I totally share your food-filter when it comes to reading about news (today, I was extra intrigued by story about Apple and its trademark battles, of all things, simply because its targets included a 111-year-old fruit farmers' union in Switzerland)!
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic about the hotel room comment (which you totally could be!), but I have a different point of view because I've done quite a few interviews in hotel rooms – mainly because when non-Sydney people come to town, they are likely to an interview in their hotel room. It's quieter than a cafe and it's the closest thing they have to an office.
So there are a lot of legitimate reasons to visit someone's hotel room and also you should have the right to feel safe in those cases!
So many examples from the Harvey Weinstein case were women who thought they were going to his hotel room for professional/business reasons. I don't think they should be disqualified from feeling safe because they met him there and he took advantage of his circumstances.
Sure, I'm not naive, I've definitely wondered before going into certain rooms – will I be OK, is this safe? But the crappy thing is that the onus is on women to worry about this and not for society to actually get its shit together and make things safe for women/anyone.
It's a similar thing to the idea that women shouldn't be outside at night after a certain time. But unfortunately (over your lifetime) you read about women being attacked at different times, in different scenarios and often in the place they think would be safest (their home).
Anyway, this is probably not the response you expected when you wrote that and perhaps you meant the comment dryly or sarcastically or with a degree of humour that signalled meant it wasn't to be taken seriously!
Anyway, my hope is that things do get better and your daughter doesn't have to think about these things so much when she's older.
Or at least, if she ever has to do an interview in a hotel room, it at least has a nice view!
We've been drilled since young to never be alone at night, never go to the parking lot alone, never drive into streets without streetlights. And if you get hit by a car at night, don't stop. Always send a text.
I'll gonna tell my daughter never enter a stranger's room in a hotel, no matter how professional it may be.
Of course, I get it, I got told essentially all those things, too. Even in my 30s, my mum would freak out at the idea of me being on the streets at 7.30pm!
You can do all these things in the belief that you're safeguarding the people you care about. But unfortunately that doesn't stop shitty stuff from happening. I still remember the first time a guy grabbed me in a gross and alarming way on a train (prob around 9am or 10am, on a fullish train). Or the time a guy followed me down the street and told me to "stop walking so quickly" and followed me into a shop and tried to ransack it and scared everyone to the point we had to call the police.
We tell women - particularly young women - to be on alert, do all these things to stay 'safe', but we don't do nearly enough to tell creeps that their behaviour is unacceptable, and that men (and sorry, but it usually is men) that being a creep is not acceptable.
The world would be so much safer if we put as much effort into that as we do into policing how women should behave.
I think cultural change is truly possible, because when I was growing up, I'd see people stagger into cars drunk and drive their families home *all the time*. Now it is so unacceptable to do that. It would be considered such a scandal to even do that.
I hope to see the same cultural shift, where creeps are told their creepy behaviour is not on and we see less and less creepy behaviour because it's just not tolerated or allowed to flourish. But when we create loopholes or situations where it might be seen as OK – when we say stuff that can be translated as, "if you go into a hotel room alone, then it's kinda your fault" – it can create a situation where creeps know they have a licence to get away with stuff as long as they do it in the 'right' location (like a hotel room).
Also, let's normalise going into hotel rooms (and the belief they should be safe, non-creepy locations) because some of them have ridiculously stunning set-ups and we should all be able to enjoy walking into someone's suite and be able to gawk at their 5-star balcony view!
I totally share your food-filter when it comes to reading about news (today, I was extra intrigued by story about Apple and its trademark battles, of all things, simply because its targets included a 111-year-old fruit farmers' union in Switzerland)!
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic about the hotel room comment (which you totally could be!), but I have a different point of view because I've done quite a few interviews in hotel rooms – mainly because when non-Sydney people come to town, they are likely to an interview in their hotel room. It's quieter than a cafe and it's the closest thing they have to an office.
So there are a lot of legitimate reasons to visit someone's hotel room and also you should have the right to feel safe in those cases!
So many examples from the Harvey Weinstein case were women who thought they were going to his hotel room for professional/business reasons. I don't think they should be disqualified from feeling safe because they met him there and he took advantage of his circumstances.
Sure, I'm not naive, I've definitely wondered before going into certain rooms – will I be OK, is this safe? But the crappy thing is that the onus is on women to worry about this and not for society to actually get its shit together and make things safe for women/anyone.
It's a similar thing to the idea that women shouldn't be outside at night after a certain time. But unfortunately (over your lifetime) you read about women being attacked at different times, in different scenarios and often in the place they think would be safest (their home).
Anyway, this is probably not the response you expected when you wrote that and perhaps you meant the comment dryly or sarcastically or with a degree of humour that signalled meant it wasn't to be taken seriously!
Anyway, my hope is that things do get better and your daughter doesn't have to think about these things so much when she's older.
Or at least, if she ever has to do an interview in a hotel room, it at least has a nice view!
We've been drilled since young to never be alone at night, never go to the parking lot alone, never drive into streets without streetlights. And if you get hit by a car at night, don't stop. Always send a text.
I'll gonna tell my daughter never enter a stranger's room in a hotel, no matter how professional it may be.
It's probably the Malaysian upbringing.
Of course, I get it, I got told essentially all those things, too. Even in my 30s, my mum would freak out at the idea of me being on the streets at 7.30pm!
You can do all these things in the belief that you're safeguarding the people you care about. But unfortunately that doesn't stop shitty stuff from happening. I still remember the first time a guy grabbed me in a gross and alarming way on a train (prob around 9am or 10am, on a fullish train). Or the time a guy followed me down the street and told me to "stop walking so quickly" and followed me into a shop and tried to ransack it and scared everyone to the point we had to call the police.
We tell women - particularly young women - to be on alert, do all these things to stay 'safe', but we don't do nearly enough to tell creeps that their behaviour is unacceptable, and that men (and sorry, but it usually is men) that being a creep is not acceptable.
The world would be so much safer if we put as much effort into that as we do into policing how women should behave.
I think cultural change is truly possible, because when I was growing up, I'd see people stagger into cars drunk and drive their families home *all the time*. Now it is so unacceptable to do that. It would be considered such a scandal to even do that.
I hope to see the same cultural shift, where creeps are told their creepy behaviour is not on and we see less and less creepy behaviour because it's just not tolerated or allowed to flourish. But when we create loopholes or situations where it might be seen as OK – when we say stuff that can be translated as, "if you go into a hotel room alone, then it's kinda your fault" – it can create a situation where creeps know they have a licence to get away with stuff as long as they do it in the 'right' location (like a hotel room).
Also, let's normalise going into hotel rooms (and the belief they should be safe, non-creepy locations) because some of them have ridiculously stunning set-ups and we should all be able to enjoy walking into someone's suite and be able to gawk at their 5-star balcony view!