Yes, All People

By: American Decency Staff

I was tempted to title this piece, "Strange Bedfellows," but given the circumstances, it seemed inappropriate.  It is nice, however, to see some feminists catching up to what American Decency has been saying for years – our over-sexualized culture doesn't empower women, it harms them.

It is just unfortunate that people had to die for us to start talking about it. I am, of course, speaking of the recent killing spree in Santa Barbara, CA in which a sex-absorbed virgin killed six people and himself to express his frustration that he couldn't get any women to sleep with him.

There has been a lot of back-and-forth about what the killer's motivation has to say about society. Twitter has exploded with the trend #YesAllWomen in which women share stories of harassment by men. Men have predictably and understandably taken to the web to defend themselves and feminists have launched another Twitter campaign mocking their defense with their sarcastic hashtag, #NotAllMen. Apparently the women who want to escape stereotypes are unwilling to allow men the same privilege.

However, important points are being made in the midst of all the drama. The stories shared by women over social media and in opinion pieces do affirm a problem that we've been speaking out about for a long time. The culture that uses Kate Upton's breasts to sell hamburgers and Danica Patrick stripping to sell web space is a culture that objectifies women.

Similarly, although, you would never catch a feminist saying this, a culture that tells high school students that it's impossible to not have sex and that there's something wrong with you if you're a virgin is a culture that deifies sex.

That's the kind of culture that creates an environment like this for women:

#YesAllWomenbecause an older drunk man decided it was okay to grab my *** in the middle of the day as guys on the street saw and laughed

Getting followed home after a night out by a man asking "where my boyfriend is tonight?" @EverydaySexism#YesAllWomen

Wow… Random dude just sat next to me on the T and tried to grab my leg. (I'm wearing a dress). Going to be another #YesAllWomenday…

#YesAllWomen"i have a boyfriend" instead of "no I'm not interested" because men respect other men but don't respect women's decisions

One eye-opening image showed the Google Image results for 'girl '- nearly all were bikini-clad women- and the results for 'boy' – a few shirtless men, but mostly were fully-clothed and non-sexual.

Let me see if I can add a little confusion to the twittersphere. Not all women are using #YesAllWomen the same way. Like the ones I've quoted above, some are using it to express real frustrations at an overly sexualized culture. Others are using it as a vehicle to complain about gender roles, the pro-life movement, protective fathers, modesty, the "patriarchy," etc. But the radicals don't discount the woman who gets grabbed as she's walking down the street.

As my favorite tweet on the subject concisely articulates:

What happened to the days when men would speak to women with the same respect they would their mothers and sisters? Shame. #YesAllWomen

That's what our over-sexed, under-mannered culture threatens.

Yes, all women deserve respect. Sadly, however, not all women respect themselves. Some buy into the cultural lie that their value is based on their level of "sexy" and some "men" take advantage of that. Some "men" don't bother with what the woman thinks at all and just take what they want. But no, not all men are creeps. However, all men – all people – need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to create a culture that honors the image of God that is in every human being.

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