Oooh and inferior to your formatting!
I didn’t even imply that, but if you actually inferred that - then you need to do some thinking cuz that’s not a good place to be…
All I said was “blogs !== news”
This needs to be emphasized. No one is going to call out her detractors in this context, because it’s expected that they will attack her on twitter. What’s different about this is, in part, the fact that her fans are joining the dogpile. So that’s what people are commenting on in this context. That isn’t a justification or excuse for the behavior of Schumer’s detractors, though.
Here is the claim you made:
But a lot of folks here seem really pleased to pur all the blame in one place, and are really angry that I suggested that there might be more to it.
Can you explain more clearly how what you quoted supports this contention? I just don’t see it.
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Sure. That’s how it came across, a helpful bit of information offered while completely non-confrontationally discussing an article about an online kefurffle involving a celebrity.
LOL. Good point. But more specifically people who are tearing Amy down because she isn’t enough of a Feminist or not doing feminism the “right” way.
, “it really does seem as though this affair was started by some overzealous intersectional tumblr types reacting badly to someone stepping just slightly outside their orthodoxy.”
And now I’ve effectively recieved my own dogpile as result.
Uh, no. You clearly forgot to mention that she’s a slut. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
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Well, I’m glad you think so, but believe it or not – people have their own background knowledge and values, and therefore interpret the same material differently and draw different conclusions from it. It may be clear to you, but that does not necessarily mean it is clear to me!
Nonetheless, I am committed to trying to understand the perspectives of people with whom I disagree, and will always make time for someone who is willing to help me understand why they think or feel the way they do. “I think it’s pretty clear” is manifestly not an example of someone willing to help me understand why they think or feel they way they do, though…
But let’s try one last time. This:
But more specifically people who are tearing Amy down because she isn’t enough of a Feminist or not doing feminism the “right” way.
does not seem to me to be an example of either:
a lot of folks here seem really pleased to put all the blame in one place
or
…and are really angry that [you] suggested there might be more to it
It does not seem like an example of the first, because it nowhere implies that only her fans have attacked her.
It does not seem like the second because it does not seem to involve any anger at all, let alone any anger at you.
Can you explain where my reasoning on either one of these conclusions is wrong?
Edit:
Two people disagreeing with you is a “dogpile”? I’ve only asked you to back up the claims you are making. I haven’t attacked you or anything.
I think I have to disengage – I’ve tried to be very patient and polite, and don’t feel like I’m getting the same back from you.
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Like Jake Appelbaum, whom I knew for a decade and who had a whisper campaign about his rapey antics for many years? Well, it turns out all of my female hacker acquaintances in the Bay Area knew he was a broken stair to stay away from but, in the same social circles, no one had told a single male friend of mine. None of us knew.
It would be a lot easier to keep rapists out if people were open about letting folks know when people were doing bad things instead of having whisper campaigns. From my own experience with the above, I couldn’t excise Jake like a tumor or even shun him when no one told me about his behavior. Cory expressed the same sort of dismay, as did a bunch of other guys I know. A coworker of mine, who is a hacker and female, when I asked her about it was all “Oh yeah, all of the girls knew and we warned each other.” She then admitted they didn’t bother to tell any guys they knew, probably because they expected inaction.
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The thing is I never really made any claims other than not having seen all of the feminist critcism and pointing to the last couple of years of hate that Amy has been subject to.
“Nonetheless, I am committed to trying to understand the perspectives of people with whom I disagree, and will always make time for someone who is willing to help me understand”
Really doesn’t sound like it
“I think I have to disengage – I’ve tried to be very patient and polite, and don’t feel like I’m getting the same back from you”
In all honesty, some of the replies I’ve recieved from you and others have felt distinctly opposite of that. Maybe it’s because
“people have their own background knowledge and values, and therefore interpret the same material differently and draw different conclusions from it.”
But in all honesty, I am surprised that this conversation has come to this. It’s not even something I’m particularly invested in or a fight that I wanted to have.
Good luck to you.
Remember: women have lots of experience dealing with jerks who don’t believe them or even torment them once they hear there’s been sexual harassment/abuse/assault. Maybe you’re the one good guy in the workplace…but how are the women going to know that? It’s not their fault that they’ve learned not to trust men they don’t know well.
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I’ve read a few of the victim’s account on the website. Several of the incidents of sexual assault had several male eyewitnesses. Maybe you were never one of them, in which case perhaps you personally were not in a position to do anything about it – but someone was, and they didn’t. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
But honestly, you knew Applebaum for years and didn’t know he was domineering, socially and sexually aggressive, and generally disrespectful of people’s personal boundaries? I don’t know him from Adam, but from what I’ve read about him, a lot of people seem to say these are some of his most distinguishing personality traits. These are the exact warning signs for rapiness that I mentioned above!
