It was suggested the other day that the sexual harassment scandal has changed the environment on harassment. I don't see that happening. Here's why:
1. The things feminists think are true aren't. The law criminalizes rape and makes sexual harassment a legal claim. Corporations have strict rules in place already. Juries do punish defendants. Claims to the contrary are delusional. So when they claim that this is what they want, they aren't actually asking for anything that isn't already there. Hence, nothing will change.
2. Maybe this will swing things in their favor, right? Wrong. First, look at what has actually come from this scandal. The only guys to lose their jobs are people who self-reported their misconduct to their boards of directors and a handful of super predators (Weinstein, Spacey, Ratner). The rest got away without punishment. And even with those punished, there are no criminal actions and civil actions will be paid by insurance. Even then, industry people are falling over themselves to lament what has happened to these "good" men and to talk about ways they can get back in the system's good graces. This signals that after a handful of scapegoats are pretend punished, the rest will have their sins washed away, and then the scapegoats will be forgiven.
3. Or consider how corporations will respond. They will talk about having zero tolerance, but there is nothing for corporations to gain from a PR perspective from stamping this out. If a corporation aggressively tries to stamp this out, they will constantly be in the news as having a problem. In effect, they will look worse than their competitors who sweep the issue under the rug. It will also destroy moral as the corporation becomes a land of witch hunts. So why go harder than they currently do?
4. But more women will now come forward. Really? The failure of these women to name more than a handful of men shows there is no will to pursue this. It's the pussy-head rally all over again: "I am woman, hear me whine and then go home... hopefully someone will fix this." Seriously, think about what has happened. A handful of men have been identified who raped multiple women and yet (1) there are no rallies, no boycotts -- to the contrary, there are people talking about how these men can be rehabilitated, (2) law enforcement attempts to do anything have been feeble to nonexistent, and (3) they haven't even outed the men they claim did this. All of this signals a willingness to let this continue.
5. Women won't change the behavior that makes them targets for these men and which protects the men. They will still happily let these things happen in exchange for a film career or modeling career or advancement. And if they won't name men in this ideal environment, when will they?
6. The victims have put together no list of changes they want. That's the end right there. It also allows everyone else to escape through virtue signalling. Moreover, they have overplayed their hand by trying to claim that all men everywhere are doing this. It makes them Chicken Little. Chicken Little gets ignored.
7. If laws or policies were changed to be more aggressive, gays and women will be caught in the net as much as men. Feminists know this and know they need to avoid that or their whole cause, which is built upon the idea that men are evil and women are naive helpless victims, will collapse.
8. The attempts to ignore or downplay the men who were harassed, women who have done the harassing, and gay harassment turn this from a moral outrage to a political cause, and as such, it is a minority cause. The rise of really dubious claims and the Democratic failure to deal with Franken (while obsessing over the two Republicans named) turn this into a political issue rather than a moral crisis. That's the end.
1. The things feminists think are true aren't. The law criminalizes rape and makes sexual harassment a legal claim. Corporations have strict rules in place already. Juries do punish defendants. Claims to the contrary are delusional. So when they claim that this is what they want, they aren't actually asking for anything that isn't already there. Hence, nothing will change.
2. Maybe this will swing things in their favor, right? Wrong. First, look at what has actually come from this scandal. The only guys to lose their jobs are people who self-reported their misconduct to their boards of directors and a handful of super predators (Weinstein, Spacey, Ratner). The rest got away without punishment. And even with those punished, there are no criminal actions and civil actions will be paid by insurance. Even then, industry people are falling over themselves to lament what has happened to these "good" men and to talk about ways they can get back in the system's good graces. This signals that after a handful of scapegoats are pretend punished, the rest will have their sins washed away, and then the scapegoats will be forgiven.
3. Or consider how corporations will respond. They will talk about having zero tolerance, but there is nothing for corporations to gain from a PR perspective from stamping this out. If a corporation aggressively tries to stamp this out, they will constantly be in the news as having a problem. In effect, they will look worse than their competitors who sweep the issue under the rug. It will also destroy moral as the corporation becomes a land of witch hunts. So why go harder than they currently do?
