'No' is a woman's most powerful word; men must respect that

The furore over the Rolling Stone story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia is dying down. But the conversations continue. This weekend, in The New York Times, Susan Dominus related a scenario that will seem familiar to a lot of women, and probably, a number of men: a friendly member of the opposite sex pouring the drinks with a generous hand, and later, a dark room, the continued pleading that follows the murmured nos, and finally, an exhausted capitulation because it's easier than forming the will to keep arguing, or to get up and leave.

When I was in college, around the same time as Dominus, the slogan of college rape activists was "no means no." I said it myself many times. It had all the virtues of a good social rule: simple, easy to follow, and easy for everyone to agree upon. It is still a very good rule, one that every man and woman should honour. Unfortunately, for many women, it was not enough.

Dominus suggests that we need a new language to sort out these toxic situations: Struggling to find language to define that experience after the fact left me longing for more words that could have been
used in the moment. What I wish I had had that night was a linguistic rip cord, something without the mundane familiarity of “no” or the intensity demanded in “Get off or I’ll scream.”

“No” and “stop” — of course, they should be said and respected. But several women who told me they felt their consent was ambiguous said that in the moment, they froze, and language eluded them altogether: They said nothing. Because those words are inherently confrontational, they can require a degree of strength that someone who is feeling pressured or confused or is just losing her nerve or changing her mind might not have.

Women need to learn "no" not just to protect themselves from aggressive men in the bedroom, but also to make themselves more powerful in the world outside. We need to embrace "no" in all areas of life, and teach men to expect to hear it from us more often. We need to insist on our own right to have opinions about everything, and to have our opinions count for just as much as a man's do.

So we need to tell men "no means no," and that fierce punishment will follow any violation of this simple rule. But we women also need to tell them "I mean no," not "we're in the red zone" or "I shouldn't — I have an early class tomorrow." Most important, however, is what we need to tell women: that the power of "no" is their inalienable birthright, and that those who are given such great gifts have an obligation to use them.

Courtesy: Bloomberg