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The last ten years or so have seen a number of watershed moments when it comes to sexual assault exposure, from the Sandusky affair at Penn State to the Catholic church scandals to Weinsten and Epstein more recently. In politics particularly it's become more a point of contention as it factored heavily into the coverage of Roy Moore's Senate bid, Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, and Al Franken's resignation from the Senate. Having said that, it was not a deal-breaker for Kavanaugh the way it was for those other, earlier parties, showing a lower stigma to this act than before, paving the way for 2020 which saw two presidential candidates with credible sexual assault claims against them vie for the position of most powerful person in the world, with one of them winning after the story of their allegation largely being suppressed or dismissed by the media. Regardless of Joe Biden's guilt or innocence, a sober reflector on the events cannot be happy that he only needed to do one response, that there wasn't questions about it in the primary or general debate, that in short there seemed to be little interest in it purely based off of political factors and narrative control. But this thread isn't about Joe Biden specifically, rather, it's a discussion about the difficulties of confirming reporting and also a discussion of where activism should go and what can be done to help this issue moving forward. It's frustrating seeing a country where the Oscars can dedicate an entire ceremony to #metoo and in the same ceremony award Kobe Bryant an Oscar. It's frustrating watching sports journalism refer to sexual assault as "adversity" when it comes to athletes; whose adversity is it, actually? And of course, there's the ongoing and seemingly never-ending failures the church has on this issue, Catholic or Protestant, as highlighted recently by allegations against late evangelist Ravi Zacharias. So am I a social worker? No. To briefly dip into E/N here, I was molested twice when I was 7 by a fourteen-year old neighbor of mine. I reported to my parents months after it happened due to death threats from my victimizer and also not understanding the full implications of what I'd been through, being a child and all. This was too much a lapse of time for the local law enforcement to really feel comfortable recommending my family take it to trial, and so it was just left as a note on the offender's record and I was granted a restraining order (though not a particularly effective one). In several ways, I'm not the typical experience of a sexual assault survivor, in that I was male and was believed by everyone I talked to. Where my experience does dovetail more is it being with someone I knew (which most sexual assaults are) and someone who I continued to spend time with even after my assault. I've seen brought up many times situations where the perpetrator of an assault was still spoken of fondly or associated with by their victims afterwards, and I can attest that can happen. I also can attest that the aftermath, even in a believed-in case, can sometimes be in ways worse than the assault itself. I had to grow up as a teenager in a very conservative area that loved to joke around about assault and basically grit my teeth the entire time. While I did get fairly helpful rape victim counseling after my assault (yet another privilege), I did get to see just how poorly public school counseling could handle that situation in the 90s by watching them fumble around when I brought it up and just tell me to focus on the positives in my life instead. But that's perspective, not expertise. I'd love for people with actual backgrounds in this stuff, be it counseling or social services or what have you, could weigh in on their observations of public perception of this crime have evolved over the years and also how we can deal with the bigger problem of how this gets reported. Because, as noted above, I wasn't able to prosecute effectively because I didn't report immediately and probably wouldn't have even gotten very far if I had (this article goes into how that can happen: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/opinions/arlington-texas/). There's also the matter of sorting out "believe victims" versus occasional actual false reporting, and figuring out in what situations people false report and why they do that instead of playing the gross game of believing people unless we disagree with them. Even in the case of Roy Moore, there was false reporting because James O'Keefe is an absolute creep, so seeing studies on how often that actually happens may be interesting. It's not a fun topic and the obvious trigger warnings apply. Preferably this would talk about the phenomenon in abstract and not be a specific relitigating of any particular past molestation case because, sad to say, soon enough we'll probably have yet another case that we're all talking about in a month anyway. Let's keep things civil, it's my birthday after all.
