Me Too

both the ability to cooperate, and the ability to compete... are valuable skills for anyone.

not a chance of that argument coming from me (partly because I don't think you can separate them out very well)

An Unwanted Kiss on ‘American Idol’
By Katherine Rosman, March 14, 2018

The first kiss of an aw-shucks teenager from Oklahoma, delivered by a superstar singer, might have made for a sweet pop-culture moment in a previous era. But as the nation re-examines sexual conduct and power dynamics in workplaces and in the media, the kiss didn’t land well with all viewers.

When Benjamin Glaze, at the time a 19-year-old cashier from Enid, Okla., auditioned for “American Idol,” he had hoped his big moment would come as he belted out “Stadium,” a song he wrote himself. That or Nick Jonas’s 2015 single “Levels.”

Instead, it came when the pop star Katy Perry, a judge on the show, surprised him by kissing him smack on the lips, moments before his audition. He had never been kissed before.

“I was a tad bit uncomfortable,” Mr. Glaze said by phone this week, after the incident aired on the season premiere. His first kiss was a rite of passage he had been putting off with consideration. “I wanted to save it for my first relationship,” he said. “I wanted it to be special.”

“Would I have done it if she said, ‘Would you kiss me?’ No, I would have said no,” he said. “I know a lot of guys would be like, ‘Heck yeah!’ But for me, I was raised in a conservative family and I was uncomfortable immediately. I wanted my first kiss to be special.”

[...] When he returned home, Mr. Glaze worked through his feelings about the kiss by talking to his friends. “They agreed with me that it didn’t really count,” he said. “It was lip contact versus a romantic situation with someone you care about. That’s what a real first kiss is.”

He said he does not feel he was sexually harassed and is grateful to Ms. Perry for tweeting about him.

If their genders were switched, the outcry would be magnified.

Sweden’s #metoo movement has come under attack after the suicide of its most prominent target.

For 16 years Benny Fredriksson was artistic director of Stockholm’s Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, the city’s leading arts and culture centre.

Last December, Fredriksson, husband of Swedish opera star Anne Sofie von Otter, resigned after media reports that he sexually abused employees and had turned the theatre into his own personal “dictatorship”.

Sweden’s Aftonbladet daily accused him of pressing a woman to either have an abortion or forfeit a role. Another woman spoke of being forced to rehearse naked, while a third said the director suggested she work as a freelance for not taking on a role with sex scenes.

The paper quoted 40 unnamed people saying “everyone is afraid of him”, while in the rival Expressen he was called a “despot” and “a little Hitler”. The allegations against the 58 year old continued on social media after he resigned in December. 

Last week in Sydney, accompanying his wife on singing engagements, he took his own life.

The news of his suicide has rocked his homeland, and raised questions about the reach – and aims – of the #metoo movement in Sweden. This week a city investigation which commenced after the allegations emerged found no evidence of sexual misconduct by Fredriksson. 

On the contrary, the report presented in part on Tuesday said the claims against him – particularly the abortion allegation – were misleading.

“Benny abandoned his life’s work abruptly as a result of a boundless media campaign,” said Sture Carlsson, interim head of the centre. “It was both terribly sad and unfair. With him, it created a wound that could not heal. It’s a big tragedy.”

Nature of reporting

On December 4th, Sweden’s Aftonbladet published a major report into Fredriksson, after interviewing 40 people who had worked with him in the culture centre. Since Fredriksson’s suicide, however, the Aftonbladet has come under attack for the nature of its reporting.

Actor Karina Ericsson Wärn was interviewed by the newspaper but, after she had nothing negative to report, she said she was not included. 

Another actor told Swedish broadcaster SVT how the Aftonbladetjournalist “lost interest” in their interview when no negative stories were forthcoming. “This was a mob, they were looking for scandal,” said Leif Andrée.

Friday: Junot Díaz gets ambushed at the Sydney Writers Festival with accusations of misconduct.

Saturday: he flees the country, his scheduled appearances, including one at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, cancelled.

Sunday: two US booksellers remove Diaz's books from its shelves.

Monday: the Pulitzer board has a quiet word with him — which also makes the news.

Quote:

I wanted my first kiss to be special.”

Like Millhouse's.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig056zO1nf4[/youtube]

This Is Not Just About Junot Díaz

by Linda Martín Alcoff , 16 May 2018
Professor of philosophy at the City University of New York, Hunter College, and the author of “Rape and Resistance.”

For those of us who have been fighting for decades against the oppression, emotional manipulation and brutalizing of women, as well as the murders, misrepresentations and wrongful imprisonment of all people of color, the case of the Dominican-American author Junot Díaz is a particularly difficult one.

This week I signed an open letter, along with a group of Latina scholars and writers, that criticizes the media thrashing of Mr. Díaz that has taken place since accusations of sexist behavior and sexual misconduct against him became widely public.

In the letter, we make clear that we by no means dismiss these accusations — which include forcibly kissing the writer Zinzi Clemmons and verbally abusing other women — or the serious damaging effects of the sort of behavior of which Mr. Díaz has been accused. But we do object to what we characterize in the letter as “a full-blown media-harassment campaign” that has followed the accusations, in which the writer has been cast as “a bizarre person, a sexual predator, a virulent misogynist, an abuser and an aggressor.”

While the episode has so far focused on Mr. Díaz, I also believe that it forcefully raises a broader issue: That we have a responsibility to think about the future — specifically, a future in which repentant sexists might have a place.

[...] Social media and traditional media are imperfect mechanisms for establishing truth or enhancing understanding. We need to enact alternative ways to interact with repentant sexists, to imagine productive roles for them — just as former gang members can educate young people in their communities on the topic of gang violence.

Can we hold people to account at the same time as we acknowledge their own victimization? Can we remain aware of multiple forms of oppression in our analysis? Can we demand more of a structural and systemic analysis without reducing individual responsibility? Can we respect the rage we are hearing as well as plan for a different future? I believe we must.

Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is expected to surrender to New York police on sexual misconduct charges, US media report.

He faces arrest on Friday following an investigation, the reports say.

He has been hit with numerous allegations, including rape and sexual assault, but has denied non-consensual sex with anyone.

It would be the first time Weinstein has been charged since the accusations emerged.