Interesting twist in the tail of this story. Go to the source and read to the end to see how the writers mother is a part of this story.
I didn't understand how widespread rape was. Then the penny dropped
David Graeber
I’m a lefty academic versed in feminist theory. Still, I rebelled against the idea that rich and powerful men regularly rape or attempt to rape women
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Sunday 5 November 2017 11.00 GMT Last modified on Sunday 5 November 2017 16.26 GMT
This is a very difficult column for me to write because it’s about my mother.
A week or two after the then IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested for sexually assaulting a chambermaid in a posh New York hotel in 2011, there was another case when an Egyptian businessman was briefly arrested for a similar assault at another such New York hotel.
This first struck me as puzzling. It could hardly be a copycat crime; considering the drama surrounding the arrest and travails of DSK, it was inconceivable that anyone would see this and say: “Oh good idea, I’ll attack a chambermaid as well.”
Then it dawned on me.
The only logical explanation was that businessmen, politicians, officials and financiers rape, or attempt to rape, hotel workers all the time. It’s just that normally, those assaulted know there’s nothing they can do about it.
In DSK’s case, someone – for whatever complex political reasons – must have refused to make the usual phone call. There was a scandal. As a result, when the next assault took place, the survivor must have said to herself, “Oh, so does this mean we actually
are allowed to call the cops now if a customer tries to rape us?” and acted accordingly. And sure enough this is precisely what turned out to have happened. (In the end, both women were silenced, and neither man convicted of any crime.)
What I really want to draw attention to here is my initial reaction of disbelief: “Sure things are bad;
but it can’t be that bad.” Even a lefty academic versed in feminist theory instinctively rebelled against the idea that rich and powerful men regularly rape or attempt to rape the women cleaning their rooms, that this happens all the time, that everyone in the hotel industry knows it happens (since they must know), and that those rich and powerful men in turn know they could get away with it because if any woman they attacked did protest too strenuously, everyone would move in lockstep to do whatever was required to make the problem go away.
It’s of course this very disbelief that allows such things to happen. We are loth to accept people we might know might practice pure, naked aggression. This is how bullies get away with what they do. I’ve written about this.
Bullying is not just a relation between bully and victim. It’s really a three-way relation, between bully, victim and everyone who refuses to do anything about the aggression; all those people who say “boys will be boys” or pretend there’s some equivalence between aggressor and aggressed. Who see a conflict and say “it doesn’t matter who started it” even in cases where, in reality, nothing could possibly matter more.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...xual-assault-feminism-weinstein-casting-couch