Coombs wrote:

@ Burnsy, "To change behaviour, we create consequences."

I don't really believe you really believe that Burns. If that worked, so would monarchy. The days of the disciplinary societies are well and truly behind us. It's just such an autocratic and outdated way of thinking.

Of course I believe it. I'm a materialist. I believe in wage rises, and price signals and I value real equality over legal formalities as well.

It's better for women in workplaces where there are well understood consequences for sexual harassment. If you don't think I'm right, maybe ask some women!

Qwiss! wrote:
arsedoc md wrote:

Hannity revisiting all the bill Clinton stories one by one tonight.

Hannity is scum but those stories deserve to be revisited by someone with less of an axe to grind. We can't claim to believe women and ignore Juanita Broderick or call her a liar. We know Clinton was using his power for sex with young vulnerable women in the work place, he's a harasser at the very least. Most likely worse.

Its telling that 3 of the last 5 US presidents have been accused of rape and sexual assault by numerous women.

There's now allegations aganist US senators. First Roy Moore, and now Al Franken: http://thehill.com/homenews/media/360667-twitter-explodes-over-franken-groping-allegations

Burnwinter wrote:
Coombs wrote:

@ Burnsy, "To change behaviour, we create consequences."

I don't really believe you really believe that Burns. If that worked, so would monarchy. The days of the disciplinary societies are well and truly behind us. It's just such an autocratic and outdated way of thinking.

Of course I believe it. I'm a materialist. I believe in wage rises, and price signals and I value real equality over legal formalities as well.

It's better for women in workplaces where there are well understood consequences for sexual harassment. If you don't think I'm right, maybe ask some women!

Women don't have an intellectual monopoly on knowing what does and doesn't work,  firstly. But secondly, education is far more important than consequences in general. Culture changes in the schoolyard, not in the prison yard, and you can take that all the way to the bank.

Bryant wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:

Hannity is scum but those stories deserve to be revisited by someone with less of an axe to grind. We can't claim to believe women and ignore Juanita Broderick or call her a liar. We know Clinton was using his power for sex with young vulnerable women in the work place, he's a harasser at the very least. Most likely worse.

Its telling that 3 of the last 5 US presidents have been accused of rape and sexual assault by numerous women.

There's now allegations aganist US senators. First Roy Moore, and now Al Franken: http://thehill.com/homenews/media/360667-twitter-explodes-over-franken-groping-allegations

Roy Moore is a scumbag of the highest order and it looks like he could still win election again.

As for Franken I guess when politicians and TV personalities are being exposed it should be no surprise that a man who's been both is implicated. I'd say a lot of that era of SNL guys could easily be added to the list.

goon wrote:
y va marquer wrote:

I think the testament and accounts of the women who don't work in Hollywood, or these "organisations or social groups", may not support this theory.

There seems to be a reluctance to accept that abusive men, molesters and pervs who prey on women, "thrive" in any environment where there is the possibility of accessing women in vulnerable situations or circumstances.

But that's precisely the point, the wider environment created by Hollywood and for the likes of Savile means these guys can do a lot more and for a lot longer without worrying about repercussions. They empower the perpetrators, hence they thrive.

The assertion that the Weinstein's of this world can do "a lot more for a lot longer" because of the environment created by Hollywood is supported by what kind of objective evidence?
You think, for example, that someone such as a manager in a relatively small family run business wouldn't get away with the same?
You guys speak about workplaces as if they were all corporate and run by people either evolved, savvy or ethical enough to promote a healthy culture, to observe the regulations and norms that govern employee protection.

Burnwinter wrote:
Coombs wrote:

@ Burnsy, "To change behaviour, we create consequences."

I don't really believe you really believe that Burns. If that worked, so would monarchy. The days of the disciplinary societies are well and truly behind us. It's just such an autocratic and outdated way of thinking.

Of course I believe it. I'm a materialist. I believe in wage rises, and price signals and I value real equality over legal formalities as well.

It's better for women in workplaces where there are well understood consequences for sexual harassment. If you don't think I'm right, maybe ask some women!

100% right.

y va marquer wrote:
goon wrote:

But that's precisely the point, the wider environment created by Hollywood and for the likes of Savile means these guys can do a lot more and for a lot longer without worrying about repercussions. They empower the perpetrators, hence they thrive.

The assertion that the Weinstein's of this world can do "a lot more for a lot longer" because of the environment created by Hollywood is supported by what kind of objective evidence?
You think, for example, that someone such as a manager in a relatively small family run business wouldn't get away with the same?
You guys speak about workplaces as if they were all corporate and run by people either evolved, savvy or ethical enough to promote a healthy culture, to observe the regulations and norms that govern employee protection.

Again you're not really contradicting my point. The culture in Hollywood can absolutely be replicated at other work places as I mentioned earlier. That walled off environment that I alluded to in my original point can exist anywhere, but the point remain that it requires a certain culture to thrive to that extent, not least a large number of complicit individuals. 

To flip the question back on you, do you not think the culture in Hollywood, the fact that this could be an open secret in those circles, the fact that the victims seems to always be encouraged to keep quiet, combined with the power and influence these celebrities seemingly yield, provided Weinstien with a perfect environment to get away with this for decades? 

y va marquer wrote:

The assertion that the Weinstein's of this world can do "a lot more for a lot longer" because of the environment created by Hollywood is supported by what kind of objective evidence?
You think, for example, that someone such as a manager in a relatively small family run business wouldn't get away with the same?
You guys speak about workplaces as if they were all corporate and run by people either evolved, savvy or ethical enough to promote a healthy culture, to observe the regulations and norms that govern employee protection.

