Matt Damon's recent interview with ABC film critic Peter Travers, in which he asserts that sexually degrading actions by men should be viewed on a spectrum rather than being lumped together, has received a tsunami of ticked-off tweets from women, notably Alyssa Milano and his ex Minnie Driver.
While I didn't generally find Damon's comments offensive, I'm not entirely convinced he gets the big picture of why women are outraged. Alyssa Milano responded via Twitter to Damon, pointing out that what we're really dealing with here is systemic corruption and objectification of women by powerful men — it's that damn deep-rooted heterosexual "bro culture" we need to eliminate from society altogether in order to make true progress.
The discussion prompted me to consider another crucial issue that falls under this umbrella of abusive power. Mixed into the "boys club" or "bro culture" is a general look into how heterosexual males typically bond. With the #MeToo movement demanding men change their attitude and behavior towards women, I wonder if some of these men actually fear they'll lose their already limited means in which they know how to connect with other men.
After all, the way many (but obviously not all) heterosexual guys build friendships outside of watching sports, talking shop and discussing politics, is partly through commenting about women in some objectifiable way, ranging from the fairly innocuous ("Damn, she's hot!") to the crude ("Check out the tits on that one!"). Women are looked at as a safe subject for them to discuss, allowing them to build intimacy without looking "emotional" or "gay." Perhaps the idea of modifying this style of communication puts them at a loss of how to maintain their male friendships without infringing upon their masculinity.
Since the subject of sexual assault is raw, women are justifiably outraged and the guilty men are justifiably getting a shellacking. But after the rage, then what? When do the hard conversations between men and women and between men and men take place — and what does that look like? Because obviously, the goal isn't merely for these men's outside behavior to change; we don't want them to give lip service in public but quietly hunker down into silent resentment. We want these men to do some soul searching and realize that with power and privilege, come blind spots. I'm not suggesting that eliminating men's id or denouncing their hardwired biological tendencies to have sex on the brain (if you ascribe to that belief) is the answer, but I think in order to create real change, the conversation about the way in which some men bond by hypersexualizing women needs to be addressed. And I wonder that if this discourse changed among men, it'd be a way of preventing these more grotesque cases of sexual harassment and assault from happening in the first place.
With this new level of female empowerment in the zeitgeist, women are setting out to level the playing field professionally, but it's not to say men don't have an opportunity to make their own gains emotionally. The #MeToo movement could be an impetus for them to harness new and healthier ways to express themselves and break down the dated masculine constructs that limit the ways they relate to other men. Indeed, just as we ladies hope this is a watershed moment for our society, it could be a watershed moment for men, too. Luckily for them, they have all the power to make it so.