Mostly revenge and snowflakery. Some are truly sexual harassment. Never tell a joke at work that can be remotely be misconstrued.

I think that everyone recognizes that #MeToo is motivated by contempt and a desire to hurt men.

The jig is up.

If I were a woman, I'd plan to be living in a nice secure little town that's out of the way by the mid 2020's. Because sh*t is going to get real once the Z's and younger M's guys get loose. They really don't like women.

Somehow we've lost nuance and have forgotten about things like spectrums and scales from annoying to rude to very offensive to frightening to misdemeanor to felony.

Somehow we've lost nuance

When the only tool you have is a hammer, you learn quickly there is no nuance.

I feel this is a function that western society has been so successful at eliminating and/or minimizing existential threats to the individual that they have to make things up so the individual thinks they've actually triumphed over some adversity.

A recent piece by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker made a strong case that Tweeden misrepresented Franken's behavior, that the mock-grope photo was a humorous reference to the skit, and that the other allegations amounted to a few awkward interactions in the course of countless social hugs and kisses.

What we got here is a case of hoisty-petardy, a circumstance unmitigated by Mayer's chattering, which appears to have moved the dial on history's judgment of Franken not at all. It's the kind of thing written for New York City residents who never quite saw the point of linking morality and personal conduct. They want to talk about such things but don't have the words, and they're reassured that Mayer doesn't have them, either: Her writing was anything but "strong." It's not an audience that pines for clarity.

One wonders exactly what first commenter Ferd, before us today with a nickname new to my eyes, thinks might have been "misconstrued" in Franken's "joke at work." Because idioms aren't the problem, and the smiling man's intentions were spotlessly obvious.

Also, it's fun that Patrick gets upset about this.

> If I were a woman

And if you were a man, we'd wonder why you signed your name as "Donna."

It's interesting that the first two comments are from unrecognized identities, an ever-greater improbability as the blogs visitor list has become so sadly diminished.

Annnnnd... I think "contempt" and "a desire to hurt men" are fine motives.

I mean, they're petty and small-minded, but so are most of the people you and I deal with in the public sphere. If you've graduated kindergarten, it's a little late in the day to be all wounded and surprised about them, or to feign helplessness in response.

First, let me say that women cannot be allowed to behave badly - or talk about controversial subjects in the workplace (you know, sex, politics, religion) if men are not also allowed.

Aside from the issues in this particular column, though, I wanted to say:

It's one thing to support due process or to repeat the old warning "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

However, I find it appalling that the critics of #MeToo - especially the female moderates - lack sympathy and ignore the fact that it was inevitable. Why was it inevitable? Because, given that sex predators logically choose victims far more vulnerable than themselves, it stands to reason that neither female OR male victims will report it for years. (Football player Terry Crews took a year or so to report a groping incident, for one.)

Add to that the fact that people in vulnerable positions typically cannot RISK making accusations without finding several other accusers with similar stories to band with, first, and what do you expect?

Bottom line: Predators, not truthful accusers, are to blame for the main problems with MeToo. What's more we cannot complain about delayed accusations while also complaining about those who report every rude remark to Human Resources. Why wait until it becomes worse? It's called "nipping behavior in the bud."

Much to agree with there, but...

> we cannot complain about delayed
> accusations while also complaining
> about those who report every rude
> remark to Human Resources.

Men and women should respond promptly and proportionately. When they fail at either, they can be judged accordingly.

I feel bad about starting a sentence with "because" that way.

I have seen plenty of women make off color jokes. I have been hugged by a female superior in my company and by plenty of women in social settings (some of whom actually thought I was someone else). I did not welcome all of these hugs. I have been pinched on the butt by a woman on the street (I smiled at her, quite a compliment really). I am not any superhero or rich dude, very average. My point is that if you freak out about the way people interact in all their awkwardness, there is plenty of freaking out to go around. We are all sexual beings living in a society in which we are attracted to many people we are not allowed to have sex with. It is a mess.

lenona: "First, let me say that women cannot be allowed to behave badly - or talk about controversial subjects in the workplace (you know, sex, politics, religion) if men are not also allowed."

I work in a profession that is about 12% male, 86% female and 2% "other". Over the past 25 years I've frequently heard female and "other" coworkers talk to and about male patients and coworkers in ways that I would never even think about, let alone get away with, talking to or about female patients or coworkers.

