Why "me too" doesn't include me.

@Robert Gentel,

What happened is that a famous person in a position of power abused his power and is now being confronted very publicly. This is part of a discussion about sexual assault and abuse of power that has been going on for decades. He deserves to be condemned, and I would have no problem with the narrative... if it weren't exclusive.

I don't think that takes away from the need to have this discussion, but I don't see how this fits your narrative.

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@Robert Gentel,

I messed up, did not get it and laughed. Mad at self.

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@maxdancona,

It is exactly like the "black lives matter” and its corresponding whataboutism: “all lives matter”.

This #metoo conversation was protesting the balance of power between men and women and how often this inequity is used to sexually victimize them, how frequent it is while many men still think it is rare.

And yes sexual abuse of men matters, just like all lives matter but the specific conversation they were trying to have was about men in power abusing women and to insist that it also include, say women who have abused men, just because that sounds symmetrically fair is to do the same thing as the “all lives matter” and "what about black on black crime!” whataboutists and to deny the conversation about a specific subset of injustice its turn. You weren't talking about this the literal day before they started their conversation and you were fine with your own failure to do so but the minute they get a conversation going your are making a simplistic demand of symmetrical condemnation of the sexes. It's just like the people acting like insisting on a focus on “all lives” is an approriate reaction to the complaints about the specific problem they were talking about (black lives not mattering as much in a specific context where they are at the wrong end of the balance of power).

Anyway, if this doesn't make sense to you then so be it, but it might explain the reactions you are getting if I am accurately describing how it is broadly seen by society.

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@Robert Gentel,

I messed up, did not get it and laughed at first. Mad at self. Listening. Thanks for the clue.

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

It is exactly like the "black lives matter” and its corresponding whataboutism: “all lives matter”.

I disagree.

I strongly support Black Lives Matter. I have nothing to say about anything else... I am not held in suspicion by police. I am not likely to be pulled over based on how I look. I have never been stopped and frisked. The odds that I will be shot by a police officer are extremely low.

Are you telling me what my opinion should be? Maybe had I been shot by a police officer based on the color of my skin, I would feel differently about this. I don't know. Saying "all lives matter" is not the same as saying "all victims of sexual assault should have support".

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@Robert Gentel,

Let me ask this Robert. When you determine which sexual assaults should be included in the public discussion about "#MeToo", does the gender of the victim matter, or just the gender of the perpetrator?

If a man were assaulted by another man, would you say he should be included?

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@maxdancona,

I don't think it's a huge deal if anyone includes themselves unless they make a big stink about not having been automatically included in a subset conversation, or complaining about that subset problem ever being discussed specifically. Behaving that way is to try to prevent that specific problem from ever being discussed on its own. And I think the fact that women often are on the wrong end of the balance of power is an aspect of the discussion that the whataboutism gives short shrift. Similarly this is just the same as asking “when a policeman kills a suspect does the race of the perpetrator matter?”

Yes we should care about all lives police kill, but they have a specific problem will not killing black lives that doesn't exist at the same rates with white lives and that specific problem is worth exploring. If you can understand that the specific subset problem of black lives not mattering enough to police is worthy of its day in the sun, that this racial dimension of the problem is worth exploring specfically you should be able to accept that the much larger systemic problem of abuse of power to commit sexual assault has a specific gender dimension as well and that the specific context of workplace sexual harassment, for example, is a problem that is overwhelmingly committed by men against women and worthy of speaking about specifically as well. This is a subject that has different nuance and different solutions than most of the sexual abuse of men by women. For example, one of the solutions to the Harvey kind of problem is to have more diversity, more women, in positions of power. That, however, is not any kind of solution to the sexual abuse of men, which is usually from a different dynamic.

The abuse by women needs to be spoken about more, but not at the cost of being able to have a specific discussion about abuse by men and the specific dynamics under which large amounts of it take place.

So join in if you want, even a moderate amount of piggybacking and whataboutism is fine. Just don't berate people for “excluding” men by having a specific discussion unless you truly believe that specific discussion should never take place.

