Fantastic news: the list of conditions Blake Lively supplied to It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni about on-set behaviour is even more depressing than it seems.
Filed as part of her legal complaint alleging sexual harassment and a campaign to destroy her reputation – which Baldoni denies – mind-bogglingly low points include insisting he not talk about “personal times that physical consent was not given in sexual acts”, “no more descriptions of their own genitalia” and “no more personal, physical touching”.
What makes this appalling state of affairs even worse? Maybe this horror show is a sign of the times; an indication of where we’re headed. Because not one of the 30 stipulations – including “no more showing nude videos or images of women, including producer’s wife” and “no more entering, attempting to enter, interrupting, pressuring or asking to enter Blake Lively’s trailer while she is nude, for any reason” – should have needed to be said. Not one.
But a common male complaint is that women expect them to be mind-readers, and how are they supposed to know what they want – and don’t want?
Perhaps life would run much more smoothly if there was no grey area; nothing left to interpretation. Before every interaction with every man they come across, maybe women should simply provide a clear rundown stating exactly how they expect to be treated, and what they deem unacceptable.
When my child was invited to their first class birthday party after starting school, parents hung about in one corner of the room as the kids played games and ate cake. Many of us were meeting properly for the first time after nodding at the gates during drop off and pick up for a week or two. I got chatting to a dad who asked me what I did for a living. I told him I wrote for a newspaper and he immediately shot back: “Is it a sex advice column? I bet it is! I bet it’s all about sex! Ooh, you’re a naughty one, aren’t you!”
If only I’d had the foresight to present every man present with a printed piece of A4, including the clause “Do Not Speak To Me About Sex At A Five Year Old’s Birthday Party Within Three Minutes Of Meeting Me”. Perhaps then I’d have been spared the uncomfortable – and inaccurate – conversation, and him continuing to yell “Watch out, it’s the sexpert!” every time our paths cross to this day, many years later.
Some bloke saying a stupid thing is a tame example that’s obviously at the opposite end of the scale to what Blake Lively is alleging she was subjected to. But it’s further proof that some men apparently don’t have a clue what is – and isn’t – okay.
Even for a movie star, well used to making demands, Blake providing that list must have taken some doing – and it makes chilling reading.
While it’s extreme, it’s also dishearteningly familiar. Everything on it should go without saying – just like it does for every woman who has been “joked” with, shown images against her will, or touched when she didn’t want to be. I don’t know any woman without a story of something like that happening though. In fact, I don’t know many who don’t have multiple stories.
Supplying this kind of catalogue of rules in advance would be like being forced to wear a T-shirt reading “do not punch me in the face” every time you left the house. Of course people should know better than to attack each other, but of course men should know better than to make inappropriate comments, put their hands on women without consent, turn workplaces into toxic environments.
They don’t though, do they? Story upon story upon story comes out and nothing seems to be making it stop. And while the incidents on TV and film sets involving famous stars make the front pages, it’s simultaneously going under the radar, as it happens in offices, shops, factories, call centres, hospitals, and everywhere else men and women work together, all over the world.
Having to provide a list of your boundaries in advance to all men, because of the way some men act, would be tedious, annoying and basically ridiculous. The sad truth is, though; it could well be a better system than the one we’re using now.