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Nov 10, 2020 15:36
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Hey happy birthday, thanks for taking the time to talk sensitively about such a heavy topic. As a survivor, and political professional (with background in campaign and advocacy), I think the #MeToo movement is, unfortunately, going to be more and more irrelevant except as a badge to wear to show that you're a Good Person^tm tm despite the poo poo policy positions. One big side of that is profiteering: the giant sexy Medusa statue sculpted by a man so he could tell t-shirts with the photo of the statue of that to #girlbosses, razor blade brands using #MeToo in ads to sell more razors, the list goes on. And for all of those who make money off the language of survivors, there are those who weaponize themselves as survivors in order to say poo poo that amounts to "you don't deserve healthcare because I project my abusive father onto Bernie Sanders." And it's frustrating because #MeToo allowed many people who hadn't come forward before to come forward, men and women. Similar to BLM, it was a radical opportunity for change that is used cynically to sell gidgets and let lady CEOs exploit the working women under them. I have no hope for #MeToo anymore. Like every other feminist movement, it is abused to let powerful women off the hook for harming other women (think right-wing dipshits tweeting things like "aren't feminists happy a women like Amy Coney Barrett can be on the Supreme Court hurr hurr" when she would irreparably harm other women by denying them healthcare and abortion access (which is also healthcare but I digress)). We're not going to win unless we can start speaking in material terms, instead of victimhood. We failed when Kavanaugh was put on the court, we failed when Joe Biden won the primary, and we're going to keep failing until people on Reddit stop posting four different "Men who have been falsely accused of sexual assault why should all women get the death penalty" threads every week. I might be way too pessimistic, but watching my survivor mother dismiss accusations against Joe Biden just because she wanted him to win the primary while harping about the accusations against Trump was like a kick in the teeth. What the absolute hell
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Nov 10, 2020 16:13
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Not in the field, but the way MeToo was co-opted by White Brunchlib women and then discarded (looking at you, Alyssa Milano) was loving sickening. I can only imagine the absolute anger in the PoC that started it and watched it become that
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Nov 11, 2020 06:34
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Nothing comes next, because holding the powerful to account is the opposite of #girlboss culture. The future is more Fearless Girl statues, put up by a PR firm for a gimmick stock fund by a rich Wall Street firm that shortly after settled a gender discrimination suit. Hilariously, the same firm later sued the artist when she tried to sell unauthorized reproductions of her work, because gently caress her trying to own her art when rich people might be inconvenienced. The future is championing endless pointless gestures of identity while everything gets worse.
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Nov 11, 2020 08:13
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They're done. The only targets still responsive to the movement are video game developers.
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Nov 11, 2020 08:46
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Freakazoid_ posted:They're done. The only targets still responsive to the movement are video game developers. Small studios only. Large studios get to hide behind either public good will or inertia.
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Nov 11, 2020 09:24
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57001 posted:We're not going to win unless we can start speaking in material terms, instead of victimhood. I apologize in advance for my ignorance, but what do you mean by material terms? Do you mean like setting up support and resources to somehow make coming forward easier, or do you mean changing the culture at large? I assume not the second one because that seems way too easily coopted by people who have vested interests in not actually changing things. If this question is so entry-level as to be insulting, then once again I apologize and will go try to get smart on this.
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Nov 11, 2020 14:29
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I would guess it means provide material support, i.e. money, healthcare, housing, etc, such that women aren't reliant on staying in the good graces of their employer to survive. Its impossible to come out against your abuser when your abuser controls whether you get to have a life or not. Material change might also include putting enforceable laws on the books that protect the victim from excessive intrusion, like interviewing 100 of her friends, family, casual acquaintances, third grade teachers and past employers to determine if they were a real rape victim or a Russian psi-op. 'Raising awareness' and 'calling people out' is dumb poo poo for idiots. PR campaigns don't accomplish lasting change, they just get co-opted by the already powerful.
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Nov 11, 2020 14:50
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Nix Panicus posted:I would guess it means provide material support, i.e. money, healthcare, housing, etc, such that women aren't reliant on staying in the good graces of their employer to survive. Its impossible to come out against your abuser when your abuser controls whether you get to have a life or not. Material change might also include putting enforceable laws on the books that protect the victim from excessive intrusion, like interviewing 100 of her friends, family, casual acquaintances, third grade teachers and past employers to determine if they were a real rape victim or a Russian psi-op. Appreciate the answer here. This seems super obvious in retrospect. Thanks kindly, friend.
