More Assorted Things…

Originally published March 13, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1269

* * *

It must really bite to be Leonardo DeCaprio right about now.

Fourteen nominations. Titanic picked up fourteen nominations, and he couldn’t score one for Best Actor despite the nominations of his co-star, the film itself, the director, and an assortment of other nods. The film is that rare combination of box office and artistic juggernaut, and with all that momentum going, he still didn’t get nominated. And the killer is, if he had gotten a best actor nomination, the film would have set a new record, beating out All About Eve (with which it is tied.)

I’m sure that on the one hand he wants to feel good about the success of all those connected with the film. On the other hand, it’s kind of like having everyone you know be invited to a party… and your name isn’t on the guest list.

Wonder if, when he was passed over, he got a sinking feeling.

* * *

Speaking of sinking feelings…

There are rumors floating all over the place that I’m leaving Aquaman. Unfortunately, in this case the rumors happen to be true.

It’s not an action that I take lightly. In a career going on–geez, thirteen, fourteen years now, something like that–I have only resigned off a title twice before. The first was X-Factor, and I cited chapter and verse at the time over all my reasons for departing the series. Partly I felt the need to do so because I’d been on the series for such a relatively short time that I felt I owed an explanation to the fans, but mostly I did it because I felt like whining about it to someone. The second was Spider-Man 2099 to protest the firing of Joey Cavalieri, and since the entire line was cancelled two months later, that’s almost a case of, “You can’t quit, you’re fired.”

Since the X-Factor contretemps, I’ve gotten older, and maybe wiser–or maybe not–and, in any event, less inclined to indulge in fingerpointing. I now consider it to be a counterproductive act, immature and unprofessional. I decided to leave because I felt I couldn’t stay. The decision was ultimately mine and mine alone. I don’t see any real advantage to pulling the fans into the morass of difficulties encompassed in the simple term, “Creative differences” (the term favored in Hollywood to cover a dazzling array of problems.) So I think I’m going to leave it at that.

I do apologize for the abruptness of my decision. Although some of the main storylines are tied off, there’s any number of dangling plotlines I wasn’t able to finish. Sorry I couldn’t make it a neat and tidy departure; if I could, I certainly would have.

And of course, as if the rumor mill couldn’t be satisfied with being right for once, it had to be bandied about that I’m leaving Supergirl as well. No, not true. I have no particular interest in departing the Angel of Steel for the foreseeable future.

Then again, I’ve heard tell that I’m quitting the Hulk for the last eight years or so now. Guess I’m just incredibly undependable.

* * *

Okay. Last week I said I was going to rag on sexual harassment, and so I shall.

I think that the entire concept of sexual harassment has created a sensitivity to the subject which has become so pervasive that it has rotted away much of the underpinnings of feminism. Not only that, but it has intruded on precious freedoms of expression, and we are risking the creation of an entire generation of helpless, whining females who are oversensitive, neurotic and incapable of dealing with anything that offends their sensibilities without running to authorities (usually male) and asking for protection.

(And yes, I know, when one speaks in sweeping generalizations it’s impossible to get specific. Obviously not all females would fall into the above description. But the fact that an environment is being created where any would is what I find disheartening.)

Follow–

Once upon a time, sexual harassment meant something very specific. You were a woman, working in a position subordinate to a man, and the man endeavored to force you into providing sexual favors, with firing being the penalty for refusing his advances. This is obviously a Very Bad Thing.

But why did we have to go and give it its very own term? Slot it into its own category? It’s not like “rape,” the violative nature of which requires that it be distinguished from “assault” or “assault and battery” so that the degree of the injury is made clear for the purpose of prosecution. Why couldn’t it simply be called “harassment.” Or even better: Extortion. Or even better than that: Attempted rape.

I’m a mere layman in these matters, but if try to force a woman to have sex against her will isn’t the definition of rape, then I missed something.

The problem is, once it was categorized with such an inflammatory term–”sexual harassment”– it led to a rash of “me-too-ism.” People love a new term because they want to see if it applies to them.

And suddenly a genuine problem–a superior using his power in an oppressive and/or intimidating fashion–was diluted into pointlessness. “Sexual harassment” has now devolved to mean, basically, anything which causes a woman or women to be upset. There used to be another term for that: “Men.”

And once a woman is harassed, the very nature of this “crime” requires that complaints be filed and actions be taken… usually by running to (sorry, but it’s true) male superiors. I’m as aware as anyone that feminism doesn’t speak with one monolithic voice. Why should it? How could it? There’s millions of women in this country. We couldn’t even get Image to speak with one voice, and there was only half a dozen of them. Nonetheless, the problem is that mixed messages wind up getting sent out. I am Woman, hear me roar… to the company, to the courts, to the authorities, demanding protection because I’m so damned helpless.

I know it was only fiction, but there was a TV movie a few weeks back featuring Linda Hamilton as a plainclothes detective entering an all-male squad room where she was immediately subjected to all sorts of pranks and harassment. She withstood this for a couple of days, then baked a large pan of Ex-Lax brownies, stuck them in her drawer at work with a big sign that said, “Do not eat,” and left them there. Naturally the cops devoured the brownies and spent the rest of the day in the bathroom. Contrite, they came to her, said, “Truce,” and they all went out drinking afterwards.

