Woman Arrested for Sexual Abuse After Twerking on Stranger in D.C. Store
As a proponent of gender-blind law, I understand why D.C. police must take the incident seriously. And yet...
A Las Vegas woman has been arrested for sexual assault after she and a friend twerked up against and groped at a male stranger in a D.C. convenience store. One of the women also put her arms around him and attempted to kiss him. On Monday, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department released video footage of the October 7 incident and offered a $1,000 reward for anyone who could offer info leading to the women's apprehension. On Tuesday, they announced that 22-year-old Ayanna Marie Knight had been arrested and charged with third-degree sexual abuse. If convicted, Knight could face a fine of up to $25,000 and up to 10 years in prison.
In D.C., the offense of third-degree sexual abuse is defined as "engag[ing] in or caus[ing] sexual contact with or by another person" via force, threats, or rendering the individual unconscious.
"The search for the other woman in the video continues," DCist reports. Police have since pulled video of the incident—captured by a surveillance camera inside the Shell gas-station store—from the department's YouTube channel, but you can watch it here
In an interview with D.C.'s local Fox News network, the man in the video—a D.C. teacher who wishes to remain anonymous—suggested that the women may have been trying to solicit him for prostitution or steal his wallet, and also that they might have been "men dressed like women." Regardless, "when someone is just grabbing your body parts without your permission, no matter who it is, that's just a violation completely," he told NBC Washington.
The women's behavior in the video is certainly strange, and marginally agressive. They're also relatively small in comparison to the victim. It's tempting to say he should have just pushed them away—although one can also imagine he feared being branded an assailant if he did so. As to why he didn't just exit the store: eventually he did, and the women followed, continuing to watch and flash him from a distance as he pumped his gas and called police.
As a proponent of gender-blind law, I understand why D.C. police are obligated to take this incident seriously. And certainly men have as much of a right as women not to be grabbed at by strangers in public. Yet something about the whole business rubs me the wrong way nonetheless. We don't know what the aim of Knight and her friend were—flirtation? Solicitation? Just goofing around? But it's hard for me to read their antics as genuinely menacing or worthy of years behind bars.
I've previously railed against campus sexual-assault complaints over attempted kisses that were undesired or one student grabbing another by the arm at a party. It seems to me we're pathologizing and criminalizing normal parts of courtship, which are sometimes clumsy and always involve imperfect information balances. Who among us hasn't leaned in for a kiss without 100 percent certainty that the recipient would return our affections? Who hasn't at some point had an undesired but well-meaning suitor put the moves on them?
Persistent unwanted advances are one thing—and maybe that is the best way to characterize the actions of our mystery convenience-store twerkers. But we seem to be headed toward a world where there can be zero ambiguity about even the mildest romantic or sexual advance without it being considered sexual assault. That sounds like a terribly boring, clinical, and libido-numbing world to me.
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Dear Penthouse,
I never believed your letters until recently when I was microwaving my hot pocket down at the kwiki-mart.
I confess to enjoying many of the letters and all those phallic euphemisms and female naughty bits.
The dicktionary has a good compendium.
http://gregology.net/reference/dicktionary/
Would it be cynical to ask how hawt the women were?
“suggested that the women may have been ….hat they might have been “men dressed like women.”
If he thought they might be men dressed as women, not all that hot at all!
ENB, I agree with your assessment, but I can’t help wondering if our reactions would be different if this were a dude grinding his junk on an unsuspecting lady.
I think the real issue here is how much prison time is associated with the crime. Third-degree sexual abuse, theoretically, seems about right. But 10 years in prison?
It is unlikely they will serve 10 years in prison for this, but again, as Hugh noted, the outrage meter would be much higher had the gender roles for this instance been reversed.
I actually don’t have a problem with this particular double standard, because I believe that women are in fact more prone to becoming victims of third degree sexual abuse than men.
Sure, it is definitely unlikely, but I think that’s where it starts to “sound” off to me. They did something wrong. But not 10 years wrong.
Try being male making that argument in a court of law! The women deserve the same treatment under the law! It is funny when women do it, but a completely different thing when men do! Do all men welcome things like this?! Good thing the male wasn’t white!?
“I actually don’t have a problem with this particular double standard, because I believe that women are in fact more prone to becoming victims of third degree sexual abuse than men.”
