Trump

[sadmanbarty]

Did somebody say somewhere here that it was unacceptable to compliment a female colleague on the dress she was wearing? Because I did that, and she ended up being my girlfriend. When does mitigation kick in? What fine line separates office romance from sexual harassment?

When the creepy old bloke from the office starts pretending the intern's his girlfriend.

 

[Mr. Tea]

it's not science, there's no legal definition to consult.

You'd have to be either a bully or a sleazebag to want to turn the clock back to the days when junior employees, especially women of course, had to endure all sorts of crap from clients, colleagues and managers, and the options were either to suck it up or look for a job somewhere else (that would probably be no better). It's unambiguously a good thing that this has changed.

At the same time, the big flaw in the principle that offence is defined in entirely subjective terms, and the concept of the 'microaggression' that results from that, is that it's very open to abuse and can be used in a vindictive way. The 'dongle-gate' case is probably the most egregious and high-profile example.

 

[baboon2004]

You know what I'm going to say here Tea - the overall problem with microaggressions being abused vindictively is but a speck in the ocean compared to the volume of microaggressions themselves (and while the term is very useful, the inclusion of 'micro' can lead to downplaying the often horrifying cumulative mental health effects that can result -being made to feel unsure if what happened actually happened, whether you overreacted etc etc - in short being gaslighted by wider society's protection of the aggressor).

And of course, in those rare cases where microaggressions are manipulated vindictively, it's impossible not to conclude that this most frequently constitutes a revenge for a lifetime of being aggressed. Which of course doesn't make it right (and comparatively innocent parties can end up being fucked over), but does provide valuable context for the way in which such cases could be eliminated immediately.

 

[baboon2004]

My short term soft porn writing career in 1999-2000

please provide choice excerpts

 

[Mr. Tea]

And of course, in those rare cases where microaggressions are manipulated vindictively, it's impossible not to conclude that this most frequently constitutes a revenge for a lifetime of being aggressed.

An eye for an eye, and the world will soon be blind. It cuts both ways - by your argument, the guy who lost his job during the dongle-gate affair would be justified in being awful to women for the rest of his life (and lets face it, causing someone to lose their job is not a "micro" aggression, it's pretty bloody macro). There are men who work in tech in America who won't be in the same room as a woman because they're afraid literally any utterance or gesture could be used against them as evidence of 'sexism', precisely because of incidents like this.

 

[baboon2004]

An eye for an eye, and the world will soon be blind. It cuts both ways - by your argument, the guy who lost his job during the dongle-gate affair would be justified in being awful to women for the rest of his life (and lets face it, causing someone to lose their job is not a "micro" aggression, it's pretty bloody macro). There are men who work in tech in America who won't be in the same room as a woman because they're afraid literally any utterance or gesture could be used against them as evidence of 'sexism', precisely because of incidents like this.

The eye for an eye/cuts both ways thing doesn't work and is deliberately obfuscatory of reality - power travels overwhelmingly in one direction in gender relations. No, the guy who lost his job wouldn't be justified in being awful to women - rather, were he to be relatively unsexist himself (I know nothing about the guy), he would be justified in being really angry at other men for their continued poor, sexist behaviour towards women, and really angry that in the backlash he had suffered and not them. Which was the whole point of my post.

Without too much time to read reams of articles, the basic Donglegate issue seems to be one (or two) guys taking the rap for the endless sexism of loads of other men (which is what always happens - precisely because it involves no structural change), even though what it seems that he said wasn't all that terrible. That wouldn't happen if the worst instances of sexism were actually addressed (by men), because then gender equality policies would be being applied (by men) in a sane way and not a kneejerk way to save face. Any way you cut it, men bear the responsibility because they hold the ultimate power here, rather than a woman for reporting an instance of sexist joke-telling. You might not agree with her, but she is not responsible for the context in which that report is received, a context which is entirely shaped by an almost continuous refusal (by men) to address serious sexual harrassment/discrimination.

[I never said that causing that guy to lose his job was justified, and indeed explicitly acknowledged that innocent parties end up getting fucked over. I said that it was explicable. Huge descriptive vs prescriptive difference. But then, as above, the woman involved didn't cause the man in question to lose his job]

If you end up wringing your hands over the 'fear' experienced by members of the group of power (in this set of relations, men), it's clear you've taken a wrong turn somewhere. Imagine instead the fear experienced by a woman in the tech industry on a daily basis, an industry dominated by men, one in which much of society believes a woman cannot possibly be competent/excel, and apparently also a hotbed of sexual harrassment. Imagine how a woman feels about being in the same room as any of those men.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Superb post baboon, especially that last paragraph. I think that "wrong turn" you mention is this typical liberal thing of treating each case individually while always failing (or not bothering) to join the dots and look at how each case slots into the overall system of power relations. You see it time and time again.