4. But more women will now come forward. Really? The failure of these women to name more than a handful of men shows there is no will to pursue this. It's the pussy-head rally all over again: "I am woman, hear me whine and then go home... hopefully someone will fix this." Seriously, think about what has happened. A handful of men have been identified who raped multiple women and yet (1) there are no rallies, no boycotts -- to the contrary, there are people talking about how these men can be rehabilitated, (2) law enforcement attempts to do anything have been feeble to nonexistent, and (3) they haven't even outed the men they claim did this. All of this signals a willingness to let this continue.
5. Women won't change the behavior that makes them targets for these men and which protects the men. They will still happily let these things happen in exchange for a film career or modeling career or advancement. And if they won't name men in this ideal environment, when will they?
6. The victims have put together no list of changes they want. That's the end right there. It also allows everyone else to escape through virtue signalling. Moreover, they have overplayed their hand by trying to claim that all men everywhere are doing this. It makes them Chicken Little. Chicken Little gets ignored.
7. If laws or policies were changed to be more aggressive, gays and women will be caught in the net as much as men. Feminists know this and know they need to avoid that or their whole cause, which is built upon the idea that men are evil and women are naive helpless victims, will collapse.
8. The attempts to ignore or downplay the men who were harassed, women who have done the harassing, and gay harassment turn this from a moral outrage to a political cause, and as such, it is a minority cause. The rise of really dubious claims and the Democratic failure to deal with Franken (while obsessing over the two Republicans named) turn this into a political issue rather than a moral crisis. That's the end.
17 comments:
Hi everybody! Vacation is going well. :)
I think you are using the wrong point of comparison. The movement is more akin to Black Lives Matter (whose fuel was cops walking away unscathed from squirrelly shootings) than the Pussyheads (whose fuel was Trump being in office).
Trump being in office and being in high profile fights with political enemies are core missions for Trump. Squirrelly shootings and sexual harassment are to a degree inevitable but they are not are not core missions for the organizations involved.
As I've noted police departments have changed procedures. Juries still won't convict cops who accidentally or in the heat of the moment kill a guy but such cops are now booted off the force so the public is satisfied cops are doing what they reasonably can. The fact cops have done anything aggravates the fringe on the right ('Police should do what they feel to who they want') and is meaningless to the left's fringe ('Police remain tools of oppression of a racist capitalist state').
As with BLM successfully dealing with the problem doesn't mean eradicating it or giving in to the fringe's demands it means making a reasonable effort. Zero tolerance of misconduct is impossible but less tolerance is certainly possible. In terms of sexual harassment there is a positive correlation between how high up someone is on the corporate ladder and how much wiggle room they get so tightening will only really impact the minority who enjoyed latitude in the past.
You made a lot of arguments and I have not responded to every single one but I'll take another look at this and reply again if needed after work.
Charles Manson is dead. I am reminded of 2 Chron 21:20 obviously not in context at all but sums up how I feel about this individual , "...He passed away, to no one's regret..."
Trump being in office and being in high profile fights with political enemies are core missions for Trump.
If you believe this, then you are the mark.
Tryanmax,
1) If you think for a second Trump or any other politician wins an election then resigns because too many people dislike I ask that you share examples of this phenomena.
2) If you think high profile often petty slapfights aren't a key part of Trump's shtick I don't know what to tell you. He recently whined that some stupid basketball players hadn't thanked him for intervening in their arrest in China but after they thanked him he said he should have left them in jail because the father one of the men didn't thank him.
Anthony,
1) What? Holding office is essential to many political aims. For some, it is the end and not the means. If that's your true opinion of Trump, then you ought to be more relaxed.
2) Absolutely, petty slapfights are a key part of Trump's shtick. That doesn't make them his core mission. You confuse tactics with strategy.
Something Trump has done that no other Republican in my lifetime has achieved is to keep war out of the news. War is a bummer that really drives optimism down, and low optimism is bad for the economy. No one can argue that the economy isn't doing well, and any honest economist will tell you that economics boils down to consumers' mood.