My point is that if you freak out about the way people interact in all their awkwardness, there is plenty of freaking out to go around. We are all sexual beings living in a society in which we are attracted to many people we are not allowed to have sex with. It is a mess.

Adult-like typing detected

Um, Crid, did you never read this thread from 2016?

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2016/05/tattling-to-dad.html

Excerpt:

In theory, she could have simply gently pushed him away or held him at arm's length until he got the message - but that can easily get a subordinate fired or at least never promoted. Maybe not in her case, but we don't know. It's not the same as a purely social situation or even with a peer in the workplace, when it's easy enough to fend off an unwanted hug with a handshake.
__________________________________________

In other words, plenty of victims really do have to worry about where their next meal is coming from and simply cannot afford to "respond promptly." It's only logical for predators to target those victims, so, they do. Rumor has it that actress Sean Young disappeared into oblivion because she dared to fight back against Weinstein without asking for support from other victims (if she knew their names in the first place) and so he swiftly ruined her career, with little effort.

And, to my knowledge, no one accused Terry Crews of being cowardly or a wimp for not "responding promptly." Maybe he had serious reasons to wait, like so many others?

Just a reminder: Even outside of Hollywood, on left-wing campuses, harassers aren't necessarily sent packing, even with plenty of accusers.

"If women are being harassed at work, they usually can’t afford to flounce out of the room in high Victorian dudgeon."

https://www.thenation.com/article/dont-bother-reporting-sexual-harassment-unless-youve-got-10-other-women-saying-the-same-thing/

In this case, we're talking about Yale (in the second half). Granted, this column is from 2016 and I don't know what's happened since then.

And, just a reminder as to what plenty of people, male and female, really don't want to hear you talk about even if they AREN'T your co-workers:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-01-01-9801010196-story.html

It's from Miss Manners.

MeToo about hurting men? Yes it can be a primary effect but it isn't at the heart of it. MeToo will somewhat chew up females too, if need be, to further their cause.
At its heart MeToo is about obtaining power, often unwarranted power, and shoving forward a less than popular sociopolitical ideology. And the people underwriting this are the New Leftists. New Leftists hate many things about our social convention and accepted norms such as the difference between males and females/the convention of how males and females 'treat' each other (among many other things). But MeToo has a bottom line of trying to make hyper emotional, hyper sensitive people (especially the young) that live in fear, are outraged at any slight brought to their attention, making sure to see the unfairness of the world in a friggin banana peel or a can of shaving cream, then translating that to convincing them/getting them to work against their own benefit in order to fight things like freedom of speech(things that stand squarely in the way of the social reordering they want). It ain't good but give the new leftists credit for knowing where and who to go inculcate and using the fear/hammer of sex-race-ism/ist to gain power and further their cause. One major political party and a large chunk of media are notably influenced by the new leftists (either by agreement or by fear). IMHO :-)

Franken’s a sleazeball. His SNL writing partner didn’t like him. He groped lots of women, and thought he was cute.

> that can easily get a subordinate
> fired or at least never promoted.

We deserve what we accept. Complaining that you choose to compromise your safety because finding another another job would be inconvenient does not enthuse.

> Maybe not in her case, but
> we don't know.

And I see no reason to give her the benefit of the doubt: As you state so obliquely, history has branched, so truth is obscured. Tweedon drew blood because there was a fucking photograph, one for which the offender had gleefully posed.

More to the point: Sitting on an accusation like this is like hiding an invoice in the bottom drawer of a desk. It's a liability which a company deserves to know about. The surrounding culture, within a firm or without, is never going to take action if it doesn't know there's a problem.

This calls to mind quibbles with Tressider about Polanski and Philly rapes: Such accusations aren't the playful property of the person who makes them. There are interests of other people that deserve to be protected.

"Franken’s a sleazeball. His SNL writing partner didn’t like him. "

Over the years it's become evident that, to the extent that Franken & Davis were ever funny at all, it was largely Tom Davis' work.

We deserve what we accept. Complaining that you choose to compromise your safety because finding another another job would be inconvenient does not enthuse.
________________________________________

Who said anything about its being merely "inconvenient"? I didn't. I emphasized that many live on the edge, financially - and it's not necessarily their fault. Those who work 80 hours a week don't usually WANT to, for example. They simply have to.