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Nov 11, 2020 15:17
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copy posted:I apologize in advance for my ignorance, but what do you mean by material terms? Do you mean like setting up support and resources to somehow make coming forward easier, or do you mean changing the culture at large? I assume not the second one because that seems way too easily coopted by people who have vested interests in not actually changing things. No, thanks for asking! I wasn't very clear, and I think I let myself get caught in some useless jargon. How can we empower survivors? Some survivors don't come forward, because they are in precious economic positions, at risk of losing their housing or livelihoods. I think the Black Survivors Healing Fund is a great example of how small communities (in this case, survivors who don't get help from their HBCUs) can provide material support for those who best need it. So it's very much like Nix Panicus said: Nix Panicus posted:I would guess it means provide material support, i.e. money, healthcare, housing, etc, such that women aren't reliant on staying in the good graces of their employer to survive. Its impossible to come out against your abuser when your abuser controls whether you get to have a life or not. Material change might also include putting enforceable laws on the books that protect the victim from excessive intrusion, like interviewing 100 of her friends, family, casual acquaintances, third grade teachers and past employers to determine if they were a real rape victim or a Russian psi-op. And then there is the conversational element: We cannot let victimhood become an identity. It cannot be a cudgel used to cynically win an argument. It is not an identity you throw around to gotcha someone. You either believe survivors or you don't, you don't get to pick and choose. You don't get to run interference for Joe Biden in the primaries after saying that Trump R*peman Bad. At the same time, part of believing survivors means that we take these accusations seriously and give them the serious investigations they deserve. We don't get to summarily fire Al Franken. We investigate, we deliberate, we are fair to both parties. People aren't going to want to #BelieveWomen if they can tell its a ploy to get a guy fired. (Not saying this is true in the case of Franken, simply that we need standards!) I think I'm a little rambley here, so I appreciate the patience of anyone reading this.
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Nov 11, 2020 16:55
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I don't think it's done and the people who were using it as a convenient way to snipe at their enemies are scum who're going to find out very quickly that it's not a movement that goes away. It's also broader than just America, there's stuff happening in France because of it and presumably elsewhere. Here's an article about a French pedophile who lost his pension because of it.quote:I have no hope for #MeToo anymore. Like every other feminist movement, it is abused to let powerful women off the hook for harming other women (think right-wing dipshits tweeting things like "aren't feminists happy a women like Amy Coney Barrett can be on the Supreme Court hurr hurr" when she would irreparably harm other women by denying them healthcare and abortion access (which is also healthcare but I digress)). We're not going to win unless we can start speaking in material terms, instead of victimhood. Getting the stories out there is important and the victory comes decades from now after the last abuser is dead. Meanwhile, when people try to cynically appropriate #metoo, call them shitters and keep pushing for institutional change. Republicans won a battle with ACB not the war.
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Nov 11, 2020 19:06
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Relevant Tangent posted:I don't think it's done and the people who were using it as a convenient way to snipe at their enemies are scum who're going to find out very quickly that it's not a movement that goes away. I'm intrigued by this. Has something specific happened recently that you are referring to, or is this just a general statement? If its the latter: personally, I dont think anyone should be turned away in the struggle to get victims of abuse heard. Everyone has a motive, unless that motive discredits a movement, it should be of no concern to the whole.
