Changing Attitudes

Last night we started watching Liar on Netflix and it made me realise how much women’s attitudes to sex on a date have changed – for the better.

Synopsis – A teacher goes on a date with a surgeon and accuses him of assault the next day.

When I was dating 35+ years ago I know me and my mates would half expect that we would have sex at the end of the night to “pay for the night out” so to speak. That didn’t mean we were compliant but just that we almost did not respect ourselves. I know that if many of my generation had woken up the following morning, like the Laura does, and believed we had not given consent but had been raped we would have just got on with our day. We would not have gone to the Police. Possibly even would not have told anyone. It was just what happened.

Even though the series looks as if it will unfold into something much deeper for me I am hooked by the way Laura stands up for herself. But also that her sister, Katy, at least in this first episode, is willing to support her. I know that even my most caring friends 35+ years ago would have just told me to get over it.

In fact I was assaulted by a boyfriend, and quite badly knocked about, and was encouraged by my boss, a Turkish hotel owner, to go to the Police about it. It did go to court but only because I had a lovely female Police officer who would not let me drop it. But the judge’s verdict was that it was my own fault for staying with this man. I’m not sure if things have changed that much there!

But for me it was seeing Laura, and I’ve seen too with my daughter and her friends, that many of them will now say ‘enough it enough and we expect to be treated with respect’.

So even if the many attitudes have not changed I was encouraged to see the protagonist in this series and also what I see from my daughter and her friends no longer being as me and most of my friends were.

Maybe it should not be the women who have to stand up for themselves but it is still a better way than my generation that just accepted having sex as part of a night out.