A simultaneously fascinating and horrible piece in Vanity Fair on the last days of Harvey Weinstein that includes this gem:
But as Weinstein saw that his time and his options were running out, he began to scramble. And as revealed here for the first time, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Weinstein and a coterie of loyalists—according to a dozen current and former T.W.C. employees and Weinstein advisers, as well as the initial findings of an internal company investigation—would allegedly spend his last days at the company searching for and trying to delete documents; absconding with others; surveilling ex-employees’ online communications; and seeking to discover who, in the end, had orchestrated his downfall.
Imagine being such a horrible person that you wake up in the morning with the goal of destroying people to defend a serial rapist. A few people are named (Frank Gil), but before this is all over, there needs to be a real reckoning. WHo were the people who brought these women to his hotel knowing what he would do to them? Who were the people who cleaned up the messes? All of them need to be named, shamed, and prosecuted where applicable.
MattF
Weinstein’s current whereabouts are apparently unknown– for both practical and legal reasons, I’d guess.
JPL
Weinstein belongs in jail penniless.
eric
@JPL: i can think of some other options. Let’s play punishment bingo.
zhena gogolia
I’m more interested in bringing Trump to justice.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Let’s make it a two-fer. They have more similarities than differences.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Exactly.
Cathie from Canada
Well, hundreds of enablers are apparently helping Trump, too, because they just love him so much, he’s so unfairly persecuted, such a very fine person etc etc.
It does throw a particular light on humanity, doesn’t it, on how easy it appears to be for sociopaths to use their personal charm or charisma or whatever it is to inspire loyalty in others.
Yarrow
@trollhattan: I agree. It’s unlikely that Trump and his horrible crew haven’t used or aren’t considering using some of the same tactics. Maybe even some of the same people.
Nicole
I think a lot of it has to do with the deeply ingrained societal need to blame women for sexual abuse- these were aggressive actresses; they wanted jobs; what did they expect?
Between the Azis Ansari thing, the Eliza Dushku thing and, going back a few months, the Josh Whedon thing, there have been a lot of interesting pieces about how, despite our outward support for women fighting back against sexual abuse, there is still a knee-jerk reaction (from both women and men) to find a way to justify it as the woman’s fault (or, in the case of Dushku, to blame her mother). I think some of these folks helping Weinstein didn’t see those women as fully realized human beings. And some of them probably have done some skeevy things in the past themselves.
And also, as numerous sociological experiments have shown, the mantle of authority can cause people underneath that authority to do all kinds of unethical things, even things they know to be unethical.
MomSense
In many states an employee only has 180 days to report sexual harassment. This needs to be changed. I believe that 180 days is the federal standard as well.
I’m very concerned about undocumented women who are harassed or assaulted as they will not feel safe reporting this to the authorities.
Big Ole Hound
The hollywood sex game effects some actresses, agents and attitudes whereas Trump’s sex romps have the potential to harm 300 million people. Lets go after the real monster and let the film gurus straighten out their own tabloid messes. The nation has elected a real sex maniac..
schrodingers_cat
I am more interested in the role Kelly played to sabotage the DACA deal.
Nicole
@Big Ole Hound: Or you know, why not tackle both? Many things are not either/or; they’re both/and.
Lots of predatory men in positions of power in Hollywood means lots of product reaffirming traditional, objectified views of women, which influences millions of young boys and girls. Look at how thoroughly men lost their minds over women being the main drivers of the action in “The Last Jedi.” How do you think those guys who got so upset about the movie view women in their daily lives?
Amaranthine RBG
Weinstein’s behavior was known for decades.
Only a handful of people did anything and they all suffered for it
He made millions of dollars for people and companies like Disney and they were all happy to look the other way.
Humdog
@schrodingers_cat: what the heck do you think was up with his telling the Hispanic Caucus and Baier at Fox that he set Shitstain straight on his uninformed ideas about the wall and Dreamers? Everyone knows that will piss off his boss and Kelly clearly does not want a deal for Dreamers anyway. Very odd for someone who has a rep as a planner and executor to step in it like this. Is he simply trying to kill DACA dead by souring Shitstain on all of it?
