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Sexual harassment will abate if silence we no longer tolerate

Nov 16, 2017 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
While the tsunami of revelation of sexual harassment and inappropriate sexual behaviours swirls around Hollywood, it is worth mentioning that content unavoidably reflects the culture that creates it. Silence further serves as complicity to the sordidity.
Suddenly and without warning the floodgates of Hollywood have been thrown wide open, and pouring out (even from between the cracks) like molten lava have been accusations and revelations of predatory sexual behavior.
Name after name has been followed by shame after blame as the list grows with each beat of a female’s heart or unrequited male alarm charm. Even the accusations levelled against Bill Cosby or Bill O’Reilly failed and paled in comparison to how the recent downfall of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis CK, and many other lesser well-knowns have jolted cranial recesses and aroused repressed sexual feelings from both males and females alike. Never on record have so many become so questionably emboldened!
Underlying the accusations is the revelation of culture of abuse in Hollywood that has the whole world reacting with equal shock and awe as when George W. Bush announced his threat against Iraq in 2003. One is left to wonder if this same awe-stricken world has ever stopped to consider or forgotten what Hollywood away from its seeming glitter and glamour signifies or has always stood for.
The term “casting couch” that referred to female actors who secured their breaks in the business by sleeping and keeping with influential men was not just a hastily-contrived term, but instead a legend and lore that has long saturated the industry. In sexually correct terms: No Sleeping! No Keeping! Sexism is endemic to any profession, so Hollywood can claim no monopoly on same. Keeping it real, from time immemorial Hollywood has been an environment that was founded on objectifying the human form and predominated by males with power, wealth and needy sexual desires.
In addition, it has been the long-held assumption that any young female endeavouring to make it big in Hollywood, will need to withstand an onslaught of suggestive comments, ogling, propositions, inappropriate gestures or even worse. So what’s new now? Some have seen their name in the bright light, simply by playing their cards right.
For the decades that American movies have been the mass medium, Hollywood has condoned the trafficking in imagery that sexualizes women to a gratuitous and sometimes degrading degree. The practice and the values that inform and reinforce them are reflected in the movies themselves, the same movies that have been and are still being viewed by the now awe- shocked world.
In the case of movies that do not explicitly advertise women as objects of male desire, nevertheless audiences have to endure a steady diet of unbridled potency, wish-fulfillment fantasies of male desire that would be comical if they did not have such perverted, outrageous parallels in the real world.
Multiplicities of succinctly unanswered questions lie amidst these raging allegations, responses to which from hereon will certainly change the face of male-female interaction, especially where there is a confluence of influence and affluence.
With total abhorrence for the reprehensible acts committed and genuine respect for both the males and females who have come forward to speak out, nevertheless there is another facet that needs to be equally addressed if future recurrence/continuation is to be averted. Young females especially need to be equipped with honed moral and ethical standards, and to report without delay any signs or gestures of inappropriate play. When his hands start to prowl do not hesitate to call Foul. Sexual harassment will abate if silence we no longer tolerate.
Yvonne Sam

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