Starker on 10/1/2018 at 16:54
And they are right to speak out. If the conditions of your job are terrible and you are being exploited, don't just take it. Even if it's just posting on Glassdoor.
ffox on 10/1/2018 at 19:30
From an article in The Times today:
Quote:
A group of 100 eminent Frenchwomen yesterday denounced the #Metoo movement as a puritan backlash that treats women as children and denies their sexual freedom.
The actress Catherine Deneuve, 74, along with authors, journalists, psychiatrists and intellectuals — and Catherine Millet who wrote a bestseller about her own sex life — signed a manifesto in Le Monde deploring the flood of public accusations prompted by the Harvey Weinstein scandal in Hollywood. Men’s careers were being ruined when “their only wrong was touching a knee, stealing a kiss, talking of intimate matters at a professional dinner”, they wrote.
“Far from helping women to become independent, this... in reality serves the interests of the enemies of sexual freedom, religious extremists, the worst reactionaries and those who believe in the name of Victorian morality that women are children with the faces of adults.”
I haven't linked to The Times because that article might be behind a paywall (I'm a subscriber). However, there is a similar one from (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42630108) the BBC.
Renzatic on 10/1/2018 at 19:43
It is true that there is a puritanical bent to some of what you see from the recent empowerment movement. I've seen some people fly off the handle over the most inane things imaginable.
But to me, #metoo is less about "He tried flirting with me, which I didn't appreciate because it stole my power as a woman of independence", and more "I was forced to watch an old man beat off in the corner of his office for half an hour for fear of losing my job." There are fine lines being crossed that previously went unremarked upon.
Vasquez on 10/1/2018 at 19:47
^^ WTF did I just read? I'm all for sexual freedom, but Weinstein and such didn't "only touch a knee, steal a kiss" etc. The imbalance of power and hints of having influence over the woman's career, the "boss factor", is far from two equal coworkers being in a similar situation (obviously touching the other sexually ain't cool in that case either, but at least you can tell him/her to keep their hands to themselves without having to worry about getting fired).
For me, sexual freedom means empowerment, you get to choose who touches your knee or kisses you. For the victim who has no power or courage - for whatever reason - the situation is rather the opposite of being in charge of your own sexuality. Those people seem to be defending mainly men's sexual freedom to touch anyone they want whenever they want. I honestly can't understand how men abusing their position of power that way has anything to do with the obsolete morals that see women as children?
(Scotty dear, same with balls.)
Renzatic on 10/1/2018 at 19:56
Vasquez, if you're gonna go around grabbing random balls, you need to make sure not to just grab one. That'd hurt. You need to get both to equalize pressure.
SubJeff on 10/1/2018 at 22:24
Quote Posted by Vasquez
I honestly can't understand how men abusing their position of power that way has anything to do with the obsolete morals that see women as children?
Have a nice glass of wine and read it again.
She's not talking about HW, she's talking about the fringe element that's become all to central to this. Like that woman in the link just posted, moaning about a job she did that she signed a contract for and was paid for.
Kolya on 10/1/2018 at 23:08
Quote Posted by ffox
From an article in The Times today:
I haven't linked to The Times because that article might be behind a paywall (I'm a subscriber). However, there is a similar one from (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42630108) the BBC.
Have I become shadow banned or am I going too fast for you? Because I already linked to the best article on this matter before.
Quote Posted by Kolya
This is quite interesting, including the reactions.
(
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/movies/catherine-deneuve-and-others-denounce-the-metoo-movement.html)
I'm beginning to think that the division line here also goes along a generational gap. After all sexuality is also a big part of self expression and is formed by the social mores of the times.
It used to be normal that the hero of the film would forcibly kiss a woman because there was an expectation for men to "take women" who themselves were appointed the role of a sexual gatekeeper.
And that were their roles, whether men felt comfortable with this aggressive act or women actually wanted sex.
The older generation may fear this sort of roleplay to vanish and they themselves hence to be robbed of their sexual self expression and identity. And to be marked as uncivilized in history.
I don't think simply labeling this as "internalized misogyny" does justice to any of this.
Scots Taffer on 11/1/2018 at 01:52
Quote Posted by Kolya
This is quite interesting, including the reactions.
(
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/movies/catherine-deneuve-and-others-denounce-the-metoo-movement.html)
I'm beginning to think that the division line here also goes along a generational gap. After all sexuality is also a big part of self expression and is formed by the social mores of the times.
It used to be normal that the hero of the film would forcibly kiss a woman because there was an expectation for men to "take women" who themselves were appointed the role of a sexual gatekeeper.
And that were their roles, whether men felt comfortable with this aggressive act or women actually wanted sex.
The older generation may fear this sort of roleplay to vanish and they themselves hence to be robbed of their sexual self expression and identity. And to be marked as uncivilized in history.
I don't think simply labeling this as "internalized misogyny" does justice to any of this.
