Every one of your responses confirms that you are a troll. You lied when you called me a victim blamer. It is clear that I only blame those that commit bad acts, something victims are not immune to. You have no argument to defend your position. If a victim benefits financially from their victimization then stays silent to protect that personal gain why should they not be suspect themselves? If you had any substance behind you then you would have addressed that from the beginning. You have no answer because you don’t even care about the victims, only to find an opportunity to hurl stones at others, and you always pick the easy target. If you had anything at all you would have provided a cogent argument in the first place instead of your fabrications. Shit, what a fool you are. ‘Victim blamers’ blame victims for their victimization. Nothing else. You don’t know what you are talking about and as I would expect you then throw a fit when that is pointed out. Childish behavior is obvious and consistent. So go ahead with your continuing response and say “An not, you are”. Lame ass.
…so victim blaming. Got it.
Victim blaming. Right. I understand where the OP is coming from.
And blaming the victims who “gained power should have used it to fight back.” Victim blaming.
I know what the OP was talking about. I’m pretty clear about what you are talking about now as well. Thanks for clearing that all up for me.
…I’ve been here since 2002. 15 years. If I were a troll I would have been called out on that by now. I’d be the subject of a hundred pittings. I’m not a troll. You are just butt-hurt, and lashing out.
But you are a victim blamer.
I asked you to tell me who these people that committed “bad acts” were. You responded by saying “How am I supposed to do that?” Then you changed your tune. Suddenly you know who these people who commit bad acts are: they are people like Harvey Weinstein.
So no it isn’t crystal fucking clear who the fuck you are blaming. I gave you the opportunity to clear that up and you declined. Then you moved the fucking goalposts and started calling me a fucking liar. And now you are calling me a fucking troll.
Grow the fuck up.
You don’t even know what the fuck my position is.
To be clear: are you talking about the hundreds of victims of Harvey Weinstein who didn’t speak up (or who did and either weren’t believed or agreed to a settlement) over the last 30 odd years, or are you talking about Harvey Weinstein? Because there is a fucking big difference between the two.
Just fuck off with this juvenile bullshit.
Do you think you are fucking special? I “picked you” because you were an “easy target?”
I’ve debated the toughest debaters on these boards. I don’t “pick them” because they are “easy.” I “pick them” because I disagree with them. I’m arguing with you because I disagree with you. Thats it.
No that isn’t true. “Blaming the victim” is also about blaming the victim for the consequences of their actions. That includes putting any measure of blame on the people that didn’t come forward. When Ambra Battilana Gutierrez came forward it objectively made things worse for her. And her experience is echoed throughout society. Women (and men) do not come forward.
Asia Argento spoke out. She alleges that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her. She admits that she had sexual relations with him over the course of several years. As a result of speaking outshe has had to move countries.
The real-world consequences of the behaviour you so flippantly advocate is the destruction of lives.
There has been practically zero substance in your post. This response to me has essentially been you stamping your feet and shaking your fist at me.
But all of that misses the point. The Weinstein story only came to light because of extraordinary effort by some very determined and brave people. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. You need to ask yourself: if Hollywood superstars don’t come forward with stories of abuse because people don’t believe, because people blame them, because they risk loosing their livelihoods, then how often is this happening everywhere else? I think about half of the women I know posted “Me Too” on their social media last week. And as uncomfortable as it might be to hear but attitudes like yours are part of why women (and men) do not come forward.
You can keep getting angry with me. And your anger is mildly amusing. But you are missing the fucking point. The society we live in has a huge fucking problem. A problem that will take a generation just to start addressing the problem, if we start now. You can keep yelling at me. But I’d much rather you didn’t: I’d much prefer it if instead you can actually try and understand my point.
Randomly browsing, I clicked here and started reading from the end. Wow! What was this big fuss all about? I scrolled back to find:
The only proper response to this post would have been “Thank you, Banquet Bear. You’ve shed light and made me rethink my opinions.” Instead, Mr. Bear ended up Pitted. :smack:
I don’t have any simple solutions. Many came forward before last November to make accusations — including that he pimped and raped underage girls — against a certain short-fingered orange-colored man, and look what came of those accusations: They elected the ape President.
I agree completely. To the sad story of Ambra Gutierrez one could add many others. There’s the Italian actress and director Asia Argento who came forward accusing Weinstein of having raped her. The result? She was so vilified in Italy that she had to flee her own country:
Actress and director Asia Argento has said she was forced to leave her native Italy after speaking out about an alleged sexual assault at the hands of Harvey Weinstein …
Conservative newspaper Libero published an op-ed by Renato Farina, with the headline: “First they give it away, then they whine and pretend to repent.”
While Argento was giving an interview about the assault accusations, journalist Mario Adinolfi tweeted the actress was attempting to “justify high-society prostitution”.
