Stephen M. Krason is a Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies and associate director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville and co-founder and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. He recently composed an article for Crisis Magazine titled “Street Harassment: Another Misdirected Cause?”
The angle of this piece is written around a two minute YouTube video, which compresses a secretly filmed 10hr walk, through the streets of Manhattan by an actress. The video is produced by an organization which aims to end “street harassment” in cities throughout the globe. The video shows some of the attention the actress receives while out on the street.
Krason in my opinion highlights some interesting social and moral questions for the reader to ponder. He begins with pointing out that these organizations who seek to end “street harassment” as they call it, are particularly vague on their definition of the term, he writes;
“There seem to be two major anti-street harassment organizations and when perusing their websites one is immediately struck by the vagueness of their definition of the term…Like with the supposed epidemic of child abuse, some are calling for laws to put a stop to street harassment without being clear about what it is. The result with child abuse is that upwards of 80 percent of reports are false or unfounded, parents are investigated for innocent childrearing practices that some anonymous caller doesn’t like, and we have a totalitarian-like child protective system (CPS) that in theory monitors every family in the country.”
He goes on to suggest that these “epidemics” are then jumped on by certain leftist interest groups, who after getting wind of the issue, stoke up the “crisis”. “If it seems to fit the secular leftist paradigm the media picks up on it. Then, often legislators—usually because no organized opposition has congealed and the public is either inattentive or agreeable because it vaguely sounds good—enact a new law (the solution is always a law). The law then has reverberating unforeseen consequences and creates a whole host of new problems.”
This made me think of the Asher’s bakery debacle. I know some commentators have suggested that the customer(s), who asked Ashers to bake a cake with a slogan in support of gay marriage, did this in full knowledge they were picking a “fight”. The media, it seemed to me anyhow, certainly obliged with their coverage of the story. If this is true then Krason’s point has some relevance for our own sphere.
The article continues with Krason highlighting inconsistencies with the anti-street harassment ideals, observing that some approving articles are noting that in times past;
“…some communities imposed criminal penalties for similar behavior. One wonders if the authors would similarly support the criminal laws then in place about contraception, abortion, fornication, sodomy, and pornography. It doesn’t occur to them that all these problems are cut from the same cloth: the disregarding of sound sexual morality”
And again;
“The anti-street harassment people seem to lump a whole range of comments and behaviors together without making any distinctions at all. So, sexual and sexually suggestive comments to women passing by and stalking behavior—in the video one man silently, eerily comes up and walks next to the actress for five minutes before finally leaving—are lumped together with saying “hello” or “good morning.”…Does that mean that a young man doing nothing more than asking a young woman for a date that she doesn’t want to go on is a form of harassment?”
The second half of the article raises the question of an “anti-male perspective” by feminist organizations who are tuned into the same issue. He states that these organisations put the blame squarely with the males in the video all of whose actions are equally condemned. The feminists offer advice for women on how to resist harassment but as Krason notes none of them raise the consideration for “…dressing modestly, which is something that serious Christian parents emphasize to their daughters from prepubescence. Immodest dress hardly excuses stalking and sexual assault. Still, it is only in a fantasy world where there is no understanding about the realities of human nature that one can believe that a looseness of sexual norms and an inattention to modesty and chastity have nothing to do with them.”
One of the final criticisms he offers for the video is around the overwhelming amount of minority groups of men depicted in the video. The video maker he says responded by saying that it only appeared that way and that there were plenty “of harassing Caucasian men too”.
Krason refreshingly doesn’t baulk from the minorities issue and in fairness to him, suggests a reason; “A genuine epidemic within the minority communities in question is family breakdown and absent fathers. The result is, obviously, that the strong, solid male examples—who are crucial in shaping virtuous gentlemanliness and good citizenship in the next generation of males—are simply not there. Is it just possible that there might be more street harassment, however defined, by males in these minority groups for the very reasons that the amount of crime and incarceration and gang activity is disproportionate among them? Might the basic problem be poor formation—in both morals and manners—due to poor family background and insufficient religious training?”
I definitely think Krason raises some very interesting questions with this article and certainly pushes the reader to consider critically what the populist & social media serve up to us. He finishes the article by hitting home with a strong political & moral note – “One can’t trust activists and advocacy groups to define (the problem) and lead the charge against it, however. As in so many other areas, they lack balance, good judgment, and basic fairness—and are ideologically driven…We don’t need and shouldn’t tolerate additional criminal laws that punish comments no matter how insulting or offensive. A renewal of morals and manners is what is needed—the very solution the secular left with all their causes doesn’t want to hear.”
If only women would dress modestly and demurely, keep their eyes lowered while on their way to Mass every morning! Being an ‘occasion of sin’ reaps its own whirlwindWear your scapulars and keep a high neckline. Say a prayer to Maria Gorretti for holy purity and pray for immoral colored people that they may find the true faith and lead holy and wholesome lives like white folks. But still knowing their place. Really new and refreshing thinking from Mr. Maxwell. Confraternity men to the fight and don’t forget your ejaculations.
Dressing modestly and chastity eh?
And maybe if women just stayed at home where they belonged that might help too!
Whatever. As I am smarter than most of the boys on the pavement and staring at my phone or revising code in my head while walking the pavement/sidewalks, I just don’t care.
Where do we start with this one? In the real world anyone who can stand upright and breathe can go ahead and breed. There’s no law against it. even though you may or may not be equipped mentally, morally, financially or even socially capable . You can go out and have children. The old saw that you need a licence to keep a dog but anyone can have a child is very true….Just yesterday,as an aside, two local men received prison sentences for the mistreatment of several horses in their care. They were not capable, or were deliberately criminal in mistreating the poor beasts. Could it be expected that they, or similar people would treat fellow humans any differently? If you can’t look after a horse , how are you expected to look after a thinking, breathing human being.How can you ready a child to behave properly in the world outside?