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
He’s probably just lying low. With a face as famous as his, I doubt going on the lam is a viable option.
JaneSays
@zhena gogolia: Absolutely Trump is the bigger fish to fry, but are we not capable of pursuing both things?
schrodingers_cat
@Humdog: I think that Kelly may have aspirations for higher political office himself. I can totally see the Rs and the media embracing a general who looks the part.
Aleta
Yesterday I got aware that the current story about the sports doctor who abused children is yet another case of sports professionals in a profitable industry who overlooked/waved away/neglected the reports of sexual abuse in favor of sticking with the program, fame, money.
Sadly this even seems to include Title IX officials at MSU, who had some power to be a line of defense, but ended their investigation instead. USA Gymnastics seems to have enabled him also.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: i’m kind of hoping Mnem’s suggestion that he’s having an affair with the unqualified blonde woman who got his old job is true. Kelly seems like yet another one of those people who is trusted because he is trusted and after awhile they’re just not questioned. Petraeus is a good example of why that sort of blind trust is not a good idea. Those people can get away with anything.
Humdog
@schrodingers_cat: That idea is horrifying!
oatler.
Heads will be rolled.Justice will have occurred. Passive verbs will be herniated.
Roger Moore
@Nicole:
This. I don’t have solid evidence, but I would bet the problems with the Weinstein Company were pervasive, not limited to the guy at the top. People like Weinstein don’t exist in a vacuum.
laura
@Nicole: I think a lot of it has to do with the deeply ingrained societal need to blame women.
Full stop.
When, since the dawn of time, hasn’t “man” found a way to blame women for every damn thing? Never. That’s when.
Gelfling 545
@zhena gogolia: One does not rule out the other. In fact, it might help. A resounding conviction of Weinstein might provide the impetus to further delve into Trump’s sexual crimes.
B.B.A.
@Nicole: and then there’s the 800-pound donkey in the room…but forget I said anything. (No, not the recent one.)
geg6
@Nicole:
I have to admit, though I’ve only read a few articles about it, what I have read makes me have mixed feelings about the Aziz Ansari situation. Not sure it was any type of assault or even a nonconsentual situation. Was he kinda creepy? Probably. Was he doing anything illegal or abusive? Not really, from what I’ve read. I’m very uncomfortable about the idea that he’s a predator. If he is, then every man is, I think.
Roger Moore
@Nicole:
And look at how predatory men in the news business affected coverage of the first woman to get a major party nomination for the presidency. Predators and their enablers in the media were a key driver of Trump’s success.
Mike in DC
@Big Ole Hound: I wonder if a properly worded subpoena to any lawyer who’s ever been retained by Trump would uncover whether there’s any truth to Bannon’s assertion about 100 claims being “handled”. That’s a lot of payouts. Did it include any abortions? Underage girls? Irresponsible not to speculate, etc.
Hermann Fegelein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vhOlMio7yo
Spanky
@Roger Moore:
Can we perform an experiment to find out for sure?
Betty Cracker
@geg6: A social worker on Twitter said something related to this issue that seemed spot on to me:
Barbara
@geg6: Without regard to any particular situation, one thing I would tell all young women and girls is that all women are socialized to be nice, and for women that means particularly to defer to men and the male point of view, and not to speak up at all kinds of behavior for all kinds of reasons. When I was a judicial clerk it was just striking to watch women making arguments, to see how many of them automatically adopted a tone of yielding obsequiousness, probably without even realizing they were doing so. Men almost never did that. I learned to shout when I appeared in such situations and to stifle every reflex I have to be nice. I would tell myself that the judge wasn’t going to ask me out on a date and I wouldn’t want him to even if in some alternative universe he might be so inclined. It’s hard when you think you might be taking a risk by pissing off someone who can do you favors or who you hope actually will develop some kind of personal or professional interest in you. But if they get pissed off because you stuck up for yourself what does that tell you about them? I do not mean to suggest that failure to assert one’s self is an excuse for men like Harvey Weinstein and I have no doubt many women will remain conflicted on this point, because it is just very, very uncomfortable for many women to do this. But at the end of the day, I just think it’s a losing proposition to not assert yourself when it is possible. No one will thank you whether you do or you don’t but you stand a better chance of getting what you want if you do.
