The News Thread

[Einherjar86]

Many victims of sexual assault don't report it immediately. That's not because it isn't traumatic or scarring. In fact, it's because it's traumatic and scarring that many don't report it.

Ford grew up in an environment in which this kind of behavior was normal. Just listen to the republican women being interviewed about this case and imagine what they teach their daughters: "It's normal, don't get upset about it." That's what these mothers believe. I don't know what Ford's family life was like when she was young, but that educational environment was where she came of age in. Sure, she might go say hi to one of her assaulters the following week because she doesn't know how else to act. She's embarrassed, she doesn't know if anyone would believe her, she's nervous to admit that she was drinking at a party, who knows.

It's really disheartening to see so much disregard for what an assault victim goes through and how even the threat of potential rape can be irreparably traumatic.

Try having to answer the same questions over and over (which you've already spent hours answering in days earlier, along with "are you still beating your wife?" level questions (Just yes or no please!), and don't get mad. Especially when you have adolescent daughters hearing you accused of running a rape gang. You'd probably need to be a psychopath to not show an emotional response.

And yet if the situation was very different, and it was a woman for some reason defending herself, I'd almost guarantee you that conservative pundits would be talking about how she's too emotionally unstable to serve as a supreme court judge.

We valorize emotional outbursts from men, especially when inflected with anger and formulated as defending their families; but we criticize the same kind of outbursts from women as "hysterical."

 

[CiG]

It's really disheartening to see so much disregard for what an assault victim goes through and how even the threat of potential rape can be irreparably traumatic.

You assume too much here, some people might know more about the subject than you realise.

We valorize emotional outbursts from men, especially when inflected with anger and formulated as defending their families; but we criticize the same kind of outbursts from women as "hysterical."

Conflating very different kinds of emotional outbursts, unless you can provide examples of women doing it in defense of their families, inflected with anger, that was dismissed as "hysterical"?

 

[Dak]

And yet if the situation was very different, and it was a woman for some reason defending herself, I'd almost guarantee you that conservative pundits would be talking about how she's too emotionally unstable to serve as a supreme court judge.

We valorize emotional outbursts from men, especially when inflected with anger and formulated as defending their families; but we criticize the same kind of outbursts from women as "hysterical."

If it were a male liberal, conservative's would likely make the same charge. I'm not defending political punditry. And you are conflating all emotion, as well as the verbal content with the emotion. Society absolutely does not "valorize" all emotional outbursts by men. Do I need to link the 1 billion articles on how "toxic masculinity" causes men to hide and suppress their emotions? Anyone remember Howard Dean?

The entire hearing was purely a multi-hour exercise in gaining political points with voters. No new information was revealed or solicited. Democratic senators obfuscated the history of the judicial committee investigations and their lack of candor in the process, which was obviously meant to delay the vote. The FBI isn't going to be able to do anymore than re-interview the witnesses already interviewed. Feinstein, who didn't even know she had a communist chauffeur for two decades, vouched that no one in her office would have leaked Ford's identity. Booker, an admitted sexual predator, showed no sense of self awareness, and rendered himself a joke with his "day drinking" line of questions. Harris, a lawyer by training, knowing polygraph results aren't worth the paper they are printed on, asked Kavanaugh if he would volunteer to take one. The entire Democratic bloc of the Judiciary Committee failed to acknowledge they disengaged from the committee investigation process and have, assuming Ford is acting in honest and good faith, dragged her along for political gain. At no point was it mentioned that Kavanaugh has been through six FBI background checks for top security clearance etc, and at no prior point were there problems found. At no point was it acknowledged that you can't effectively investigate a matter in which critical things like when, where, and who else, can't be remembered, other than the already listed and interviewed people who all say they have no knowledge of the event (save for alleged victim).

If the Judiciary Committee, on both sides, would have made this about Kavanaugh's 4th Amendment views, that would have been actual due diligence. If the only issue is his beer habit 30 years ago, this is just an extra stain on Senate Democrats.

 

[CiG]

Society absolutely does not "valorize" all emotional outbursts by men. Do I need to link the 1 billion articles on how "toxic masculinity" causes men to hide and suppress their emotions? Anyone remember Howard Dean?

Yeah definitely this. Always amazed that feminists will say "men's emotions are valorized and when women do the same thing they're punished for it" while simultaneously saying "patriarchy hurts men too because they're taught to hide their emotions and they're shamed when they don't."

