Michael Bublé teaches consent

Michael Bublé has been blasted for posting a Twitter picture of a woman's bum, with leery racialised commentary, without her consent.  She's a woman of colour.

He's since posted his take on the issue: 

"Anybody who knows me would never misinterpret the message of the photo my wife took in Miami that seems to have caused unexpected rage by some people. I do not court controversy. But I realize that a photo that was meant to be complimentary and lighthearted has turned into a questionable issue. For the record, It hurts me deeply that anyone would think that I would disrespect women or be insulting to any human being.. I was not brought up that way and it is not in my character. I regret that there are people out there who found the photo offensive. That was not and is not my intention. Women are to be celebrated, loved, respected, honored and revered. I’ve spent my life believing that and will continue to do so."

He could not have written a more revealing aide to critiquing rape culture and consent if he tried.  He was meaning to compliment her; he doesn't disrespect women, he loves them; he's hurt because his intention has been misunderstood.

Any of that sound familiar?

He doesn't get into the woman's short shorts "asking for it" - that element of rape culture is nicely taken up by others on Twitter.  It would be easy to criticise Mr Bublé for this - too easy, to be honest - I'm far more interested in exploring the things it shows us about consent culture.

A few weeks ago, I was talking about Friend B with Friend A.  Friend B has a history of not asking for what they want directly, and even when others around them are explicit in saying what is not ok, repeatedly testing that through indirect actions.  None of this is sexual, it's about living stuff, friendship stuff, activist organising stuff.

I said to Friend A, as we discussed a recent situation, that Friend B was "naughty." 

It's been bothering me ever since.  The minimisation, the flippancy of my comment.  Because were the content of these interactions different, we would be talking about sexual assault.  Friend B is repeatedly disrespecting other's boundaries in order to do what they want.  And because they are clever, and because life stuff is complex, they do not take responsibility for what they are doing, and they would be absolutely horrified to be called on it as an issue of consent.

So it's been bothering me because I've been excusing behaviours that undermine consent, albeit in a non-sexual context.  To create a consent culture we have to do so, so much better.

Back to Mr Bublé.  What if he'd asked the woman concerned if he could photograph her, post the picture on social media to millions, make comment on her arse?  That would have been better, obviously, than what he did.  But it still would be chock-a-block with the power dynamics that he, as a rich, white, famous man, benefits from.  Could he borrow the racialised "baby got back" about an anonymous Black woman in the context of North America, slavery and the ongoing objectification and violence towards women of colour?  It's hard to see how it could be a free agreement to enthusiastic participation.  Consent processes are complicated, and sometimes need revisiting to get them right.

A few years ago now, I was arranging a conference, and one of the people I wanted to speak - because they were the best person in Aotearoa on a particular subject - said they were busy that day.  I remember noticing something in their voice, and stopping, noticing that I would usually have suggested helping them with travel costs to ensure they could do both things, trying to work out a way that would work.  What stopped me was knowing the person was a survivor, and hearing in their "no" something uncertain.  They were not sure I was going to listen.

It was a horrifying moment, because I realised that many times in the past, I might not have.  I might have continued to seek what I wanted, because I wasn't reading their "no" as definitive.

A consent culture, I believe, is only something we can work towards imagining at the moment.  Because consent culture would make neo-liberal capitalism impossible - why would workers consent to the greedy CEOs having so much?  Consent culture would dismantle colonisation and the ongoing harms to indigenous peoples and use negotiation, justice and equity as a basis for sharing space on the earth. 

In addition to organising for consent structurally, in all the ways that happens, we can and should be interrogating the personal spaces where negotiation and power sharing live.  We can and should be honest with ourselves about when we are over-riding someone else's consent.  We can and should ask for help from people to listen to us, even when we are having trouble saying what is ok.