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Nov 11, 2020 19:18
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Neurolimal posted:Everyone has a motive, unless that motive discredits a movement, it should be of no concern to the whole. This is a really important point. "You're just doing this for [X]" is only a valid point if "doing this for [X]" actually impacts what they're saying and the truth of it. It's like folks complaining about good deeds being virtue signalling, or the people who say that altruism isn't real because people who are altruistic feel good from it- sure, you've got a point, but that point is only tangentially relevant (sorry) to the conversation and usually doesn't actually change the events that happened. It is, at best, a smear by association. Most of the folks claiming that a person is cynically appropriating a movement are doing so to direct hate at, and therefore silence, that person; most of the time their motives are considered beyond question. As an example of real cynical appropriation, @lilmiquela- a virtual influencer cartoon character whose creators put out a video where "she" told "her" story of having been sexually abused? 100% a grift, no question, no reason to question it. She doesn't loving exist. Her creators are actively doing harm to #metoo by necessarily associating the movement with complete and obvious fabrication of events that didn't happen, by people who do not exist, blamed on other people who also do not exist. If her story is based on real events, those real events are now associated with a loving cartoon. The creators wanted to get in on the action of #metoo and made a cartoon about it to make their character seem more relatable and therefore drive more traffic, and therefore more brand deals, to their character. Real human people who come forward are inevitably burning a vast amount of their reputation and good will in order to do so, and any cynicism directed toward their motives should keep that in mind. Somfin fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 21:55
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Neurolimal posted:I'm intrigued by this. Has something specific happened recently that you are referring to, or is this just a general statement? Just a general statement. I do think that the motive matters though, if you ignore it entirely it encourages people like Jacob Wohl and others of his ilk to just fabricate claims.
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Nov 11, 2020 23:46
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Isn't it over now that the democrats abandoned it.
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Nov 11, 2020 23:48
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Do you think #metoo was fake or astroturfed? It wasn't the Dems who started it. It's not over afaict, though you do have to go looking for it.
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Nov 12, 2020 01:25
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Relevant Tangent posted:Do you think #metoo was fake or astroturfed? It's not over afaict, though you do have to go looking for it. I think it's dead in the water after we elected a rapist to the highest office in this country to replace another rapist. and "having to look for it" is a very bad sign for mass political movements.
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Nov 12, 2020 01:35
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As a teacher I'm incredibly hopeful. I will give the caveat that I live and work in New York City, so there is a liberal bias. I get to teach the progressive book that defines various gender identities and sexualities to twelve year olds (That goons helped support!). Sexual education has moved far beyond just avoiding pregnancy and STIs. There is a huge focus on healthy relationships, self-image, and consent. Beyond that, consent is incredibly built into my kids' minds. Parents talk about it and it's all over media my kids consume. Sometimes the kids even mention it in a joking way (A kid announces in their D&D group that their character is married to another character but sly says, "It's okay, I asked for their consent first.") Like even in that incredibly dorky and weird, half joking example, you see how aware kids are of the concept. More than that, there does seem to be less pressure for gender norms. A lot more kids are experimenting with non-binary and ace identities. Maybe those won't be the identities that define them longterm, but to me it shows that their is less a need to wrap one's self worth in narrow identities. Having taught for ten years, it's a huge difference. One of my early teaching experiences, I was treated like I was overreacting for becoming concerned with how often boys were grabbing girls' butts in schools. I think people get way to obsessed with traditional power hierarchies when they talk about sexual harassment and assault. My own harassment experiences have come from people who are my peers. I do understand people getting upset when the powerful get away with things, but I'll be frank, those who ring in with the whole me too is dead stuff aren't really helpful. I do think there are cultural shifts that we don't see on a daily basis, but they are there. FilthyImp posted:Not in the field, but the way MeToo was co-opted by White Brunchlib women and then discarded (looking at you, Alyssa Milano) was loving sickening.
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Nov 12, 2020 02:44
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Stairmaster posted:Isn't it over now that the democrats abandoned it. Stairmaster posted:I think it's dead in the water after we elected a rapist to the highest office in this country to replace another rapist. The idea that the Democrats control #metoo is really dumb and accepting of a conservative framing of the movement. When I mentioned looking for it I mean it's like any other movement, you do in fact have to go looking for them if you want information about them. Timeless Appeal posted:I think people get way to obsessed with traditional power hierarchies when they talk about sexual harassment and assault. My own harassment experiences have come from people who are my peers. I do understand people getting upset when the powerful get away with things, but I'll be frank, those who ring in with the whole me too is dead stuff aren't really helpful. I assume that the people who think it's dead think that because they either want it dead or have willfully blinded themselves to it not being dead.