Feminists definitely love to have their cake and eat it too. #fatpride

 

[arg]

This is what happened
- Kavanaugh touched her ass 30 years ago
- she liked it
- they both went on with their lives
- Kavanaugh nominated
- she sees the opportunity to get $$$
- corrupts that insignificant memory into a false sexual assault allegation

 

[Einherjar86]

You assume too much here, some people might know more about the subject than you realise.

You're right, I apologize.

Conflating very different kinds of emotional outbursts, unless you can provide examples of women doing it in defense of their families, inflected with anger, that was dismissed as "hysterical"?

I can't without going on a search I don't have time for. All I can say is that there are studies that demonstrate clearly how perceived threats of mass hysteria were encoded as feminine during the 19th and 20th centuries. This kind of language inevitably filters down to individual cases, whatever their particular circumstances may be. One of the reasons that Hilary Clinton alienated so many people was that she came off as robotic and clinical, which is very true. The reason she came off that way is that she didn't want to appear overly emotional. If she'd exhibited some kind of outburst like Kavanaugh did during campaign rallies, she would have been criticized for it. Meanwhile her male opponents do it and they're cheered.

It's a very real historical distinction, and while there may be differences between particular situations it generally remains the case that men are championed for being emotionally vitriolic while women are criticized. It goes back to very entrenched cultural perspectives that place men and women in specific roles. Of course, these perspectives also contradict one another given that masculinity has culturally been associated with reason (logos) and femininity has been associated with emotion (pathos).

Society absolutely does not "valorize" all emotional outbursts by men. Do I need to link the 1 billion articles on how "toxic masculinity" causes men to hide and suppress their emotions?

As I say above, cultural perspectives on emotional propriety vary and contradict one another. Men accused of suppressing their emotions are in fact victims of these very systems of propriety. They experience alienation from what society elevates as the ideal of masculinity. This isn't women's fault, despite what a large number of men believe. It's actually the fault of the men from their fathers' and grandfathers' generations.

I don't deny that there are men with serious psychological issues that deserve attention, but that doesn't absolve them of their tendency to direct anger and frustration toward women--just as histories of racial injustice and inequity don't absolve a black person a committing crimes. The continuing distrust and nurtured violence among men plays right along with sociological and cultural histories of gendered roles in this country: i.e. men feeling anger toward the women they're made to identify with by the men they desperately want to be because of entrenched social expectations.

 

[CiG]

One of the reasons that Hilary Clinton alienated so many people was that she came off as robotic and clinical, which is very true. The reason she came off that way is that she didn't want to appear overly emotional. If she'd exhibited some kind of outburst like Kavanaugh did during campaign rallies, she would have been criticized for it. Meanwhile her male opponents do it and they're cheered.

This is pure speculation. If Hillary had showed more emotion, she probably would have been much more likable. But who could know what is true? She acted like a robot in an election against a man who trolled people and acted like a douche, her campaign strategy was absolute ass from many different angles.

It's a very real historical distinction, and while there may be differences between particular situations it generally remains the case that men are championed for being emotionally vitriolic while women are criticized. It goes back to very entrenched cultural perspectives that place men and women in specific roles. Of course, these perspectives also contradict one another given that masculinity has culturally been associated with reason (logos) and femininity has been associated with emotion (pathos).

I fully recognize what you're referring to, but you specifically said men are championed for being aggressive in defense of their loved ones and women aren't. You can't use different kinds of emotional outbursts to prove this point man. If a woman roars in some creep's face because he was staring at her high school daughter's exposed legs or something, people will just as likely if not more than likely champion her for doing so.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm doubtful of America's support of women's emotions, to put it simply and reductively. While I'm sure there are intervening and disparate cases depending on the circumstances, I'm fairly confident that men enjoy more admissibility.

I honestly do wish I could spend more time crafting responses that are thoughtful and intelligent, but my last post took too much time that I should be devoting to application materials and essay writing.

 

[Dak]

All I can say is that there are studies that demonstrate clearly how perceived threats of mass hysteria were encoded as feminine during the 19th and 20th centuries. This kind of language inevitably filters down to individual cases, whatever their particular circumstances may be. One of the reasons that Hilary Clinton alienated so many people was that she came off as robotic and clinical, which is very true.

That's one explanation. Why don't other female politicians have the same problem?

The reason she came off that way is that she didn't want to appear overly emotional. If she'd exhibited some kind of outburst like Kavanaugh did during campaign rallies, she would have been criticized for it. Meanwhile her male opponents do it and they're cheered.

It's a very real historical distinction, and while there may be differences between particular situations it generally remains the case that men are championed for being emotionally vitriolic while women are criticized. It goes back to very entrenched cultural perspectives that place men and women in specific roles. Of course, these perspectives also contradict one another given that masculinity has culturally been associated with reason (logos) and femininity has been associated with emotion (pathos).

