood. He actually spoke with Fisher Stevens, who used brownface to play an Indian man in 1998’s Short Circuit 2. Ansari came away understanding why Stevens took the role while Stevens grasped how insensitive it was. Ansari also writes about the lack of representation not only for minorities but for women in film. Go here to read.
I loved him in Parks and rec , and he doesn’t disappoint on master of none. We saw him live a few years ago and he is fantastic!
I enjoyed his dating book as well. He’s on a good track – kudos
Love him I loved parks and recreation. Sad it’s over
It’s nice to dialogue about it and to have a man take over the role of “explaining sexism to clueless people”. I’m so tired of having to do that every time a man or a woman tells me street catcalling is a “compliment”.
More Aziz! This makes me want to go buy his book.
It’s stupid and dangerous to say that only women are bullied.
Women are more bullied than men, specially when it comes to their body (you’re too fat, you’re too skinny, you’re ugly…).
But saying that only women get death threats don’t help.
i also dont get that he said that, its really ruining his point.
Plus what he says stands on very shaky ground:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/04/men-are-harassed-more-than-women-online.html
“Overall, men are somewhat more likely than women to experience at least one of the elements of online harassment, 44% vs. 37%.”
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/
I think men and women are not harassed for the same thing, specially when it comes to their body.
But the mob mentality attack both men and women.
So they did a study on female vs male public figures or celebs?
I don’t speak about celebs, I speak about people, celeb or not.
Non celeb people are harassed too, there’s also teens who kill themselves cause of the harassement.
I think a lot of harassment that takes place online is linked to anonymnity. People say horridly unkind things – including racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Christian and homophobic things – because they know they can ‘get away’ with it. It would be a very interesting day if all of a sudden the anonymous comments people have made could be linked back to their writers, and I believe that in many cases, police and security forces have already done so.
It’s not hard for an owner of a site to trace things back, but anonymity is protective and I wouldn’t want to lose it. I’ve had death threats locally (phone calls and letters) from simply objecting to stupid wars in the local newspaper. I never allow my image to be displayed anywhere online either. One editor of an online journal was baffled by my refusal, but I told him it just wasn’t safe.
I think you can be confident that if you have said anything outside the currently permissible range of thought (to the right or to the left), NSA trackers and other government agents in most Western countries know perfectly well who you are. If you’re comfortable with your present government (say, if you’re American and like President Obama), you probably don’t care much. However, that same tracking information will be accessible to future governments (say, President Trump or Fiorina.) I don’t think you should put too much faith in being anonymous online.
Oh, the government knows who I am. I’m more worried about other people.
I wouldn’t know about Twitter, because you couldn’t pay me to have an account, but I thought his remarks about women being followed home were very accurate. Maybe he shouldn’t have included on-line bullying, but I think his larger point was completely accurate – that women are harassed constantly and in danger of sexual assault daily, and most men have no idea or true grasp of how bad it is. I think that’s an important point, and I’m sad that you’re calling him stupid because you disagree with one part of his comment.
I watched the special he refers to about women being followed home. It really was the way he described it and rather eye-opening. The whole special was very good. I hadn’t seen him in anything before. He is younger than me and not white like me so I didn’t expect to be able to relate to his comedy much. Instead I found it funny, intriguing and heartfelt in completely unexpected ways. I will definitely be checking out his new series.
I call his argument stupid, not him.
I can respect people and even love them and at the same time think that some of their comments are stupid.
I think he was referring to celebrities and the threats they receive via social media (see Lena. I can’t stand her but that doesn’t mean I should or could threaten her life!)
Yes, I think he was specifically referring to celebrities. I don’t know the statistics, but it wouldn’t surprise me if women were more seriously harassed than men in that specific category.