I read an interview with Rebecca Traister (who's been writing about these things for decades) on the train earlier, and she brings up the interesting point that it's partly because these Hollywood men, as well as the bulk of their accusers, are generally upper class, or (in the latter case) have access to media channels where they get to be heard that so many stories break: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/11/rebecca_traister_on_the_coming_backlash_to_this_sexual_harassment_moment.html

If you look at the worlds that this has affected most, which I would probably say are politics, journalism, and Hollywood, they’re all fields where the bad actors—no pun intended—are somewhat famous, and where the people making the accusations are either somewhat well known, or have access to journalists who can write about this.

Yes.

It makes you think that this is a class thing in the sense that, there are a lot of women who are in jobs where this is not the case, probably paid less on the whole, and it’s much harder for them to get their story out.

It’s much harder for them to get their story out, in an infrastructure sense. Like, what is the degree of separation between them and the press? What are the access points to get to people in the media?

But this is a class story in part, because it’s also about security and stability. So this is happening in fields right now where, yes, the accused perpetrators are themselves well-known, and therefore there’s an editorial argument to be made about, “Oh readers will recognize who they are and they’ll read with interest” and everything. But it’s also true that the people who are in their fields, who have gotten close enough to experience abuse, are in, by definition, kind of high-paying fields. Even the sense of a whisper network itself, sort of involves a degree of safety net, that you have a network of colleagues or friends who you would whisper to to begin with.

This is the visible part of the rape culture because it's newsworthy. It's the smallest tip of the iceberg, not the iceberg itself. We can't afford to think that monsters are few and far between when absolutely everything we know about people, particularly men in power at any level in any field, tells us differently. Great power make for great corruption, but power is not an absolute concept. On every level of society it's defined in relation to those who have less of it.

That fact doesn't diminish the power and truth of the stories that are being told right now. But if those stories don't make people react in everyday life and bring on change on less visible levels then we have allowed their larger potential to be somewhat wasted.

Coombs wrote:

Women don't have an intellectual monopoly on knowing what does and doesn't work,  firstly. But secondly, education is far more important than consequences in general. Culture changes in the schoolyard, not in the prison yard, and you can take that all the way to the bank.

🙂 I wasn't aware false dichotomies were legal tender where you're from. I have an either/or I'd like to discuss with you.

It's not even a dichotomy, let alone a false one. We simply don't live in the world you're own assertion describes. It's just the way things are.

@y va, you're absolutely right. The small business owner gets away with it too, if not more so. Hell, the schmuck at the 7eleven is probably untouchable.

Coombs wrote:

We simply don't live in the world you're own assertion describes.

You literally believe that material consequences have ... no ... material consequences?

Honestly I'm not sure of your point, but if you think that social sanctions or criminal penalties for certain acts have no effect on the frequency with which those acts occur, you are wrong.

There is a long and politically laden argument about whether punishment deters crime, but it's framed in terms of degrees, not absolutes. Hence my comment about a false dichotomy between punitive justice and cultural change as originating factors for behavioural change—although of course any society's system of penalties is also a part of its culture and cannot be separated from it.

Anonymous blog post accusing Gal Gadot of complicity / victim blaming now.

Hopefully people are capable of incorporating questions of degree into their thinking.

Holding that a friend is partly to blame for getting raped is a shitty sort of reaction, but it's not in itself a transgression on par with rape, assault or harassment.

I think the way she did it, if that blog post is true, is at least on pair with harassment and possibly assault, even if there is no juridical penalty connected to it. If Ben Affleck had done it he wouldn't be playing a grumpy neckless Batman anymore. Certainly he wouldn't be held up as a feminist icon. Degrees are good and a sliding scale is needed, but waving off those accusations as simply a shitty reaction isn't helpful either. They're both serious and sinister.

Hmm, you're right, it's quite a horrifying text. I've only just read the whole blog post. The reports that are circulating are heavily, heavily edited.

this is the thing though - blog coulda been fan fiction for all we know.

Yeah it's already being put about that the author is an antisemite with a personal anti-Gadot axe to grind, but that's also exactly what the PR flacks would say, so.

I'll admit I boycotted Wonder Woman at the cinema due to Gadot's association with Zionism, but I find the desire to "add up" this anecdote with her involvement with hasbara etc pretty dubious. These things don't really sum up in that way.

The tacked on Gadot-as-extremist angle definitely feels like it's stretched, but at the same time it could easily have been fueled by a hatred for Gadot as a consequence of the event told in the blog post. This shit has been soaking for thirteen years.

I see no reason to question the story as such. At first people claimed the timeline didn't match up only to find out that it, in fact, did. The name of the accuser has been leaked, and she's been verified to have lived where she said she did with the people she claimed she shared an apartment with. The circumstances are verified by journalists who have contacted her. Her motivation for coming forward makes sense too.

Of course she could still lie about it all, but if she were accusing anyone else I think she would be widely believed right now. The people on social media who seem eager to defend Gadot are mostly fans with a seemingly poor understanding of both journalistic research and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Didn't realise she'd been exposed. Still, I think she needed to identify herself or approached media directly to make the accusation. Otherwise it could really just be anyone saying anything.