Okay so the missus and I were talking about this on the drive in today - the problem we are facing right now is that a broad spectrum of behaviour is being swept up into the #metoo or #timesup movements. We are human beings who often need to take small risks in order to initiate interactions with the opposite sex. In this context, the boundaries and limits of personal freedoms and human interactions become INCREDIBLY fuzzy. In our chat we agreed that in order to initiate a consensual sexual encounter (without a written contract as per that fucking BONKERS suggestion by Sweden linked in the NYT article) there can often be a risk taken by the man or the woman to "touch a knee, steal a kiss" etc that is (strictly speaking) "non-consensual" but can be appropriately managed by people taking responsibilty for their actions (guy goes for kiss, woman moves away, guy apologises, woman says jog on, end of story).
Obviously the issue here is that these interactions should not be happening in the workplace within the context of a professional relationship ... but hands up if you, or someone you know, met someone at work? *Raises hand* We are HUMAN BEINGS. We meet people in all different scenarios. Common sense would dictate that you make a move on someone at work outside of the office but we aren't creates of logical programming, we are instinctive and stupid and impulsive.
The problem is where you then exert that position of authority or power to get what you want when the person has made it clear they aren't interested - that's what Weinstein did.
Is that in any way equivalent to making a pass at someone on the job?
Fuck no. But holy shit, if you get into the discussion about "degrees of sexual assault" you get called a rape apologist and misogynist enabler.
Now there are interesting psychological studies that show how people in positions of power get warped egocentric interpretations, such as reading a completely neutral interaction as a sexually charged one - (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/17/why-do-so-many-powerful-men-behave-like-harvey-weinstein-this-psychologist-has-some-theories/?utm_term=.da57801ece0a) discussed here - and when you then take gender equality in the workplace considerations into being then this does create some potentially toxic and one-sided sexual dynamics for women.
That's the conversation we need to have. About gender equality and striving for women and men to have equal say and also be listened to with equal observance and importance.
Consent is a far trickier topic - and I'm not playing any quibbles about consensual or non-consensual sex in rape scenarios here, although there are some fucking slippy slopes even if you go down the retarded path that Sweden is considering... okay, I've entered a consensual written contract to fuck someone... what if I slip a finger in the bum, what if she asks me to choke her midway through... do we get a mediator to do an addendum, do we write all agreed and non-agreed acts up front... where does it end? Does signing it once mean I'm good for repeat visits or is it a one-time offer?
I get it. The stats on male vs female sexual assault are ugly so clearly at a societal level we feel that women need more protection than men. This is why we need to talk about respect and equality amongst genders as a priority, but coming at this problem half way through the process is going to cause even more problems.
Then you overlay social mores and norms of the time & generation - take a recent incident at a music festival in Australia where a girl walked around without a top and glitter on her ta-ta's. A drunk guy grabbed a tit (only one) and got lambasted by the chick and her friend (actually, they physically assaulted him - which is a fair play retaliation to his physical assault I suppose) but the ensuing debate about personal freedoms and a woman "should have the right to walk around topless and not be subject to sexual assault" is not a clear cut one. The social reality is that breasts have been and continue to be highly sexualised - if we want to have a social discussion about the rightness or wrongness of that, we should, but to presume that the decision has been made by the population at large is completely incorrect. It's also currently illegal for her to have done that - she broke the law pursuing her nipple freedoms. There's nothing about that situation that's clear cut.
If we were to view that interaction through a different generation lens there would be wildly different interpretations of it - imagine your grandmother reacting to you going topless at a festival of thousands, imagine your grandfather watching you swipe away at potential hook-ups on Tinder... There is always a period of adjustment in social change that is uncomfortable and we are going through it right now. I would argue that we are experiencing the
real sexual revolution today. Where men and women can fuck people with abandon and not be judged for it - previously (and still) slut-shaming and so on would limit a woman's sexual freedoms whereas a man wasn't. Shows like Sex and the City and Girls have done something to take that conversation further in an artistic way, but the conversation socially is still an incredibly vexxed one due to liberalism/conservatism/religious/social structures.
Apologies for the scattergun nature of my response. I'm out of practice with this shit.
Trance on 11/1/2018 at 02:23
God that was refreshing though, Scots. It does feel like people are insisting that #metoo and the movements it spawned all have to be accepted as one package. In that way it feels like a political power grab hiding behind a legitimate effort to improve society, and that's what made my skin crawl at the thought. (Nothing new; the political sphere is rife with that.) There just aren't enough sensible people with viewpoints somewhere in the middle getting traction on the internet.
Starker on 11/1/2018 at 02:27
The Swedish bill is much less controversial than it is made out to be:
Quote:
(
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-rape-law-consent-new-pm-backing-stefan-lofven-a8117471.html)
The Swedish Prime Minister has backed calls for a sexual consent law which will mean more rape and sexual assault cases can be prosecuted.
Under the proposed law, if a person has not agreed in words or clearly demonstrated they want to engage in sexual activity, then forcing or coercing them into a sexual act will be illegal.
Current Swedish law means what is classed as "rape" covers a multitude of sexual offences but it has to be proven it occurred because of threats or violence.
The proposed changes, which are likely to be legislated for next year, will mean sexual acts will be deemed rape whenever consent was not given regardless of whether there is any evidence of threats or violence.