J R in WV
@Aleta:
I’ve always had mixed feeling about female gymnastics. Why do they have to be asexually anexoric? Why can’t they be 23, with menses, breasts, and looking like an adult athlete? Swimmers compete into their late 20s and even 30s. Same with dance, why aren’t they allowed to develop adult female characteristics? Why are they required to work out and not eat?
It makes me queasy. Why should they be allowed to compete before they’re at least 18? With stress fractures?
These girls who want to compete need to be protected from their desire and competitive nature by their parents and coaches, who instead are in it for the money and fame rather than for the athletes they raise and coach.
Everyone who worked with and around that doctor needs to be out of the sport! If not in jail for the cover up.
And regarding Harvey Weinstein, he could fly anywhere in the world on a private jet, we would never know. There too, that cover up work is completely illegal, and all those people who helped with it are part of a criminal conspiracy. In Jail, all of them.
germy
It will be interesting to see how 45 reacts to victims of sexual abuse being invited to his SOTU.
Maybe he’ll attack them with a deranged ad-lib.
SenyorDave
@geg6: Reading the victim’s account I came away with the impression that Ansari tried to coerce the woman into more sex than she was ready for (I say more because it sounded like she had no problem with him giving her oral sex). There didn’t seem to be any physical threats involved, she could have said something and left. And this is 100% based off her account. The story itself apparently violated accepted journalistic standards in that they reached to Ansari but only gave him six hours to respond, 24 hours is considered the minimum, and several journalists said that for a story such as this, they would have done more than 24 hours. If it happened exactly the way it was written he Ansari acted like an ass and I sure as hell wouldn’t want him dating my daughter but I don’t see lumping him in with Weinstein. Weinstein is a rapist.
germy
@J R in WV: I was startled to learn one of the victims will be fined if she testifies at his hearing. For violating a non-disclosure agreement.
Nicole
@geg6:
And that’s what the better articles I’ve read about the situation address-not so much the “predator or nah?” question or “should he lose his career or nah?” question, but a look at how men are socialized to see women as less than fully functioning human beings in situations like this- that the societal pressure to “get laid a lot if you’re a real man,” socializes men to nod affirmatively when a woman says, “Can we slow down?” and then, two minutes later, go right back to trying to get her to take her clothes off. The problem with a lot of the articles that downplay this as not a big deal is that they put the pressure on “Grace,” and women in general, to be clearer and more forceful in rejecting advances, rather than encouraging men to pay attention to what a woman is saying and doing. I suspect, to the average woman, Grace’s signals would have clearly indicated that she wasn’t into having sex right then, and that’s not because women are magical mind readers, but because we are socialized from a very young age to do the emotional work of figuring out what another person is feeling, while men are basically told, “Worry about yourself only.” Add to that the way women are enculturated from a young age to let men down gently, so as not to make them mad at you, and you end up with the Ansari- Grace situation. I won’t even get into the power imbalance of an over 12-year age difference and being a celebrity.
I keep reading in comments, men saying, “We’re not mind readers!” but what they’re really saying is, “We don’t want to have to do the work to read body language and actual language language the way you girls do!” And I think that’s where the important conversations need to be had. That men need to step up and learn to read people the way women have been taught to do since we were wee girls.
My husband and I were talking about the Al Franken thing, and he mentioned the “arm around the waist” seemed a bit much, and I asked him if he would ever put an arm around a guy’s waist he was taking a picture with the way he puts an arm around a woman’s waist- that we’re enculturated to even pose for pictures differently if it’s a man or a woman we are standing with. Again, rather than relitigate Franken’s specific situation, I’d rather ask men to think about how they pose with women versus how they pose with men.
Spanky
@germy: I hope actual lawyers chime in, but I’m pretty sure NDA’s are voided where crimes are committed.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@germy: I predict he says it was Hillary Clinton’s fault.
