One effect of the fallout from Harvey Weinstein is what feels like a novel unity among women. Feminism has never been a unified chorus – and all the better for that. But in recent years it has felt as if an entire mini-industry has arisen around the personal branding device of My Feminism is Superior to Your Feminism.
For a moment, it looked as if Donald Trump might change this: here was a man we could all get behind hating. But of course, we couldn’t; 42% of women in the US voted for him, sending the signal that his grossness towards women wasn’t a deal-breaker.
The ongoing Weinstein scandal is different. The fact that he is nominally progressive probably helped conservative women who gave Trump a free pass see the accusations – and the notion of sexual harassment more generally – as something other than a dark liberal plot. Since then, the landslide of revelations against powerful men has spread so fast and so wide that even those women who tell other women to suck it up and move on, or those who get their kicks from telling other women their feminism is sub standard, have found common cause. The power of what we are seeing is not in the severity of the stories, about which arguments continue to rage, but in their universality.
Well, almost. As high-profile men in public positions are brought down, a million undocumented assaults carry on in unglamorous settings. The difference this time is that the concentration of coverage has been so intense that it has swept aside the usual divisions between those nominally on the same side.
Consciousness-raising is supposed to take years, but this has all happened in weeks. Everyone is implicated – not because we are all either predators or victims, but because this is about how we are with each other, and how what’s OK and what’s not is decided. I can’t think of another story in my lifetime that has so decisively transcended all boundaries.
A testing time for kids
The school application process is under way in New York and it is terrifying. Fancy putting your four-year-old forward for multiple tests, interviews, auditions and trips to the educational psychologist? Step this way.
Even by the standards of big cities, the New York public school system is insane, divided between multiple programmes, funding models and zoning rules you need an Excel spreadsheet to keep up with. There are low-level, mid-level and top-level brainy schools, with consultants and private tutors tailoring services for each. Four-year-olds must score inside the top 1% to get into Manhattan’s best state school – and that’s if the psychologist approves them. Last year, there were 2,200 applicants for 50 places.
And this is before you even get to the private schools, where the hustle isn’t to get in, but to be awarded financial aid. In a city where the cost of living is so great, you can earn in the six figures and still qualify for help. The common denominator in all these processes isn’t talent, of course, but a parent with the resources to navigate the system.
Playground politics
My local elementary school just informed parents that every pupil is to be given a winter coat “with the help of our friends at Morgan Stanley”. (Informal figures suggest 30% of students have no permanent address.)
This is a great initiative that indicates the disparity between the families here who have the time and education to spend weeks prepping for tests, and the families who can’t cover the basics.