I think certain men are just angry when we venture out of the kitchen and the bedroom. They see us as a threat except in certain acceptable roles. I saw the same kind of vitriol when Barack Obama was elected, inspired by the anger that a black man was in the White House. I was really surprised that he wasn’t assassinated, judging from the kinds of things I was seeing online. I had the misfortune of being forced to listen to Glenn Beck’s radio show at the veterinarian’s with a cat who needed repeated surgeries, and the veiled threats were so scary that I wondered why the show wasn’t shut down by the Secret Service. They were also essentially advocating armed rebellion at various points as long as Obama was in office.
There was also gamer gate, where it was shown that women get harassed constantly when using online games. The woman who brought it up was seriously threatened beyond online bullying.
There is an aggressive male culture online where women are basically sexual objects and if you voice a different opinion then threats of rape are made. It is in every forum, from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram etc… Women are more likely to make their profiles private for these reasons.
While not all men are the problem, the ones who do this are vociferous and often cross the line into real life.
While the NSA is worried about terrorists, they should be cracking down on the men who terrorize women online, because that is far more common.
I love Twitter (or Twatter, as we profane Brits like to call it). And online insults really don’t bother me. If you don’t like what I’m saying, have at me. I might argue with you or I might ignore you, depending on my mood.
But I was once part of a Twitter conversation between several women in which #gamergate was mentioned, just as a very brief aside. Honest to Betsy, there must be a cohort of saddos on Twitter who LIVE on that hashtag, just so that they can rush in and issue rape and death threats to any hapless woman who mentions it. We were all swarmed. FOR DAYS.
World contains some truly pathetic people.
I am liking this guy more and more. If I ever get some spare time, I’m going to watch this show.
He’s referring to celebrities. I don’t know any stats but one thing I’ve found reading reviews of albums on iTunes and Amazon is that people are far more critical of women who have “inappropriate” lyrics than men. It’s shocking to see female singers being torn apart by reviewers because they sing about alcohol or sex while male singers who have far more controversial lyrics get mostly praise and at most minor criticism. Women are criticized for being bad role model a charge that’s rarely thrown at men. There is a double standard when it comes to what men and women in the public eye can get away with and I think that’s specifically what he was referring to.
what I want to know is how many women do the bullying? It doesn’t surprise me that women may be more bullied than men, especially women comediennes. But I am always astounded by how many women bully other women and how they are just out-of-control offensive and violent in their words. I don’t see women bully men as much. I don’t see men bully other men as much as they do women as well. It makes me sad actually.
Good point. I think men are more likely to use rape threats, but I’ve seen both sexes WISH rape on someone or say that someone deserves to be raped. Back on Huffington post a few years ago I just left a comment saying that if men are allowed to go topless, women should too. There was a mixture of males and females who agreed or calmly disagreed, but the one angry commenter was a regular female commenter who said, “When you get raped, I’ll f*cking LAUGH in your face for defending this sh*t.” Other people called her out along with me and the comment was eventually flagged, but the comment was more shocking because it came from a woman. Internalized misogyny is not pretty. And I do think women invest more time and energy bullying women online than they do to men, even to the point where they’ll give men a pass for things they don’t give women a pass for.
Wow, he has the most expressive eyes. I like him just for that alone.
He looks more like a deer caught in headlight.
I love the way he looks. Seems so cute and innocent, like a cuddly bunny, then his softly spoken words go in for the kill with deadly accuracy… He really is unique and very effective.
Policing social networks is a huge job, and last year Wired had an excellent article about poorly-paid workers in developing countries, particularly the Philippines, who spend their days looking through and deleting the awful things people post. It’s terrible, dehumanizing work. Google “Wired” and “The Laborers Who Keep” for the article, which is rough reading.
Love him! I’m glad he’s getting some attention. His standup has always been on point and hilarious!
‘No one is giving Drake death threats—only female celebrities get that’
Yeah because people like Steven Spielberg, Matt Stone, Trey Parker never get threatened and i’m pretty sure you can find some death threats on drakes instagram.
Even with lena dunham she was probably just standard celebrity trolls but she needs her safe space so she hired somebody to tweet for her.