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@Robert Gentel,

And incidentally, the only discussions about this subject at all on A2K are focused on "what about men.” And you started this whole complaint about men not being included in, and get this, a thread complaining about whether men are included. And whether women abusers too should face their difficult truths and not just men. The entire discussion in this community has been monopolized by this complaint of "what about us men” and yet you still see no irony in plugging along with it saying there is just no justice for the conversation that you want to have.

There is literally not a single #metoo conversation on the site that is not a complaint about whether men are included and that is still not enough. Well shucks, guess we'll get around to talking about the specific problem of men abusing women another day.

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@Robert Gentel,

You are in a singular position, Robert, to create such a thread. The question is what you would choose to make it look like?

Would any woman be able to post? What about woman with a different opinion than Edgar and crew? Would men who have the correct set of opinions (as judged by I guess you) be able to express these opinions unchallenged? In the other MeToo thread there are opinions about censorship and other poltical topics. They support the politically correct opinion shared by the core group on Able2know. Would they be allowed in your perfect thread?

You are the one person for whom this is a not a hypothetical question. You can create a walled community here (either on one thread, or on all of them) that would fit to your standards of perfectness.

You have chosen to leave this community open. What you get is messy... the world is messy. As much as people want a single right path to walk on where everything is clear and there are no conflicts, as you know this isn't possible.

You created this platform, but I am not sure how well you understand the culture that has grown here. There is a core group of members that have very similar viewpoints. They exert quite a bit of pressure for anyone that doesn't conform. I am not complaining about this... but I do challenge it. That is part of what you are seeing in the other thread. It isn't just this issue, it is every issue.

The choice is clear. You either exclude viewpoints that don't conform to some view of correctness, or you accept the sometimes messy interactions that follow. I think you already understand this and I appreciate your choice to leave it open. America is becoming more and more fractured into closed communities that make no attempt to communicate with each other. Open spaces are a good thing.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

And yes sexual abuse of men matters, just like all lives matter but the specific conversation they were trying to have was about men in power abusing women and to insist that it also include, say women who have abused men, just because that sounds symmetrically fair is to do the same thing as the “all lives matter” and "what about black on black crime!” whataboutists and to deny the conversation about a specific subset of injustice its turn.

I have seen multiple social media posts explaining that the hashtag #metoo was specifically meant to be open for all victims (regardless of the gender of perpetrator and victim).

Of course the large majority of cases being recounted are by women about male perpetrators. Primarily because the systemic inequalities you describe (and sexual assault often being a reflection of power imbalances) mean that there are just many more of those cases. Probably in part also because there is an even larger stigma still on being a male victim; considering how many decades it took for the number of women speaking up now to feel remotely safe enough to do so, it will probably take several more before we get a fuller sense of that experience.

The overwhelming majority of #metoo posts have been by women. But I have seen some others too. Which were welcomed. As well as posts explaining that the campaign was for all victims. Your argument that the campaign is explicitly intended to only be for women victims of men, and that other victims should butt out, is the first time I've seen it. (Ironic, in a way, that the first person I've seen saying this is a man.)

None of this means you're necessarily wrong. We've probably just been reading different things. But since you are repeating the argument in multiple comments here as a given, I wanted to note that, at the least, this is in question.

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@maxdancona,

Glennn. Max. Thank you for sharing your stories.

Sturgeon. I don't blame you for not sharing yours.

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@nimh,

nimh wrote:

I have seen multiple social media posts explaining that the hashtag #metoo was specifically meant to be open for all victims (regardless of the gender of perpetrator and victim).

Basically, my impression's the same as what I now see ehBeth already wrote on the other thread:

Quote:

of course you are within your rights

many men I know are posting Me too.

It's not (at least in my circles) about who the victim or perpetrator was/is, it's about the fact that sexual harassment and abuse by powerful people has been accepted and silenced for so long. It's about everyone taking an honest look at their own behaviour. Whether it is action or inaction.

It is of course very important to note that the large majority of stories are from women. And to reflect -- once more, for the nth time -- on why that is. (The gendered power imbalances in our society, as you said.) But BLM doesn't seem like the right analogy -- Far as I've seen, at least, the #metoo campaign was meant to be inclusive all along.

