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The observer | Wednesday, October 21, 2020 | ndsmcobserver.com
Dear creepy men: Stop contacting me Ashton Weber Living Relig-ish
“You look great on CNN.” “I am a lawyer and winery owner… just so you have some idea of the person who writes you out of the blue… not sure if it gives my name on the message I sent. [Insert Name].” Two Fridays ago, I was interviewed on CNN. A few minutes before the hit time, I hid my phone to avoid distraction, and as soon as I signed off of the streaming platform, I retrieved my phone from its hiding place, baff led to see it blowing up. I quickly clicked on one of the incoming notifications and started to understand what was happening. I had been found. I guess there aren’t many Ashton Webers in the world, and I’m a pretty vocal one on the internet. After seeing me speak on TV for less than 90 seconds, over 100 people tried to add me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Some of them appeared to be kind and congratulatory, but most of them were older men who accompanied their follow requests with messages that sexualized me and established their relative positions of power (see some of the messages above). To say I was freaked out is an understatement. Although I’ve received creepy messages on the internet before, it’s never happened to this magnitude, and it’s never been from people who had previously seen me… most of the strangers who try to follow me on social media are sugar daddy bots. So, even though this wasn’t an unfamiliar occurrence, it was an incredibly uncomfortable one, made distinct by the fact that these people not only saw and decided to find me, but that they then concluded it would be appropriate to contact me and comment on my appearance. This isn’t to say that no one should ever contact me on social media again. I’ve loved previous responses to columns, and it’s been touching to see that my words resonate with people. I’m rarely able to respond to emails that people send me, but I still appreciate them deeply, especially those
that thoughtfully respond to the things I’m saying. There’s nothing cooler than knowing that people are engaging with the things you’ve worked hard to tell them. Perhaps that’s why this whole occurrence bothered me so much. It’s not just that random men tried to follow me and wanted me to know they think I’m attractive. It’s also that my argument wasn’t given respect and was instead reduced to a ref lection of my image. In my introduction to gender studies course this semester, we’ve been discussing a concept called the mythical norm. Originally coined by Audre Lorde, it essentially means that there’s a perceived “normal” in each society and those who fit it wield the most privilege over those who don’t. In the United States, the mythical norm is widely recognized as white, cisgender, heterosexual, male, Christian and financially stable. Those who don’t fit this norm are marked as other, and their value is determined by how useful they are to those who are mythically normal. Cool, Ashton, but how does this have anything to do with your being perceived by random men? Upon first glance, I appear to be mythically normal except for my femaleness. In, say, a three-minute CNN clip, there’s not much you can understand about a person beyond things you might ascertain from a first glance. This means that, right off the bat, I was marked by femaleness. A majority of the responses I received came from men who appeared to match the mythical norm and referenced superficial things like my physical appearance or composure. As I mentioned earlier, they also sent me information that established a weird power dynamic. Thank you for thinking I sound smart, but why do I need to know what you do for a living? Why do I need to know where you live and work? Honestly, why would I even need to know that you think I looked composed and sounded eloquent? If your ref lections have little to do with what I’m saying and more to do with how I said it, why do you feel the need to relay them to me? I shared my creeped-out-edness with a few friends who have also made public comments, and
they remarked that they had also received random messages and follow requests. I started to wonder how often this same phenomenon happens. The news cycle runs 24/7/365 and people are interviewed all the time, so how many other women have received a “you looked amazing on CNN” message and hundreds of friend requests? Beyond just the news, how does this same occurrence play out in other scenarios? How many times a day do women (or people who defy the mythical norm in other ways) give statements on things they care about, only to be told they sound surprisingly intelligent or that they look hot? How much worse do the messages and objectification get when someone is mythically “abnormal” in multiple ways? I think the biggest thing I want to say in this column is that it’s important to think more intentionally about the ways we’re interacting with others. There have been multiple times when I’ve reduced people to superficial characteristics instead of listening to what they’re saying in the fullest. On several occasions, I’ve considered myself first when responding to others, instead