Group liability. I’m generally against sending pretty female teachers to prison because they had sex with teenage males. Because generally, there’s not enough harm done (rather the opposite). It could be justified in individual cases, but that has to be determined individually, not merely based on group traits. Negative liberty is in favor of the defendant — of the individual defendant.
I’m still stuck on whether this even rises to the level of “crime.” I mean I get that the guy was uncomfortable. I would be too. But I’m not sure that justifies involving the cops and the courts, particularly given their propensity to escalate innocuous bullshit into life-altering confrontations.
I think the real issue here is how much prison time is associated with the crime. Third-degree sexual abuse, theoretically, seems about right. But 10 years in prison?
Yeah, that’s it too. And maybe (probably) she won’t get 10 years, which is the maximum, but even a few years… (plus she may have to register as a sex offender). It seems like this is more along the lines of drunk-and-disorderly conduct than sexual assault…
Maybe she should be charged with… fourth degree sexual abuse? If there is any such thing?
I dunno. Maybe it’s not 10 years of prison worth of battery, but I have no doubt whatsoever that if it were some guy who had walked up behind a woman, started grinding his crotch against her butt, and groped he breasts, he’d be facing similar charges.
10 years worth of battery, on a first charge? I dunno. Certainly something, though.
So, if a guy grinds his crotch against the backside of a random woman on the train, it’s just flirtation? I think it’s safe to say these women will not be imprisoned for a decade unless they curse out the judge or try to twerk him or her, too.
I wouldn’t send her to prison over this. (Speaking based on a superficial look at the facts.) Make her pay him something, and get an official determination of guilt.
So I had this paragraph in there more about this and cut it b/c it was kind of confusing… but I’m not sure. I’ve certainly had male strangers invade my space or touch me inappropriately or (at concerts or parties or whatever) dance up on me without, you know, calling the police. I like to think it depends on whether the person(s) involved pose a genuine threat. In my cases, I could just walk away. In this case, this guy could just walk away. If it were a woman surrounded by two large men… could she just walk away? Maybe, maybe not. Like, the size/power differentials do complicate things. But from a legal standpoint, I guess we can’t go around defining crimes based on subjectively perceived threat level, etc….
I just think there’s a lot of behavior that falls into the realm of obnoxious but not deserving of punishment by the state, and this is an increasingly unpopular view
100% agreed. I mean, personally, I don’t think you should call the cops about any situation you would not be willing to respond to yourself with violence (since I am an anarchist and believe only in private justice anyway). And I agree with Hugh above that whether this rises to the level of “crime” is questionable. But putting my realist hat on, taking a fairly minimally statist position, it does seem like some kind of assault and you are supposed to be able to call the cops for that.
As you pointed out in the post, he may not have responded with force himself because he was worried about getting tagged as an assailant instead of a victim. That’s totally possible. But the right course of action would have been asking them to stop, walking away, and shoving them or using some other level of physical force to get them away from him.
It’s akin to someone aggressively panhandling you on the street. All you can do is walk away. You’re not going to slug anybody over it. Just get clear and that’s that.
You don’t slug hobos? What kind of libertarian are you?
Isn’t that why we have juries?
Yeah. $15,000 later in defense bills, you will be found “not guilty!”
Simply being arrested and put on trial is punishment, even if we pretend it isn’t.
Yeah, the size/power differential creates complexity that can’t really be capture by the law. You definitely don’t want to define a law based on subjective interpretations that are easily abused. But it seems like the only alternative is to have a clearly defined law that there is no way to enforce consistently, and enforce it only on the most egregious cases. Of course that will end up being abused by cops and prosecutors with axes to grind and elections to win.
Asses to grind.
See what I did there?
It looks to me that he was trying to walk away, and the girl in pink kept grabbing him anyway. We can’t know from the video what he said since there’s no audio, but he does appear to be saying something to her. He could have walked out of the store, but he was apparently trying to buy something. It seems strange to put the burden on him to inconvenience himself and not instead blame the girl that is grabbing him.
Blaming her is fine, but the question is whether that blame merits chancing an encounter with the cops and being ground up in the legal system.
cops and being ground up in the legal system.
But it was grinding that got us into this mess!