Finding a minimum-wage job can still be done. (But for how long, I wonder, with new machines being invented every day?) Finding a new job that actually pays the rent, as your old one did - i.e., typically NOT a minimum-wage job - can't be done overnight, even if the rent is due tomorrow.

Besides, why should Sean Young have had to give up any future chance of being in a truly famous movie when she was already well known in the 1980s? (I checked just now and I only recognized one title of hers from the last 25 years.) I doubt most 30-year-olds today recognize HER name.

From the link above:

"Maybe it’s not such a hot idea to have your super-privileged, super-rich children as your closest advisers. Had Trump had the benefit of guidance from some ordinary working women, he might have been a bit more clued in: Being harassed is not a matter of personal weakness; it’s about the enormous power differential between worker and boss. Sure, some women can walk away from a bad situation, and do. But many can’t: They need the work. And why should they have to leave a job they worked hard to get, and have invested time and energy in, and perhaps even love, to avoid the unwanted attentions of some creep? And really—give up a whole career, and just go do something else? Perhaps, instead of working in TV, Gretchen Carlson should have become a brain surgeon. Trump would give harassers veto power over a woman’s work life. He also implies that a woman who doesn’t discreetly remove herself from the situation is in effect consenting to it. That’s an idea that far too many people—including many women—already have, and it fuels the reluctance of women to come forward. Those delicate attempts to put off harassment while retaining the goodwill of one’s harasser can look, in retrospect, like flirting. But realistically, women cannot usually afford to flounce out of the room in high Victorian dudgeon.

"Before you Nation readers congratulate yourselves that Roger Ailes and Fox News and Trump père et fils belong to right-wing America, and that we blue or Green Americans are so much more evolved, consider the case of Thomas Pogge, professor of philosophy at Yale University..."

One comment (this was in response to another commentator):

Eva j Fitts says:
August 18, 2016 at 4:03 pm

"I was surprised at the negative comments from Fox news fans (male and female) under the articles about Ailes. They said the very things you talked about and much worse. They claimed these women had slept their way into their jobs and called them ungrateful 'whores' . bimbos and the like. It shocked me that they could love these women one minute and despise them the next. Fans indeed..."

Not to mention what I did a while back - the rape of men in the military:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/10/us/men-military-sexual-assault.html

You think THEY reported it right away, as a rule?

I can think of more than one reason why such men don't necessarily leave the military, either. (One being that many of them come from poor families and may not have any other path to a job that *might* pay well someday.)

> I emphasized that many live
> on the edge, financially -
> and it's not necessarily
> their fault.

I'm not "faulting" anybody... I'm certainly not faulting imaginary people.

But here's the thing: A capitalist economy is not a loving Daddy figure who wants to kiss you on the forehead and promise things will go well.

'Needing this job' doesn't mean you're creating wealth for yourself or your employer, even if pointless roadblocks have been put in your path..

Also, SY was an intensely prickly personality, with a bearing which possibly drifted into mental illness... IIRC, she checked in for alcoholism a few years ago.

But we'll always have her youthful beauty, and her augmented shoulders, in Blade Runner.

That movie was a resume on its own. If you were in Blade Runner, no one can argue that you chose the wrong career.

(I still see Bryant/Walsh at my work-adjacent diner.)

> to the extent that Franken &
> Davis were ever funny at all

You said it. TD was never heard from again, and I have no idea how AF stocked his fridge between '78 and the Senate.

PS- Rereading your story about the no-look HVAC guy has stoked remembrance of gifted craftsmen from across a lifetime.

I mean, Lenona-

"…it’s about the enormous power differential between worker and boss…"

I'd ask you the sane question with respect to this question: "What do you want?"

My stipulations would be as follows:

1. We're here (work) to make money. When wealth is created, there's almost no limit to how many other problems can be solved, and how rapidly. Businessmen get rich. Their employees become skilled and can shop their talents elsewhere. Governments can eventually cut off a slice.
   
   
2. This is inherently competitive as well as cooperative. It's not all about getting along.
   
   
3. Supervisory figures can't tell us how to make it go best, because they too are cooperating and competing to get their own needs met.
   
   
4. Etc...

But concentrating with such coercive, enforcement-minded compassion on the weakest hour between a green employee and a conniving employer quickly becomes pointless. If you, as an essentially uninvolved spectator, try to take perfect command of all such imbalances, you'll be no less tyrannical than the abusers you detest. You cannot (and will not want to) make power imbalances go away, and smirking about them in that tone of voice doesn't help.