of giving full attention to what they’re saying. I would invite everyone to join me in thinking about the positions of privilege we find ourselves in and actively considering how they shape our interactions with other people. I also want to say: Please stop responding superficially to people, especially people who are working and thinking long and hard about how to say important things. We don’t care if you think we sound intelligent or if you own a winery. We only care that you’re actually hearing what we have to say. Ashton Weber is a junior with lots of opinions. She is an econ major with minors in sociology and gender studies, and can often be found with her nose in a book. If you want to chat about intersectional feminism, baking blueberry scones, growing ZZ plants or anything else, she’d love to hear from you. Reach Ashton at aweber22@nd.edu or @awebz01 on Twitter. The views expressed in this column are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Observer.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Voting in the 2020 presidential election I’d like to start by saying that this is not meant to be a partisan letter. I also want to note that when I write about disagreement, I am speaking about political disagreement, and political disagreement only. There are issues of human rights that don’t invite debate (e.g. the rights of people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community and other historically marginalized communities, to name just a couple of examples), and those issues are not what I am talking about. So here goes. 1. If you are at least 18 years old and a citizen of the United States, you are eligible to vote in the 2020 election. This may seem obvious, but it doesn’t just apply to you. It applies to your friends and political enemies as well. If someone is voting for the candidate you oppose, they have the right to do so. I didn’t say it was going to be easy to vote in the 2020 election. 2. The Republican and Democratic political parties have complex, conf licting histories. The way they look today says little about the ideals they were founded on. Choosing a political party has almost nothing to do with Trump or Biden, and I would argue that every voter should look up the histories of BOTH parties before allowing one to determine how they might vote. 3. Speaking of parties, no one said you have to choose one! Culturally, it feels like we must choose a side and label the other side as just that — “other”. In any election — and I would say
especially in this one — voters should choose a candidate, not a party. I’m going to exercise some caution here and note that political parties aren’t bad, but when we allow them to completely determine our actions, we give them a power over our own ability to exercise judgement as independent voters. 4. As students of the Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Holy Cross tri-campus community, we have a number of opportunities in this election that other communities do not have. First of all, we are here (not HERE — this isn’t meant to be a joke). We’ve been able to be on campus, which means that we get to be a part of a real, in-person learning community. We can benefit from productive conversation with each other, and as students living away from home right now, we have the space to think critically about our own values and how to uphold them with our vote. Second, we are students of high-level institutions that are dedicated to increasing our factual knowledge. Our libraries (not just places to grind out work, surprisingly) give us unique access to factual, reliable information that is crucial to us as voters. The internet just isn’t always correct, and our libraries aren’t ancient — you can find books written as late as 2020 in them. You can also use library search databases to find information from your own laptop, in any location, so “library” does not necessarily mean “book” or “club Hes.” And lastly, we all enjoy the privilege
of education (I’m not saying we’re all privileged to the same degree, but we are all students which is a privilege in itself ), which brings me to a point of opinion. I believe that as students, we have a duty to use our education as a force for good in the world. The “good” can look like a lot of different things, which is the beauty of our different interests. But I think that there is a “good” we can strive for right now, before graduating, that can have a real impact in our country. We can talk to each other, use factual information, and learn from our classes, which will help us all to make informed votes. An informed vote is something that can greatly help the U.S. right now. So, in light of these few points, let’s strive not just to vote, but to know who and what we are voting for. Let’s remember that our vote has an impact — it’s a civic duty, and one that holds a significant weight in our democracy. And let’s choose to not allow political polarization to paint an inherently negative picture of those who we disagree with. We are all capable of learning and changing, and at the end of the day, we all deserve to be loved. With that in mind, let’s do this. Election 2020, here come the Irish, Belles and Saints. Elise Fahrenbach junior Oct. 16
