‘All men responsible for stopping abuse/harassment’ - good cover for an abuser?

[Gadarene]

No doubt it is easier to speak for someone else's job than it is living the job loss.

I suspect even with the loss of a Hollywood PA job those people will still be in a better economic position than I currently am.

 

[Gadarene]

I've not heard any suggestions for a way forward from you. All you have done so far is complain that women aren't getting their fair share of blame for this.

My solution is report this abuse at the time, not eight years after the fact, and stop calling it victim blaming to encourage this.

My solution is stop firing up the mob and thinking you can control it.

My solution is maybe you’d get some more men supporting this if supporters of this blather weren’t being such blatant hypocrites to them.

My solution is maybe there would be more support generally if putting a hand on someone’s knee, once, and removing it when asked to wasn't being discussed in the same bracket as raping someone and then holding their job hostage in case they confess.

All your quote above illustrates is you haven’t thought this through enough.

 

[zephcom]

My solution is report this abuse at the time, not eight years after the fact, and stop calling it victim blaming to encourage this.

My solution is stop firing up the mob and thinking you can control it.

My solution is maybe you’d get some more men supporting this if supporters of this blather weren’t being such blatant hypocrites to them.

My solution is maybe there would be more support generally if putting a hand on someone’s knee, once, and removing it when asked to was being discussed in the same bracket as raping someone and then holding their job hostage in case they confess.

All your quote above illustrates is you haven’t thought this through enough.

If reporting the abuse when it happened worked...then and now...I would agree with you. It doesn't.

Simply stopping firing up the mob only serves to maintain the status quo. And the status quo is what is wrong. Changes never come to a culture unless there is pressure for the change.

Men won't change just because I'm nice to them. I know. I'm a man. Men change when they are required to change.

Hey, I have to run. The real world is catching up with me. I've enjoyed the conversation.

 

[Hank77]

Instead of looking for people to blame when a sexual assault happens, why don't we just blame the perpetrator of the crime like normal people?

Because it is different than most other crimes. Attitudes about sex, men, women, can perpetuate and even condone these types of sexual assault and harassment.

If you read most employee handbooks there are rules about dress codes, language, internet and email usage, etc. What we may not see this rules of conduct when it comes to unacceptable behaviors that are sexual in nature. imo, they need to be there and what the consequences will be for breaking those rules.

 

[Gadarene]

If reporting the abuse when it happened worked...then and now...I would agree with you. It doesn't.

If that’s not so likely to work, why on earth would delaying reporting it work any better? I don’t think many of these women even bothered to report it, and we have all these self-fulfilling prophecies around about how the police won’t listen etc etc that aren’t helping.

Simply stopping firing up the mob only serves to maintain the status quo. And the status quo is what is wrong. Changes never come to a culture unless there is pressure for the change.

There is more than one means to exert cultural pressure. They may not be as fast, but they may bring more lasting change.

Again, think this through. So far, you aren’t.

Men won't change just because I'm nice to them. I know. I'm a man. Men change when they are required to change.

If you think that men will change after being treated hypocritically and subjected to witch hunts, then I suspect you don’t know men very well at all.

You may see some superficial change, but it’s like how until Trump came along progressives thought they had done away with racism, whereas all they’d really done was prevent people from talking about it in their presence. Reality then came crashing home to roost, and still they wonder how this could have happened rather than question whether they’d handled the problem correctly in the first place. They still, on the whole, have not.

Push this approach, and you won’t have a solid change, and it will backfire, one way or another, eventually. Far better to avoid that by not thinking that you can solve one injustice with another injustice.

 

[Gadarene]

Because it is different than most other crimes. Attitudes about sex, men, women, can perpetuate and even condone these types of sexual assault and harassment.

If you read most employee handbooks there are rules about dress codes, language, internet and email usage, etc. What we may not see this rules of conduct when it comes to unacceptable behaviors that are sexual in nature. imo, they need to be there and what the consequences will be for breaking those rules.

Yes, sex crimes are completely different.

Social attitudes perpetuate sex crimes only.

And nothing else.

Completely different. Yup yup yup.

 

[Hank77]

If we are going to go the collective blame route - which gender does more child-rearing?

In this day and age it could be either/or. My son-in-law spends as much time with his kids as my daughter does, the same with his business partner and his wife, and the same with our local veterinarian and her husband. Times are changing.

