I just got online and started looking at recent news and saw the story about newly outed (at least to my knowledge) sexual assaulter, Harvey Weinstein. I guess what pisses me off almost as the act itself is the knowledge that this has surely been relatively well known in Hollywood and his coworkers who are acting outraged now have most likely been helping him keep a kid on this for years. Of course I don't know that for a fact but given how most of these cases go, I'll bet it's the case. I really hope that I could say that if I were in a similar position I'd do something more than perhaps scold the person behind closed doors. I guess one never knows unless they're in that position though. I need to read about how all of this came to the public's attention.
EDIT: I saw this on Wikipedia and thought it was interesting "In September 2009, Weinstein publicly voiced opposition to efforts to extradite Roman Polanski from Switzerland to the U.S. regarding a 1977 charge that he had drugged and raped a 13-year-old, to which Polanski had pleaded guilty before fleeing the country. Weinstein, whose company had distributed a film about the Polanski case, questioned whether Polanski committed any crime, prompting Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley to insist that Polanski's guilty plea indicated that his action was a crime, and that several other serious charges were pending."
Apparently Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are two of Weinstein's enablers. www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ben-affleck-matt-damon-become-guest-stars-harvey-weinstein-scandal-171213233.html?exp=vv
I'd also like to second the motion that people stop throwing out the "but we have daughters!" defense any time something like this happens. We all know daughters are special little princesses which just goes to show that we think of them differently than others and it's silly to try and pretend that because a man has a daughter that he doesn't treat other women like crap. Hopefully they don't treat other women like crap but there are obviously different standards.
It's still sad that there is such a cognitive leap there ugh
I've been really sick the past 2 days so I may not have formed or communicated my thoughts as well as I could or should have. I guess the "but I have daughters!" defense for why one can't be sexist, misogynistic, a rapist, etc is pretty much the same thing as saying "but I have a black friend!" when accused of being racist.
I'm just going to have black daughter so I'm all covered.
Quote from: jer on October 12, 2017, 08:23:31 AM
I'm just going to have black daughter so I'm all covered.
You'd better make sure she's gay because if not you'll never be able to say terrible things about gay people and have it be a-ok.
Quote from: BlakeK on October 11, 2017, 05:52:24 PM
Apparently Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are two of Weinstein's enablers. www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ben-affleck-matt-damon-become-guest-stars-harvey-weinstein-scandal-171213233.html?exp=vv
I'd also like to second the motion that people stop throwing out the "but we have daughters!" defense any time something like this happens. We all know daughters are special little princesses which just goes to show that we think of them differently than others and it's silly to try and pretend that because a man has a daughter that he doesn't treat other women like crap. Hopefully they don't treat other women like crap but there are obviously different standards.
The craziest thing is that literally every single woman is someone's daughter. So if we're going to treat daughters as some sacred fucking entity that deserve to be respected and treasured, we're going to have to treat all women that way.
I just read an article about men who are coming forward now, discussing their experiences being sexually assaulted by more powerful (usually older) males. It seems that nearly every actress in Hollywood has a horror story about being sexually assaulted/raped. The narcissism and abuse of power is worse that I thought. I'm not naive and have always known that this happens but it seems commonplace. I'm not even sure how one would go about effecting change.
Regarding the current confrontation of sexual assault, the weirdest realization I've come to as a straight male is all the media that has affected our society without me ever thinking that much about it... mostly because I guess I never really had to. I was more worried about bullies and jocks, but the misogyny passed off as entertainment has been hella prevalent in media that I actually have enjoyed most of my life.
This video broaches just a few examples of just one angle of misogyny, but I never really noticed how prevalent it was in movies I actually enjoy, like Blade Runner... and Ex Machina uses the trope, but turns a mirror on it, possibly? It's weird to wake up to.
https://youtu.be/0thpEyEwi80
As a disclaimer, I'm not sure if misogyny is the best word... it seems deeper than that, and across gender identities.