And Mr Bublé, in your case, a genuine apology would be most welcome, acknowledging that whatever was going on for you, in the moment of posting that picture you were not thinking about the woman pictured having any needs or wishes that didn't suit you.  And that, ultimately, coupled with power, is the abuse of consent.

Guestie: Babe of the Day

Thanks to Maus for writing and submitting this. Readers may also be interested in an alternative set up just last night:"NZ Misogynist of the Day.".

In the past month or so there have been several ‘Babe of the Day’ facebook pages popping up. The worst offenders seem to be the universities, although some of the more questionable pages such as ‘New Zealand Pair of the day’ and ‘WINZ babe of the day’ have their authors and affiliations hidden. I was recently approached by TV3’s nightline for a feminist opinion on these pages, and although I gave a fairly lengthy and detailed report of the problems associated with the pages, it was boiled down to ‘Angry feminists are killjoys’, and I was subsequently told across various social mediums that I didn’t like them because I was ugly. Of course.

The biggest problem is the lack of consent. These pages are created without the subjects consent; in fact on many of them, you are unable to nominate yourself. So we have pictures of girls, taken from their private facebook pages, and posted for all to see, and for all to ‘appreciate’. In fact, on the most recent ‘New Zealand Pair of the day’ page, out of the eight pictures posted, four have the subjects asking the pictures to be taken down, something the moderators ignored. When I posted under these comments telling the girls that although facebook doesn’t care about sexual harassment, you could report the image as your intellectual property and they would remove it fairly promptly, my comments were deleted and I was banned from posting further. There was even a picture of a woman holding her newborn child on one of the groups pages, which violates several peoples consent.

NOTE:: TVNZ, after interviewing me and listening to me talk about lack of consent, used several images from these pages, WITHOUT GAINING THE GIRLS CONSENT.

There are of course other problems with these pages. The university ones are full of comments like ‘who cares what she studies, shes bangin’, and although some of them have men featured, the sexisim is very apparent; for starters, mostly the guys are ‘Blokes of the Day’, not babes, and the accompanying text reads like a dating profile; ‘Bloke is a great guy, loves puppies and kittens and volunteers at homeless shelter’, and other such harmless banalities. Another interesting thing is that there seems to be a semblance of ethnic diversity in the ‘blokes’, you have many from many races, and the photos are typical headshots. In direct contrast, the women are uniform in their race, invariably skinny, and all wearing not much at all in the full body shots (I want to stress there is nothing wrong with being white and skinny, or dressing however you like. I just wanted to point out the standards of beauty are surprising given the diverse populations of universities).

There are enough reasons to have body image problems, and it is difficult to succeed as a woman in a academic world without being judged solely on how you supposedly look in a bathing costume. The response to my ten second sound bite was enough to show the reactions you get for speaking out from a feminist viewpoint. And I’m sick of it. There are hundreds of articles about there about why we don’t need to be judged for our looks, about the issues we face in the workforce and academic worlds.

I really feel like we should have come further than this, that I shouldn’t have to be typing this, I shouldn’t have to say something as simple as gaining a womans consent before encouraging hundreds of people to jack off to her picture is not a hard or wrong thing. And I certainly shouldn’t be abused for it, or told that I am ugly and therefore worthless. Wake the fuck up people. Consent isn’t hard, and I’m sick of having to shout ‘Yes means Yes’.

exhibition

this week is islam awareness week.  it's a week where the muslim community in nz makes an effort to open it's doors and invite the community to get to know us.  not that the doors are closed at any other time of the year, but sometimes people need an invitation before they'll come in.  it's an attempt to break down barriers, to provide a positive response to prejudice & discrimination, to stop being "other" and show that we are part of an increasingly diverse community.

the dominion post decided to lead in to islam awareness week with an article about a museum in lower hutt holding an exhibition, a small part of which is not accessible to men.  i'm not saying this isn't a newsworthy item - of course it's something people would want to know about and be able to discuss.  but i really debate that it was so newsworthy that it merited most of the front page, with a large picture of a woman in a burqa.  i've written about the use of such pictures before, but funnily enough, this would be one of the few stories where such a picture might actually be appropriate.