I also mentioned the fact that men can talk to each other about their attitudes towards women. Maybe it’s not comfortable, but it’s probably something we should all be trying to make more of an effort to bring out into the open, because maybe that could have given you guys the info you needed to try to do something about Applebaum.
I don’t know, it’s a fraught situation, and even the victims in these situations often question how much they are culpable. I don’t want to make it out to be your fault in particular, but it is clear that men knew about Applebaum because they were eyewitnesses of the abuse – but they didn’t do anything about it. That’s exactly why women whisper – they don’t think their guy friends will do anything even if they come forward about it.
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I’m not talking about the workplace. I’m talking about an entire community in which Jake existed. I work in the security community and am the primary founder of a hackerspace.
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OK, you got me. The article didn’t really have specific examples that were purely a feminist slant. Calling her out on her silence is a broader issue.
However, as someone else noted above, she has gotten flak from feminists for some of her comments in the past, such as not wanting to be referred to as “plus sized”. I suppose I can understand not agreeing with her statement, but this lady is allowed to have her opinion and her brand of being a women and not have it align perfectly with others and shouldn’t get grief for it.
So I extruded some of the past criticism for this new issue. (Though I’d be money if I cared to look I bet I could find examples to fit my statement on this issue as well.)
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This doesn’t matter even a little. Being shitty to Amy Schumer for having what is at worst an awkward response to someone else’s shit is just enjoying internet drama too much. Not only do we not know how much power to hire/fire people on her show she has - Comedy Central is infamous for taking complete control for reasons, the criticism is that she is doing things the wrong way.
She not only is being told to fire someone for their social media presence outside of the workplace, but his controversy is about defending a third guy from the allegations that got him booted from a comedy club. I believe she at least says she’s friends with Kurt Metzger, and I know for a fact that he is involved with with the same circle of comedians that collaborate regularly in New York. Just dumping him is not just a difficult decision for personal reasons, but it will have a cascading effect on her already brutal professional life.
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I knew he was domineering and charismatic. Noisebridge, for example, may very well not existed without him.
I was not asking him to stay in my house and watch my daughter or trusting him to pay me money he owed. He was someone I knew socially and, largely, at a distance for the past five or so years since he left the area when the US government actually started constantly harassing him.
I never witnessed Jake hit on a girl or chat one up, let alone be skeevy. I sort of know one ex of his but not well enough that if she had complaints, she ever mentioned them to me. I think you may underestimate how many people knew him socially without being around him all the time.
If we excised all of the ego driven people from the security community (hell, from technology or the Bay Area), we’d lose many, if not most, of the high profile people. Being kind of a jerk is, actually, rather common, in some circumstances. I draw the lines at misogyny, racism, nasty behavior done in front of me or directed at people I know, and call it a day, generally. I don’t have time to police a huge community full of people with a sub-par emotional intelligence or ability to communicate without being patronizing or showing disdain.
I’m 45 (tomorrow), married and/or with the same woman for 15 years now, with a 20 year old daughter. Guys don’t have chats with me about their attitudes towards women. If I hear things, I’ll say something (I have at my hackerspace) but I’m considered an “old guy” by younger men and they don’t want to hear my opinion of their relationships with women.
But, really, in the Appelbaum examples, in my overall social circle, I know one guy who knew something was probably up and that’s because Jake started verbally assaulting him as a regular thing and otherwise trying to take him down a peg constantly. I didn’t even hear about that until he wrote a blog post about it recently.
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You mean what people type on Twitter. I couldn’t agree more.
A) the name of a skit on her show
B) the name of her new memoirs book
C) what her fans & detractors alike do when she does something - anything - they don’t like.
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You’re wrong.
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Let’s be clear. I’m not excusing anyone’s behavior.
What I am saying is “I can’t do anything about things I have no knowledge of.” Full stop.
People have lots of reasons not to come forward with stuff. I do understand that. That said, if I don’t know about it, I can’t do anything about, whether I was going to or not. I’ll just stand there in blissful ignorance.
So I’m not sure that the solution to “some guys witnessed this and did nothing” is “therefore, don’t tell any other guys ever.” I understand why people may make that decision but it also short circuits getting wider involvement as well.
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Hey @wysinwyg is it What You Sin What You Get (as in, what goes around comes around/you do bad things, bad things happen to you) or What You See Is Not What You Get?
Or a happy coincidence that it could be either?
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Hell, considering that many assaults are perpetrated by relatives or some other known assailants, you can’t even really say that we can trust the ones we do know that much.
It’s a shitty sitch, all the way around…
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