The politician and art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, a friend of Ms Argento’s former partner, said: “I have the feeling that he was actually assaulted by her.”
The pattern here was a familiar one. Exactly the same pattern occurred in the case of CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi which was discussed in another forum here somewhere. Ghomeshi basically liked to beat up the women he was having sex with. The pattern was that no one came forward for a long time, and while it was said that his habits were an open secret in the local industry, rumors are just rumors and are not actionable. Eventually one woman came forward publicly, and others did so anonymously for a while. In the end, Ghomeshi was fired from his high-profile job and, after a police investigation, charged with several counts of assault. However, even after all that, he was acquitted of all charges in a decision that was probably legally correct but that drew widespread condemnation – much of the legal reasoning hinged on the principles of reasonable doubt and the question of how much of what went on was consensual:
Former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi was acquitted of all charges in his sexual assault trial on Thursday, with the judge sharply criticizing the three complainants as “deceptive and manipulative” and advocates charging that the outcome proves the insufficiency of the justice system to address such matters.
In a 25-page decision read from the bench, Justice William Horkins of the Ontario Court of Justice said the complainants’ credibility was shattered by their continually shifting testimony and last-minute disclosures of information that reframed their relationships with Mr. Ghomeshi.
It’s all a very, very familiar story. The guy even had the audacity to sue the CBC to try to get his job back with compensation for defamation, though by the time of the criminal trial he had long since given up on that foolishness.
To keep this clear I’ll address the following first:
I completely agree with those words. I think this is a huge problem, and I clearly condemn the non-victims who contributed to it, and even those who passively let it happen free from any consequences themselves. There is nothing new about this particular situation either, it was an open secret in Hollywood, and attempts to expose it in the media have been shut down in the past.
Now, let’s get on to your behavior here. The rest of what you say is bullshit. You came into this thread trying to shut down any discussion of the responsibility of the actions of victims after the fact. I didn’t make any accusation against a particular person, and I did not demonstrate a pattern of behavior since a pattern requires more than one incident. You are behaving like a troll whether you consider yourself one or not, whether you have done this in the past or not. You started the ‘yelling’ and insults, I did not, I only responded in kind to you. Then you admitted to finding the tone you set as being funny. You have attacked the OP and another poster as being victim blamers with any substance, only that they are victims and thus their future acts cannot be examined because that would be victim blaming. I can’t understand your point because all you do is yell ‘victim blamer’ at anyone who wants to look at this issue. I do not think in any way that the victims should be held to account for mere silence. There are all sorts of reasons they may be more than entitled to keep silent but justified in doing so. But the ones who sued Weinstein weren’t silent, yet still they might have been entirely justified in agreeing to an NDA, we have no idea what they know about Weinstein or his behavior with others, they aren’t obligated to assume anyone else was subjected to the same treatment they were. All of those are narrowly defined reasons that would hold them harmless from his future actions, that would not make them aiders or abettors to his actions. To the other end of the scale we know that people who have not claimed to be victimized have admitted regrets to their silence, this is situation where hundreds, maybe even more than a thousand people were victimized by this monster. And some of them were victimized in no way other than sexual harassment or a threat to their career, and knew that his behavior continued with others because this was one of the worst kept secrets in history. Reports of his behavior that did not specify his name are numerous, one reporter for the NY Times claims that her story on this subject 20 years ago was shut down by the Times, and of course I believe her because that’s the kind of power a man like Weinstein wields in the media world. That does not mean none of them were not motivated to silence by their personal gain following their interaction with Weinstein. Some of them could have been free from harm immediately, or later, and the only harm being a threat to their financial status. I’m not going to point to anyone and say that was the case without more information but this like all other cases of mass victimization often results in less than honorable behavior by victims who then stand by to watch others become victims motivated only be their personal gain, not any fear as a consequence of what happened to them. You have not stated your position clearly, you merely shout ‘victim blamer’ at anyone who wants to examine this, unwilling to accept that complex issues of morality need examination in detail. You don’t define what a victim is, Tarantino may well have been a victim too, threatened with the loss of his livelihood if he spoke about what he knew, not even directly by Weinstein who was supported by toadies also in on the knowledge of what happened, yet plenty of people want to question Tarantino’s motives since he has long been free of any threat or harm. If you want to address these topics seriously then you have to stop shouting at and insulting anyone who wants to look at the topic in more depth. You can turn it around right now, or you can continue acting like a troll, it’s up to you, I’d accept that you were responding emotionally to what is a horrific situation that runs far deeper and wider than the sensationalism now surrounding the matter. It’s your choice where to take it.
…holy fucking wall of text.
I’m sorry but I couldn’t get past the baseless accusation that I was trying to “shut down the discussion” before my eyes glazed over.