Do you think Drake is afraid to go to mall by himself at night? Or run down an isolated dark street? Or get on an elevator alone with a man? Can he stand on a crowded bus without someone whispering in his ear that they would like to @&$@ his @&$@$? Without someone taking the opportunity to grab his bottom or breast? Can he walk by a construction site without a bunch of sweaty men laughing and yelling “nice tits!” or “yeah, I want me some of that!” Or other stupid juvenile crap? Does he have to pretend to laugh when his fat, ugly boss makes sexually suggestive remarks? Do Steven Spielberg, Matt Stone and Trey Parker live their lives looking over their shoulder, double checking their locks when they’re alone at night, avoiding situations where they are vulnerable to rape? I doubt it. Men have no idea. That’s his point. Men have problems, too. But they don’t have to change their perfectly innocent behavior to avoid being raped EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES. it’s not at the back of their minds all the time. ALL THE TIME. And I applaud him for talking about it.
But, see, here’s the thing about that, and one I think diminishes his larger point:
Most of the examples you just gave are examples of “stranger danger” violence or assault. And statistically speaking, women dramatically overestimate the dangers of it. Just by the numbers, that dark alley is actually safer than your own home. Stranger abduction and rape is exceedingly rare. If you are going to be raped, the Vegas odds will always favor it being somebody you know. If you are going to be murdered, odds say it will be by an intimate partner that resides in your own home with you. Not the scary stranger who comes up behind you.
Most of this stuff you cite – women changing their lives to avoid rape – is demonstrably useless. Why double check your locks when odds are the attacker is already in the home? Why fear the dark alley when your bedroom is far more likely to be the scene of the crime? Simply because women do these things doesn’t make the underlying premise true. I think that’s my problem with this whole debate – it sort of presumes the underlying validity of women’s concerns, when in reality, many of these are not that rational.
(Let’s make clear I’m only addressing that part of your argument. Street harassment and words are an entirely different thing)
Sam, you’re completely missing the point and distracting from the larger issue, which is exactly why we need people like Aziz speaking out about these things. You parsing GNAT’s argument is a transparent deflection. Even if the alley a woman is walking down is completely safe, the point is that she still has to feel like she’s in imminent danger. Even if she isn’t. Even if she is overestimating the danger of her situation, the point is that she has to feel like she’s in danger even when she might not be. That comes from living in a world that makes women feel objectified and less than human every day. Forgive me if I am wrong, but you sound like you’re not a woman. Therefore, you have no idea what that’s like. It is absolutely not your business to be making the conversation about women’s concerns being “irrational” if you haven’t lived a day in a woman’s world. Your line of thinking is 100% part of the problem. If all you’d like to do is belittle the struggles of women, rather than even attempting to empathize with them, you probably want to see yourself over to “returnofkings.com” or the like where you’d be more comfortable.
ETA re GNAT’s response below: “You either get it or you don’t. You don’t.”
You are magnificent and I heart you. Rock on.
Sam, thank you for proving my point. People simply refuse to face the realities of life as a woman. You either get it or you don’t. You don’t.
All of your statistics are pointless. So women are more likely to be raped by someone they know than they are a stranger. So all rape isn’t by a man grabbing you on the street? So what? THAT’S what you take away from what I said, and what he said? We STILL change our lives because of the fear, at least those of us who don’t pretend that statistics will magically protect us. You’re still very, very likely to be sexually assaulted in your life. By someone. Who cares who it is? Not ALL women are raped by someone they know. And except for workplace harassment, ALL of the other things I mentioned came from strangers. And had I been alone or in an isolated area, who knows what might have happened? Because that’s how it starts. How do you think men, husbands, dates, male friends, male acquaintances and strangers get to the place where they believe they have the right to force a woman to have sex when she doesn’t want to? It’s our overall attitude towards women. It starts with the harassment and ends with the rape. You enter my space first with your words, then your briefly touch me, then you rape me. Each step is allowed. Each step is justified, rationalized, blown off by people like you. One in five women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I’m sorry you don’t think my fears are “valid,” but I don’t think your argument is valid. You’re burying your head in the sand because you can’t face it. And this guy is trying to shed some light on it, so you and the others on here desperately search for anything in what he’s saying, that has NOTHING to do with the argument he’s making, and use it to ease your mind. Good luck with that.
