Gendered lives

[wildestranger]

Today in the news, Nick Clegg denies cover up over Rennard allegations of sexual misconduct. This has been in the news for a few days, and Nick Clegg has been in turn baffled, horrified, and determined to figure out what's happened. He had only been aware, he says, of "indirect and non-specific concerns" regarding Rennard, that is, "none of the women concerned, including one who worked in his office, had raised specific allegations with him personally at the time." Without direct accusation, it seems, no further action is required.

There are many problematic issues here, but what struck me most was the bafflement. That a man in a position of power should make unwelcome advances to female colleagues is not something I'd be surprised by, nor would, I think, most of you. I expect most of us have experienced something similar, a comment, an unwanted physical contact. This is not surprising, this happens everywhere, all the time, and often it's not worth the hassle to complain.

For Nick Clegg, however, it seems this is a surprise. That men and women experience life differently (or rather, are treated differently, and consequently experience different things) is perhaps nowhere more evident than in his bafflement. Everyone can agree that rape is bad, but anything short of a stranger grabbing a woman off a street seems to be easy to ignore; pressuring your girlfriend for sex, sexual comments to female colleagues, sitting too close to somebody on the Tube. Our culture has a range of strategies used to normalise such behaviour and to dismiss any complaints, from "boys will be boys" and "he didn't mean it like that", to "it's just a joke" and "don't be so sensitive". Our culture enables the behaviour of men such as (allegedly) Rennard, because it is not problematised, because complaints about it are not taken seriously, and because it is viewed as "natural(ised)" male behaviour, what men are taught to do, allowed to do, and repeatedly culturally encouraged to do.

Nick Clegg is not the worst of offenders when it comes to this, but he is a marvellous example of the profound stupidity and willful ignorance that accompanies our society's construction of gendered behaviour. Look around, Nick, and you'll find that this problem is everywhere and is, moreover, a real problem.

Comments

[legionseagle]

Given the allegations which the Daily Telegraph has today published , which it says it raised in April 2010 with Clegg's senior aide, Clegg's bafflement is even more extraordinary.

[wildestranger]

Yes, it's very clearly an unwillingness to acknowledge things that might have happened, things that he'd then have to deal with. I'm also noting the language he uses - it's always 'women' who are 'feeling' that they've 'not been listened to' - while that is all accurate in a technical sense, his choice of 'women' over 'people' - which would have also been accurate - especially when coupled with the emphasis on their feelings, is interesting. He's narrating the events using terms that in contemporary cultural discourse make them easy to dismiss. These are women having feelings, rather than people issuing complaints and arguments.

[liseuse]

This is not surprising, this happens everywhere, all the time, and often it's not worth the hassle to complain.

I always think this is the key to a lot of discussions about the overwhelming nature of gendered power problems. No one has the time, or the emotional energy, to counteract it every time it happens, so (well-meaning, probably) people (men) like Clegg only hear about it in larger circumstances and are then baffled.

[wildestranger]

Yeah. Although I'm not sure that he's as well-meaning as that - he's choosing to ignore the problem, so he becomes part of the problem. He's in politics, after all, I can't imagine he's never seen a woman being sexually harassed before. But it's easy to discount it as 'women' having 'feelings' - see my comment above - when it's not violent and outrageous.