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@nimh,

Max is the one complaining that it excluded him and men (ironically in response to another man saying the same thing in the only other thread about the hashtag who he misunderstood) and like I told Max I have no qualm with him joining the conversation. But berating the participants for not having included his story for telling theirs means that he is insisting that a specific conversation can not occur. Joining the conversation isn’t a problem. Joining it with whataboutism I do see as problematic because there should be room for a conversation about abuse of women by men. That should not be a taboo subset of conversation. That whether or not this conversation sought to be specific about women there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Like I told him earlier:

Quote:

So join in if you want, even a moderate amount of piggybacking and whataboutism is fine. Just don't berate people for “excluding” men by having a specific discussion unless you truly believe that specific discussion should never take place.

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@nimh,

nimh wrote:

But BLM doesn't seem like the right analogy -- Far as I've seen, at least, the #metoo campaign was meant to be inclusive all along.

I think whether or not this conversation is meant for men (and I have seen people who feel both ways very strongly) isn't the key and whether or not objecting to the specific subset of the conversation is misguided is the crux of the matter.

Whether or not the conversation is meant to be about women Max is protesting that existence of that kind of conversation on the exact same kind of whataboutism that "all lives matter" protest the specific black conversation.

BLM didn't have a problem with others joining the conversation and I don't recall any significant demand that it exclude other races (though I'm sure that that might have happened in isolated incidents), it was with dismissing the validity of the conversation on the basis of the specific focus on a particular race and the notion that this indicted the "fairness" of the conversation and the motivations of its participants. If "all lives matter" and "what about black on black crime" were a sincere efforts to bring non-black lives lost to police into the conversation it would be less problematic than it is in just using whataboutism to dismiss a specific conversation.

Max joining a conversation wouldn't be a big problem, Max saying that it is unfair to have a conversation just about women and their abuse would be. Doing this under the notion that all genders must be represented is the same simplistic appeal that the notion that the conversation about police violence should include all races is. This means that those specific conversations can never take place in Max's world and whether or not this is one of those conversations I am objecting to this central notion.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert, I am here reading this. For you to assign intent to an opponent is a common debating strategy. For you to explain what my intent is, on this thread, seems a little personal. In this thread I talk about how it makes me feel. I don't think I ever said that this conversation shouldn't happen (I haven't said either way). I also think you are missing a key part of the word "conversation".

I accept (after some thought) that the main difference between the two movements is subjective... one resonates with me, the other feels exclusive. It is interesting because I am raising a daughter, and I have raised to sons of color. But this is a conversation for a therapist... not an online debate.

These messages (BLM and MeToo) are simplistic. The issues around them are not. In both BLM and MeToo there are issues of politics, competing ideas about how society can work, and competing interests of people in different communities.

If BLM is just a slogan, then it means nothing. It needs to lead to a larger conversation (and I mean actual two way conversation) about race and particularly law enforcement. I think that that this is happening, BLM is leading to productive, policy discussions about law enforcement training and even practical changes within police departments.

Police are getting upset with the message of BLM. I don't particularly relate to what the police are saying (you can read my comments on the BLM threads here if you want). Should the concerns of the police be part of the discussion? I would say yes. The police do have understandable feelings and a desire to be respected and safe. If the police are not part of the conversation (expressing their feelings of being unfairly criticized)... then it isn't a conversation. The police saying they don't like BLM doesn't stop the conversation. It is an important part of the conversation.

I would say the same thing about MeToo. I feel like much of the movement behind "MeToo" is exclusive. That makes me feel excluded. I would like to be a part of a larger conversation on sexual assault that doesn't push out the experience of people who don't fit the larger narrative of gender. I am expressing this as how I feel, what my emotions are as part of a community that I didn't choose to be in.

A conversation is a two way exchange. And, the issues involved are much deeper and more complex than could ever be covered by Facebook tags. For some probably subjective reason the BLM facebook tag makes me feel good. The MeToo tag doesn't.

The conversation is far more important than the facebook tag. Conversations are often difficult, and they are complex, and they are messy and sometime painful. And, the answers are not always as clear as the facebook tag would have you believe. But the conversation is the real way to have meaningful change.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Robert, I am here reading this. For you to assign intent to an opponent is a common debating strategy. For you to explain what my intent is, on this thread, seems a little personal.