@Shambles
Thank you. You always say things much more briefly and eloquently than I do. That’s what I mean. I think Sam is a woman. It’s a shame, but women are just as likely to blow off the truth as men.
My 15 year old daughter came home from her cheer practice (practice was in an indoor sports facility where soccer and basketball games also take place) upset because her coach had to confront a 20 something male soccer player who was taking video of the girls practicing. She physically took the man’s phone and deleted the video herself, but it just illustrates the point that women, and in this case 13-15 year old teenagers, are constantly having to alter their behaviors because of a fear of sexual harrassment and violence. It’s scary to think that something as innocent as a 15 year old’s team cheer practice will be turned around and viewed in a sexual and inappropriate way. And can you imagine if the coach had not caught the man taking the video and that somehow this video got uploaded the internet (I am sure there is a sight somewhere where this video would be welcome) where all sorts of men would be making comments about the girls and one of them stumbled upon it? Horrifying. At 15 my daughter has already had way too many of these type of experiences and at 13 my son has not experienced anything even close.
GNAT – I am a woman (as Shambles seems to have missed my entire comment history).
Now, I’m a woman, but I also like to think that I’m fairly rationally minded. I’m an attorney, I like to follow crime data and what’s going on. And the data is quite clear that American women, today, are safer than ever. Homicides are down overall, including those against women. And the data is clear on something else – the dangers that women do face come from within the home and from those we know, not the nameless strangers we all seem to think are lurking.
You’re talking about living in fear, which was the topic of your original post. And overall, there is no good reason for it. Or if there is a good reason, we largely fear the wrong people.
And your point about “well, it’s the ATTITUDES” misses my point. Aziz said that only female celebrities get death threats, which is a demonstrably false point. There are dozens of stories about male public figures being threatened and removing their online presences due to hostility. It’s just that you don’t look for them. And fundamentally, attitudes don’t kill – actions do. I dislike men who hold offensive views of women, but I don’t fear them, because they don’t harm me. I dislike the construction workers who catcall, but am I afraid of them? No. It’s gross and nasty, but it’s not a fearful thing for me – and it shouldn’t be fearful for others, and I hate that it is.
And my whole point is that the fear that a ton of women live with is irrational, and that is harmful. I know so many women who will not leave their homes after dark because they are afraid. And that is bogus. It restricts their lives in a harmful way. And it is absolutely based on the fear of an event that is extremely unlikely to happen. But these same women will go out and date, marry, etc. – events that statistically expose them to far greater risk than taking a late night walk to the store. And that’s my beef with this whole thing. We talk about the culture of fear that women live in, but we don’t do anything to refute it or talk about it in a fact-based way. And the whole premise is flawed. We use examples of women carrying their keys like knives to show that the world is a dangerous place for women – but it’s a flawed premise. That woman has almost nothing to fear walking down that street alone. The danger starts when she gets in the door. But nobody discusses that. Irrationality is defined as acting in a way that is contrary to established knowledge or facts. And by that definition, yes, vesting so much in avowing stranger danger is irrational. It is, there’s no bones about it.
And GNAT, you talk about the truth, but I think we vary on what we define the truth to be. To me, the truth is that which can be demonstrated with facts, numbers, etc. I know that in truth, fearing what most women fear is not rational. It’s just not. I know that in truth, my husband poses far greater risk to me than a stranger. And on some level, that is terrifying. But I have to accept that part of being in love is that vulnerability. The problem is that as a group, we don’t accept the truth of things.
Good luck, Sam. None are so blind as those who will not see.