Basic lack of sex-class consciousness.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Seems to me to be both simple and complex.

A sexual map, a hexagram.

We adore and need each other, resent and hate each other.

Henry Miller probably wrote it best, at its most raw and equal.

I'd say reading miller is good for an insight into the mind of a male-supremacist, but nothing more. A bit like reading mein kampf or something.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The eye for an eye/cuts both ways thing doesn't work and is deliberately obfuscatory of reality - power travels overwhelmingly in one direction in gender relations. No, the guy who lost his job wouldn't be justified in being awful to women - rather, were he to be relatively unsexist himself (I know nothing about the guy), he would be justified in being really angry at other men for their continued poor, sexist behaviour towards women, and really angry that in the backlash he had suffered and not them. Which was the whole point of my post.

Without too much time to read reams of articles, the basic Donglegate issue seems to be one (or two) guys taking the rap for the endless sexism of loads of other men (which is what always happens - precisely because it involves no structural change), even though what it seems that he said wasn't all that terrible. That wouldn't happen if the worst instances of sexism were actually addressed (by men), because then gender equality policies would be being applied (by men) in a sane way and not a kneejerk way to save face. Any way you cut it, men bear the responsibility because they hold the ultimate power here, rather than a woman for reporting an instance of sexist joke-telling. You might not agree with her, but she is not responsible for the context in which that report is received, a context which is entirely shaped by an almost continuous refusal (by men) to address serious sexual harrassment/discrimination.

[I never said that causing that guy to lose his job was justified, and indeed explicitly acknowledged that innocent parties end up getting fucked over. I said that it was explicable. Huge descriptive vs prescriptive difference. But then, as above, the woman involved didn't cause the man in question to lose his job]

If you end up wringing your hands over the 'fear' experienced by members of the group of power (in this set of relations, men), it's clear you've taken a wrong turn somewhere. Imagine instead the fear experienced by a woman in the tech industry on a daily basis, an industry dominated by men, one in which much of society believes a woman cannot possibly be competent/excel, and apparently also a hotbed of sexual harrassment. Imagine how a woman feels about being in the same room as any of those men.

Someone who can get a person fired by (illegally, I should add) tweeting a photo of them and alleging they have said something "not cool" is not bereft of power! You're talking about women in the 21st century USA like black people in the antebellum Confederacy, it's ridiculous.

 

[baboon2004]

Someone who can get a person fired by (illegally, I should add) tweeting a photo of them and alleging they have said something "not cool" is not bereft of power! You're talking about women in the 21st century USA like black people in the antebellum Confederacy, it's ridiculous.

I don't think you read what I wrote, tbh. Already addressed all this - the woman in this case didn't "get a person fired" at all. That's just false, and a distortion of what actually happened. She complained about the behaviour of two men on Twitter, and to organisers of the conference. The Chief Exec of the organisation one of the men worked for (need I say it was a man?) did the sacking, because it didn't accord with the firm's Gender Discrimination policy. It would of course be interesting to know whether and how well that policy was applied in instances where there was no media glare.

Why the whole episode doesn't illustrate that women have any real power in the workplace, is precisely what I discussed in my previous post.

You've omitted to mention that the woman making the complaint got fired a few days later as well (which I just saw myself). Oh, as well as receiving death and rape threats and being hacked in retaliation by the ever-progressive Anonymous. And the Antebellum Confederacy comment is a bit bizarre given that Adria Richards is a black woman in the 21st century US, and so still can't be sure she won't be shot dead by the police for nowt.

Also, to state the bleeding obvious, I know personally of dozens of incidents where men have said/done things to women at work that (I think, though no legal expert) should have seen them disciplined/sacked under current law, and precisely zero was done. That's power right there.

 

[baboon2004]

Superb post baboon, especially that last paragraph. I think that "wrong turn" you mention is this typical liberal thing of treating each case individually while always failing (or not bothering) to join the dots and look at how each case slots into the overall system of power relations. You see it time and time again.

Basic lack of sex-class consciousness.

Thanks Benny. Indeed, it's always about looking at ingrained power norms at the systemic level.

Which allow anyone in a group position of power (in terms of gender, race, ability/disability) to invoke their power on any of thousands of occasions, while disavowing it because it's understood as the norm of reality and not an actual power relation. Lord knows I've done this enough, and thinking about it/changing one's actions accordingly is bloody difficult (I fail a lot, I know that).

 

[Benny Bunter]

As i thought, this conversation is an almost exact rerun of the last one we had a few months back about a woman who assaulted a guy. IIRC tea, you ended up saying you were going to rethink some things, or words to that effect...

