On Carrie Fisher's Memoirs and How To Raise Our Sons

Yesterday, this article on Carrie Fisher (famously known as Princess Leia from Star Wars) was wildly reposted on my Newsfeed by the people I know: Carrie Fisher's last Harrison Ford story isn't romantic, it's tragic. A few paragraphs from this story goes something like this...

In the wake of Carrie Fisher’s unexpected death at age 60, her new memoir, The Princess Diarist, is an unexpectedly emotional read. But the emotions aren’t grief and nostalgia so much as alarm and sympathy. Early in the book, she tells a thoroughly appalling story that she presents as a cheery little romp. In London for the filming of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, Fisher attends George Lucas’ birthday party, where she’s “essentially the only girl” in a room full of hard-drinking crew who are loudly whinging that they’d rather shoot in “a nice remote location… where there’s no bloody shortage of strange but friendly quim.” 

At the time, Fisher is 19, and by her own admission, naïve and agonizingly insecure. So when the crew members briefly stop teasing her (“here’s our little princess without her buns”) and decide to get her drunk, she quickly caves, even though she hates the taste and effects of alcohol. “It makes me stupid, sick, and unconscious really fast,” she admits. “I’ve never actually been drunk—just senseless and inert.” But she wants to fit in. A couple of drinks later, she’s reeling and incoherent, at which point several men surround her and try to hustle her out of the party, “to wherever movie crews take young actresses when they want to establish that the actress belongs to them.” 

Then Harrison Ford steps in, in what sounds like a real-life version of a movie scene: “Pardon me,” he tells a crew member who claims Fisher wants to get a little air, “but the lady doesn’t seem to be very aware of what she wants.” An argument breaks out, and Ford yanks Fisher away from the party and into a car — and starts making out with her. He is married and has two kids. He is 14 years older than her. She is drunk, and he just finished saying she isn’t aware enough to make rational decisions. And that’s how their affair starts: the affair everyone wrote about with a frisson of pop culture glee when The Princess Diarist came out a few weeks ago. The real-life Princess Leia and Han Solo, at the height of their youthful hotness and iconic movie star familiarity, got it on while shooting Star Wars, then kept it secret for nearly 40 years! What a story!

One female friend comments that she is bothered by this because she has a 19-year old daughter. And, of course, as her mother she wonders if this is something that can happen to her daughter.

I kept saying "She was 19. He was 34. Back in the 1970s, how do people actually behave back then? 

It is only now that there is an emerging awareness that, maybe, instead of taking advantage of a drunken situation, maybe he could have been a gentleman and just took care of a 19-year old lost girl. But, at 19, people do look at you as an adult. And, as the comments would say, this happened between two consenting adults.

And so another article popped out from the newsfeed, one that was about an incident in Pakistan featured in Buzzfeed: Indian Parents ARen't Raising Their Sons Right, And It's Endangering India's Women

That article is not just about India but also applies to other countries. It also applies to the Philippines. There was a part in that article that hits it in the spot. And I would like to quote it here:

Ultimately, parents raising daughters can’t end sexual assault. They can only issue warnings and hope for the best from a world they don’t trust. 

Parents raising sons, on the other hand, hold all the power to change the world. 

So, if you’re raising a boy, consider this a plea. Our lives are in your hands.

Instead of our parents teaching us caution, start teaching your sons consent. 

Instead of our parents teaching us fear, start teaching your sons respect.   

Teach your sons about gender equality. Teach your sons what “No” means. (Hint: It means no.) Teach your sons that they aren’t entitled to any woman’s body, attention, or time. 

Instead of our parents teaching us modesty, teach your sons about personal space. 

Instead of our parents teaching us to avert gazes, teach your sons not to stare. 

Teach your sons about healthy masculinity, healthy romance, and healthy sexual relationships. 

Teach your sons to be enraged by rape, assault, and crimes against all women, not just women they can process as wives, mothers, and sisters. 

That all people, of all genders, warrant equal respect. 

Your little boy will watch movies in which the hero gets the girl by stalking and harassing her. Teach your sons that what they’re witnessing is a crime. Protect your sons from the toxic pop culture threatening to corrupt their notions of right and wrong. 

Teach your sons that love is built, not coerced. That sex is agreed upon, not taken. 

Fathers, your sons will learn how to treat women from how you treat women. Demonstrate respect. Demonstrate equality. 

Teach your sons that it is manly to educate other men in equality, too. 

Teach your sons how to express emotion. That violence is not an option. That nobody, no matter what they’re wearing or drinking, “deserves” or “asks for” it. 

Instead of our parents teaching us to be wary of men, raise your sons to be men who don’t need to be feared. 

Instead of our parents teaching us how to avoid assault, teach your sons that it is unforgivable to assault women. 

Instead of our parents teaching us how to navigate an untrustworthy world, teach your sons to change it.

#ChangeTheNarrative