Nicole
@J R in WV: Women’s gymnastics require a flexibility that peaks around age 16- women in their 20s can’t do what girls in their teens can do. That’s why it skews so young. Same with women’s figure skating.
I think the answer is to change what the sport requires of athletes- men’s figure skating and gymnastics depend more on strength than flexibility, and so the median age of the athletes is older- but that’s going to be very, very hard to do, especially seeing as how women’s gymnastics and figure skating are two of the biggest ratings draws in the Olympics.
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV: One of my daughters was a competitive gymnast starting in late grade school and continuing through high school; once she reached college she decided she didn’t have the time to commit to the sport. She competed at the club level under the USA Gymnastics umbrella, as all competitive gymnastics has to be. She got a lot of positive experiences out of that. But she was a local competitor, nowhere close to national-team caliber.
Girls (or boys) who desire to compete at the highest level have to subsume pretty much everything else in their lives to that desire. It’s not that they are “required” to be asexually anorexic, it’s that in order to develop the skills you need to have to compete at that level, you end up spending all your time in the gym, and all that exercising disrupts their physical development – in the same way that world-class marathon runners stop normal menstruation. Nobody is born knowing how to do those aerial maneuvers, they have to be taught, very slowly and progressively over years. If you can’t compete until you’re 18, then you have effectively destroyed the sport. You can’t start learning those skills at that age.
schrodingers_cat
Remind me again how many women voted for Moore in the Alabama Senate race?
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: Multi-tasking: we can do it.
Nicole
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s a good point, too- that to be able to compete at the highest levels in athletics, it really does have to become the child’s whole life- football and basketball and baseball players start young, too. But I think the difference in when men gymnasts and women gymnasts peak has something to do with what the sport demands of them.
Bruce K
@germy: I heard that – and I also heard that some personality has pledged to fully indemnify her for any fines she incurs for violation of the NDA.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Too many.
Gin & Tonic
@Nicole: The gym where my daughter trained had both boys and girls competing, and my son trained there for a few years as well (but gave it up earlier,) and you are mistaken about the flexibility. Boys and girls train very similarly in very many respects, and the flexibility requirements are essentially the same. There is some more upper-body strength required, yes, but an elite male gymnast is at least as flexible as an elite female.
Barbara
@Nicole: What a great comment. Thank you!
Gin & Tonic
@Bruce K: USA Gymnastics has stated that they will not enforce her NDA if she decides to make a statement on the Nasser case, either in or out of court.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Seconded.
raven
@Nicole: What did he think of the accusers behavior?
B.B.A.
@schrodingers_cat: Nearly all the white evangelicals, and a handful of nonwhites and non-evangelicals.
Given the staunch opposition of evangelicalism to any form of women’s rights, the explanation for this is pretty obvious.
different-church-lady
@Spanky: OH wat you did dere… !
Nicole
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t mean that men gymnasts aren’t flexible; obviously they’re VERY flexible (far more than my stiff-ass self, that’s for darn sure). But the events they do require more upper body strength, that doesn’t peak until a bit later, for men, than the events that the women gymnasts do (I don’t see women competing on the rings and I don’t see men doing the uneven bars). Why are the events different? I’m saying that the specific events that they are trained for, and the increasingly challenging moves demanded to be world-class, push women’s peak performance age younger and younger because so much of it is flexibility and being small and light enough to go flying through the air they way they do. Were gymnastics willing to really look at women’s events, and think, “what do we do to change them so that the peak age will be mid-20s, instead of 16?” I think the age could be pushed back. As gymnastics stands now, there’s a reason that Women’s Gymnastics should really be called Girls’ Gymnastics, since 18 is getting long in the tooth.
I’m not criticizing the state of either sport, just pointing out that as it stands now, “Women’s Gymnastics” requires kids at the elite levels, not adults, because of the nature of the sport. That was what the original post was questioning, I believe- why the women’s teams have kids on them. I was saying I think it’s because the stuff they are required to do requires a younger body than the stuff the men are required to do.
B.B.A.
@raven: That’s as fallacious an argument as “what about all the women Weinstein didn’t rape?”
Spanky
OT, but it looks like I may be getting some quality time with the cats!