I am describing effect which is often distinct from intent but both still need to be considered. If you object to discussions exclusively about women you probably don’t have the intent to not allow them to have a discussion but this is the effect. After all if if the mere existence of a women-only discussion is objectionable then when can that conversation happen?

Quote:

In this thread I talk about how it makes me feel. I don't think I ever said that this conversation shouldn't happen (I haven't said either way). I also think you are missing a key part of the word "conversation".

And the context of this thread is that you got into an argument with everyone on another thread telling them that their conversation was wrong and that it didn’t include men. It ironically was a thread actually making the same “what about men” complaint and taking a conversation that went from “me too” to asking men to talk about when they have been part of a problem “I have” and launched in reaction to a specific woman asking “will men take responsibility for their actions” with a “whatabout women who abuse men” thread.

The “will men take responsibility” conversation was deflected to instead talk about abuse of men. The intent might not be to shut that conversation down but that is the effect. There is literally no conversation on the site about what responsibility men have and the whole conversation keeps getting pulled back to a discussion about abuse of men. That is an important topic too and there is room for different conversations. If you started a topic that focused just on men and their abuse and someone came along and berated the participants for “excluding” women then I’d say the same thing to them. The illusory notion of fairness that “inclusiveness” in a conversation simplistically provides ignores fairness about whether exclusive conversations can be allowed their place as well.

Our mutually indefatigable arguments make this feel like I’m trying to bludgeon this into your head even though I’ve tried to move on a few times, so I’ll leave it with this:

Independent of who did what and what is meant to be about what is a concept I think is simple and that we can agree on: that there is room for a conversation that is exclusively about abuse of women or exclusively about abuse of men and that its mere existence should not be objectionable because that would mean that conversation should never take place.

So like I already said I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sharing your experiences, I think doing it while berating others for having a focus on someone else’s experiences under the mantle of inclusiveness (let’s just say this is a hypothetical so we don’t have to litigate whether this fits you here) is to deny that specific conversation its turn in the sun.

At least in the hypothetical concept do we agree even if we agree to disagree on what happened here? That it is ok to have an exclusive conversation and criticism of those conversations for not being inclusive can have the effect of making it difficult for them to happen?

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

I am describing effect which is often distinct from intent but both still need to be considered. If you object to discussions exclusively about women you probably don’t have the intent to not allow them to have a discussion but this is the effect. After all if if the mere existence of a women-only discussion is objectionable then when can that conversation happen?

This doesn't make any sense to me. If you have a public discussion in a public space, the public will respond. That is kind of the point of a public discussion. If you limit the scope of the responses to only the responses that you want to hear, it is no longer a discussion.

A discussion, by its definition, implies that different voices are heard. If you want to define this as a "woman-only" discussion... you are going to have trouble setting the rules. Does this mean that certain viewpoints can not be discussed?

Quote:

The “will men take responsibility” conversation was deflected to instead talk about abuse of men. The intent might not be to shut that conversation down but that is the effect. There is literally no conversation on the site about what responsibility men have and the whole conversation keeps getting pulled back to a discussion about abuse of men. That is an important topic too and there is room for different conversations. If you started a topic that focused just on men and their abuse and someone came along and berated the participants for “excluding” women then I’d say the same thing to them. The illusory notion of fairness that “inclusiveness” in a conversation simplistically provides ignores fairness about whether exclusive conversations can be allowed their place as well.

I think you are mis-characterizing what happened on the other thread. It doesn't sound like this is a productive discussion... but I offer to explain this better if you want me to (I suspect you don't).

What I think you are getting wrong is the nature of a conversation. A public conversation allows for more than one viewpoint and more than one set of experiences. I was drawn into that thread by a comment that Contrex made. I made my comment and things escalated. I do not take responsibility for the mess that thread became. And, I don't idea that conversation be limited to a certain viewpoint and a narrow group of people with a shared world view. Again, you can create exclusive threads if you want.

MeToo (both as an Able2know thread and a public meme) is a very public message. If it is to be a conversation, then people with different viewpoints and experiences will comment. This also applies to Black Lives Matter or any other public conversation whether I support the topic or not.

