Angela Lansbury: Sexual harassment and rape is a woman's fault when she's too attractive

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/28/angela-lansbury-sexual-harass.html

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Good thing she investigates murders and not rapes.

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also

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Cabot Cove will never miss her.

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Wouldnt take her long to identify the guilty victim.

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Cabot Cove: highest per capita murder rate in the U.S.

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LRbvXbmJ7g7eM

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Creepy fing place if ya ask me.

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touchy subject. I will risk being lambasted for trying to understand. So: (1) women (or men for that matter) should be able to do what they want and dress how they want, no matter what (unless they are hurting someone else). (2) Men should not harass women, or children, or other men (usually it is the male who is the aggressor I would think, but I suppose we can say no one should harass anyone else…so women shouldn’t harass other women, etc). (3) There are some men (some people, if you want to make this gender neutral) who are really bad, really incorrigible, or straight up deviant/criminal. (4) If anyone abuses or harasses another, there should be swift and clear punishment and accounting, if appropriate, as we try to get to the truth of the matter, (5) Given 1, 2, 3 and 4 (and particularly #3, where there are predators out there), perhaps, as a factual matter, as a matter of safety, it makes sense to think about self-dress and conduct w/ an eye towards self-preservation against predators. Like you wouldn’t walk into a shark tank w/o protection, and you wouldn’t want your little girl to walk alone at night through a crime-infested part of town. I’ll go that far. It sucks that, in that case it crimps your personal liberties but the predators are out there - but hopefully, as a society, we are making strides towards thinning out their numbers now.

the difficult part, which I don’t even know how to start with, is what becomes of etiquette and professionalism…things that have developed from the (largely) western traditional world to govern how we behave now in work environments and in social settings. There was a form of strict etiquette that worked after a fashion, but it put certain people in power and certain people unfairly out of power. Now I guess we have to evolve a new form that works for the world we have now.

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i’m trying to get rid of the fucking sharks.

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Born in 1925.

Apparently her social attitudes fossilized in the 1940s :frowning_face:

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I was going to ask why we were dredging up the words of a dead woman, and then realized she’s still alive :astonished:

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It certainly makes sense to engage in behaviours that keep you safe, and women engage in these behaviours all the time.

That’s being said, dressing to be attractive is not a behaviour that puts you at risk unless we make it one. Elderly women in nursing homes get raped. It’s not because they dressed too sexy. What makes a person vulnerable to being raped is the rapists’ belief that they can get away with it. So to whatever extent we make something a reason not to believe someone, we make it something that will be targeted. If we judge women for failing to take preventative measures then we make rape more common by letting rapists think they have a way to get away with it. We’re part of the culture, and we need to decide to make it one that doesn’t condone rape.

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Oh, Angela…

Some of the biggest, most hateful misogynists are women, sadly.

Obligatory:

https://global.discourse-cdn.com/boingboing/optimized/3X/9/0/90fd70f6a5d9d12756b748f8c2f0c2faba947d82_1_690x499.jpg

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Such a shame, considering how progressive her father and grandfather were.

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Best bet is to play it safe all the time. Actually, to really play it safe, why don’t we mandate it by law? We could even come up with special standardized outfits that would cover all the bases:

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Horse apples. All societies have intricate systems of etiquette. And those have changed over time. Furthermore, traditional societal structures aren’t always female-friendly, despite the veneer. Just sayin’

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That is sort of the point right?

My spouse and I remind our 17 yr old daughter to make good choices. We generally do not tell her how to dress beyond “stay within the rules/codes of where you are” (i.e. the school has a dress code policy for example…follow it.) To the OP’s point…no I do not suggest my daughter jumps into the ocean filled with sharks; however, the issue is sharks are sitting in puddles, wading pools, hot tubs, backyard pools, lakes, rivers, streams, etc etc etc. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a shark it seems.

Is it wise for any woman to walk down the street in skimpy lingerie as it may attract negative attention…sure…but no one is doing that. These are woman walking down the street in every day clothing, working in an office building, on the floor of the senate, going to the gym and they are getting that negative attention. It isn’t their fault for existing that some asshat cannot control their own thoughts and actions.

I’ve seen plenty of women walk by me I thought were attractive, they do not care in the slightest to know my thoughts, and I felt no need to share those thoughts with them. We went on our merry way, never interacting in any way and not knowing of one another’s existence beyond being two people passing each other on the street. It isn’t that difficult to be a decent person.

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"women’s outfits and attractiveness do not affect rape. If you think that only women who look like movie stars get raped then you don’t live in the real world.

All you who love to use the “well I still lock my door” metaphor when it comes to policing how women dress, I will say, yes you do lock your door, but even if you don’t lock your door if someone comes into your home and steals all your stuff it is still a robbery. A crime has still be committed and you still have a right to get justice. The police don’t say “well you didn’t lock your door so you were basically inviting everyone to come in and take your PS4 and Roku TV.

Also, actresses have to be attractive, more so than men. An unattractive male actor can still win awards and even be a sex symbol if he is talented enough. Actresses get taken seriously if they are willing to make themselves unattractive to “prove” that they can really act and we aren’t just being stunned by their hair and prettiness. When actresses don’t wear makeup it is treated like a huge deal and something to gasp over."

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your added image puts it better than my statement OFC.

Again…even if I have a thought about her exposed body…it doesn’t mean she cares what it is, nor should be forced to hear it.

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