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Nov 12, 2020 03:47
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They don't control it, but the media manufactures consent for them, and they've made it clear any woman who accuses a sufficiently powerful Democrat will be absolutely destroyed personally and professionally, so for all intents and purposes it's dead because who would dare accuse a powerful man of rape now. Frankly it wouldn't have become a thing in the first place if Trump hadn't been so crude and rude, if he'd been affable and funny like Bush the Democrats and media would have closed ranks behind the bipartisan good old boy network like they always did for powerful rapists in the past (Bill Clinton, etc) VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Nov 12, 2020 |
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Nov 12, 2020 03:50
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Relevant Tangent posted:The idea that the Democrats control #metoo is really dumb and accepting of a conservative framing of the movement. When I mentioned looking for it I mean it's like any other movement, you do in fact have to go looking for them if you want information about them. it's not that they 'control' it but of the two major political parties we've gone from one saying metoo has gone too far and maybe folks need to chill out and the other saying no we should believe victims and listen to their stories to...now both parties doing it and that's pretty fuckin bad! Also in this case 'the democrats' includes the media apparatuses who rallied around calling Joe Biden's victim either a literal Russian agent or just burying and ignoring her entirely and that's no good!
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Nov 12, 2020 04:00
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It's not a coincidence that MeToo was allowed to come to prominence at the precise moment we had a rapist Republican president instead of a rapist Democrat for a change, a Republican that Democrats hated (not for the rape obv, but for being crass and rude and for mocking the political system), and one that Democrats were desperate to differentiate themselves from on some issue since they agree on 90% of stuff (cage immigrants, endless wars, gently caress the poor, kill the earth, etc). Pretending to care about rape for a hot second was useful politically, and this had some good knock-on effects because assault victims were allowed to take down powerful men like Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken, but now that window is closed because the most powerful man in the world is a rapist Democrat so there's no longer any appetite in the Democratic Party or the liberal media to hold powerful rapists to account.
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Nov 12, 2020 04:06
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I do understand frustration with Biden as President who had questionable interactions with women even if you don't believe Tara Reade. But I feel like a lot of the sentiments in this thread are undermining the continued efforts of the Movement, the individuals involved in the movement, and, probably most importantly, the international nature of the movement.
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Nov 12, 2020 04:28
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Timeless Appeal posted:I do understand frustration with Biden as President who had questionable interactions with women even if you don't believe Tara Reade. Believing that you're succeeding when you're not succeeding is not without a cost. When powerful people start actually being held accountable for this stuff (in actual meaningful ways that aren't just a slap on the wrist), then we can claim that maybe some progress is being made. As is, it's like claiming that progress is being made on climate change because more people accept that climate change is real. My personal view is that you can't separate something like this from the power that allows people like Weinstein, etc to do what they do. You have to address the power in order to address the abuse.
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Nov 12, 2020 04:49
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Ytlaya posted:Believing that you're succeeding when you're not succeeding is not without a cost. Joe Biden is President but Harvey Weinstein is not only in prison, but they literally put a statue outside the courthouse to celebrate the fact. Louis CK lost some of his ability to create, but Anthony Anderson is weirdly grandfather-claused in. Al Franken is out, Bretty Kavanaugh is in. The systems of power are complicated. Victories against them are inconsistent, and how you fail in some ways and win in others can be baffling. But that doesn't mean there haven't been victories at all be they in actually taking down select powerful abusers, raising awareness, pushing corporate policies, and public policy. And some of the victories are going to be subtle which is why I posted my anecdote of how the notion of consent is becoming so central to the lives of children. When Tarana Burke created the movement, the first spark was telling a child who had been sexually assaulted, "Me too." Reform is important, but it actually does matter that we demystify sexual assault and harassment. We cannot get anywhere unless we see it as a pandemic, something that does not happen in isolated cases, but something that happens to an outrageous amount of people by their fellow human beings at very hierarchal levels. We're in agreement that longterm, systems of powers must be dismantled, but it actually does matter that we focus on the experience of the victims, not just preventing new victims, but creating a globally empowered community. I think on that level the MeToo movement has been enormously successful. I think listening to Burke is helpful... Tarana Burke posted:I hope people can move away from the idea that... it's more than just a hashtag to take down powerful white men, and understand it's about shedding light on the global pandemic that is sexual violence. It's about doing the work to eradicate sexual violence, while also supporting the people who have experienced it. We will work closely with other organizations, like Black Lives Matter and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, because sexual violence is the common thread that runs through almost all social justice issues. We also want to continue to contribute to national conversations, work in communities, and lead the charge to create change.
