Me Too

I think I distracted him by shamelessly posting on the 'Rising Fascism' thread. He's over there griping about abortion.

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The best paper I read so far on the issue is this piece by Brit Marling in the Atlantic, which attracts attention to the economics of consent and sexual abuse.

I rush to say that "it happened to me too", several times, to be kissed or gropped against my will by both men and women, but I never felt threatened, humiliated or even bad about it for longer than a few minutes, because in each and every case I could just walk out of the encounter without taking any risk, including financial.

Quote:

The real danger inside the present moment, then, would be for us all to separate the alleged deeds of Cosby, Ailes, O’Reilly, or Weinstein from a culture that continues to allow for dramatic imbalances of power. It’s not these bad men. Or that dirty industry. It’s this inhumane economic system of which we are all a part. As producers and as consumers. As storytellers and as listeners. As human beings. That’s a very uncomfortable truth to sit inside. But perhaps discomfort is what’s required to move in the direction of a humane world to which we would all freely give our consent.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/harvey-weinstein-and-the-economics-of-consent/543618/

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@Olivier5,

It's a good article and right on target. At the moment I have nothing to add.

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@Olivier5,

Well there we go. This is not about gender... it is about politics. If this were about stopping men from abusing their positions of power, or about workplace harassment, then you could have a unifying message that everyone could support. That's not what you are doing.

In the past election, 42% of women voted for Donald Trump after the "pussy grabbing" tapes were made widely public. All this partisan self-righteousness does is lose elections.

It would be kind of nice if progressives could focus on reaching out to people and coming up with real solutions... rather than drumming up outrage in these echo chambers of people who are certain they have the truth. I am worried that Trump could win another 4 years... not because people like him, but because the alternative is so partisan it stops making sense.

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@maxdancona,

I wonder who Max attacked to make him want to disrupt every thread that could make him feel guilty about it?

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

I wonder who Max attacked to make him want to disrupt every thread that could make him feel guilty about it?

I will tell you about it Edgar. In the 1990s there were several women who made credible accusations of sexual assault against a powerful and popular political figure at the time. The women were shut down, their stories were dismissed, with the phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy". We all cheered this line when it was given in speeches by his politically powerful wife.

Like all good liberals at the time, I joined in. I participated in the attack on these women because I wanted my party to win. I actually felt bad about it later on when it became painfully clear that these women probably were telling the truth.

Strangely, the woman who spearheaded the attack on these women is still a public figure... she has yet to apologize.

It is the hypocrisy.

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@maxdancona,

It's about power relations in society, ie politics in the broad sense, but it's not about partisan politics. Many of the accused guys are on the left of the political spectrum. And yes, it's not really about gender either. Women too can abuse their power this way. It's just that they don't have much power yet so it happens much less often than men abusing their power.

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@Olivier5,

I just came back to say pretty much the same thing. He wants to turn the thread upside down to argue partisan politics, as a way to derail any thread that he sees as a lift to women.

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@Olivier5,

I doubt very much that a conservative woman would feel comfortable on this thread. There are implicit political beliefs here about "power relations", government censorship and economics that liberal men and women agree with, and that conservative men and women disagree with. This is without a doubt, from the first page, a thread by and for people of a very specific political ideology.

There is an interesting discussion to be had about power dynamics. And, you and I might find some agreement here. However, I think that this is a pretty complex topic, no simplistic narrative is going to solve this.

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Max has been pretty shrill lately on various subject. In the end though, this should neither be about partisan politics nor about a2k politics. A more productive conversation is needed and ought to be possible.

There's a place for anger and outrage; it helps highlight the scale of the problem, but it doesn't explain the causes of the problem.

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@maxdancona,

I don't care how a theoretical conservative woman would feel reading this thread. This thread is nothing else than a bunch of computer code.