 

[MehGuy]

If you think that men will change after being treated hypocritically and subjected to witch hunts, then I suspect you don’t know men very well at all.

That's the thing though.. a lot of modern feminist social justice isn't really about actually changing anything. But mere show casing what victims women are. The feminist women want to continue being victims and the feminist men want to continue having female victims to damsel. A strange social sadomasochistic relationship.

Of course many problems they complain about are exaggerated, yet even the real ones will never get an honest assessment and realistic plan to overcome them. Which is a real shame. I'm all for social justice, yet these weasels are hogging most of the resources and spotlight and deep down they don't even want to achieve any real change.

 

[HannahT]

Well, it seems she did not consider it to be trivial. And I would say I do not have the right to dictate what a women will find to be acceptable or not.

I would think we are wise to get to know a woman so we know if and how contact would be welcome. Get to know each one personally, instead of dictating what all women have to accept or not. This way, we can get into really loving people, and not merely use and control people for pleasure we want.

Learning how to love is more challenging and worthwhile

(Shrugs) I don't know. I'm not familiar with the circumstance Gadarene was speaking about.

Everyone has been in circumstances in which something makes them uncomfortable. Yet, using a bit of tact goes a long way. If it NOT effective? Yes, you turn on that firmness! That's only fair.

Sadly, today I see to many people NOT using any discernment skills at all. Afterall, we don't know if the individual Gadarene was speaking about did it in a malicious manner - with an air of you need to accept this. We don't know if the person did it for control or pleasure. People jump to conclusions to fast today, and just GUESS at their intentions...and then others get enjoyment out of piling on.

lol to me getting defensive/aggressive isn't loving, and its not challenging be ugly. Today it is becoming more of the norm. It's not pretty at all.

 

[Gadarene]

In this day and age it could be either/or. My son-in-law spends as much time with his kids as my daughter does, the same with his business partner and his wife, and the same with our local veterinarian and her husband. Times are changing.

It is changing, and that’s good.

I just find it amusing that in all the blame-men-athons, few seem to think mothers, who have generally done the bulk of childbearing, have collective responsibility for how their kids develop in a similar fashion.

 

[Gadarene]

(Shrugs) I don't know. I'm not familiar with the circumstance Gadarene was speaking about.

Everyone has been in circumstances in which something makes them uncomfortable. Yet, using a bit of tact goes a long way. If it NOT effective? Yes, you turn on that firmness! That's only fair.

Sadly, today I see to many people NOT using any discernment skills at all. Afterall, we don't know if the individual Gadarene was speaking about did it in a malicious manner - with an air of you need to accept this. We don't know if the person did it for control or pleasure. People jump to conclusions to fast today, and just GUESS at their intentions...and then others get enjoyment out of piling on.

lol to me getting defensive/aggressive isn't loving, and its not challenging be ugly. Today it is becoming more of the norm. It's not pretty at all.

Yes, this guy was a politician, but by all accounts, he stopped his behaviour when asked, didn’t keep trying it on with the same people, and didn’t go after anyone’s job just because he was turned down. The reporter is very famous even now, her name is Julia Hartley-Brewer.

At worst, he’s a cheat, as he is married. But still, that’s not really a fireable offence, and it’s nowhere in the same league as what Weinstein was doing.

 

[MehGuy]

All men must be a shining knight in armor to protect the vulnerable female damsels.

The endless cycle of feminists gravitating themselves with their biological/evolutionary urges while simultaneously claiming to want to fight gender roles is hilarious. Almost like these feelings aren't quite as socially originated as many feminists like to claim..

Who knew the generally taller ,broad shouldered and less child like looking humans and the generally shorter, narrow shouldered and more child like looking humans would have these feelings/roles? Lol.

Again I don't see feminism as wanting to actually change anything.. just an attempt relive the increasingly lost glory days when gender norms were more explicitly expressed. Feminist men just want to feel more like men again, and feminist women just want to feel more like women again.

 

[Hank77]

Yes, sex crimes are completely different.

Social attitudes perpetuate sex crimes only.

And nothing else.

Completely different. Yup yup yup.

I can't think of any other personal crime, except maybe domestic violence, that has been accepted and even condone by society and culture.

 

[Gadarene]

I can't think of any other personal crime, except maybe domestic violence, that has been accepted and even condone by society and culture.

