Jane took a bite of her chestnut cream pain au chocolat. Oh.
“But wearing make-up on a daily basis just because it’s convention? Reddening your lips, putting a flush on your cheeks? Pushing up your breasts, baring your legs all the way up to your crotch, wearing heels that arch your back? In short, making yourself sexually attractive, sexually attracting, for a day at the office—just because it’s convention? That’s not coercion. That’s stupidity.”
Jane took another bite.
“Why wouldn’t men think women are always sexually available? That’s the way they present themselves!”
And another.
“And then women get pissed off when men see them as sex objects.” Spike shook her head in disbelief.
Jane licked the last bit of chestnut cream off her fork. She noticed then that the forks, and the spoons, were just as florid, just as elegant, as the chairs and table.
“Of course, the greater problem is that it’s convention. Women are expected to appear sexually attractive, attracting, as a matter of routine.”
Jane nodded. “ ‘Femininity is the behavior of female subordination.’ Sheila Jeffreys.”
And on that note, they ordered dessert.
“But beauty—”
Spike knew where Jane was going. “There’s a difference between attractive and sexually attractive. At least, there should be. It’s just that because men dominate art and advertising, the two have been equated. By them. No doubt because to them everything is sexual. In fact, if it’s not sexual, it doesn’t exist.”
“You’re right.” Jane sighed. “If you really just want to use your body as a canvas for beauty, you’d wear funky gold glittered hiking boots, you’d paint an iridescent rainbow across your face, you’d do a hundred other aesthetically interesting things …”
Spike nodded. “And only when men don’t see us as Hooters will the woman who’s a Walmart sales associate be considered for a managerial position.”
“I dunno … You’re back to thinking appearance matters. We know that women in full-out nun regalia get raped. So it would seem that appearance isn’t a motivating factor for rape. Well,” she qualified, “unless the man had issues with nuns …”
Spike squinted at Jane. Clearly, Jane had issues with nuns.
“In any case, quite apart from rape,” Jane continued, “I thought we established that no matter how we look, just like no matter what we do, men don’t, won’t, take us seriously. Certainly not seriously enough to consider us for a managerial position.”
“Yeah.” Spike sighed deeply as she leaned back in her chair. “You’re right. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. So what’s the point?”
Their waiter brought their dessert. Spike had ordered profiteroles. Mainly because of how they sounded. The word. Not the profiteroles themselves.
Jane had ordered a Chocolate Volcano. It came on a plate drizzled with chocolate syrup, and there was a puff of real whipped cream on top. When she put her fork to it, thick chocolate lava oozed out of the cake. “Oooo …” oozed out of Jane.
Several slow minutes later, Jane resumed. “So okay, let’s say women do give up their push-up bras, their high heels, and even their make-up.”
“Like we did in the 70s.” And look at what didn’t happen, Spike added to herself.
“What if men then say that any woman who simply bares her ankles is asking for it. Or bares her face. We all walk around in burkas then?”
It was a good point, Spike thought. It got to the root of the matter: why should men’s problems determine what women should wear? And wasn’t that the point of the SlutWalks?
“Okay, but here and now, is it really too much to ask not to present yourself as bait? As a matter of routine?”
“You can easily avoid letting your butt and boobs hang out,” she added. “You can’t easily avoid exposing your face. Assuming you want to have peripheral vision. And breathe.”
“Wait a minute,” Jane said. “I thought you supported Gwen Jacobs and the repeal of the shirtless laws. Now you’re saying ‘Cover up!’?”
“No! Yes! I don’t know!” Spike groaned. A thoughtful minute and one profiterole later—the classic pastry cream one—she tried to sort through her apparent inconsistency. “I agree that women should be able to wear whatever they want. That they should be able to go wherever they want, alone, even at night. That they should be able to get drunk if they want. I agree that telling them otherwise diverts attention from the real cause of the problem, the men who rape.”
“Which is why, for one thing,” Jane interjected, “reporters should use the active voice. Instead of ‘A woman was raped last night,’ they should be saying ‘A man raped a woman last night.’ ”
“Right. Good. But—” Spike bit into the next profiterole. The caramel cream one.
“Remember Twisty’s ‘List of Shit Women Do To Confuse Dudes Into Raping Them’?” Jane licked the last of the chocolate lava off her spoon. “They’re drunk. They leave the house. They’re girls.”
“See and that’s the thing.” Spike waved the third profiterole in the air. Chocolate cream. “If you live in a country overrun by morally-challenged muscled-up idiots who think you’re just a walking receptacle for their dicks, you shouldn’t go out alone, especially at night, you shouldn’t get drunk—”
“ ‘Should’ in principle versus ‘should’ in practice. Theory versus advice.”
“Yes! If you do any of those things, is any consequent assault deserved? No. But should it have been anticipated? Yes.” Satisfied, Spike took one, then another, bite of the profiterole, finishing it.
A moment later, she continued. “SlutWalk organizers don’t think through the male over-dependence on visual signals. The gawkers and hecklers who typically undermine the event should be expected. The inability of men to process verbal messages, even those just a few words long, in the presence of so-called ‘fuck me’ heels should be expected.
“And given men’s inability to pick up on subtle cues and/or their refusal to understand the difference between yes and no, let alone yes and maybe …” She waved another profiterole. No idea what kind it was. But it was the last one.
“Maybe when men can handle a sexually charged atmosphere without assaulting— Maybe when other men do speak out and take action against the rapists, one way or another— It’s no coincidence that there are close to 400,000 samples of DNA evidence in rape kits that remain untested and therefore inadmissible in court.” She bit into the profiterole. It was—actually, she still had no idea what it was. Kind of nutty, kind of creamy. Cashew cream? Almond cream? No matter. It was good. Very good.
“But here and now,” she said, “given our culture, given men, if a woman is wearing ‘fuck me’ shoes, she can hardly complain when someone fucks her.”
Jane raised her eyebrows. “No, that can’t be right,” she said a few moments later.
They both stared out the window for a bit.
“The civil rights movement had lots of white people accompanying black people into white-only places, didn’t it?” Jane asked.
“So, what, it’s hopeless until some men help us out?”
“No, that can’t be right either,” Jane muttered.
They