Yes, it's tough out there. By a weird paradox, nowadays it's mostly white guys who're given the message with clarity and endless repetition: It's best to become strong & flexible yourself as early as possible so that nobody fucks with you.

In no imaginable universe were you ever going to want Carlson swiping scalpels in your skull. I remember the story of another pretty but quickly-aging blond who did Ailes' bidding for decades while struggling for scraps of airtime. She was an attractive face, looked great in clothes, with a lost soul.

Ah, this one.

But Ailes was as much a dork as a monster. The first and best way to deal with a "power" imbalance is to grow stronger: This method is so greatly superior to other methods that it deserves clear preeminence in every discussion. Personal growth is essentially unlimited: The compassion of those nearby is quickly expended, though they're joy at taking command of your life (and you bosses') is not.

'Needing this job' doesn't mean you're creating wealth for yourself or your employer, even if pointless roadblocks have been put in your path..
___________________________________________

Exactly. I.e., many people are living paycheck to paycheck, even those who are middle class.
____________________________________________

In no imaginable universe were you ever going to want Carlson swiping scalpels in your skull.
_____________________________________________

You realize Pollitt was being sarcastic, right?
______________________________________________

The first and best way to deal with a "power" imbalance is to grow stronger:
____________________________________________

I don't follow. Do you mean finding a way to get promoted so that eventually you can fire your boss? Or what? How many can do that? Sounds pretty improbable.

Here's a 1987 landmark example of one woman (from a Washington, DC firm) who tried to deal with her case in a mature, genteel manner. Except that gentility didn't work and wasn't going to.

Mind you, it's not about physical abuse, per se - but that hardly makes the abuse any better, in this case. Especially the "last straw" bit.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1987-03-17-0110430132-story.html

Excerpts:

..."I had all the usual thoughts," says this woman. "Am I being too sensitive? Am I bringing this on myself? Am I doing something to intimidate this man? This kind of thing destroys your self-esteem. It gets you wondering about your capabilities and your objectives."

Beth Reese tried everything she could imagine to deal with the situation herself. She tried making jokes. She tried confrontation. She tried, one after another, going to the partners in the firm. "Nobody took it seriously." The same firm that restored the Statue of Liberty let the woman in the office be smeared...

(snip)

Bottom line: We shouldn't be allowing harassers veto power over the work lives of black employees or co-workers just because the victims are black and the harassers might be white. What's the difference when it comes to women?

> many people are living
> paycheck to paycheck

So what? Their jobs aren't charities.

> You realize Pollitt was
> being sarcastic, right?

No, I don't care enough to read her that closely.

> Do you mean finding a way
> to get promoted so that
> eventually you can fire
> your boss?

I'm trying to talk big picture and policy, but your only interest is a laserlike focus on some burdened creature under a jackboot. This isn't compassion, it's infantilism. Lenona, the world is never going to want to help you "get promoted so that eventually you can fire your boss." That's a childish aspiration to fairy-tale comeuppance, not something of interest to other adults.

> Or what?

Nice touch.

I didn't bother following the link; can't imagine why I would. You seem to feel that if someone is being oppressed somewhere, society should be free to intrude on every financial relationship to make you feel good about it.

You are, essentially, a busybody lefty.

No?

Lenona — See Ferd at the top of this comment stack. Complete dork-asaures, right? You and I agree about him! He's goofmeat! Thimble-skulled and meanspirited!

But there's a reason that his second word is "revenge."

The first —and perhaps most blessed— thing that people learn at jobs is that childish daydreams of comeuppance have nothing to do with why coworkers and others show up every day.

Still moar!…

> We shouldn't be allowing harassers
> veto power over the work lives of
> black employees or co-workers just
> because the victims are black and
> the harassers might be white. What's
> the difference when it comes
> to women?

We don't "allow" anything... There are uncountable millions of individual relationships between workers and employers. There's nothing to "veto" beyond an individual subordinate's happiness at a particular job. To imagine insisting that people be made happy in their work sounds, as we might say this week, "Chinese."

Reviewing, your first comment got my attention for saying that people "lack sympathy" for something that's "inevitable," which power imbalances certainly are.

