Senator Al Franken is the latest in an enormous string of celebrities and politicians accused of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault. I’m not going to list them all here, as that list will surely be outdated the moment I hit “publish.”
Franken himself is accused of an overly aggressive unwanted kiss, a “funny” picture where he pretends to grab the breasts of a fellow USO performer as she sleeps, and grabbing a woman’s butt as he takes a picture with her at a County Fair. There have been numerous calls for him to step down, most notably from the Republican politicians who would benefit from the loss of Franken, while those same Republicans ignore the dozens of women who have accused Donald Trump of much worse.
I don’t think Franken should step down. In fact, I think Franken stepping down is counter productive.
Men– and women– who commit sexual assault should be prosecuted. Rapists should be behind bars. Women should be believed. It’s great that we’re finally being believed (when the perpetrator is a Democrat only). It’s great that rapists like Harvey Weinstein are being exposed.
But Franken is not accused of rape. Franken is accused of the low-level sexual aggression which every woman experiences routinely. Franken is accused of the kinds of things almost every man in the country has done. Our culture not only winkingly allows sexual aggression in men; it rewards it. We teach men to be sexually aggressive by valorizing it in films, TV shows, plays, books, music– you name it. We punish men who openly treat women with respect. The problem isn’t Franken. The problem is systemic.
As is the case with all systemic issues, the problem can only be addressed by a culture shift. We all must examine our complicity. We all must examine the ways male privilege works in our lives. We all must examine the ways we have perpetrated or supported sexual aggression.
Putting Franken on the altar as a sacrifice does nothing for women. All it does is provide a scapegoat. It enables men to continue pretending this is about a few bad actors who need to be punished. Once a few “bad guys” have been ruined and shamed, men can shake hands and call the job “done,” promise on social media to do better in the future, and nothing changes.
The vast majority of the men doing the same kinds of things Franken has done are not famous. Your wife, your daughter, your sister, are all still slogging through this kind of male behavior every day, and not telling you, because you’ll throw a fit and make her life miserable, or because she brushes it off as the basic cost of being publicly female, or because she feels shamed by it and hides it. I have never reported every single instance of sexual harassment to the men in my life. Why would I?
That silence is part of my complicity in this. My complicity extends in many directions. I didn’t fire a man who forced an aggressive kiss on a woman at a cast party. She and I both were like, “SO CREEPY” and never thought to hold him accountable. Why would we? We expected this kind of thing from men. It was my home, and my theatre company, and I did nothing.
Franken himself has called for an ethics investigation, and of course I support that. I also support him staying in the Senate unless we apply these consequences in politics evenly. If Franken is forced to resign without the GOP putting similar pressure on Trump, then they’re just using our pain for their own political gain, and should burn in hell for that. (They’re already burning in hell for supporting Roy Moore, whom I do not include in this article, as he is a sexually aggressive pedophile, which is entirely different. He should be fired into the sun.)
But if we demand Franken step down without also seriously examining the systemic sexism that supports this kind of low-level, constant sexual aggression– without every single adult human examining their own complicity in systemic sexism– nothing will change.
You want to be a good ally to women? Start by examining your own behavior. Start by calling out the men in your life when you see their sexual aggression instead of high-fiving them. Start by examining the media you make and the media you consume, and demanding better. The issue is not Al Franken, or any one man. The issue is systemic sexism.
UPDATE 12/6/17: When I wrote this piece, the number of women accusing Franken were two. Now, the number is eight. While I am still waiting for Republican men to be held to the same standards we hold Democrats (the number of women who have spoken publicly about being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump is now 20), I want to repeat that sexual harassment is never OK, and that ALL who harass and assault should be held accountable while we simultaneously respond to sexism in our culture as a systemic issue. Holding men accountable is step one, and Franken, Trump, and every other man who sexually assaults others should, without question, be held accountable.
Bitter Gertrude 