By the standards of what is considered condoning of rape / rape culture, most crimes are condoned by society.

There is very little in the criteria used to demonstrate the purported existence of rape culture that doesn’t apply to a multitude of other crimes.

 

[Hank77]

By the standards of what is considered condoning of rape / rape culture, most crimes are condoned by society.

I don't know of anytime when rape was condoned. I do know that some women were blamed for being raped because of the way they dressed, etc. but that is not the same as condoning it rape.

 

[Strathos]

I suspect, as with many of these campaigns, the real goal is wrangling power, rather than fair treatment or equality.

To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.

 

[Zoii]

Men being held accountable - I can see why its caused such a stir with the OP

 

[Ana the Ist]

I'm not completely sure I understand what you are trying to convey. I think you are trying to spread the blame for this issue as widely as possible in an effort to dilute responsibility by trying to make victims a part of the responsibility.

IMMHO, men, myself included, need to accept both personal and group responsibility for exercising wealth, power, and authority in order to achieve a level of sexual dominance and satisfaction. That women are known to be enablers and even supporters does not change the responsibility of men to behave in an honorable and responsible manner.

Utter nonsense. Rape is no less a crime or no less awful when committed by a poor or homeless man. Sexual assault is no less worse when done by the powerless.

In that same way, it's no less a crime when a woman commits it. Power, wealth, and authority may make a crime easier...but they do not objectively make it worse in any way. They are in fact, completely irrelevant to the discussion.

To suggest that women should share that responsibility is nothing more than an attempt to avoid responsibility. Men, generally, are good at trying to avoid responsibility for their behavior. But it is time for men to stop running away and do the hard work of accepting who we are and have been.

With that said, I think it is important that we, men and women, work to create a path for reconciliation that will allow men to accept and acknowledge their past without totally destroying their present.

Why?? Because sexually abusing women has been a nearly universal behavior with men for so long that likely very very few men, if they are being honest with themselves, don't have some incident of it in their past.

Speak for yourself. Nearly universal behavior? I don't know what kind of trash you associate with...but I've never done these things, nor have I rewarded any such behavior. Don't speak of nearly universal behavior as if you know the lives and actions of every man.

I'm not opposed to women taking over the corporations and government, but a transition to that if every male is cast out of these endeavors in the next few years is very unlikely to succeed successfully simply because of lack of experience.

The nation needs to have men as well as women willing to make changes in the culture. We need both to explain to children why men needed to change and why women need to have the self-confidence to bring continuing bad behavior to light. To accomplish that, we need a path for men to accept their personal and group responsibilities and become the male figures which teach the younger generations.

Change is difficult. But it is necessary if we are going to bring a better culture to the planet.

I'm no more responsible for the actions of the Weinsteins of this world than they are of me. Would you accept it as a reasonable excuse if he blamed his actions on "culture" or other men? To do so is to deny him the agency of free will and choice...and to suggest anyone else is responsible is ridiculous.

 

[Ana the Ist]

To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.

To those who struggle with success...victimizhood absolves them of responsibility.

 

[Larniavc]

Or someone with a guilty conscience?

E.g. Not all men are guilty of violence and sexism – but all men have a responsibility to stop those crimes

As well as thousands of similar, cringeworthy articles in the wake of Weinstein/#metoo about how men have to ‘do better’ because of the actions of a few*.

More and more I keep thinking, with people who are outspoken on equality issues like Louis C.K. and George Takei falling under accusations recently - this line would be great cover for an abuser.

For example:
‘Yes, I have harassed women myself. But really, don’t you see how all men are responsible for this?”

The abuser’s guilt/responsibility is assuaged and minimised by passing it on to the male gender entire, while virtue-signalling to throw people off the abuser’s own trail.

Discuss.

*As a secondary topic, note how it is only men being told to ‘do better’ even though plenty of women have supported and enabled abusers like Weinstein. As always, I strongly encourage men not to pander to demands for contrition and imposition of collective guilt until enough women display their willingness to accept the same treatment. Either you are responsible for what you are personally responsible for, and that’s it - or all groups are liable for collective responsibility/guilt.

I agree that it is the perpetrator of the crime who holds the guilt.

Society enables these perpetrators in the same way that roads enable people to run others over or guns to shoot people.

The responsibility lays with the perpetrator.

Look at me, tangentially defending gun ownership: this site is a bad influence on me.