the decision to place the story in this way and with such prominence was clearly deliberately, with the decision-makers perfectly aware of the consequences.  they want those consequences: the outrage, the furious letters to the editor (yup, they published one stating that Muhammad was a rapist), the howls of complaint from some white men about discrimination.  of course they wanted all that - it's what sells papers and makes money.

what do they care how it affects a minority community that already gets plenty of vilification in this country.  not their business if the lives of muslim women are made more difficult, if prejudice is more entrenched, if they knowingly inflame the bigots.  in covering this issue the way they did and subsequently choosing to publish the letters in the way they have, they are clearly giving a nice, big "f**k you" to the well-being of muslim women in this country.  and don't tell me publishing letters is a freedom of speech issue, because it really isn't.  the paper does not publish every letter it receives verbatim.  there are plenty it chooses not to publish, plenty it chooses to abridge.  letters to the editor are a censored medium, published at the whim of the editorial team, and when they decide to put your name under the "points noted" bit without publishing your letter, they don't even bother to give an explanation as to why they've made that decision.

no, this was a deliberate decision to provoke, at the expense of a minority community, as our media so loves to do.  because it works.  hence michael laws, leighton smith, paul holmes and so many more.  these people would not get column space for some pretty awful views otherwise.

on the other hand, i find that rosemary mcleod has actually had some sensible things to say on the subject, particularly this [emphasis added]:

I'm not sure what the exact purpose of the video is, but I suspect the reaction is exactly what the maker expected. It creates in our non-Muslim men a deep curiosity over something they normally take for granted, a curiosity unwelcome to women who regard the male gaze as such a problem that they hide all of themselves, apart from their eyes, when they're in public.

That turns men who insist on viewing them into voyeurs, who seek to over-ride their wishes, which are in effect a demand for privacy.... Mr Young believes there is a 'human right' involved in his being able to peek at women who don't want him to. That's an attitude a rather long stretch, but a relevant one, from that of Julian Assange. It's about consent. The Wiki Leaks hero-to-some seems to think that a woman consents to everything he feels like doing to her if she has once succumbed to his manifold charms. He is wrong.

that's what it's about for me: the entrenched sense of entitement to women's bodies, including their faces, the view that women's bodies are somehow public property which leads to this notion that women choosing to deny access to men is somehow an infringement of human rights.  it also has it's roots in a colonialist view of eastern women.  when europeans came to the east, they came with this romaticised notion of exotic eastern women, and their sense of entitlement of these women.  the fact that european men were denied access by a cultural practice of segregation and seclusion lead to a similar sense of outrage from early travellers to the east, and a similar condemnation.  all couched in the rhetoric of emancipation and empowerment, which of course only belonged to european women.  their eastern sisters apparently needed to be freed from their bonds, but for what exactly was never made clear.  it's not like women's education improved with the arrival of colonisers, nor their participation in public life.

much of the outrage over this is couched in the language of culture and cultural supremacy.  this exclusion/seclusion is apparently not part of nz culture - it's how they do things "over there", definitely not what we do here.  which nicely disappears all kiwi muslims who very much belong here, and very much have equal right to determine how culture over here develops.  and if some of these women choose seclusion, well allowing them to make that choice is exactly how we do things over here.  and if women here allowed to make that choice, then why can't qatari women?

here's another excellent post on the issue, one that deals really well with the issue of privilege.  and also this:

If we really cared about the rights of Islamic women, rather than just using them as a political football when it is expedient, we would listen to them, and respect their choices.  Respecting someones rights means respecting their autonomy and treating them as they wish to be treated.  Going against the express wishes of the artist and the women who consented to be in her video is not helping islamic women, it is saying that their voices don’t matter and their decisions are not to be respected.