My answer is yes. If you keep grabbing a stranger that clearly doesn’t want to be touched, it’s definitely assault and merits criminal punishment. 10 years is crazy, but I don’t have any problem with her getting punished and she isn’t going to get 10 years.
So maybe she gets lucky and the cops don’t feel like murdering anyone for no reason that day, and maybe she gets lucky and the prosecutor doesn’t feel like taking her to trial where the jury will hand down a harsher penalty than a white woman who did the same thing, and maybe she gets lucky and only has to spend the rest of her life on the sex-offender registry. All for an incident where nobody was harmed.
Seems legit.
You’re right. We should just stop enforcing criminal laws because there are problems in the system.
That’s…exactly what I said?
If the case progresses it will be plea bargained to a misdemeanor with a fine and probation .
All of which add to the King’s coffers.
Putting her in jail would cost the King some of his hard earned money and take up space reserved for pot smokers.
Assault, fine. Sex crime is a bit much.
It’s weird that the girl in the gray dress initiates the whole thing and then mostly ignores him while the one in pink crawls all over the guy. I don’t think we’re getting the whole story here.
I think offering a co-worker wasabi peas is a criminal act…
So would it be okay if a few guys walked up to you, ‘twerked’ you, groped your breasts and grabbed your butt and did so repeatedly until you left the store? Put yourself in his shoes. I would agree that a single person giving him a single pat on the butt would be offensive but not a crime. This, however, seems to cross a line.
ENB: “at concerts or parties or whatever dance up on me”
Considerable difference betwee a courthouse, a party, and a convenience store. Sexual behavior is commonly seen as more appropriate – and more welcome, more likely sought – in parties (see dancing), less so in a convenience store, and still less so in a courthouse.
As for the law, we do have a conflict between the “reasonable woman” and “reasonable person” (haven’t heard of “reasonable man”, interestingly) standards. And we do have abstract strict liability offenses. They are actually harsher than negligence (regarding mens rea and result). All of them are about mere threat levels, designed to prevent (low-level) risks. (See the Learned Hand Rule.) We do go around and do that stuff. Should we?
Trick question, was the guy a cop?
If he was a cop, she might be dead. Because of officer safety and all that.
We don’t know what the aim of Knight and her friend were?flirtation? Solicitation? Just goofing around?
What? Mens rea? Oh, come on. Nobody believes in that shit anymore.
Reasonable woman standard. Is that what we get then?
I agree that this is relatively minor. However, real men have had their lives ruined for less. Therefore, this needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, if only to help us find the reasonable middle for this debate.
The problem isn’t injustice, it’s that we should spread injustice around more evenly?
* Not to make a stand about the justice or lack thereof in this particular case.
The problem isn’t injustice, it’s that we should spread injustice around more evenly?
14th Amendment bitches!
These laws were meant to protect women, not men. Stupid police. This was so unpredictable.
Where’s my HT? I posted this like a week ago.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
/sage
The dude didn’t appear to be resisting that much. He didn’t look traumatize or anything. Why is this news?
Really? He keeps walking away and the girl in the pink dress keeps grabbing him. His face his blurred out, but it doesn’t look to me like he’s enjoying it.
I didn’t say he’s enjoying it. I said he’s not traumatized. He was mildly resisting. He certainly didn’t appear angry. I would have been annoyed by it also, but I certainly would not have called the cops.
I would ask the store manager to have the two leave, and then ask the clerk to make sure that tape never was shown.
Then I would get my large bag of Swedish Fish and go home.
Sounds like a reasonable response to me.
According to the story, he did that and the clerk said “what do you want me to do?” The story also says that he thought they were prostitutes and that a guy standing outside might have been their pimp. This is in a rough neighborhood, so his guess may well have been right.
And who knows what their John-laws are. If the feminist protect-prostitute, punish-customer approach is in play, him pressing charges would simply be an act of self defense, lest he be presumed a customer. Even a simple public indecency situation can make that an adequate idea. Counter law enforcement, prevent blackmail.
Regardless, “when someone is just grabbing your body parts without your permission, no matter who it is, that’s just a violation completely,”
Ok I get why some men are angry and want to “get even” with the feminist hags out there. But
NOBODY WAS FUCKING VIOLATED!!
Frankly, even if a guy was doing this to a women it shouldn’t be considered sexual assault. Perhaps a misdeamenor harassment if he physically touched her, or was truly threatening.