Learn how to use paragraphs. Even in the pit we have standards.
Gretchen Carlson reached out to men today saying that we needed to transform them from bystanders and enablers into allies. Good for her. As noted a year ago, strong women stand up for themselves. Really strong ones stand up for others. I’m happy she was willing and able to leverage her terrible experience into something constructive.
I read an article today about the concept of “angel shots”, that a customer can use code words to their bartender and that code alerts the bartender that the customer feels afraid and is requesting assistance. These bartenders are actually doing something to prevent a sexual assault. If they can step up, then so can alot of other people.
…just FYI:
As a person who worked in the hospitality industry for 15 years at the senior level there are more effective ways of identifying harassment than an obscure code that isn’t industry standard. But YMMV.
This isn’t “somebody elses” problem. “Other people” can of course step up. But are you stepping up? What are the sexual harassment policies at your workplace? Do they encourage or discourage people to come forward? Are you counting yourself amongst the people that can step up? And are you going to step up?
The other people that knew he was doing it and said nothing, a la Ben Affleck, who was called out by Rose McGowan for specifically knowing what Weinstein was doing, and doing nothing other than tell him to stop. I’m talking Joe Paterno, who knew of Sandusky’s rapes for years and did almost nothing about it. In almost all of these cases, there are other powerful people who knew, yet did nothing. Those are the fucking fukfuks that should get fucked, not victims, like you want to imply I said.
And you can fuck right off with the “wait until you’ve been raped” until you know my story, you moronic pile of excrement. Been there, done that, HAD PEOPLE WATCH. Save your “holier than thou” for people that you are certain haven’t been raped, you obtuse, accusatory, shitstain of a human being. I never believed I would find someone that combines all of the worst aspects of everything wrong in our society into such an appalling display of utter stupidity and assholeishness. You, my dear treasure trove of syphilitic nonsense, are officially THE fukfuk. May God have mercy on your soul, because I’d rather watch it burn in hell.
I’d like to think if I saw something I would say something. Of course I would.
…but that really doesn’t answer my question though does it. “Thinking” you might do something in the very unlikely event you happen to witness sexual harassment isn’t “stepping up.” Its behaving as one would hope one would act. I would expect you would say something if you saw a bank robbery. I would expect that you would say something if you saw a pick pocket in action. You don’t get credit for doing what you always do. Stepping up means more than “just doing what you are doing.” You’ve asked others to step up. You expect victims to step up. But what are you doing to step up?
There was a story today about the friends actor David Schwimmer and an incident that happened in 2010.
David met a female critic Nell Minow at a hotel restaurant to discuss his latest movie: but the restaurant was too noisy, so David suggested moving to his hotel room. But David offered to organize a third party to be in the room as well: which Nell said wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t until recent events that Nell reflected on how important this little incident was: David’s seemingly innocuous offer to have someone else in the room was all about respecting her boundaries and making sure she felt safe. That he recognized that “hey, I’m a good guy, but you can’t know that, so if you want we can have someone else in the room.” And he gave her agency. This isn’t Mike Pence refusing to be alone in a room with a woman. She is a professional doing her job and David treated her as such: and I suspect he would have acted the same way if it was a male reporter.
This is how we, as a society, step up. It isn’t about offering “angel shots” or some great big huge gesture. We start by looking at ourselves. What can we do? What can we change around us to make things better and safer?
I’m a photographer. And the photography and the fashion industry is just as predatory as Hollywood can be, and at times I think it can be even worse, where the likes of Terry Richardson are still considered by many to be “rockstars”. (And for those in this thread who are still wondering why people do not come forward: have a look at what happened to the people who spoke out about Richardson.) So last year I put into place systems in my business to protect the people I work with. Did you guys know that models bringing along an escorts along to a photoshoot is considered a “bad thing” in the industry?
Here is a thread in from the amateur model forums “Model Mayhem” (the thread is generally SFW as forum rules dictate that no nudity is allowed in the forums, but some images are “racy”, and don’t venture outside of the forums) where photographers talk about how “bad” escorts are, and how they don’t allow it.
Our policy is to not only allow models to bring an escort: but we actively encourage models to bring someone to the set. And if they can’t: then I make sure I have an assistant on location when we shoot. Its a simple initiative: and its one of many that we are implementing. Its a policy that gets push-back from photographers in the online community. I’ve been called a “white knight” more than once. I can’t change the industry overnight. Because lets be frank: the industry fundamentally doesn’t want to change. But we can change what **we **do. You chip away at the system bit-by-bit.
So I’ll ask you the question again. What are you doing to step up?
There is an interesting twist to this question.