Quote:

That it is ok to have an exclusive conversation and criticism of those conversations for not being inclusive can have the effect of making it difficult for them to happen?

I don't think I agree with this. Practically the idea of an "exclusive conversation" turns into ideological bubbles, where people who almost completely agree with each other sit in segregated communities supporting their own biases that can't be questioned. There is a core group on Able2know that tries to have many of these exclusive conversations... this thread is not unique. They themselves (since their beliefs are so similar) can go into tangents and no one complains.

The "exclusive conversations" are based more on social clique than on topic. Izzy's tangent into government censorship on Edgar's thread proves my point.

I do believe that had my one comment to Contrex near the beginning of the thread had either been ignored, or politely ignored, the thread would not have turned into the mess it did. What happened was a quick escalation to vulgar insults. Of course there is no way to test my belief.

There are platforms where exclusive conversations can happen. Facebook filters your feed for you based on what it knows won't offend you. Twitter tries not to offend anyone (and fails). Many forums allow the thread owner to delete responses. Able2know does not.

I think this is strength of Able2know. Yes, it leads to some messy interactions, but these are interactions that can't happen in other forums. This is one place where the ideological bubbles can be crossed. That, to me, is a good thing.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Many forums allow the thread owner to delete responses. Able2know does not.

We will do something similar. We will allow participants to block whomever they want from their discussions. In practice some will use it to block ideology they dislike but they were always going to avoid it and most will use it as intended: to block obnoxious personalities.

Quote:

I think this is strength of Able2know. Yes, it leads to some messy interactions, but these are interactions that can't happen in other forums. This is one place where the ideological bubbles can be crossed.

No it means people go away and leave the site to the most pushy and annoying people and no it doesn't make for a better marketplace of ideas, those ideals are generally just used by people to justify their obnoxious behaviors. The notion that they are being filtered for their beliefs vs their behavior is the self-serving illusion that doesn't hold up here, all your recent disagreements are from people of nearly identical politics and ideology, they are disputes about personality and boundaries that ruin the marketplace of ideas, and do not make it stronger.

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@Robert Gentel,

Well, I disagree with you Robert. And I hope you will at least consider the possible outcome of changing the site.

My fear is Able2Know will become DailyKos (at least as far as the political thread). There already is core group of people here on Able2know who share pretty much the opinions of DailyKos. I don't mind DailyKos, of course... except the Internet doesn't need another DailyKos. It sounds like you will make room for a significantly smaller RedState too, I don't think that changes my basic plea.

Our society is fragmented into ideological groups already, with very little interaction between them. If you look at what is happening on Able2know, most of the conflict is coming from people like Izzy and Setanta (i.e. strongly in the liberal political bubble) attacking people for expressing the wrong opinions. I obviously don't mind this, but building walls doesn't create an interesting space for conversations. The fact that this discussion is in response to a social media campaign called "MeToo" is wonderfully ironic.

Social media can either provide cloistered spaces for like minded people to reinforce their shared viewpoints, or it can provide open spaces for people with different points of view to interact, challenge ideas, and sometimes class. I don't know if it is possible for a social media site to do both. There are enough cloistered spaces already.

Of course this is your personal project. I like it here and I will give whatever changes you have in mind a honest chance. But, I fear that what you are trying to cut out is the very thing that makes Able2know such a unique space where people can cross ideological bubbles.

Able2know has been a unique space through the years I have been here. I hope it stays that way.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Like all things it is not about extremes, that I can appeal to. There is a balance to get right. Users do not simply abide discussions they do not enjoy, if they do not have enough control over their conversations they just leave. This hurts the marketplace of ideas, it does not help it. Their options are tolerate anything or completely silence. There is more value in a middle ground. Giving them more control over their experience can actually lessen filter bubbles because it doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition to them.

Getting it right is to get the right balance struck for the marketplace of ideas to be the most robust it can, and optimizing for someone who believes a certain discussion just shouldn't be had is a non-starter. You can't force discussions on people and force things to be the way one person wants, the individuals in the discussion need to have enough agency in it to make the ideal marketplace of ideas. Otherwise it is just a marketplace of assholes who use the ideals of a marketplace of ideas to justify their boorish behavior.

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Why "me too" doesn't include me.

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