What the fuck is wrong with the men in this country?
Would you feel the same way if it had been Betty White?
I’ll be Betty White’s boy toy.
What the fuck is wrong with the men in this country?
I’m pretty sure it’s the skinny jeans and messenger bags cutting off oxygen to their dicks.
I think it depends on if that is a homosexual or not.
Straight men who dress like that, yes they deserve ridicule.
Great, now I have to change my entire wardrobe.
Work it. Just don’t be surprised if East Village boys start following you home.
Straight men who dress like that, yes they deserve ridicule.
I remember a couple of years ago there was some low-level noise in the gay community about rejecting that kind of thing. Gay men being and acting “overtly gay”.
I remember a gay man saying about another gay man, “Every time he opens his mouth, a handbag and a pair of pumps falls out”.
I LOL’d.
LOL that is a great line.
Enh, there have always been all kinds – both in men and the kind of men they are attracted to. I personally don’t go for either extreme myself but the fellow in the picture is OK – and yes that could change after he opens his mouth.
Did you watch the video?
From the ‘pulled the video’ link?
It’s marked private.
I posted the good video link days ago. ENB needs to take more care when she’s ripping off my stories.
Try this link, Paul.
http://abc30.com/news/two-wome…..r/1077414/
Ok, I just found another copy of the video three links in.
Way to make us work for the news, ENB.
Getting us to read the articles is part of common core I think…
third paragraph, dude! Police have since pulled video of the incident?captured by a surveillance camera inside the Shell gas-station store?from the department’s YouTube channel, but you can watch it here.
Way to make us work for the news, ENB. Which of the shotgunned links am I supposed to believe? The first, the second, the third, the fourth?
Where does it end?
I vaguely remember watching this the other day (I can’t access it now) – was this really worth calling the cops over?
No, unless you’re a whiny ass baby, why the hell would you want to get these 2 silly women in trouble with the law over something like this?
I say yes. They didn’t make a sandwich and twerk him at the same time. He was denied every man’s fantasy.
Hey, there’s an idea. He could have said, ‘look, beeootches, make me a sammich, or you’re going on the sex offender list! See that camera right there! And be nekked when you make that sammich. A nice sammich with all the fixins!’
I would support the guy for president if he did that.
I was more referring to the women ‘sandwiching’ him. I wouldn’t have been particularly interested in their food preparation talents.
Well, along with their twerkin skills, what else do you think they have? You think these are MIT grads here?
Seems a litte more U Of Missou
I wouldn’t call the cops myself, I don’t think, but they did just keep hassling him and being physical.
The punishment should certainly fit the crime and not go overboard, but you can’t base assault laws on whether you think someone should be attracted to the perpetrator or might just be trying to “get even”. That’s ridiculous.
Why not, if you can determine it with some probability? Beauty (likely attraction) and motives often matter, morally (disposition), and in terms of harm. For example, I find being yelled at by a pretty girl less harmful. Her beauty compensates some of the harm. And if I provoked her, and she “gets even” by yelling, then that seems better than an unprovoked attack.
I wonder if you played this video for Mizzou or Yale students if they would be traumatized and how long it would be before they could return to class, if ever?
Class? Return?
Do you mean the mostly online courses offered in “X studies” that are pass/fail and non-core curriculum? How many chemists, theoretical mathematicians, and physicists are protesting do you think?
Those are STEM people, they aren’t real scientists. Ask Tony. They need to be driven out of our universities, they’re trouble makers and most of them are racists and they’re rapey, they’re very rapey.
Will these two women have to register as sex offenders for life?
I for one, will sleep better at night with this twerking menace off the streets.
I SUMMON THE HEROIC MULATTO!
A Las Vegas women has been arrested for sexual assault after her and a friend twerked up against and groped at male stranger in a D.C. convenience store
Why can’t this kind of thing happen to me? What’s my victim status, chopped liver?
If you object to the law being enforced neutrally and mechanistically, then your problem isn’t with the enforcement, it’s with the law.
That wins.
Instead of putting them in prison, deport them to Texas. I can provide the name and location of a convenience store…
Nikki, you don’t fool us hiding behind the letter N.
The interns are supposed to *look* pretty, not proofread pretty.