So what would you do about it which isn't already being done? Are you asking for a new laws or federal agencies?

I'm trying to talk big picture and policy,
________________________________________________

It was still way too vague. Sorry, but it was.

And I'm no lawyer, but IF blatant racist verbal harassment - as in, to the point of breaking someone's spirit - automatically gets a jury's sympathy, and vicious sexist harassment does not, then something clearly needs to change. In a civilized society, isn't bad behavior like that supposed to end by high school at the latest? Including the indifference of bystanders - and juries?

At any rate, if anyone ELSE wants to read that 1987 case...

By Ellen Goodman, March 17, 1987

Elizabeth Reese doesn't fit the public profile of a victim of sexual harassment. She isn't a secretary or a mine worker. She wasn't backed into a corner of her office or chased around the desk. She wasn't propositioned or threatened with the loss of her job. Nobody laid a glove on her.

Nevertheless, this 33-year-old Washingtonian has in her bank account a freshly minted check for $250,000 in damages for sexual harassment. In a District of Columbia courtroom last fall, she beat the odds and beat the indifference of a firm that refused to pay attention to a pattern of verbal abuse.

Three years ago, an attractive, self-possessed young professional woman who had never encountered sex discrimination was greeted by her superior with these words: "Elizabeth, do you ---- for the firm?" From then on, as she said in court, this man persistently told her that she should prostitute herself for business, and then told others that she had. His incessant, lewd inquiries into her sex life and his insinuations tracked and finally stalled her career in marketing at the Washington branch of the architectural-design firm, Swanke, Hayden & Connell.

"I had all the usual thoughts," says this woman. "Am I being too sensitive? Am I bringing this on myself? Am I doing something to intimidate this man? This kind of thing destroys your self-esteem. It gets you wondering about your capabilities and your objectives."

Beth Reese tried everything she could imagine to deal with the situation herself. She tried making jokes. She tried confrontation. She tried, one after another, going to the partners in the firm. "Nobody took it seriously." The same firm that restored the Statue of Liberty let the woman in the office be smeared.

Because she liked the work, because she was good at it, because the harassment came from one manager, "I took it and I took it." The very last straw, the very last day, was when Reese saw this man approach a colleague, seven months pregnant, with a bent coat hanger in his hand. Looking directly at her womb he said, "I guess I am too late for this." Beth Reese then and there decided to quit and to sue.

"This man took my job away from me. I couldn't perform my work. This man reduced me to a wreck. This man put a screeching halt on my career," says Reese, who still struggles to maintain her composure when she talks about her year at Swanke.

"When she came into the office, she looked like a rape victim without the bruises," says one of her lawyers, Susan Brackshaw, with just an edge of melodrama. "She was shaky, self-questioning. Every woman who comes in on this kind of case says, 'I just know you aren't going to believe me.' Each one feels like an isolated being."

The issue wasn't whether this man was a sleaze. Or whether the firm was guilty of bad management and wild insensitivity. Sleaziness and bad management aren't illegal. The question was whether verbal attacks -- with the knowledge of the company -- would be accepted by the jury as harassment.

There are two sorts of sexual harassment that fit the definitions of sex discrimination. One is called quid pro quo, when an employee is required to engage in sex to maintain her job. The other is when an employer creates a hostile or offensive work environment. As one court put it: "A requirement that a man or woman run a gauntlet of sexual abuse in return for the privilege of . . . work . . . can be as demeaning . . . as the largest of racial epithets."

The lawyers who took this case to court worried that a jury might say, "This is the modern world, this is the way people talk and behave in the business big leagues." Victories in these cases were spotty enough to give them pause. "My lawyers asked me what my goals were in filing the suit," remembers Reese. "I wanted someone to make this man stop. Even if I took it to court and lost, I would have made someone wake up."

But the jury of seven women brought in a verdict that would wake up even a $29 million-a-year corporation such as Swanke. When the lawyers' fees are added to the judgment, the bill is close to $750,000. Her tormentor, by the way, is no longer there.

As for Reese? "I feel as if I've been circling National Airport for two years. It's changed everything in my life. I don't know that I'll be as naive and trusting; I'm afraid I'll be hard and cynical."

But such a case as this has a ripple effect, encouraging other women and warning other companies. A judgment against hands-off sex harassment is still rare. Reese is just beginning to understand that hers is more than a personal victory.

(end)