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Nov 12, 2020 05:29
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VitalSigns posted:It's not a coincidence that MeToo was allowed to come to prominence at the precise moment we had a rapist Republican president instead of a rapist Democrat for a change, a Republican that Democrats hated (not for the rape obv, but for being crass and rude and for mocking the political system), and one that Democrats were desperate to differentiate themselves from on some issue since they agree on 90% of stuff (cage immigrants, endless wars, gently caress the poor, kill the earth, etc). Pretending to care about rape for a hot second was useful politically, and this had some good knock-on effects because assault victims were allowed to take down powerful men like Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken, but now that window is closed because the most powerful man in the world is a rapist Democrat so there's no longer any appetite in the Democratic Party or the liberal media to hold powerful rapists to account. what is this? #metoo gained traction because it spoke to the direct experience of likely a majority of women (and a huge number of men and other folks as well). Idk how it could be realistically suggested that it was some politically convenient hit job when there's so much more evidence that it came about naturally in response to peoples' experience.
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Nov 12, 2020 05:41
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Herstory Begins Now posted:what is this? #metoo gained traction because it spoke to the direct experience of likely a majority of women (and a huge number of men and other folks as well). Idk how it could be realistically suggested that it was some politically convenient hit job when there's so much more evidence that it came about naturally in response to peoples' experience. "allowed" to gain traction is the key word. in contrast to what has been done since, viz. women with bad opinions about vladimir putin don't deserve to be believed. the claim is not that it was astroturfed, it's that the natural growth wasn't ripped out by the roots until a prominent democrat was in the crosshairs
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Nov 12, 2020 05:44
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Herstory Begins Now posted:what is this? #metoo gained traction because it spoke to the direct experience of likely a majority of women (and a huge number of men and other folks as well). Idk how it could be realistically suggested that it was some politically convenient hit job when there's so much more evidence that it came about naturally in response to peoples' experience. Yeah of course, I'm not saying it was astroturfed or anything, but it was ignored for years until prominent powerful people suddenly had a reason to want to believe accusers, that reason is gone now so they will default back to assuming all women are golddigging liars. Women with those experiences will of course continue the movement, they'll just all be treated like Tara Reade unfortunately
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Nov 12, 2020 05:45
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Herstory Begins Now posted:what is this? #metoo gained traction because it spoke to the direct experience of likely a majority of women (and a huge number of men and other folks as well). Idk how it could be realistically suggested that it was some politically convenient hit job when there's so much more evidence that it came about naturally in response to peoples' experience. well see the problem is 'me too' as a social movement actually began with a black community organizer way back in MYSPACE focusing on empathy and support networks of abuse survivors and all but that somehow never got major play despite being pretty big on what was social media at the time. This isn't saying it was a 'political hit job' but...come on you can't seriously deny that the fact that we finally decided it was bad to have a rapist president wasn't a major factor in why it took off in '17 with things like the women's march and all to build off. Like, you can just see it, how many people who supported 'believe women' are STILL defenders of Clinton, not to mention the treatment of Reade and all. Hell look at how many are still mad about AL FRANKIN getting the mildest punishment ever for getting busted groping unconscious women. The standard is pretty obvious, it's not inherently a partisan thing, I mean Weinstein is who started the '17 rebirth of this and he's a huge democrat fundraiser and all, but it's a thing about how much pre-existing virtue the accused has among the media class and all.