This really isn’t about men being able to view the exhibit, at it’s core this issue is about people setting boundaries about what they feel is appropriate behaviour in New Zealand. Apparently many people feel that islamic women setting boundaries for safe space for themselves, in accordance with their wishes and their religion is inappropriate in New Zealand.  In New Zealand we value diversity but only if it is palatable, and fits in with “New Zealand values” whatever that might mean.  People seem to be more willing for the Dowse gallery to give up the exhibition than actually respect the artists wishes.

the thing is that i see coverage like this, i see the way the debate is couched and often find myself in despair.  how does one even begin to counter it?  well, i was reminded by the secretary of the waikato interfaith council that we counter it by organising things like islam awareness week, but engaging directly with the community and creating spaces where we can foster and model harmony rather than division.  the council has been hugely supportive of islam awareness week, both in participation and organisation, and it has made a huge difference to our community here in the waikato.

so check out the islam awareness week website for events, and if you're in the waikato, please do come to the mosque open day in the morning or the interfaith tree planting in the afternoon.  we would love to see you there.

just say no thank you

so i found a link to this piece over at shakesville, and it suddenly opened my eyes in a way that i hadn't expected.  of course i'm used to discussing & reading about issues of consent as relates to sexual violence.  and that means i'm conscious about issues of consent in other areas as well.  and certainly this is hardly new:

We grow up learning that “No” is rude. It’s more important to avoid hurting other people’s feelings. It’s important to be polite and accommodating. Setting boundaries and prioritizing our own comfort and safety is selfish. We push these lessons even harder on women, expecting them to be caretakers, putting everyone else’s needs above their own.

but something really clicked when i read this personal experience in the comments:

But the thing is, excuses can be overcome. I learned this when ... they wanted me to sing in their choir. I didn't want to. But instead of saying, "Oh, no thank you," I made excuses. And the choir director overcame each of my excuses--at some effort to herself--and at 22, I felt cornered and sang in that choir. I didn't want to. It was a bad choir, and I did not like it.

It was also a huge life lesson. Excuses make things into a negotiation. Some things are negotiations. Some things are not. If you really mean that you would love to sing in that church choir except for the following factors, by all means say so. But if what you mean is that you would rather fend off rabid hyenas with a nerf bat, just say no thank you.

i can't sing & i've never been in a choir, but oh that story is so familiar.  i definitely have this inability to give an outright "no" to a request.  i'll often try with the excuses, but more often, it'll be a deep sigh & "ok, i'll do it".  it's usually because i know the people around me are equally stressed if not more so; and the people willing & capable to take on that particular bit of unpaid work are just so few & far between.  so i try to think of where i can fit it into my schedule & carry on as best i can.

just lately, i've taken on a position that i seriously didn't want.  i said "yes" under pressure & have since been carrying it out to the best of my ability.  but i've also been feeling quite upset about it.  and reading the whole piece and some comments have really made clear the source of my distress.

it's because the people around actually knew that i didn't want to take on this role - they knew it quite clearly.  there was no ambiguity, because i'd been quite clear on the matter.  but they chose not to respect my feelings, they chose not to respect my boundaries. they didn't ask me about how much stress i was already under, and whether or not i was going to cope with the additional workload.

on the plus side, they promised to fully support me & do whatever was asked of them.  and they have done that - i am feeling well-supported in the role.  but the resentment i've been feeling is all about having my boundaries ignored.  just being able to recognise that is actually a huge help.  and this:

When someone says no, the correct response is “Okay.” If you don’t understand, that’s fine. You don’t have to understand. Maybe the other person will be willing to explain. Maybe not. But they don’t owe you an explanation.

You have the right to say no, period. And if someone can’t accept that, then the hell with them. The problem isn’t you.

yes, yes, totally yes. excuse me, i'm off to say "no" to someone about an unpaid job that i just don't have the energy to do.  and i'm not going to feel guilty about it either.  it's my right to say no.