The recent scandal that's taken place at Harvard has emerged as part of an ongoing pattern of commonplace misogyny brought to light. To put it simply: members of the men's soccer team were revealed to have procured a "scouting report" of the women's team, complete with sexually explicit terms and numerical ratings for every single person. One may argue that it's merely "locker room talk" of the past. Sound familiar? (Donald Trump, I'm looking at you. Metaphorically.)
What are women to you? Honestly, what are we? This is a question that is constantly on my mind, especially when men yell things like "Hey beautiful" or "China doll" at me on the street. What are we other than some object for you to exercise your masculinity with? We grow up being told that boys will be boys, and that's reason enough to excuse any kind of negative actions. But boys turn into men, and men are capable of so much more. The fact that even these well-educated and privileged males from Harvard partake in such disgusting behavior is yet another indication that misogyny is something that's engrained into our society, regardless of upbringing. Consequently, it's not something that can be eradicated overnight. More importantly, it's not something that everyone views as a legitimate problem, and this mindset is what fuels the fire.
This is not the first time I've experienced women being viewed as numbers. It's happened time and time again: a guy friend would casually point out a girl we passed and say, "She's a 7." At first I was confused and asked one of them what he meant. He replied with "Well, lots of guys rate girls on a scale. It's really, really hard to be a 10." Others echoed his sentiment, and the ease with which they would explain this system to me was surprising. Men from different schools, of different backgrounds, would tell me the exact same thing: that yes, you could place girls on a scale of attractiveness, that there is no "10" that they have encountered in real life (but maybe a 9.5, which is still very different). How long had they been doing this? Always? I once made the mistake of bringing up a close female friend to someone I had thought highly of. He thought about it for a split second before saying, "4."
There is a popular quote from Margaret Atwood that you may have heard of: "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." Of course, compiling a book focused on criticizing the female soccer team is far from killing a woman, but this is how such a seed can take root. When we reduce people to objects, we are, by definition, taking away their humanity. We remove ourselves mentally, emotionally, and view them as a shell of what they are. This is why reactions to Trump's "locker room talk" comment frustrate me more than his actual statement: people seem to believe that because it happened nearly eleven years ago, it can be shrugged off. That because nobody was harmed by it, it's no big deal. But it is. And what makes the situation more complex is that such a mentality is difficult to change, especially as we become older and more accustomed to having certain values. In all honesty, if it turns out that one of these soccer players becomes a second Donald Trump in the future (God forbid), I would not be surprised.
As a woman, I am angry. I am ashamed. I am hurt. And above all, I am tired. Tired of people who would still defend these despicable actions, tired of hearing about friends who were groped by random men on the subway and couldn't do anything about it, tired of harboring fear whenever I step outside by myself. Tired of pretending that I should be used to being treated this way. Like others have said, the only solution is to teach our sons while they're young the concept of mutual respect. It's just unfortunate that this critical time has passed for so many grown men today.