Sam,
You absolutely should fear those guys in the street. I was sexually assaulted at age 16 on the street by a guy like that. I became very caution after and I think my fears and “irrational” reactions after have served me well and prevented further assaults. Don’t pay too much attention to stats. Sexual assaults are so common they mostly go unreported. I never reported what happened to me. Since most assaults aren’t reported, stats may tell women we’re far safer than we really are.
Emma: I feel for you, but that doesn’t get to my actual point. Stranger assaults are rare. But as rare as they are, they are the most likely to be reported. Because generally, there are not the barriers to reporting in those situations. A woman is far LESS likely to report if she knows her attacker because 1.) she might have feelings for him and not want to get him in trouble, 2.) she is dependent upon him for resources (housing, food, etc.), 3.) They are members of the same community and she does not want to disrupt it, etc. In reality, most people who actually crunch crime data believe that stranger assaults are OVER-represented in our data, because they are more likely to be reported. Rape is vastly underreported, but stranger assaults are the most likely to be reported. if all rapes, across the board were reported, the “stranger” percentage would drop even more than it is now.
So while I feel for you, you haven’t addressed my actual point. It seems like nobody really is. I feel like stuff like this gives more credence to people like Sam Harris (who I dislike immensely) when he argues that women are simply less given to rationality, empiricism and critical thinking. They look at stuff like this.
Sam, I said “forgive me if I’m wrong” in regards to your gender. So, forgive me for not quite having the time to keep up with the comment history of every poster on CB.
It should tell you something that your comments are so thoroughly anti-woman that my first response was to assume that there was no way that you could possibly be a woman. That’s pretty sad. You’re sticking your head in the sand, and insulting all of your sisters who have survived sexual violence.
Sam,
What does it matter that date rape is statistically more likely? That doesn’t mean stranger rape never happens or is even all that rare, especially considering I know people who were raped by strangers. It happened so often at my college in a particular parking lot that people started calling it “Rape Lot.”
And it’s not just about rape. I’ve experienced sexual harassment far more often from strangers than acquaintances, such as a man in an elevator who tried to grab my arm, a stranger at a bar who tried to give me a roofied drink, some guy who took his junk out on the street while my friends and I were walking by, some handsy guy on a train who kept rubbing his junk on my leg, etc… It rarely escalates to rape, but it’s still threatening. And perhaps it didn’t escalate to rape because I was being cautious…
Shanbles: How is factual information “sticking my head in the sand?” First you accuse me of being a dude and now, since you’re out of luck there, you’re coming back to arguing that I ignore reality, when in fact, I’m arguing for it.
We spend a ton of time talking about how dangerous the world is for women and how women live in such fear of being assaulted, killed or raped. That’s true. My problem is that we are going about it in the worst possible way. If you really wanr to support your “sisters” – be honest with them. Women need to get that taking all kinds of steps to insulate themselves against strangers and these phantom menaces who are just waiting to rape them. The reality, however, is that the biggest threats to women come from inside the home, but most women don’t see that (or refuse to see it). The same woman who will refuse to walk down a dark alley because she’s afraid of it will go home to a man who gaslights her and she has no freaking clue that he’s engaging in abusive behavior – or if she is aware, she will excuse it or ignore it. I see it all the time. Women as a class engage in some of the most irrational behavior when it comes to avoidance of danger and self-preservation, and that’s the major issue. It happens with parents too – they will go to great lengths to talk to their kids about “stranger danger” but will not talk to them about grooming behaviors among people they know. It’s locking your door against the bear while the wolf is in your house (to steal a saying I’ve heard from a friend).
And the crazy thing is that we’re known this for YEARS. Any criminologist will tell you that. We have always known that women have little to fear from the outside world and far more to fear from their own relatives and partners. But even knowing this, women keep doing it. Why? Because of locus of control – we love to think that we can control everything and that we can’t be fooled into letting a dangerous person into our lives, when in reality we do it all the time.