It is generally agreed that victim blaming is a bad thing. If a woman is harassed by a Weinstein type, but does nothing about it, than blaming her is wrong. She is a victim. She has a lot to lose. It’s her choice not to come forward and her choice how to handle it.
However, if someone else is aware of what’s going on, but not involved, and they do nothing than they are to blame because they did nothing to prevent future assault.
The twist is that both parties share the same knowledge and have the same risks (suffering the wrath of a powerful man.)
Why is one to blame and the other not?
Let’s look at it another way:
An actress is harassed severely but says nothing, takes a role, makes money, fame etc.
A director witnesses the harassment but says nothing directs the movie, makes money, fame etc.
If either party called out the harasser they might not get the job, or get blackballed, etc.
These things are clearly both equivalent in terms of knowledge and risks, yet at the same time I viscerally feel the difference between both scenarios. The actress is a victim and the director is an asshole. I feel this way. Most people feel this way. society feels this way. Why?
Is it because the actres is a victim and we just sympathize with victims?
What if the actress is able to handle herself, is indifferent to the harassment and couldn’t care less about it? At the same time she knows that other actresses might not feel the same way, or be able to deal with it. Still she puts her well being ahead of that of future actresses and takes the role. How do we feel about her now?
She is still a victim, but now I think about her the same way I think about the director. She’s an asshole too.
Chuck Klosterman in his book “I Wear the Black Hat,” makes the thesis that a villain is the person who knows the most but cares the least.
The actress who is victimized and afraid cares. The indifferent actress or the director don’t care enough which is why they are villanous.
…in setting up your scenario you’ve literally answered your own question.
The director has not been harassed severely. The actress has been harassed severely. Feeling viscerally different about the two scenarios is a pretty fucking normal thing to do. Do you typically feel that somebody who isn’t a victim of severe harassment deserves the same response as someone who is the victim of severe harassment?
You think?
Are you sure? I mean, somebody is either an asshole in your book or they are not an asshole. It shouldn’t really tax your brain.
But here’s a thread that will help you out.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=797723&page=7
Is Gretchen Carlson an asshole?
I think a lot of people think that she is.
Is she an asshole because she didn’t come forward?
Well hold on a second here: she did come forward. She came forward in 2009. She was told she was a “man-hater” and urged to “get along with the boys.” She came forward again in 2016: this time with tape.
So was she an asshole between 2009 and 2016 because she didn’t come forward during that time? Were all the other victims of Ailes assholes as well because they didn’t come forward? What is it that is specific about their behaviour that turns them into assholes? Would you care to name names?
How are you judging if an actress is “able to handle themselves?” Are you some sort of an expert in trauma counselling? Care to share your credentials? How are you judging if an actress is “indifferent” to the harassment? We know more than enough about the Weinstein case that the assholes (by your standard) should be obvious. So I put the same challenge to you that I put to Tripolar earlier in the thread. Which of the victims of Weinstein do you think are assholes?
Would you characterize Carlson as “afraid” or “indifferent?”
If you narrow down the situation to a very specific set of consequences, of course they can look equivalent. One was sexually assaulted. The other was not. You cannot compare someone who was personally victimized to someone who simply has knowledge of the situation, and then place blame equally. There is usually a vast amount of shame and other emotional issues involved for the victim, and coming forward lest they be condemned is something our society simply won’t ask of victims.
This is a different situation, for me. Every HR session I’ve sat through points out that sexual harassment is not defined by the perpetrator, but by the recipient. If you say something off-color to a friend, co-worker, acquaintance, whatever, YOU don’t get to decide if it was inappropriate or crossed a line. In your example, it’s entirely possible that the indifferent actress didn’t feel the actions rose to the level of being harassment, and she’s not a victim. As the recipient, I still fail to find fault in her silence, even as I would hope she might speak up if she realized the perpetrator’s actions were more serious than she originally felt.
Banquet - “So I’ll ask you the question again. What are you doing to step up?”
Am I a Pre-cog and just not realize it? How do I step up unless I have direct knowledge of something? I already provided a quick couple ideas about what somebody w/ direct knowledge could do to help the situation.
I’m not certain how someone w/o direct knowledge can help (other then general protesting and stuff like that).
…so you demand victims to step up: but you are unwilling to do that yourself. What a fucking joke.
You don’t need to be a pre-cog to find out what your sexual harassment policy is at work. You don’t need “direct knowledge of something” before you can take the time to critically analyse yourself. You don’t wait until you have “direct knowledge” of sexual harassment before you start to create conditions where sexual harassment doesn’t flourish. You don’t need to go out and protest. You’ve missed my point. Other people aren’t going to fix this. This isn’t a Hollywood problem. This is a problem with society. We have to fix this. It is pathetic for you to expect victims to step up but to just shrug your shoulders when I ask you “what are you going to do.”