Do people know the difference between right and wrong? There used to be the expression ..”reaching the use of reason”. That meant that a child had reached an age where it knew how to behave in its immediate society .The child knew , for example , that it was wrong to go into a shop and sneakily steal sweets. He’d learnt that in school and in his home, that if he followed that course , there’d be punishment of some sort in his future. .He may have possibly had a religious upbringing of some sort that laid out the ten commandments as a morale guide. They would have been the basic moral building blocks of a society that he was living in. It doesn’t follow of course that a religious upbringing is the only way to teach “morality”.It can just as easily be taught as the basic rules of a stable society. Of course we all know many people whom we grew up with in our communities who never took any of those rules onboard anyway.We’ve also even seen the avarice and foolishness on show in our politicians who hypocritically pretend to be pillars of society, but regularly break or bend its laws.
The You Tube Video is a curiosity in that it really shows up the social ineptness of most of the males in the video. The female is only a focus for this.They act in a very forward way but there is an awkwardness in them. The female actress is seen by them as a sexual challenge because she is wearing tight body -revealing clothes. To them she appears entirely as a sexual object, but one that is ,for the most part beyond any of their social skills ,to win. Virtually every one of them appears foolish and uneducated and believe that the female is available to them even though she has not engaged in communicating in any way, with any of them.
Engagement is the key, really.The males don’t seem to understand that by even speaking to this stranger , they are invading her personal space. It’s not unlike the old “wolf whistle ” from the group of builders who can barely contain themselves when a pretty girl walks by . I’m not sure that that kind of behaviour still goes on in the UK in the way that it did during the years of the “Carry On” films. Apparently it still does in parts of the USA.The creepier aspects of the video are apparent where the behaviour is overtly sexually threatening to the point of actual “stalking” .You would imagine that some of the behaviour is on the very edge of mental -illness. too Some of these characters seem not to have the remotest idea as to how to behave in any context.They have no idea at all.Their world is as wild as the jungle.
In the context of the female walking through the area , it is apparent that the only reason anyone paid any notice to her was on asexual level, alone.None of them knew who she was.They didn’t know whether or not she had a personality or an intelligent point of view.They were only interested in her sexually and seemed to feel free to harrass her.There were no social constrictions in their behaviour.
What has to be considered is that in any society there will always be an element who ,for want of a better phrase, are an irredeemably “sexually-hooligan” element… and no matter what laws are cobbled up or how much society “moves on” and women and gays are liberated , this section will always continue on that old, misogynistic , sexist anti- gay and stagnant route, ignoring any advances that society has supposedly made, and being unable intellectually or even morally , to actually understand that anything has actually changed at all. Many still lack the basic skills of reading and writing, so how can we expect them to understand the social developments going on around them?
Look what happens on our own streets .
I think we actually expect people to be better than they actually are and are simply disappointed when they destroy our high-flying expectations.It really should have no relevance whether or not there is a religious or secular input. The problem is that education is failing for many .In that respect society is no different than it ever was.
An excellent dialogue there paddy. One of the most creepiest things i’ve seen in a while – and the word creepy doesn’t actually do it justice – was the guy who followed her, wordlessly for some 5 minutes or so. That was someone who has problems of some kind. Made me wonder what else he gets up to in his ‘spare time’.
Jude ,Krason sounds like one of those right wing cranks who rant and rave in the letters column of the Irish News and never got over the fact that Archbishop McQuade no longer rules Ireland.
Very well said michael – couldn’t agree with you more. I hope McQuade is burning, if there’s such a place beyond this mortal coil.
About the deepest look I seen at what is usually, but wrongly, described as racist behaviour — identifying the true dynamics of that and male-female interaction.
When apartheid first developed, informally, on the Reef goldfields between “white” and “black” mineworkers, the “whites” sought to correct the problem rather than enforce separation.
“Indunas” (headmen) were brought in from the rural areas the “black” workers came from, and paid salaries as managers and supervisors of communal life.
Some soon set things right, but they were dealing with their own tribesmen.
You see, rural, “black” tribal life standards of hygiene etc were higher than among the mixed bunch of roughneck “white” miners from all over Europe and the Americas.
But sadly, as with the “white” mixed bunch, the scheme fell apart where a headman from one tribe or clan was put in charge of a majority community of another.
At the height of apartheid “homelands” social engineering several decades later the problem of non-conformist and anti-social or maverick behaviour was again largely addressed among the nine tribes and umpteen clans of South Africa.
However, this left no room for integration in eg industry and commerce, or for individual choice — though such might sometimes be anarchic.
In the context of this subject area, most of the same dynamics seem to apply.
And certainly South Africa post-apartheid is a much unhappier place with mass urbanisation and loss of tribal values.
Make no mistake about it, you can eat off the floor of a traditional Zulu hut.
Easy on John ,McQuade was a “middlin boy” but incineration would be pushing things a bit far!
I know Michael – sounds a bit harsh, but the fact of how himself and De Valera carved up the State into their own quasi-religious fiefdom – setting it back Decades – plus the fact i’ve just finished a book borrowed from my local library, called ‘Banished Babies – The Hidden History Of Ireland’s Baby Export Business’ (apologies – the author’s name escapes me) – In which he features heavily – and not in a good way – had me write such a response. Plus the fact he lived, despite being ‘A man of the Cloth’, in the lap of luxury. I just can’t help but seethe when i hear his name.
Once again, marvellous blog you have by the way.