What do I consider anti-woman? Lying to them. Letting them think they are safe when they are not. Teaching them largely useless techniques to keep themselves safe from a very unlikely event when in reality we should be teaching them tools to help them get away from far more likely offenders. But please, continue feeling as though you’re really doing anything meaningful within the current system.
Sam,
We do teach women that acquaintance rape is more common and how to avoid it and domestic violence. We also speak out against glorification of abusive relationships and/or non-consensual sex in the media. Why do you think people were ranting about the 50 Shades books so much? Or the Blurred Lines video?
I am aware of domestic violence and date rape. That doesn’t mean I can’t also be cautious of all the creeps who try to sexually harass me out in public.
Sam- regardless of statistics, in my personal experience, strangers are the source of the most worrisome incidents when I walk alone at night. That’s why I avoid it. Yes, men you know can and do hurt you, just as children are most at risk of sexual abuse in the home. But my experience has simply been different from yours. Under the cover of darkness, men around here do feel more uninhibited. This is not a big city and after dark it is really dark in many areas. And there are no witnesses since many people go to bed early and businesses are not open.
I love how Mark just mansplained to us women that the world is totally safe at all times for women and that we are just overreacting. I mean all those guns purchased in the US are only for decoration don’t ya know?
And the online harassment that happens if your name is viewed as female? All in your minds ladies. Just relax, Mark has it under control.
I don’t think I agree that men get threatened less than woman. Sure, the threats aren’t often of rape but nonetheless they’re still threats. I remember earlier in Drakes career he tweeted about his mom having some kind of surgery and a bunch of sick people tweeted that they hoped she died or they would kill her themselves.
So they made death threats against his mom( a woman)?
Wow. So disappointing. Finally a man talks about how our society ignores harassment, assault and how the daily lives of women are filled with the threat or reality of both, and the response to completely ignore that and point out “uh, men are so harassed, too.” No wonder we live with the threat of violence against us simply because we were born women. Nobody gives a crap.
It’s the all lives matter response. People want to deny the problem because if you acknowledge it then you have to try to fix it, or worst admit you’re living in the privilege of not having the problem be a real problem for you. So instead of saying yes this is a problem you just dismiss it and say it happens to everyone.
It is a sad and rather pathetic response.
Yes, I was thinking along the same lines. There’s a new phenomenon happening online where you can’t take a stand for a particular group without immediately being attacked for ignoring another. So tiresome.
@Esmom
I completely agree. Whenever there are high-profile stories of a woman being abused by a male partner, the hashtag #notallmen inevitably shows up. It’s wilfully missing the point.
Exactly. There are some people who are just simply unable/unwilling to listen to someone else say “this is a problem I face” and considering how that person’s experience might be different from their own.
“There’s a new phenomenon happening online where you can’t take a stand for a particular group without immediately being attacked for ignoring another. So tiresome.”
Yep. Most of the time it seems like a tactic people use when they’re tired of hearing about a problem. And sometimes people don’t want to hear about fixing a problem if it means taking a critical look at how their precious ‘free speech’ is being used, and if some of the people raising the issue or being effected by the problem are not People Who Matter to them. You see that a lot with MRAs.
I know what you mean, GNATTY. He says a lot of wonderful things, and his larger point is beautiful and potent and important (that women face a much different and much scarier struggle on a daily basis). But a lot of people are stuck on this one tiny point that he made about online bullying and they want to just parse the sh!t out of that one statement, therefore they are completely missing the point. And that is the insidious nature of sexism. Sexism latches on to one little statement and says “well TECHNICALLY this isn’t actually true,” so that the conversation is now about parsing words rather than women’s issues as a whole. And viola, everyone is distracted. That’s part of the reason why we still have to have these conversations.
But, take heart, you lovely lady. Thankfully it seems that there are still plenty of wonderful posters who love the crap out of this dude for what he has to say. He’s a true ally, and one little statement doesn’t discount that.
And plus everything to what K said above.
Exactly. Very well said GNAT.
Thank you GNAT!
I’ve always enjoyed Ansari’s standup comedy when I run into it, and love his voice work on cartoons. He really is special.