/runs
If anything, more women need to be prosecuted under these laws. There’s no doubt in my mind that a man who started rubbing a woman’s crotch and grinding up against her would be looking at a ten year stretch. Hell, a guy guilty of a lot less than that would be looking at that. And, yes, women do this sort of thing in various forms. As long as women are immune from prosecution under these laws, they’ll never have much interest in seeing any of the prosecution end.
Pretty much this. Women need to have skin in the game to prevent the laws from getting burdensome.
As long as women are immune from prosecution under these laws, they’ll never have much interest in seeing any of the prosecution end.
If it is not unwelcome then it is not reported, and if it is not reported then it is not prosecuted.
So it’s not a matter of women being immune from prosecution as it is a matter of men not reporting what they do not find to be unwelcome.
But, unreported doesn’t necessarily mean welcome. It can, and I suspect it does, mean unwelcome but not worth taking flack from the assholes who’ll ridicule him if he does.
I think many men would say “Unwelcome sexual advance? I don’t understand. What does that even mean?”
It means two women who seem like aggressive prostitutes are rubbing on your cock and you would rather they not do that, because either you have a girlfriend, wife, or do not want to risk contracting a sexual disease from women who seem like aggressive prostitutes.
*WHOOSH*
That was my point sailing over your head.
I see that now. I reflexively become annoyed at the dude-bro “who turns down sex with chicks!” argument.
You can’t rape the willing, and you can’t sexually assault the willing. That’s why stories of women raping and sexually assaulting men are so rare: Most men are willing.
So, you’d welcome sexual advances from Crazy Mary.
Good to know.
And if anything, the man doing this wouldn’t deserve 10 years.
And unless women also face the possibility of 10 years for it, few will give two shits about the guy getting ten. I’d venture a sizable majority would even support it.
Most people don’t really much care about the injustices they inflict on others. It sucks, but it’s basically true. They’ll only much care if there’s a reasonable likelihood that injustice will be visited on them.
Agree totally. While I realize we can’t base laws on subjective feelz (see all the cops who feel threatened and shoot unarmed people or dogs).
But at the same time, the following 2 scenarios really aren’t the same thing:
1)some skinny drunk broad comes up to a 250 pound football player and tries grabbing his junk
2) drunk 250 pound football player tries to grab skinny broads boobs
I am not sure I have an answer. But I do know that this asshole WASN’T VIOLATED!
What about two 250 lb. women coming up to a 130 lb skinny guy ?
Color blind.
Prosecute them and make the feminist howl about the war on womenz.
Yes, he was violated. He wasn’t frightened or intimidated the way the skinny woman in #2 would have been, and that makes it different, but both are violations. And clearly he wasn’t willing, as he said he thought she might have really been a man or trying to take his wallet. So the situation made him uncomfortable, although not frightened.
I’d just like to say that with the ridiculous hours that DC liquor stores keep (I’m looking at you, Barrel House on 14th and RI), I would’ve done far worse just for some hooch at 1am…
I would’ve done far worse just for some hooch at 1am…
But he had two hooches twerking him. And it looks like the middle of the afternoon.
It’s like you haven’t ever read the news.
Which is why I’ll never go to Brazil, probably.
Putting aside the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of this action, does anyone find it disturbing that the answer to inequality is to have the state hammer everyone equally?
Yes.
Depends.
If you know a lot of people cheer for that state hammer because they know it’ll never come down on them, then, yes, having the state hammer come down on everyone equally might very well be a good thing. It might make the people cheering step back and say, “Gee, maybe that state hammer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…”. But, if you have some people who are only going to benefit from the state hammer because it only comes down on others, you can pretty much count on them cheering.
You see, there is an argument to be made on behalf of injustice, boys and girls!
On what fucking planet is equality before the law “injustice”. People shouldn’t be able to pass laws that they aren’t going to be subject to. That’s a principle that should be obvious to anyone with an IQ above room temperature.
Oh, so now the state hammer is okay.
Your analogies will work so much better if you’re consistent. Also, this entire theory – that a gender subjected to onerous laws will work to prevent it somehow happening to others, due to firsthand injustice et cetera – seems to have a giant hole in it. If it worked, you would be arguing on my side.
Oh, so now the state hammer is okay.