Nicole
@raven: See how easy it is to blame the woman? Hey! She chose to grind up against a different guy in a completely different circumstance, therefore, finding out someone pretended to grab her breasts while she was asleep couldn’t possibly really have bothered her. SHE’S A SLUT! BURN HER!
For what it’s worth, I think a lot of the Franken stuff was likely set up, but it doesn’t mean I don’t think the issues raised by it (pranks involving grabbing someone’s breasts, how women are expected to tolerate much more intimate touches by men when posing for photographs than men are) aren’t worth bringing into the light and discussing, because they say a lot more about our society than the career downfall of one Senator.
MomSense
@Spanky:
HA! Not easy to find a laugh on this topic. Well played.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV: @Nicole: Also, gymnastics is awfully hard on the body, and the more weight involved the more damage that can be done to knees, etc. I know someone very talented who made the cut for the olympics but at 16 or 18 she decided not to do it because she was at too much risk for damage to her knees and joints.
Brachiator
@Cathie from Canada:
And money.
@Nicole:
I think this is part of it, but there is more to it than this. Also, I have not really seen any of the actresses involved as being “aggressive.”
Also, the way the abuse happens has been tragically similar whether it involves actresses or actors (the Kevin Spacey accusations), or Olympic athletes, or the often male victims of priests and boy scout leaders, or Trump and other businessmen and their victims. Sexual predators is an ongoing societal problem.
ETA: Harvey Weinstein and others clearly had people helping them. I would bet that the same is true of someone like Bill Cosby. More pressure should be applied to his enablers.
Peale
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Well it is. Remember this whole “empowered feminists wanting things” is her fault for not divorcing Bill Clinton in 1996. Men most certainly would have stopped sexually harassing women 20 years ago had she done so. I mean, just look at how willingly men are surrendering their power now?
raven
@B.B.A.: What argument? I asked what he thought.
raven
@Nicole: Whatever.
Amaranthine RBG
@germy:
Here’s someone who stepped up to do the right thing: https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8094407/chrissy-teigen-mckayla-maroney-fine-olympic-trial
(P.S. US Gymnastics subsequently waived the NDA penalty.)
Fair Economist
@J R in WV:
Gymnasts (and figure skaters) have to do a lot of rotational moves and that requires very little fat to be the best. Men can compensate some with more muscle because they build it more easily but even so men in those sports are extremely lean (and sometimes develop eating disorders as well). It’s more of an issue for women because their biology calls for them to have a little more fat so a woman thin enough to maximize their abilities in those sports is further below “normal” than a man.
Amaranthine RBG
@Spanky:
Some states are moving in the direction of barring enforcement of NDA’s re sexual abuse, but NDAs are generally enforceable.
Yes, you can always argue that the provision should be void for being contrary to public policy but that itself hinges on proving that there was a crime.
catclub
@schrodingers_cat: I think the real problem is Ryan and McConnell refusing to pass a bill and tell Trump to either sign it or reject it. Especially if its the funding stopgap bill.
Instead they do nothing and let him continue to claim all sides of the DACA negotiation.
catclub
@Fair Economist: also JRinWV
gymnastics and football have something in common: Normal adults do not do them.
Unlike other sports that adults of all ages can do, to various levels of expertise: swimming, tennis, table tennis, cycling. etc.
NorthLeft12
This is just another example of how a lot of people [more prevalent in the US I think] bow down to the rich and will abandon any principles they may have had to serve their lords and masters.
They are rich and powerful, therefore they are inherently good and righteous, the thinking goes. I think countries where unions are stronger, and the social safety net is stronger do not think this way as much. To me, that is why the rich continuously seek to destroy unions and the social safety net. They are the competition.
Fair Economist
@catclub:
Yes, Congress doesn’t work for him.
Also, too, if there is a shutdown now it is ALL Trump’s fault. Congress hashed out a compromise that keeps the lights on, and reauthorized CHIP, which is now out of money in many states and MUST be reauthorized now. And Trump said no.
apocalipstick
@Aleta: Don’t forget national pride! USA! USA! YEW! ESS! AYY!
