My Super-power Theory

If you chose invisibility: The things you do with your invisibility powers are things you wish you could do in real life, but aren't able to.

If you chose flight: The things you do flying are things you see yourself doing anyway regardless of your superpowers, but now they are accomplished much faster.

For those of you who have heard This American Life's show on Superpowers, this is a different version of their theory.

F said...

I'm not saying that all women necessarily have to blog about this, or that it would make them feel better if they did. I'm saying that a) I find it surprising and depressing that 80% of women would feel happier staying quiet about something that outrages them, even when such silence means abandoning and isolating their fellow sufferers who have had the courage to speak out, b) I don't think we're going to find a solution to this if 80% of women won't even talk about it (or rather 80% of women bloggers, so, if MK's right, a much higher proportion of all women) - if that truly makes these women feel better about themselves, that's great, but let's recognise that without that openness sexual harassment is not likely to go away.

Also, I'm not sure how the rest of your comment squares with your first line - the one about it being okay for women not to have an opinion about it. Are you seriously suggesting that 80% of women who have been subjected to sexual harassment don't have an opinion about it? And if that's true (which I don't for a moment believe it is) then why are we even bothered about the issue in the first place? If 80% of women don't seem to mind?

Bottomline: the argument you're making would seem perfectly reasonable to me if we were talking about 10 - 20% of women remaining silent. But numbers matter. and 80% is too high. Specially when you consider how strongly the other 20% feel. I can't imagine that the population at large really splits like that.

As for the point about men - I don't disagree, though I think you're being a little over the top about it. Claiming that women deserve all the credit for every legal safeguard / activist step against harassment is fairly ridiculous, for instance. I'm not saying that men couldn't or shouldn't do more. But saying that it's okay for 80% of women bloggers to not talk about it by attacking men is just a cheap cop-out.