As noted, fiction. But there was something to be said for that. Something to be said for a woman not going to her superiors and complaining that her co-workers are pulling humiliating stunts, but rather a woman who handles the situation and gives as good as she gets.

Everybody harasses everybody, particularly in the workplace. It just takes different forms. But the cry of “sexual harassment” makes it sound as if women can’t take poor treatment but instead require special dispensation, and I’m certain this isn’t so.

If a man in a workplace makes a crude joke to a woman, that’s not sexual harassment. That’s boorishness. It’s no different than guys being obnoxious in the hallways at high school. You remember high school: The time in life where females can cut a guy to ribbons with just a few words, with even a glance. Somewhere around college, women are losing that cutting edge that enables them to handle dumb, loudmouthed jocks with aplomb.

One shouldn’t be surprised. Throughout college campuses, insanely strict codes of conduct, of behavior, of word and speech and thought, are becoming pervasive. Rules regarding what can and can’t be said in a class, in a dorm, even on a date, are becoming so restrictive that it’s amazing that anyone socializes anymore. The repression of boorish speech does not cure it; it merely drives it down deep where it festers and spills over in later years. The far better way to handle chowder-headed behavior is to counter it, either with kindness or–if necessary–fighting fire with fire. By creating increasingly insane and restrictive codes of speech, females basically send a message that says, “We can’t handle bad words ourselves. We can’t handle boorish behavior ourselves. We need to be protected. We need to have a series of rules and regulations in which we can wrap ourselves.” How is this mind set supposed to teach equality? It doesn’t. Instead it teaches male students that women require special handling and rules which they, the men, do not require. Rather than learning to respect women as equals, instead they see females as creatures with “fragile” and “handle with care” stamped all over them. And you wonder why men then consider women somehow subordinate once they hit the workplace? No wonder at all: They’ve had it drummed into them.

I’m not saying that chivalry is dead. No man should hesitate to hold a door open for a woman, for instance. The difference is that it’s a little thing, a small thing, a courtesy…a token, if you will, of respect. A way, perhaps, of winning a smile from a woman, which is always enough to gratify the insatiable male ego ever so slightly.

But this whole harassment thing… it’s out of control. On college campuses, males have been excoriated for behavior that’s relatively trivial. College professors have had the most off-hand of remarks turned into disciplinary hearings. To say nothing of how its spread to all other aspects of campus life. At one college, a student posted a satirical commentary about an upcoming “gay pride” function. It wasn’t particularly funny, but it was well within the rights provided by the First Amendment. You remember the First Amendment: That aspect of the Bill of Rights which boils down to, “I disagree with everything you have to say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.” Not on college campuses. Instead this particular student was damned near expelled from the school simply for speaking his mind. There is a world of difference between courtesy and a chilling effect… or maybe not so much of a difference at that.

In the creation of these rules and fostering of this mind set, women are undoing whatever advances have been achieved in the last forty years and instead are re-creating themselves as creatures around whom we must walk ever so tentatively, lest we fray their nerves.

Bull. What kind of nonsense is that? I know quite a few women who, through strength of character and personal responsibility, don’t remotely fit that description. Are they to be considered in the minority? If so, why? If they’re in the majority, on the other hand, then why are we teaching young people not to be capable of standing up for themselves?

It’s incredibly ironic that we read the comic book adventures of tough, strong capable women who take no crap from nobody… but in reality a tissue of separate handling has to be created that is, in itself, I think, the single most degrading attitude which can be applied to females.

I remember some years back, one of my daughters–in elementary school at the time– was being physically harassed on the school bus. A boy who was bigger than she was, taller, stronger, was grabbing her. She came home, distraught, not knowing what to do.

I could have called the principal, I suppose. Filed a complaint. Gone the sexual harassment route. After all, we live in a society where a six year old boy is condemned for the hideous act of kissing a little girl. I suppose I could have started instructing her early in the fine art of running to the system whenever some guy engages in physically abusive behavior.

Instead I said, “Next time he tries to grab you, kick him in the crotch.”

She said, “What?”, surprised that I would advocate violence.

I’m not exactly a black belt, but even I know how to do a front snap kick. I showed her how to do it and told her exactly where she should kick him. “Don’t hesitate,” I told her. “Do it hard, do it fast, he’ll drop like a rock, and he’ll leave you alone.”

The next day she came dashing off the bus, almost giddy with excitement. “I did it!” she told me. The execution hadn’t been 100% perfect: She’d slightly missed the target, but she’d come close enough that he’d been hurt, startled, and gotten the message. And he left her alone after that.

Am I saying that if, in the workplace, a man tries to grope a female co-worker, she should kick him in the family jewels?

Well… yeah. Yeah, why not. It’s quick, it’s easy, it takes a lot less paperwork, and the odds are spectacular he won’t do it again.

Men are capable of learning, you see. It’s just that the simple lessons are often the best.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)