Its about privilege. White men, in particularly white, good looking, charismatic, fairly successful men (like Hardwick) get the benefit of the doubt in our society. If such a man parks his BMW near a nightclub and the windows get smashed and the hubcabs disappear, society says “harsh!” Not “what were you doing bringing a BMW to a nightclub.” If a woman goes to the same nightclub and gets pushed up against a wall and groped, she gets “were you drinking? what were you wearing.”
Again, it starts young. White boys are less likely to be disciplined for the things other classes of people - including girls - are. “Boys will be boys” (which doesn’t apply to black or Hispanic boys). You are more likely to be believed. Your excuses are more likely to be accepted. When you apply for a job, you are more likely to get interviewed. You are more likely to be perceived as competent once you have the job - even if your performance is the same as a woman or minority.
So someone doesn’t believe your innocence at face value? - that’s the way its worked for the rest of us our whole lives - usually because we are taking the blame for something a white guy did (what were you wearing when that poor white guy slammed you up against the wall and stuck his hand up your skirt? Because he probably couldn’t help himself if your skirt was short and your top was tight. All three of you were smoking weed in the school parking lot, but we are going to slap the two of you on the wrist with a two day suspension and expel D’shawn because he’s a troublemaker and was probably dealing)
Clearly the Dykstra/Hardwick story for you is about a whole lot more than Dykstra/Hardwick. Sounds like you’re willing to sacrifice someone for a much bigger cause.
We’ve been sacrificing someone. We’ve been sacrificing young black men who get pulled over for “driving while black” - we’ve been sacrificing women whose ideas are stolen by their male coworkers without consequences - and if they complain, they aren’t believed.
Welcome to reality. This is how it is for EVERYONE ELSE in society, and apparently that wasn’t a problem until it became a problem for you.
Sorry, Dangerosa, but you’re off the rails now. You’re extrapolating to things that have absolutely nothing to do with the Dykstra/Hardwick situation. Their situation is not a problem for me personally. I just like to see justice done, and it ain’t being done right now. You seem okay with that, like it’s some kind of comeuppance or something.
Wait all you want. Did you even read her essay? It comes right at the end.
"Signed,
Former Trophy Girlfriend/Ghost—Chloe Dykstra
PS: To the man who tried to ruin my future: A sincere and heartfelt apology could have made my last four years a hell of a lot easier. The person I used to date would try to sue me due to pride- I would not recommend it. I have audio/video that will support and prove many of the things I’ve stated in this post. I’ve chosen not to include it for your sake, in the hopes that the person you’ve become will do the right thing."
I like to see justice done, too. Right now, women (among other groups) are in a situation where they aren’t allowed to speak up about injustice against them without concrete evidence, because they are told it’s unfair. Because we have decided as a society that it’s better that women get molested than to open the door to the possibility of someone getting unjustly accused. I don’t think that’s reasonable. If someone hurts me, I need to be able to tell my story. Right now, I have to keep it a secret because if I don’t, I will be attacked for either making it up or for inviting it by not living a virtuous enough life.
Yes, a man could be accused unjustly–as happens to people of all types in all sorts of situations. We could all be accused unjustly of something–and in all these cases, those around us have to draw conclusions based on what they know about us. Hopefully, they will get it right. Other times, injustice will happen–as it does all the time because we live in an unjust world.
As a society, we treat accusations of abuse as extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence–even though the evidence is overwhelming that these are pretty ordinary events. If a female restaurant worker said “Hey, I saw the new guy spit in a burger because he was mad at a table”, she would be believed and he would be fired. Even though she could have made it it and that could have been unjust. But if she says “Hey, he stuck his hand under my skirt,” she will be asked if she had panties on and if she’d been flirting with him earlier and then told that there will be an investigation but what will really happen is that her hours will be cut so that they don’t work on the same shift. And if she tells her other female co-workers to see if there’s a pattern she’ll be told she’s slandering him without evidence and that isn’t fair to him because she can’t prove it.
Does that seem unjust to you? why is that status quo acceptable but shifting some of the risk of living in a society to men is not?
If she has nothing because there’s nothing to be had, it’s not a threat. If she does, it’s a word to the wise–the way to ruin his life would be to make suing her seem enticing, and then release the tapes after the lawsuit has started.
I dont know why you say “we” when you’ve taken the position of not believing her and attacking her through the entire thread.
You should contact Chris Hardwick’s attorneys and recommend he pursue a civil lawsuit for defamation against Chloe Dykstra. Damages are easily proven, and it’s clear she has nothing, so fuck it, why not?
And why is the injustice of this reality - that people are accused of things they didn’t do - now a concern? Why wasn’t this a concern when it was black men getting pulled over for being black. Or women being told they “asked for it?” There seems to be a double standard happening here about when this is unjust.
Is the injustice right, nope. But the world is never actually going to be fair, and we should at least try and check our bias about what we think is fair and what we don’t think is fair. Because if a guy dating someone crazy who accuses him of abuse (but doesn’t bring charges) and ruins his reputation is unjust (he should have known better), we should be up in arms over someone writing “for a good time call Jenny 867-5309, she screwed the football team” on the bathroom wall (or the modern equivalent of social media).
You know, I used to do the same thing in regards to racism: there’d be a story about some sort of potentially racist encounter and I’d start making excuses for the white person before the story was even over: the lens I would take was one of actively looking for ways to make it not the white person’s fault, and it seemed to me to be a much greater injustice that a white person might be labeled “racist” when they didn’t deserve it than that a minority might have their experiences with racism minimized or their observations and motives unfairly questioned.
I’m really, really embarrassed about this now. It took me way, way too long to see it–like, well into my 20s, and maybe my 30s. In ten years, I wouldn’t be surprised if I looked back to today and saw a lot of implicit assumptions I still haven’t worked through now. I understand why it happened: I was raised in a world that taught me that I was on “Team White People” and I’m proud enough to not want my team to ever be the bad guy. I granted generic white people the benefit of the doubt–and withheld it from minorities–because I wanted that benefit of the doubt myself. So I get why it’s difficult to see that the system is stacked to give men the benefit of the doubt, and to make women (and minorities) take the hit. And I know this sounds really condescending and preachy, but it really is one of the most important steps in my own coming to understand the world.