Nicole
@Brachiator:
I was citing one of the excuses given for why it’s always the woman’s fault. I believe Joss Whedon used both “needy” and “aggressive” to describe the actresses he was surrounded by. Uh huh.
apocalipstick
@Fair Economist: I have read that the effects of puberty are also involved: Mainly that a man’s strenght/weight ratio increases with puberty while a woman’s declines.
catclub
@Fair Economist:
But did they pass a bill and make him veto it and shut down the government?
schrodingers_cat
@catclub: Ryan and McConnell are the biggest T enablers outside of the WH. He would not have been possible without their help.
apocalipstick
@Nicole: There’s a reason men don’t do the uneven bars. Think about it.
And you are correct as to why women don’t compete on the rings.
catclub
@Spanky: I still think getting six years on chip this month and DACA in 30 days is worth trying.
getting neither is definitely not worth the bother for the democrats.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
I was not quite sure what you were attributing to a general societal attitude and the supposed comments of a single individual, in this case Joss Whedon.
Nicole
@apocalipstick:
But man, if they did, just think how the entertainment value of that event would skyrocket! :)
I wasn’t actually offering an opinion on the value of men’s gymnastics events vs. women’s because I don’t follow gymnastics enough to have one. I was saying, in response to a question about why can’t woman gymnasts be, you know, women, and not under-18 girls, that’s it’s a result of what the event requires to be Olympic-caliber as compared to what men’s gymnastics requires.
different-church-lady
@catclub:
Politics too, apparently.
Nicole
@Brachiator: I was saying that, especially where actresses are concerned (a historically disreputable occupation, once so much so that women weren’t even allowed to do it), that “aggressive” is often a pejorative lobbied at them, and often used to justify men with more power than they have taking sexual advantage of them. The person I was replying to seemed to think that I was saying the women themselves were aggressive, and that’s not at all what I was saying. Just clarifying, with a specific example of a person of power in the entertainment industry using “aggressive” as a descriptor for young actresses he said he was surrounded by. In, I believe, a letter to his wife, explaining why he cheated on her. It was their fault; they tempted him too much.
Aleta
@J R in WV: I remember reading about how the sport (and ice skating) has grown much more anorexic and child-bodied compared to the 1940s-60s. The claim was that a big shift in US gymnastics began after Russian girl gymnasts who came to the Olympics one year were younger, with much less developed bodies, and won.
The theory was something like: lower mass would help give higher achievement of something… more height per muscle strength? greater # of rotations within a fixed distance? Or maybe it was: as puberty begins to change the distribution of weight wrt the center, the ease and speed of rotation are affected for women’s bodies. Then during that window of change, the gymnast or skater has to relearn each year her technique and timing, which takes time and falling and injuries. Avoid puberty, save time and money.
So hey, to win, just start them younger, starve away puberty, and look to animal farming. Sacrifice humane treatment and rational protections like bone development, and manipulate their hormones and pain. Like racehorses, the money’s in the win.
Brachiator
@NorthLeft12:
This is simply not true at all. Hell, lords and masters, aristocracies, exist in practically every human society that has ever existed. And one can easily find equivalent scandals in the UK, for example, involving the rich and powerful, as well as royals and aristocrats. I think the Duke of Devonshire, for example was involved in the same call girl ring as Elliot Spitzer, and there are scandals to be found all over Europe involving people enabling the rich and powerful.
And let’s take a moment to ponder the outrageous scandals involving everyone’s favorite bad oligarch, the Big Daddy of Grime and Crime, Putin himself.
Sadly, I don’t think there is much that supports this, no matter how much we might like it to be true. Unions are still strong in France, as is all manner of bad behavior.
And we could probably easily uncover bad behavior by union officials, especially the more powerful ones.
Gin & Tonic
@catclub: Actually, last year, probably 15 years after her last competitive event, my daughter started in an adult gymnastics program, and was pleasantly surprised at what she could do.
Brachiator
@Aleta:
I don’t think that you can avoid puberty. Unless you use drugs.
One thing that has clearly happened along with focusing on younger women gymnasts is that a specific body type is sought out and preferred. And this more compact body type is typically seen in gymnastics and not figure skating, even though both sports may include a lot of younger women.