 

[luka]

you have to give it to tea. he was an MRA and alt right way before it became fashionable.

(good work on the tags too Baboon lol)

 

[baboon2004]

ha, if only I could take the credit, but alas not

 

[Mr. Tea]

I don't think you read what I wrote, tbh. Already addressed all this - the woman in this case didn't "get a person fired" at all. That's just false

Bullshit, she wasn't born yesterday and even if that wasn't her explicit intention, she can't have not known it was pretty likely. Not to mention that the way she did it was illegal in the first place.

IYou've omitted to mention that the woman making the complaint got fired a few days later as well (which I just saw myself). Oh, as well as receiving death and rape threats and being hacked in retaliation by the ever-progressive Anonymous.

Right, because I've been bigging up Anonymous or something. Yes, she lost her job too, and received a deluge of vile abuse. I knew that. But this, in a sense, just emphasises my point. It's not even a zero-sum situation. No-one wins here. Would any of you believe me if I said I wholeheartedly want there to be less sexism, of the common-or-garden, anti-woman kind? Because it's clear to me that there are people making a charade of being anti-sexist while doing things that any thinking person could tell are only going to exacerbate that exact problem. I mean, what's the endgame here? Equality or a scorched-earth culture war?

 

[...]

I now realise that the Eurocult film thread is a dangerous repository of male supremacist sexism and an enabling body of micro and macro-sexual aggression. I apologise to all who have been offended and request that is deleted from the record in its entirety.

 

[firefinga]

I now realise that the Eurocult film thread is a dangerous repository of male supremacist sexism and an enabling body of micro and macro-sexual aggression. I apologise to all who have been offended and request that is deleted from the record in its entirety.

You are a white heterosexual male, Craner - thus, you are basically Hitler.

 

[luka]

im glad all of us oppressed straight whites have you two fighting for us or we'd all be off to the reeducation camps by now.

 

[luka]

i mean, it is weird for us, because we were and are a completely apolitical generation. it's 'interesting' to me to see young people (art student types etc) taking on the more politicised sartorial signifiers of the 80s/ the sexless clothes and haircuts. the severe fringes. the shapeless denim and so on, at the same time as they're recapitulating the tortured endless debates about gender and identity and so on (albeit without any notion of the collective or the communal or comradeship)

i think it's reasonable for us to ask "who exactly are these people? and why do they take life, and more worryingly, themselves, so very very seriously?"

 

[baboon2004]

Bullshit, she wasn't born yesterday and even if that wasn't her explicit intention, she can't have not known it was pretty likely. Not to mention that the way she did it was illegal in the first place.

Right, because I've been bigging up Anonymous or something. Yes, she lost her job too, and received a deluge of vile abuse. I knew that. But this, in a sense, just emphasises my point. It's not even a zero-sum situation. No-one wins here. Would any of you believe me if I said I wholeheartedly want there to be less sexism, of the common-or-garden, anti-woman kind? Because it's clear to me that there are people making a charade of being anti-sexist while doing things that any thinking person could tell are only going to exacerbate that exact problem. I mean, what's the endgame here? Equality or a scorched-earth culture war?

(The Anonymous thing wasn't about you)

Leaving aside the point I made that you've completely ignored, because our time on this Earth is limited - you think it's 'pretty likely' that a woman who complains about sexist comments from men (and again for the record, the comments made weren't in fact that awful in my personal opinion, but then I'm not a woman subjected to countless sexist utterances every day, and am therefore not going to reach my threshold any time soon) will be able to 'get' the men in question fired? Dude, which planet do you live on?

Basically women should only complain about oppression in ways that have been pre-approved by men, and which don't cause any difficult situations or use of Gender Discrimination Policies, is the message I'm getting here. And if they dare to even make any kind of 'mistake' in the way they complain, well, the whole enterprise is then worthless and men are the real victims here. And the abuse they receive - well, it's vile and terrible and all, but it is ultimately their responsibility for speaking out and 'exacerbating the problem', right?

Er, lots of men continue to win so long as things don't change - in fact the only man who didn't win in this case was the guy who got fired (notably the trolls weren't very much interested in saving his job when they could use their 'concern' as an excuse to threaten a woman). The idea that 'no-one wins' is a throwaway line. The men who got to make rape and death threats with impunity 'won'. The CEO of the company that fired that guy 'won' by looking as if he was doing something noble about sexism, and using the guy in question as a pawn to this end (although obviously we don't know the whole story here). And most importantly, all the men who could point to this incident to show that women who complain about sexism are unreasonable and petty, and that anti-sexism can only work when it follows very strict procedures that won't in fact change anything about structural sexism, also 'won'.