I said no fucking such thing. You’re the one who seems just fine and dandy with some people being able to wield it with no consequence to themselves.
And you completely mischaracterize my argument. I’ll say it slowly. With few words. So you’ll understand.
If. a. person. isn’t. subject. to. an. unjust. law. they’ll. be. more. likely. to. support. that. law.
Precious, is that the best you’ve got? Granted, not the first time and surely not the last time a woman will say that to you, but morphing my “Injustice is always bad, mmkay” argument into “our of control misandry, oh man gods, someone hold me the horror!!!” is just a tad intellectually dishonest.
I mean, sure, you have zero valid argument here. Your flawed logic is violated by your own opinions, and you’re down to shrieking insults as the debate of last resort.
Bitch, please.
So, in other words, no you don’t have a substantive response. If you can’t argue in good faith, stop wasting my time.
By the way, I was unaware that you were a woman.
But, I’m sure you’re beautiful on the inside.
People shouldn’t be able to pass laws that they aren’t going to be subject to”
Obamacare is a prime and recent example.
No, if we’re talking about an actual crime like sexual assault then everyone who commits that crime should be hammered down equally. This woman was engaged in unwanted groping and should be treated the same as a man engaged in unwanted groping. The idea that this was “normal courtship” is ridiculous. It was not normal at all. It was bizarre and showed poor judgement and a complete lack of boundaries. It’s completely uncivilized behavior and should not be legal. It’s unwanted touching. What is so hard to comprehend about this, people?! Yes, she should go to jail. Maybe she’ll think twice about doing something so stupid next time.
What is the case for sexual assault laws separate from ordinary assault laws?
“Yet something about the whole business rubs me the wrong way nonetheless.”
That thing you did, ENB? I saw it.
I saw it and was triggered.
ENB must be a transsexual or something. I know it’s not a transvestite because there’s no Adam’s Apple.
No normal woman thinks about sex this much, 24/7/365. Hell, there are some gay men out there who don’t even think about sex this much! To say it’s weird would be an understatement.
Have you ever seen ENB and Robby Soave in the same room together? I certainly haven’t.
NTTAWWT.
(But honestly, Elizabeth, “Soave”? Like suave? A little on the nose, don’t you think?)
Holy crap, I haven’t either! Time to take a closer look at those Halloween party pictures…
Battery is now ok with libertarians.
What a moment you guys had. Good luck with whatever the fuck you became.
True libertarians haven’t changed, this journal has just gotten taken over by some real lowlife D.C. SJW scum is all.
Sometimes equality sort of backfires doesn’t it.
They were probably hookers trying to drum up business…
I agree that affirmative consent generally is nonsense.
And I wonder whether your take here is consistent: “They’re also relatively small in comparison to the victim. It’s tempting to say he should have just pushed them away?although one can also imagine he feared being branded an assailant if he did so.” What’s your advice to a woman when a man rubs himself against her from behind? You should just push him back? The legal risk to men (which you note, admirably) is comparable to the physical risk to women. In many cases women’s risk is probably lower, such as when in a store, where there’d be witnesses to violence and the man faces legal risk.
Would a “marginally aggressive” man pawing at a woman receive the same leniency?
” It seems to me we’re pathologizing and criminalizing normal parts of courtship, which are sometimes clumsy and always involve imperfect information balances.”
LOL! Normal parts of courtship? There was nothing normal about what this woman was doing. She was acting weird and causing this man to feel uncomfortable. I would certainly hope sexual assault by strangers or by anyone does not become a normal part of courtship or else that will be the death of courtship. It certainly wasn’t the way my husband and I found each other. There is such a thing called BOUNDARIES and people, both male and female, need to learn them. People who don’t learn them might end up in jail. Maybe that will be a good incentive for learning what civilized behavior means.
I don’t recall whether Eli was talking about general trends (presumably) or this in isolation. Irrespective of that, criminalizing things that aren’t in line with proper courtship and romance is not a way to strengthen these. They depend on a personal choice, individual commitment to the ideals and meaning. They become less meaningful – certainly less special – when everyone is obligated to act that way. Not to mention that the occasional transgression is intriguing. (Though I guess it would remain intriguing when you make it criminal.)
What’s good for the gander is also good for the goose. Overreaching laws that disproportionatly affect men won’t be changed until they affect women, too.