With all the recent flood of accusations surfacing of many different men, I wanted to share part of an interview I heard last night that stuck with me, and gave me some hope.
He talks about a conversation with his daughter a few months after she started at Harvard.
I know he’ll never read this, but thank you Sean Astin.
“Us all”? Who do you mean?
Do you mean the women that have known about this, the status quo, for the last forever?
I wasn’t impressed with Astin’s sudden realization that women are people. The “wives and daughters” bullshit just perpetuates the perception that women are only valuable as a man’s property.
And he also extensively refers to himself as “father” - does that mean men have no value but their children?
Read for the overall message, don’t nitpick the exact words.
It should have occurred to Astin before his daughter reached that age. He says she was a cheerleader, ask yourself how objectified those young women are? There is no ‘there’ there. IMO.
Right, now that you’ve had your big “epiphany” we’re all supposed to carry you on our shoulders and pat you on the back for being so magnanimous? You think just because you finally managed to see things through someone else’s eyes you’re all “woke,” you can ply us with your charm, and everybody’s going to stand around singing songs and raising toasts to you, like all is forgiven? Give you props for finally doing the right thing, which is what you should’ve done all along?
Yeah, well, fuck you, Ebenezer Scrooge!
I think it’s great. We need more men speaking up about the sexually exploitative culture we often unwittingly facilitate and how not okay that is. The fact he did it using the father paradigm might cause a little self-reflection in other men his age. I think a lot of men really struggle with empathy for women on this issue and he is using a powerful path to that emotional connection by invoking fatherhood. He never pinged my radar until Stranger Things 2 but I’m becoming a fan pretty quickly.
Whether or not he should have had his epiphany sooner than he did I don’t - I’m glad he had it, whether early or late. To many men never have it at all.