My experience has been that men typically flat out don’t believe me when I tell them how common it is for men to say scary and obnoxious things to me while I’m walking down the street or standing at an intersection waiting to cross. I don’t know why they think I would lie about such a thing or be so poor an observer to get it wrong, especially since I’m a trained scientist. My own brother didn’t believe me until his girlfriend said the same thing, commenting that it was nice to not have to deal with that when she was walking with him.
I’ve gone into stores or a neighbor’s house to avoid letting them know where I live. The guys don’t do it when we walk with a man or a child (guess that marks us as belonging to a man). They do it from cars a lot in my town, but groups will do it without cars. Men and teenage boys in groups make me want to take a different route when I spot them, it’s that bad. I once considered writing down license plate numbers and complaining to the police, but I was afraid that will just make them more likely to hurt me. Might be easier to do in the cell phone era (and cell phones do make me feel safer). I’ve lived in different places and it’s the same elsewhere. Men who would never do it but don’t speak up when they witness it in their own group are part of the problem, as well as the ones who essentially call us liars or delusional or the ever-popular over-reacting when we tell them about it.
It has nothing to do with how we dress. I’ve experienced it completely covered with loose clothing. One guy reported that he finally realized what a problem it was when he himself was the target – he was jogging along a road with his long hair pulled back in a pony tail, and the guys in a car thought he was a woman from the back and started in on him. When they saw he was a man, they were quite annoyed and sped off quickly.
Then there are the guys who slow down and politely ask if I would like a ride… they can get mad when I say no, thanks and keep on walking. A woman walking alone means prostitute to them. When I was still in school, I had to deal with one of those heavy breathers who would call me up periodically, in the days before caller ID. So freaky that he took the trouble to find my phone number. One reminder after another that it’s a very unsafe and unwelcoming world.
So agree with you. Men have no idea. I could write 10 inches of the disgusting things that have been whispered in my ear on crowded buses and subways, the gropes, the following, the bosses saying inappropriate sexual things, you know the story. Our experience is typical, I think. But men have no idea. I think it’s wonderful that he’s trying to understand. But look at the reaction he’s getting. Some women don’t want to think about it or acknowledge it and most men just don’t know or believe it.
The way I think about it, is if you are a woman and pass 100 men walking down the street every day, and twice a week someone says something really creepy to you, that is a huge, scary part of your life. But really, depending on overlap, it is only like one in 500 men that do that. So, for men, they don’t experience it, and it may be true that they don’t do it and no one they know does it, at the same time women experience it all the time.
Yes, I’m not criticizing them for not knowing it. It doesn’t happen to them, and it doesn’t happen to women while they’re with them. So if they aren’t a man who does it, how would they know? I’m just disappointed that women don’t support him for talking about it, but are spending their energy googling statics about how he’s wrong that men aren’t harassed on line.
Its heartening to see a man be so open about this. I, like most other women on the planet, have experience the groping, catcalls and harassment. I was once followed from the supermarket to my office by a man who would not take no for an answer (I was on lunch) – building security scare him off and when i was leaving one of the security guys walked me to the tube station as they had noticed him hanging around the office for a while after they kicked him out. It was scary and even now I always have one eye on the men i see around me in public as you never know what could happen. Had similar things happen on the tube as well – men following me off at my stop and harassing me all the way to the ticket office (this is why i’m dead against unmanned tube stations at night).