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Nov 12, 2020 05:54
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Not that Gillibrand like, Would Have Won, but it was openly acknowledged that she was persona non grata among the big wigs of the Democratic party because she had the absolute gall to take a principled stand against sexual assault by answering in the affirmative when asked if Bill Clinton should have resigned. And that's when Democrats and the liberal media were still pretending to care about abused women.
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Nov 12, 2020 05:59
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VitalSigns posted:Not that Gillibrand like, Would Have Won, but it was openly acknowledged that she was persona non grata among the big wigs of the Democratic party because she had the absolute gall to take a principled stand against sexual assault by answering in the affirmative when asked if Bill Clinton should have resigned. And that's when Democrats and the liberal media were still pretending to care about abused women. yea I'm not gonna pretend 'kneecaped the NRA's favorite dem in her state' is some grand injustice in the long term but it's so wild that she went from 'wow maybe she has a shot' to a literal joke because she said that the dude who got busted groping women should be punished and the rapist who was president (the other one not this one, drat we keep doing this!) should have resigned??? Not the gun poo poo or the terrible policy stuff????
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Nov 12, 2020 06:02
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Timeless Appeal posted:I think listening to Burke is helpful... I think people get too caught up in scoring points by throwing the bad guys in jail. Like yeah, that's ideal but ultimately even if it never managed to do that it's an important thing for survivors to see they aren't alone.
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Nov 12, 2020 06:31
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Acerbatus posted:I think people get too caught up in scoring points by throwing the bad guys in jail. Like yeah, that's ideal but ultimately even if it never managed to do that it's an important thing for survivors to see they aren't alone. Something that the very public ditching of #metoo and #believewomen by prominent figures punches a hell of a hole in. "We are with you as long as you only talk about bad things done by the other team" was a kick in the gut to folks who felt a lot more comfortable coming forward for a hot minute there.
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Nov 12, 2020 06:56
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Acerbatus posted:I think people get too caught up in scoring points by throwing the bad guys in jail. Like yeah, that's ideal but ultimately even if it never managed to do that it's an important thing for survivors to see they aren't alone. This is what's so maddening about the current dem attitude to MeToo, that response of "you're not alone, we see you, we hear you, and god help you if you're assaulted by someone we like" is almost worse than the wall of silence
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Nov 12, 2020 07:02
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I remember this coming up at the time, and I contemplated posting it again in the latter part of the General Election thread but held off. This thread seems a more appropriate venue: I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway. The author makes some interesting points about the hypocrisy inherent to the moment, as well as abandoning it when it threatens someone on 'your team', although I think some of them are unintentional. quote:In 1998, I was one of a few establishment feminists to argue on behalf of Monica Lewinsky, when the unofficial representative of the movement, Gloria Steinem, threw her under the bus in the pages of The New York Times to protect Bill Clinton. I maintained my position until, two decades and a #MeToo movement later, Ms. Steinem issued a non-apology for the essay. The crux of the argument is that, while it's certainly bad to damage not only this one specific survivor but also the entire #metoo movement, it's fine to do so if you think the potential gains are high enough. The issue isn't that Gloria Steinem did something abhorrent or monstrous, but that what she got for it wasn't good enough; that it would have been fine for thirty pieces of silver, but the twenty she received was insufficient. This was also, rather notably, Harvey Weinstein's argument as well. We're all lucky that his support of 'progressive causes' and being a big-time money man for the Clintons and the DNC wasn't judged to be sufficient grounds to get him off the hook for that, too. Think of how much worse it might have been if he hadn't been organizing fundraisers to get Democrats elected. Do you want Team Red to win? It, genuinely, makes me sick to the stomach to contemplate and I'm someone who caved and voted for Biden. I'll also admit that this is also a very US-centric read, as well as being a very politics-focused one, but it seems like that's where most of the high-profile cases I've seen have been aimed. If that's not true in other countries then I'd be interested to hear more about it.
