#MeToo Decoded | The Harassment Pattern | Nation at

Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Remembers that famous quote from snow white— or a child's fairytale, you can't get more sexist or racist in just one line. Think of the story. Snow white spends her days cooking and cleaning for 7 dwarves, her evil enemy is her vain stepmother. Only to be rescued by prince charming. Rapunzel is trapped in a tower, again her only hope is a prince charming. Cindereralla battles evil sisters, only to be rescued by a prince charming. Sleeping beauty? Need one go one? Ramesh Nair in a brilliant paper on recognising sexist language through children literature gives us the alternatives. Where snow white is a boy and his father is out to kill him, only to be rescued by princess charming. And of course the very word princess, a derivative of the male semantic, would be sexist. Many would say pish-tosh, how can a child's fairytale have anything to do with sexism or sexual harassment in the age of me too? The reality is it's got everything to do with it. We have been bringing up young boys and girls with this kind of mindset. Where the men are to be the saviours that the women must find and for some reason yearn, long and be grateful for? They need to be forgiven not only their pig headedness, but their bestial behaviour because boys will be boys. What did trump call it? Locker room talk. For those that say not all men, certainly. Some men have manners enough not to grope a girl who works with you, know the difference between good and bad. But it's a fallacy to suggest that all men have not perpetuated sexism or sexual misconduct, at the very least by tolerating it within their work or friends circles. In that we're all guilty, myself included. So now that we are here and the winds of change are upon us, the question needs to be equally about what men were and now about what men need to be like. Yes, they need to be told, they obviously haven't been able to figure it out themselves. Tonight we look at the men who have been called out, what are the patterns in the case that we can tackle? Are there any? We've started a comprehensive poll to all women out there? Do they think there are grades of sexual harassment? What do they feel justice is or punishment is? We're asking every woman out there to express their position through this poll so we can go a step ahead...teach our kids differently, gauge our young boys differently, we don't want to see women coming out 10 years later to cases that are happening now. Let's have that conversation tonight.