Helen Garner
We were reading about Helen Garner in English (part of the Telling The Truth module), and wow. I've never seen Denoir more indignant. Has anyone read her The First Stone? That's what we were reading about, and it sounded like something I'd want to read. You know, so I can rant and be all indignant. Seriously. The Ormond sexaul harrassment case. Just in case you don't know...
In 1992, the (fifty year old) Master of Ormond Residential College in Melbourne groped two young women at a College party. The two women sought advice/solace from the older women at the college, and then pressed charges for sexual harrassment. He was found guilty, but then the charges were dismissed in appeal, however he was still dismissed from his position as Master of the College.
Garner was "appalled," when she heard about the case. She wrote to the accused man saying "how upset" she was. (This letter eventually was circulated, which wasn't great, but still.) And in this book, The First Stone, published in 1995, she spends 200 pages disparaging these two young women, the women that counselled them, young women in general and, more particularly, young feminists. Kath Gelber (Go and have a look at her full response, actually, it is very interesting) puts forward Garner saying that she was "appalled by the idea that these women had taken their case to court," because...
In the process they ruined the reputation and career of “an agreeable-looking middle-aged man” with a “soft” face. She deplores the fact that they did not just “sort him out later”, and asks, “What sort of people could these be?”The day she first read of the case in the Age, she wrote immediately to the man accused, saying “how upset” she was and that “it's heartbreaking for a feminist of nearly fifty like me, to see our ideals of so many years distorted into this ghastly punitiveness”.
She goes onto write about how injust it was for punitive actions to be taken upon "poor blunderers who get drunk at parties and make clumsy passes..." That's right. A fifty year old TEACHER in a major position of power gropes the breasts of two young students - this is making a clumsy pass?! - but how unfair for him to be punished! Garner says how ridiculous it is that "he touched her breast and she went to the cops?" She says that "a provocative word or gesture may be a positive expression of desire, even awe, when encountering female beauty and vitality." Why, she asks, "must flirting be harmful?" She says that sex should not be seen as a perpetual danger but as "primarily a source of pleasure for both women and men."
Since writing her book, and since her letter to the accused became public, Garner "found herself vilified and turned into an official enemy." But not everyone is against her. Daphne Patai (the woman who wrote the bloody article we read in class) for example, agrees with her views. She says that Garner in The First Stone "recognizes the legitimate grievances of women, but also the power of beauty and the unpredictability of Eros. It insists on a sensible approach to complex, problematic human interactions, rather than vigilantism and retribution. That this posture makes its author in many eyes an enemy of feminism is a sorry reflection on the state of feminism in the English-speaking world."
Of course, Daphne also says that "an unwanted sexual overture is a small price to pay for freedom of expression."
I'll remember that if a fifty year old teacher touches or gropes my breasts. That's sexual harrassment, whether that teacher is a man or a woman.
**nb: I have not read The First Stone, and so I am well aware that I will likely be not giving the woman a fair chance, and am likely to be biased anyway.**
In 1992, the (fifty year old) Master of Ormond Residential College in Melbourne groped two young women at a College party. The two women sought advice/solace from the older women at the college, and then pressed charges for sexual harrassment. He was found guilty, but then the charges were dismissed in appeal, however he was still dismissed from his position as Master of the College.
Garner was "appalled," when she heard about the case. She wrote to the accused man saying "how upset" she was. (This letter eventually was circulated, which wasn't great, but still.) And in this book, The First Stone, published in 1995, she spends 200 pages disparaging these two young women, the women that counselled them, young women in general and, more particularly, young feminists. Kath Gelber (Go and have a look at her full response, actually, it is very interesting) puts forward Garner saying that she was "appalled by the idea that these women had taken their case to court," because...
In the process they ruined the reputation and career of “an agreeable-looking middle-aged man” with a “soft” face. She deplores the fact that they did not just “sort him out later”, and asks, “What sort of people could these be?”The day she first read of the case in the Age, she wrote immediately to the man accused, saying “how upset” she was and that “it's heartbreaking for a feminist of nearly fifty like me, to see our ideals of so many years distorted into this ghastly punitiveness”.
She goes onto write about how injust it was for punitive actions to be taken upon "poor blunderers who get drunk at parties and make clumsy passes..." That's right. A fifty year old TEACHER in a major position of power gropes the breasts of two young students - this is making a clumsy pass?! - but how unfair for him to be punished! Garner says how ridiculous it is that "he touched her breast and she went to the cops?" She says that "a provocative word or gesture may be a positive expression of desire, even awe, when encountering female beauty and vitality." Why, she asks, "must flirting be harmful?" She says that sex should not be seen as a perpetual danger but as "primarily a source of pleasure for both women and men."
Since writing her book, and since her letter to the accused became public, Garner "found herself vilified and turned into an official enemy." But not everyone is against her. Daphne Patai (the woman who wrote the bloody article we read in class) for example, agrees with her views. She says that Garner in The First Stone "recognizes the legitimate grievances of women, but also the power of beauty and the unpredictability of Eros. It insists on a sensible approach to complex, problematic human interactions, rather than vigilantism and retribution. That this posture makes its author in many eyes an enemy of feminism is a sorry reflection on the state of feminism in the English-speaking world."
Of course, Daphne also says that "an unwanted sexual overture is a small price to pay for freedom of expression."
I'll remember that if a fifty year old teacher touches or gropes my breasts. That's sexual harrassment, whether that teacher is a man or a woman.
**nb: I have not read The First Stone, and so I am well aware that I will likely be not giving the woman a fair chance, and am likely to be biased anyway.**
posted by Miss Defenestrator at
9/04/2005 03:09:00 pm
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