Yes, I had many unpleasant experiences with certain men at school and work. My profession is overwhelmingly male in the USA, so I often was the only woman around. I always said the best office partners were happily married men or gay. That way the inevitable date request (and the inevitable bad reaction to “no”) was unlikely. Some colleagues thought it was fun to hang a Playboy centerfold above my desk, which my happy married office partner ripped down as soon as we saw it. The guys who did it were puzzled that I was angry rather than humiliated. It just showed me how little they thought of me. I knew I would never be part of the old boys’ club, but they never would have done that to a male colleague (using a male model, of course, implying they were GAY, the horror). After my Ph.D, while teaching at a small college, somebody pasted a lengthy sexual rant against me on my office door. Again, not an experience my male colleagues shared. The departmental machinist in grad school was so obnoxious that I finally started letting a male colleague take my designs to him, to the bafflement of my advisor. At that time, there really wasn’t any way to talk about it except with other women. The men just wouldn’t have believed it, since it never happened when they were around. I remember thinking at one point that I never wanted to be in such a situation again, where I had to put up and shut up about obnoxious and sexist behavior at all levels because I needed these people.
I didn’t want to date men at work, so it took fancy footwork to avoid the requests. Some men got really angry at the words “no, thanks” and veered into a nasty rant (always when I was alone with them, of course, no witnesses). In an online professional forum, some of us tried to explain unsuccessfully to the guys that it changes the whole dynamic when someone you thought was just a colleague assumes you’re open to the dating game when you haven’t done anything to suggest that. One fellow kept saying “but it’s worth a shot”. No, it isn’t. Guys seem to frequently mistake normal friendliness as an invitation to a sexual relationship. We can’t have real equality until they get past that, it causes too many problems. I’ve tried to explain it by asking them how they would feel if a male colleague assumed they wanted to be asked out on a date, but they just didn’t get the analogy – too busy insisting they weren’t gay, I guess.
What gets to me, Wren33, is why don’t men believe women? Why is there such dismissiveness, disrespect really.
Unfortunately, even in 2015, the default view point and default collective experience is still male. And if women are made uncomfortable or their experiences made invisible, the presumption is some sort of inadequacy in women.
ETA: Whoops, sorry jwoolman. Meant to reply in GNAT’s thread.
My husband-one of the sweetest, kindest, most feminist men I’ve ever met-STILL has to be schooled about this. That episode literally described what I’ve been doing with him for some time-opening his eyes up to all of the “little” types of sexism that happens day to day to women. I stood and applauded when it was over.
I watched the entire season in one day. I thought it was excellent. I can’t get enough of Arnold and Denise.
This show is going on my must-watch list. He seems funny and sharp and self-aware.
I highly recommend it! I started watching it after reading about it on here the other day and I’m obsessed.
I love him more every day! I appreciate his remarks on cyber bullies (um, gamergate anyone?) but I really love his point about diversity in the writing room. Can someone please send that to #damonsplaining Matt Damon?!
I have to thank this website for mentioning Aziz’s new show in another post. I immediately checked it out on Netflix and I am obsessed. I’m purposely taking my time watching it to savor it. Full disclosure here, I had no idea how awesome he was all this time! I’d been missing out majorly.
I love this guy.
I don’t know if you all want to put this up in the story or not, but Aziz is doing an IAMA on Reddit at 6pm EST today.
I’m late in the game here but..@SAM-I hear you that women are in danger behind their own doors from men who say they love them. But surely you must agree that we are also in danger outside. I believe assaults are far more common than you say. I include any type of assault, from verbal harassment to groping and all the way to rape by a stranger. Women are an endangered species, my friend. Many-too many-of us live with memories of attacks inside and outside our homes. Than you Mr. Ansari. Your thoughtful words give me hope that men are waking up to what is happening to their sisters, girlfriends and daughters. Ladies, stay safe, stay smart and ENJOY yourselves! Live your life like the free, precious spirits you are.. Mr.Ansari-stay awesome. And…hot.
Agreed. Also, the point is not that women are more at risk at home than on the street, but that women are more vulnerable than men, and are much more likely to be sexually assaulted. Arguing about the facts is a waste of time. Its impossible to create solutions when so many people refuse to acknowledge the problems that exist.
The Ladies and Gentlemen episode was a bit of brilliance. I’ve been so impressed with how funny and insightful this show is.
This guy gets it. Off home to Netflix his show!
Aziz Ansari is an irritating twerp.
Love Aziz Ansari !! More on Aziz in the future please!