As a journalist, I try to be as fact-based and objective as possible, though I'm also aware that objectivity is an illusion. This way of moving through the world is what separates journalists from activists. Vanessa Grigoriadis More Quotes by Vanessa Grigoriadis More Quotes From Vanessa Grigoriadis I finally stopped fretting and tried to think of Donald Trump's election as an opportunity. I didn't shift my thesis but I added some lines, in the Blurred Lines introduction, to my description of the progressive awakening that has happened in this country over the last five years - "Trump's presidency is a macroaggression". I wanted Trump to be a specter from the book's outset. Vanessa Grigoriadis opportunity country thinking A refusal of shame about sexual assault and the prioritization of speaking your mind while using your real name - instead of a pseudonym given to you by a journalist. Those ideas were soon taken up by Lena Dunham, Lady Gaga, and Kesha. And now, with Harvey Weinstein's unmasking, they've spread to the top of Hollywood. Vanessa Grigoriadis taken real mind As Americans, we do love punishment. Vanessa Grigoriadis If we agree that universities need to monitor sexual violence in various locations, and that they will require students to hew to a narrower set of rules than the wider world, how do we deal with putting these ideas into the brains of teenagers who have been schooled in the disgusting gender norms of our American culture for the previous eighteen years? This is the essential conundrum. Can we teach these relatively young dogs new tricks? I believe that we can. Vanessa Grigoriadis teenager dog believe I also believe that upending ingrained ideas about what assault is a gun to the head, a stranger, a parking lot and what consent looks like a woman who gives a no really means yes is very messy. And part of the messiness is some students - and yes, usually these are liberal students - over-determining the definition of assault. Vanessa Grigoriadis gun mean believe Harvey Weinstein is a monster. And what campus victims are talking about has a lot more gray in it - many more complexities. Vanessa Grigoriadis complexity victim We need new cultural scripts. Women don't say what we want, and we don't say what we don't want. Unless we're reacting to a stranger, we generally aren't great at turning down someone's advance. Vanessa Grigoriadis want-u stranger I make a strong case for poor sexual communication as the root cause of some assaults. I say some assaults because we know, as well, that there are dyed-in-wool, compulsive predators like Harvey Weinstein on campuses too. But there are guys we can reach here. Once again, I'd like to be optimistic in the way that we look at this problem. Vanessa Grigoriadis optimistic communication strong Let's reach the students who will abide by a "yes means yes" standard in sexual behavior and reeducate them to use it. And as more and more of them use it, others will adopt it too. We're on our way to a new social norm and that's a beautiful thing. Vanessa Grigoriadis students beautiful mean After studying dozens of sexual assault cases, it is clear to me that the "he said/she said" aspect is a big part of what makes them fraught. Many experts agree with this. But that same fraught nature is reflected in both legal standards of consent and philosophical theories of consent. Vanessa Grigoriadis agree philosophical study It's true that a dangerous combination of certainty and ignorance often shows up around sex and consent on campus. People on all sides of the issue have such strong feelings about it that they're blinded to the facts. Vanessa Grigoriadis strong ignorance people Students at residential universities often live together and spend time on activities that aren't connected with the university. Then, should the university's rules about sexual consent extend to students' private lives? In my book, I argue that these narrow rules should extend to students' private lives no matter what or where they happen to be conducting those lives. The logic is that sexual assault is a form of discrimination and denies the victim an equal education. The point of university life is to get that diploma and nothing should stand in the way. Vanessa Grigoriadis students together book Colleges are a unique space in our culture. They're a temporary constellation of humans, like a workplace. And the rules about sexual assault and harassment in a workplace are narrow rules. They're stricter than what's considered criminal on a city street. By this logic, the same rules should exist at universities too. Vanessa Grigoriadis unique college culture I think the better question is: How do we want sexual mores to shift, and what will that do for the American experience of both consensual and nonconsensual sex? Vanessa Grigoriadis thinking Once Donald Trump announced that Betsy DeVos was going to be his Education Secretary - a few months before I finished the manuscript - I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. He was going to overturn as much of what Barack Obama did, and the attendant social progress, as he could. Vanessa Grigoriadis secretary barack progress I'm a staunch believer in the effect of pop culture - including advertising and the internet - on the young. Pop culture in its narrowest sense - mass-produced film, TV, and music - either truly reflects what's up in youth culture, or it reflects what youth-filled focus groups have told marketing companies that they want to consume. Vanessa Grigoriadis marketing focus culture I don't think we get the degree to which technological mediums like Snapchat and Instagram are also changing our relationships. I think we will learn down the line that they have created profound changes in our social and sexual lives. Vanessa Grigoriadis our-relationship profound thinking In terms of activism, the Trump-era transformation of news into entertainment has had a deep effect on the way that collegiate politics are perceived. Campuses are a main flashpoint of the post-2016 culture wars about free speech, racism, and elite privilege. That's undeniable. Vanessa Grigoriadis racism war culture An interesting reversal is happening right now. The college women who kicked all this off have been superseded in the mainstream media by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. And now a new group of college women - the ones in college now - are looking at Paltrow and Jolie as models for the appropriate way of dealing with sexual predators. Vanessa Grigoriadis predator college interesting Regarding punishment, we've learned from the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and other famous men not only that times have changed, but also that ostracism is an efficient tool. It reminds me of the tradition of bathroom lists of sexual assaulters at Brown beginning in 1990. Back then the administrators called the students who wrote them "magic marker terrorists" and threatened them with expulsion if caught. Now a Shitty Media Men list can dominate the news for days as HR departments across the coasts hastily assess their employees and their liability. Vanessa Grigoriadis bathroom magic men