A sports writer crunched some of the data:
Youth is a huge factor:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Far as the orginal topic goes, actresses are grey zone; they are expect to appare publically nude and fake sex acts as part of their job. So I suppose nonsense like Wienstien goes to follow.
@Nicole:
Fraken was a politican and has to show he’s these people’s buds.
Me personally, in the little group I run I never let a woman in my personal space or they would all be screaming about who’s my sekret girlfriend. The lesson being going into leadership as a single man is rough because every woman in the group will automatically assumes you are in love with her.
But I digress, you were talking about empathetic women are,..?
catclub
@Gin & Tonic: wow. well there is one.
Nicole
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Fraken was a politican and has to show he’s these people’s buds.
And I would say pull up photos for a comparison of how he posed with men he was trying to show he was “buds” with versus women. I would venture to say you’d see an arm around the shoulders of the men and an arm around the waist of the women. Which are two very different ways of touching someone.
Mind you, I’m NOT saying Franken was being a creeper by doing it; he, like most men and women, has been socialized to view that kind of fairly intimate touching as appropriate for a man to do to a woman when posing for a picture. I’m saying that the situation offers a moment for all of us to step back for a moment and say, “Why do men hold women differently than they hold men when posing for a picture? What message is that sending?”
Holding someone around the waist is an intimate gesture. You don’t see many men do it to other men, but they’ll do it to women very easily. That’s a visible manifestation of gender inequality. And yeah, it seems small and petty, but that’s because it’s one of thousands and thousands of small and petty gestures we, as a society, do to reinforce gender inequality, which does not have a small effect on the lives of women. As the symbolic interactionists like to say, things we choose to say are real become real in their consequences.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator:
If you restrict calories, you can delay it up to several years. It’s not at all unusual to see a female skater or gymnast visibly going through puberty in her late teens, which means they can, and sometimes do, get their medals early in the process. The drugs, I assume and hope, are illegal.
Aimai
@geg6: I think our attitude towards what happened to her is conditioned by our feeling that its significant that he let her get away. In other words we judge her for de-escalating snd compromising because, we think, she wasn’t in any real danger of being punched, kicked, restrained, assaulted or killed for firmly rejecting him or trying to leave. But hind sight is 20/20.
But she had no way of knowing that he wouldn’t escalate, and she had no way of knowing that his behavior would get worse while his words led her to believe he accepted her refusal. Her behavior makes sense when you realize she does not know how far he will go.
He went very far over the line in terms of physical insult/contact. Wish we judged men as harshly for guessing wring about someone elses intentions as we do wimen.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
I understand your point, and disagree that “agressive” has been applied to the women in the recent harassment cases. I’m not too certain about the past either. And “aggressive” seems to not quite work for the accusations of unsavory and immoral behavior that was applied to the disreputable occupation of being an actor or actress in the past.
People say and write all kinds of stupid shit when they are trying to justify their behavior to an angry spouse.
mozzerb
As I recall, women’s gymnastics became problematic in the 1970s when the Soviet bloc produced younger and younger gymnasts — Nadia Comaneci was 13 when she started winning “senior” medals — and some or many actually were on drugs that delayed puberty, to the point where the top ones often looked about 11-12 even if they were 4-5 years older. It was bad enough that they introduced a minimum age rule — 16 or turning 16 that season.
I suspect that part of the problem is that the standards set by those drugged-up pre-pubescents continued to be expected of anyone trying to compete at the top level regardless. It’s not impossible for older gymnasts to win — as a Brit, I recall Beth Tweddle was winning individual apparatus medals in her mid to late 20s — but it’s tough.
Brachiator
@apocalipstick:
There are other considerations, and I am not sure that the supposed decline in strength is correct. Some other factors:
Nicole
@Brachiator:
Spend some time scrolling through the comment threads of articles about these cases, and you’ll see plenty of people arguing that actresses are eager to get work, implying, if not stating outright, that they’ll throw themselves at casting people, directors, producers, to get parts (there was an old joke about the blonde in Hollywood who was so dumb she slept with the writer). If that’s not accusing women of being “aggressive,” what is? It’s their fault; they wanted work, so therefore it must be consensual; not a powerful person taking advantage of a person in a less powerful position (never mind that women who turned Weinstein down saw their careers derailed by him. It’s not just “I want a job” it’s a terror of, “If I don’t, I won’t ever get another job.”)