I care about the problem, and also about what I perceive as a purely emotional response to the problem, one that could easily result in more hatred between the sexes as opposed to what we need: more equality, peace and love between the sexes.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

There are implicit political beliefs here about "power relations"

But Olivier's argument about sexual abuse as manifestation of power relations (in the workplace and more generally in the economy) strikes me as exactly the kind of broader observation that helps to transcend any intrusion of the kind of petty, partisan politics you decry. It should also help mitigate any gender essentialism that may creep in, which has been another bugbear for you.

It reminded me both of something I posted in a FB thread, and something I saw someone else post in a set of tweets which maybe resonate with you:

nimh wrote:

[T]hat doesn't even get into the core cause: power. The more women gain an equal economic footing with men, the fewer men will be able to abuse their power over them to extract unwanted sex (and the fewer powerful men can protect each other). But that too will still take generations more; and still only solves the gendered dimension. Abuse flows larger the more unequal power relations are; Weinstein could abuse so much for so long because of how insanely hierarchical the power structures of Hollywood are. Same with Ailes at Fox. That kind of power structure would breed abuse with women on top as well. [...] The Church hierarchies in Ireland were torn down and the torrent of sexual abuse that had unfolded within exposed and starved. But doing the same with the hierarchies of power and wealth that breed abuse in today's West [remains] a pipe dream.

a Twitter user wrote:

I am a 42 year old man. All these stories make me cry. I have a #MeToo story that I've never told anyone. It's not men v women. It's abt power [...]

The plot of Disclosure is very real. Powerful women can be as horrible as powerful men. We have more men than women with power. [...] Hence there's more men on women predation. But when the tables are turned the exact same dynamic exists.

I lost career marriage mental-health [...] #MeToo

1 Reply

@nimh,

Quote:

But Olivier's argument about sexual abuse as manifestation of power relations (in the workplace and more generally in the economy) strikes me as exactly the kind of broader observation that helps to transcend any intrusion of the kind of petty, partisan politics you decry. It should also help mitigate any gender essentialism that may creep in, which has been another bugbear for you.

Sure, I can accept this. I think you will get pretty broad agreement on both sides of the political spectrum that sexual abuse of power in the workplace should be ended. This is something where practical steps can be made to change this and to punish men who use power to get sexual favors.

I support this message completely.

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@engineer,

...a belated reply from me that I and I assume others, appreciate your post, engineer.

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@edgarblythe,

He definitely carries personal grudges around the site, but this:

Quote:

derail any thread that he sees as a lift to women.

. . . is particularly pertinent. I started a thread simply to praise women. He showed up and trashed it. I started another such thread, and he trashed that. He really is OCD about women. He used straw man fallacies and tu quoque fallacies--and they were uncontroversial threads. There were no political statements, they were just "I like women" threads. Thereafter, for quite a while, he attempted to trash every thread I started. It is certainly personal with him.

He's a sad case.

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@Setanta,

This is about the third thread I started that he has trashed. And I remember when he attacked your threads also. His clock is definitely missing the minute hand.

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@Setanta,

This is a nice little group hug for the in-crowd. I seem to be trapped in the middle of it. For the record, Setanta's thread was much the same as this thread, an ideological narrative wrapped in political correctness.

It is a neat trick when your ideology can't be questioned. Make no mistake, these threads are all about politics.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Jesus Christ I take 10 days off and I come back and you're STILL being a total jerk. Sheesh, you really are the worst

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

I don't see it that way Cyclo. You are the one who suggested I could take it "up the ass". Your little political clique has the numbers. You don't have the moral high ground.

Do you really think this nastiness is ever going to work? The problem is I don't care what the bubble thinks. Maybe if you take more time off...

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I don't see it that way Cyclo. You are the one who suggested I could take it "up the ass".

Link to that for me?

Quote:

Your little political clique has the numbers. You don't have the moral high ground.

Do you really think this nastiness is ever going to work? The problem is I don't care what the bubble thinks. Maybe if you take more time off...

NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR ******* DRAMA, OR HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL

The only reason I'm even writing this is because you're like a car crash, man. Hard to look away when someone is acting so embarrassing.

Cycloptichorn

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