Trump's antics with sports is a key component of that strategy. Lots of people pay attention to sports regardless of who is president, so Trump is merely going to where the eyeballs are. When politics invades on your pastime, you get the sense that politics is everywhere, and so you assume you're following politics, even when you're not. The UCLA dad handed Trump a gift with a bow on top; take-a-knee was getting stale.
Oh, and by the way, war is going well. Trump "unleashed" the generals, as is popular to say now. ISIS has lost virtually all of their territory. The military has turned it's attentions to the Taliban and is bombing their drug labs (read: revenue stream). Also, they're well into dealing with al Qaeda despite the public only just learning that Obama lied about their being "decimated."
Hollywood will eventually forget and resurrect Spacey, et al...it's their way....that place has always been a den of vipers....I'm surprised that Broadway hasn't been hit with this stuff....
Critch, the only reason Broadway is in the clear is that majority of people have no idea what's going on on Broadway or who the major players are.
Tryanmax
1) Trump is an amalgamation of Obama (big talker with no real experience, lousy dealmaker) and Clinton (charming rogue whose apologists defend his excesses). I don't think he is the end of the line just part of an ongoing pattern of political degradation.
2) Its not war that registers with/bothers the public its casualties. I doubt most Americans (including myself) could name all of the countries we are engaged in overt military action in. As long as the wars just cost ammo and money no one really worries. Only when American blood is shed in quantity (here or abroad) do people really sit up and take notice.
Along those lines ISIS is important to the West because it became the banner Islamic terrorists in the West murder under.
So I don't think Trump engages in a constant stream of petty slapfights to distract Americans from something that is essentially background noise most of the time.
Anthony,
1) No doubt Trump is the culmination of decades of deteriorating political discourse. But it's not unreasonable to think he has aims besides holding office and snarking at celebrities. Is it?
2) Under trump, U.S. military deaths in war zones are up for the first time in six years. But everyone is talking about LaVar Ball. Ask yourself why the background noise is the background noise.
1) Certainly.
2) Military deaths are up incrementally under Trump (rising from 26 to 31) but as the Military Times article linked to in your link points out way below the 2007 high of 1000+. If casualties were half or even a quarter of that Twitter slap fights would not distract the public they would just drive his popularity down even further because they would make Trump look like he was getting troops killed through inattention.
Objectively, an increase in military deaths, even by five, is still more important than anyone's Twitter feed, including the leader of the free world. The Newsweek headline is a demonstration in spin that I suspect would be effective against a Jeb or a Ted or a Marco. It's not even an article that's meant to be read, but a talking point that's meant to program the Sunday shows and everything downriver. But we have a spinner in chief who programs the Sunday shows directly.
Tryanmax,
The absolute number of deaths is 2.5% percent of what they were when the War on Terror was at its bloodiest and dominating headlines. The deaths still occurring are important but they are not in sufficient quantity to capture the attention of the public for a sustained period of time.
The age-old saying is that if it bleeds, it leads. Not if it tweets. The inversion here is astounding! And it's based on a very simple realization: the media is going to trash a Republican president regardless, so just give them something to trash.
tryanmax, The other day I ran across a book by Scott Addams of Dilbert fame. He has written a book in which he outlines the communication techniques Trump is using to manipulate people and he claims that Trump is a genius in that regard. Of course liberals are trashing the book because it speaks well of the latest anti-Christ and because they wrongly assume that Addams must therefore support Trump, but it sounds like he says a lot of what you've been saying.
Nicely done!
Tryanmax,
There are dozens of old sayings (some of them contradictory) floating around.
Andrew,
The early points of wave administrations are filled with talk about geniuses and idiots, devils and saviors.
Regarding the nomination fight the other last guy standing was Ted Cruz. Conservatives with responsibility no matter how conservative their track records, died early.
As for the general he inched past Clinton, who has never won a competitive election in her life.
As I noted before the vote, both candidates were unimpressive to big chunks of voters and the candidate getting the least coverage was always ahead in the polls. At the time of the vote Trump hadn't said anything crazy in a few weeks and the resurfacing of mishandled classified info during a child sex investigation was dominating the headlines. So the election was kind of like musical chairs in reverse.
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