Again, I think the larger point is being glossed over so that a pedantic argument can be had about exactly what adjective was used about each of these women. The larger point, from my original comment, is that there is a deep need in society to blame women for being sexually abused, and saying they did it because “they wanted to get ahead” is one of those tactics and if you dispute that that is true, I’m not sure what to tell you.
Brachiator
@SenyorDave:
While I think that the woman’s account is credible, I suspect that the writer deliberately played up the aspects that would sensationalize the story and paint the worst possible picture.
MaryRC
@Nicole: I don’t think we can discuss the people who facilitated Weinstein’s predatory behavior without facing the fact that some of them were women. His accusers have described how he used the presence of a woman employee to make them feel safe. Then the employee would disappear, leaving them alone with Weinstein. Why did these women do this?
Brachiator
@Nicole:
The comments about these cases are typically uninformed. And a lot of the people have axes to grind and they are bringing them out and noisily going at it.
This crap is obviously part of the larger societal conversation, but not all of it.
Nicole
@MaryRC: Because women are as deeply enculturated into a patriarchy as men are. We are also told, from the time we are wee, that we are not as valuable as men. We see ourselves objectified in photos and films and books and not in the positions of power, too. I hold them every bit as accountable as the men who helped him.
I wrestle with my own biases on this every day. When those two idiot women from WV posted those terrible things about Michelle Obama in the wake of the 2016 election, I desperately wanted to rant about how hypocritical it was that those (in my opinion) incredibly unattractive women were daring to pass judgment on someone as superlatively lovely as Mrs. Obama. But that’s gender bias, too, even though I have a vagina. The shape of their faces has nothing to do with what comes out of their brains. Hell, there are things I said about overweight people, 15 years ago, that still bother me because they were wrong, mean, and the product of growing up in a society that discriminates against people who are overweight. Especially women people (oh, intersectionality! You so pervasive!)
We are products of a deeply patriarchical and deeply racist society. Rather than trying to justify our behaviors to ourselves, so that we can cling onto the belief that “I’m a good person” I think we are better off accepting that we’ve been told things that aren’t necessarily true, and telling ourselves, “Try to do better going forward.”
Nicole
@Brachiator: But they’re the perspective that many people hold. The whole point of John’s post is that there needs to be a reckoning, and that’s not going to happen unless we are all brave enough to take a big step back from our individual lives and look at the full picture.
And it sucks to do so, and it’s hard. My husband, who has come a long way in his own journey towards feminism tells me he sees sexism in EVERYTHING now, and it’s exhausting. I feel the same way with racism- I see it EVERYWHERE. And it depresses me and makes me angry and stresses me out. But I owe it to the folk who have to live under the effects of it to see it, so I can maybe help, in some way, to reduce it.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
Yep.Well said.
Mnemosyne
@Nicole:
Arm around a woman’s shoulders puts your hand within reach of her breast, plus having a taller person’s arm around your shoulder can feel oppressive and trapping.
I get your points, but I think there are anatomical differences that generally make the “arm around the waist” pose less threatening for women.
Sab
@J R in WV: I am not an Olympic athlete, but I am female. Prepubescent girls are nearly as strong as boys their age. Puberty screws up all that. Estrogen messes with arm strength. I remember easily being able to climb any kind of tree or rope at age 11, and being much less able at age 13. Female gymnasts run into the same issues.
Hermann Fegelein
@Aimai: He was crowding in on her in an enclosed space. She said explicitly that she didn’t want to have sex then, and he undertook a convoluted reinterpretation of what she said to make “later” into “now.” He did lots of other things to interfere with her free movement and to dismiss her statements. As you indicate, I don’t know why she’s supposed to have to pepper-spray him or use a cattle prod. Why isn’t she entitled to move away from him without being followed?