You do not have a right to be respected if you do not respect yourself. Rachel Carey rests her article “Get your own respect” on this assertion. My question is: What type of respect is Rachel referring to? There are two radically different types of respect that Rachel equivocates.
The first type is admiration or acknowledgement of extraordinary worth; I respect Nobel laureates for their accomplishments. The second type is a basic level of dignity; I respect a woman’s right to say no. The difference is the first must be earned while the second is inherent.
A person should not, and does not, have to do anything including “show the opposite sex that there is more to [him/her] than a pretty face” in order to have the right to be treated with basic dignity. M awards have to be earned; the right to not be raped, degraded or treated like an object, including meat, does not. She was drunk on a bus and maybe that means she deserves to vomit, have a hangover, trip and skin her knee. It doesn’t mean she deserves to lose her humanity.
I have a duty (as a member of the SMU community and as a human) to treat everyone with this basic level of dignity even if they don’t treat themselves with that same level of dignity.
Here’s an example: Bob chooses to cut himself or engage in another self-destructive activity. Do I gain the right to go up and cut Bob? No. This is the same kind of absurdity that Rachel seems to be advocating. The daughter in the supermarket isn’t complaining that she was denied a Rhodes scholarship; she’s complaining she isn’t being treated as fully human.
To all of the SMU men reading this, Rachel is correct in pointing out that the media and society have trained us to look mainly at external qualities. There’s nothing wrong with taking these into account as long as they aren’t the only thing. Physical attraction is a necessary, but an insufficient thing to base an interaction on. Rachel also implies that men are part of the problem; she’s right.
Next time you see a friend treating any girl in a way you wouldn’t want your mother, sister or daughter treated, say something. You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) start a brawl, but make it clear that certain kinds of behavior are unacceptable. One day his son might date your daughter, so set the standards now.
There is one other thing that Rachel did get correct. There is a disparity between the standards applied to men and women. The assertion that women ought to have to do something additional to receive basic dignity is one of these disparities; and one Rachel seems to subscribe to. Everyone has a duty to respect the basic level of dignity all people have. After all, Rachel, you’re still a person even if you’re “drunk and falling out of [your] outfit,” aren’t you?
About the writer:
Alex Miller is a senior philosophy major. He can be reached at [email protected].