You’re so incredibly naive.
I’m sure your jails are filled with men who grabbed a co-worker’s ass and denied anyone who refused attention a promotion. You’re pretty ignorant and naive here too.
You should’ve stopped here. You have no idea what your’re talking about, and you already admitted as much.
Because it’s channels exactly the kind of oblivious and wilful ignorance of the scale of the problem that #MeToo attempted to eliminate. Because the implied “women should shut up and accept that they are ignored” in your comment is the status quo that #MeToo is rebelling against.
But while this particular thread was sparked by events in the game industry, it’s probably a discussion that would be better suited for P&R - if there was a discussion to be had, that is. Your lack of even minimal awareness leaves me with the feeling you’re simply trolling, though.
I agree with Pod.
I’ve debated this issue ad nauseam with @Nesrie in the P&R section. It’s a complex topic that warrants discussion.
https://forum.quartertothree.com/t/the-fall-of-harvey-weinstein/
Your lack of respect for a differing opinion leaves me with the feeling that you are rude.
Ignorance is not a difference of opinion.
Ignorance he admitted to, by stating he didn’t “follow any of this stuff” yet somehow manufactured an opinion on something he doesn’t know anything about.
I’ll answer the questions that haven’t beens.
To put it bluntly, no. Reporting to police or to company HR has historically been more likely to result in negative consequences and attacks against the reporter than the reportee. A person at a company reporting sexual assault was more likely to face retribution, possibly even losing their job, than a person they are reporting. Particularly if they are in a position of some authority/ power.
When the most likely outcome is being ignored, and he second most likely is that your life is made worse/ being revictimized than the fact is people simply did not report often.
Yes. Flat out, it has changed the dynamic so people have faced consequences when they had not before. Sometimes this means losing a position of power and authority, others it has meant criminal prosecution. Sweeping things under the rug, and attacking the accused is a less viable thing now than it was before.
Not perfect, mind, but it is better.
As for the social media angle? Sometimes that is the only way to cause those with the power to enforce consequences into action. Harvey Weinstein, for one, had the power to deflect and silence accusers. Until the pressure from social media exposing his crimes meant that the cover up became untenable.
Without that social media angle it is highly unlikely he would have faced any consequences for his crimes, while those who accused him would have continued to have their careers destroyed.
His suicide is tragic. But so was the fact his victims faced what they did. And it does not appear to be a case of an innocent person being caught up in this. His sisters statement even implicitly validates the accusations, while saying he was trying to be a better person. And I don’t think that driving him to suicide was the goal. Rather, by exposing what happened, prevent other people from becoming victims by their silence.
And how many people have been driven to suicide after becoming victims too? How many people over the years have been victims, reported the abuse, then been hounded and attacked for daring to accuse someone? The answer is a lot. Stories of a teenager who is raped by a football player, but since high school football is part of the local culture, are shunned and attacked by the community and driven to suicide are, sadly, not unique.
Look up Audrie Pott or Daisy Coleman for specific examples of this in action.
Here’s a good look at how troubled Alec was, from a close collaborator.
It’s a sad read - but a great description of how it is to be on the inside of an abusive relationship.
That’s exactly what she’s saying, and it’s backed up in an earlier post in this very thread that you ignored where “Tens of thousands of rape kits go untested across the USA” is the headline.
It was a reply to you directly even!
At this point Pod is just being willfully ignorant. #metoo didn’t just arise out of nothing. It happened because the system doesn’t work. Women talk to HR departments and they talk to police and nothing happens.
So the reaction of “why aren’t these women making use of the system?!” is ridiculous. The system is broken.
Pod is being a dick, basically.
You look at a story like Alec’s is presented by Scott, and you realize that at no point during the chaos that was his life AND the chaos and abuse he created around him with others would there EVER have been a point where you could bring this public and someone not call it some sort of mob mentality. The purpose of bringing something forward is to get support, to get help and to stop the abuse which actually requires people and actions. There was so much concern about holding secrets, that it just allowed one abusive relationship, after another that ended careers before they started, held people hostage in fear that he would do what he ultimately actually did, and of course the coercion, the sex… The fact that some people actually want to separate MeToo into it’s separate category is actually a symptom of the problem in the first place.
You can’t separate it. It’s part of their lives, their livelihoods, where they go to rest and work, their hopes and dreams all wrapped up in the experience of what it’s like to be coerced, threatened or fight for just a little stake every day or risk being attacked, blacklisted and labeled as just a problem. And the claim about mob concerns might as well just be a demand to return to the status quo where people suffer in silence and simply fade away or endure because there is no help to be had, no voices to be heard, and no willpower to actually make a change until someone with existing power is forced to see it directly in front of them when they realize it’s not some other woman, some girl or some gentleman they don’t care about but the person with the crushed dreams, the person with stolen work and opportunities, and person who who was concerned about the spiral they’ve fallen into where they keep giving and are forced to give to get anywhere is now someone they actually care about.
Gaming is no different than several other industries. The rot, the abuse, the horrific experiences are here too and like everywhere else, people tried to sweep it under the rug or ensure systems in place to stop it didn’t work, systems designed not to work, because they thought that was just the price you paid… you being someone else of course.
My concern here is that the system works better in the opposite direction: to punish people accused of false accusations. It’s easy to file a civil lawsuit claiming libel, slander, etc. and the burden of overcoming such an accusation is suffocating.
I disagree that that’s the foregone conclusion, because there are different avenues and approaches to confronting these issues. It’s not just two extremes: suffer in silence or shout it into social media. There’s a world of nuance and possibility between those two choices and it needs to be carefully evaluated in each case.
Emphasis mine, and no. Concerns about mob justice can be real and worth consideration and not necessarily in opposition to the other goals of the movement.
And at what period in time did we have this:
What century, what decade, what month do you think we had this perfect moment in time?
This is perfection paralysis, a demand to return to the status quo until we perfect the future. It’s not going to happen. We’re not going back. Too many people suffered in silence while people KNEW it was happening and did nothing.
Anyone is welcome to try and come up with better systems, always, but the fear of mobs is not going to force us back to the suffering prior to MeToo. it’s just not going to happen nor should it.
I’m all for there being very heavy penalties for false accusations, but in reality, is there any indication that the #metoo era is causing an increase? They unfortunately existed before, and will unfortunately continue to exist, but fearing #metoo because of the risk of false accusations is a misdirect, IMO.
And it’s such a huge misdirect we’re talking about it after a scenario where it’s not even true. His sister, people he worked with, and I am sure there will be more… are coming close to saying there is nothing false about it. Yet here we are.
Yeah, it’s bad in this specific situation, but in general there are these dudes who say stupid shit like “I’m scared to even be alone with a female co-worker now because of the risk of being falsely accused of harassment!”
Which is so troubling and frustrating, because, #1, bullshit, and #2, bringing these actual occurances into the light hasn’t yet been shown to increase false accusations at all. Show me that data and then let’s figure out the next step.
I appreciate your previous post because it’s just ridiculous to suggest that we should go back to the status quo. No way.
I wasn’t talking about Alec’s case specifically. I’m very familiar with some local ongoing lawsuits that built off of MeToo momentum and false accusations to essentially destroy somebody’s life. So yes, believe it or not, it’s a real thing and it has extremely serious consequences for people involved.
It’s serious and carries serious consequences whether it’s a false accusation or not. All these scenarios have always been serious but they were not treated as such. This conversation is here because of Alec, and the number of lives destroyed due to predators and the lack of interest and lack of action and the instant reaction we used to have that she’s lying which endured for generations, and are likely not countable, there are so many.
Last I checked, the mob mentality so feared for the accused is currently focused on Zoe… again.