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Nov 12, 2020 10:10
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Somfin posted:Something that the very public ditching of #metoo and #believewomen by prominent figures punches a hell of a hole in. "We are with you as long as you only talk about bad things done by the other team" was a kick in the gut to folks who felt a lot more comfortable coming forward for a hot minute there. I know from the 2020 thread that a lot of folks are abuse victims themselves, and I understand that some of this stuff is coming from a sincere place of frustration. I'm not defending Biden, the media, or making GBS threads on Reade. But throwing the MeToo movement under the bus and exaggerating its failures isn't helpful. And tying failure to the goalposts of dismantling power structures and bringing down every powerful man who abuses his power is entirely unfair. Timeless Appeal fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Nov 12, 2020 |
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Nov 12, 2020 13:32
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RPZip posted:I'll also admit that this is also a very US-centric read, as well as being a very politics-focused one, but it seems like that's where most of the high-profile cases I've seen have been aimed. If that's not true in other countries then I'd be interested to hear more about it. It's not even true in the US, wrt it being politically focused. Way more people in entertainment or the media have gone down for being sex creeps since #metoo started trending than have in politics. Unless you assume (wrongly) that #metoo was an astroturfed movement designed to bring down Democrats' foes then it's still chugging along doing what it was supposed to do. Ideally it's not aimed at all, it's a gradual social change that leads to fewer instances of sexual assault and a rise in people being aware that consent doesn't exist where structural power issues prevent it from doing so. As for outside the US, there's Ubisoft. So basically what comes next is the movement keeps on being a movement and people will occasionally be reminded it exists as another abuser gets outed.
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Nov 12, 2020 14:23
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The needs of a movement are always going to transcend the movement itself. That was seen with Occupy Wall Street, which was much more of an obvious ineffective failure and was outright shut down by the government, and yet one that nonetheless managed to push wealth inequality to the forefront of though enough to make a socialist a runner-up in two straight primaries; The issue is going to be dealt with regardless of whether a hashtag is put on it or not, so the idea that we will cease to care about rape entirely is not a future I think will ever happen. But Occupy could've been a moment that could've been taken advantage of more, and so too is #metoo, and it feels like the momentum of change is doomed to slow. To go to what RPZip posted, I think that's going to be one of the bigger problems going forward, is the idea that some "greater good" isn't served by demanding justice now, similar to those who thought pursuing the civil rights act would endanger the Great Society. I think, being religious myself, very specifically of the church, where it's all too easy to say that exposing an abuser invalidates all the work they've don saving souls, contributing to charity, etc., especially since there's a shortage in clergy, if I'm not mistaken. The same goes for police officers, that them being exposed for abusers lets the dozens of abusers they're tracking down go scot free. (This last argument might've endured a severe blow considering the reputation of cops in this country right now.) I remember hearing in college once someone say, "I would rather die than be raped," and feeling not too great hearing that considering my own history, but what's interesting is as much as stigmatize rape sometimes even more than homicide in our culture, it does get marginalized in practice as merely a "mistake" in comparison to some greater evil. It does get to the idea of what counts as a disqualifying act at all, but that almost seems like a topic for another thread. A final thought here is also about the entertainers who do get "canceled" for accusations but nonetheless come back, usually branded as some conservative personality. These people aren't ever going to get jailed, so there's no concrete punishment, but the "canceling" just ends up being a requirement to code-shift. This feels less than ideal to me, and I wonder what actual atonement practices could be encouraged for, so to speak, lesser offenders so that fear of making one mistake doesn't just turn into a pipeline to fascism. I want to make clear I'm not trying to downplay the acts in any way, it's just annoying to watch Louis CK just do this tone shift bullshit and refind an audience but of all the worst people, which is just going to convince people the only way to escape the long arm of social justice is to be right wing from the start.
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Nov 12, 2020 14:55
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Any thoughts that I could add would just be me paraphrasing This article, which is what it took for me to "get" the impact of whether you believe a specific case or not. There's always more at stake than the reputation of your Faves.
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Nov 12, 2020 16:33
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 16:14 |
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World War Mammories posted:the claim is not that it was astroturfed, it's that the natural growth wasn't ripped out by the roots until a prominent democrat was in the crosshairs Pretty rude implication about Al imo
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Nov 12, 2020 17:06
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