I'll generously wait for all of these examples of men, particularly in politics, being championed for being emotionally expressive. I can go pull 10 articles right now in the last 12 hours about how Kavanaugh's "outburst" shows how unfit he is for the SCOTUS - plus throw on quotes from BO for good measure.

As I say above, cultural perspectives on emotional propriety vary and contradict one another. Men accused of suppressing their emotions are in fact victims of these very systems of propriety. They experience alienation from what society elevates as the ideal of masculinity. This isn't women's fault, despite what a large number of men believe. It's actually the fault of the men from their fathers' and grandfathers' generations.

I don't deny that there are men with serious psychological issues that deserve attention, but that doesn't absolve them of their tendency to direct anger and frustration toward women--just as histories of racial injustice and inequity don't absolve a black person a committing crimes. The continuing distrust and nurtured violence among men plays right along with sociological and cultural histories of gendered roles in this country: i.e. men feeling anger toward the women they're made to identify with by the men they desperately want to be because of entrenched social expectations.

This seems to be a novel psychological projection about men and women and both inter and intra sex relations, but I don't know what this has to do with Ford and Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh expressed no anger at Ford, but at Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats for naked political maneuvering (not saying naked political maneuvering is a partisan problem, but this is simply a particular instance on one side).

 

[CiG]

I'm about 30 minutes into the Kavanaugh-Ford Hearing and I've almost shot myself in the cock several times. So utterly boring! The opening statements are horrendous, if this was the U.K. parliament someone would have had tea dumped in their face by now. Fuck America.

I'm doubtful of America's support of women's emotions, to put it simply and reductively. While I'm sure there are intervening and disparate cases depending on the circumstances, I'm fairly confident that men enjoy more admissibility.

Depending on the emotion. Nobody likes whimpering overly self-pitying emotional men. Pussies literally dry up over a man who constantly needs to be saved by other people.

 

[Dak]

Pussies literally dry up over a man who constantly needs to be saved by other people.

Way to perpetuate rape culture with this blatant misogyny.

 

[CiG]

It's the kind of shit women go "AWWWW" over but mock ruthlessly behind closed doors.

Emotions are always about balance IMO, emotionally flexible men who can go full "toxic masculinity" when they need to do way better than men who are brotards or soyboys.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'll generously wait for all of these examples of men, particularly in politics, being championed for being emotionally expressive. I can go pull 10 articles right now in the last 12 hours about how Kavanaugh's "outburst" shows how unfit he is for the SCOTUS - plus throw on quotes from BO for good measure.

As I said, I wish I could spend more time with this--but I just have to point out one thing: do you realize (and I don't mean this condescendingly) that many of the people saying Kavanaugh's outburst demonstrates his lack of fitness are invoking the same criticism levied against women? You're right that people are saying this, but you need to contextualize it within the history of a culture that has repeatedly excluded women from positions of authority.

Put another way, citing these "10 articles" isn't necessarily evidence that our society doesn't valorize emotional outbursts from men since the articles are pitting themselves against cultural tendencies to valorize emotional outbursts from men. They could actually be read as evidence that our society has historically valorized such outbursts.

 

[rms]

I watched like an hour of his and it was really a waste of time. sen graham is a dipshit but hes right this is all political grand standing

 

[CiG]

That Chuck Grassley fella who opened the hearing is awful. He should be banned from speaking ever again, it was like a bingo host reading a fucking funeral eulogy. This dude has the right idea:

 

[rms]

hell just start randomly yelling off camera. one of the dumbest and useless things ive seen in awhile

 

[CiG]

Yeah he was rambling over Feinstein like a rude faggot. Couldn't even hear what the dipshit was saying because he's so damn LowEnergy he couldn't even speak over a woman properly.

 

[CiG]

My god Mr. Leahy is a slurring mess.

 

[CiG]

All this "your coming forward has inspired countless thousands of people with shattered lives to blah blah" shit is so ridiculous. Praising someone as a hero before it's even proven that she's telling the truth lmao. Political hacks.

 

[Dak]

As I said, I wish I could spend more time with this--but I just have to point out one thing: do you realize (and I don't mean this condescendingly) that many of the people saying Kavanaugh's outburst demonstrates his lack of fitness are invoking the same criticism levied against women? You're right that people are saying this, but you need to contextualize it within the history of a culture that has repeatedly excluded women from positions of authority.

Put another way, citing these "10 articles" isn't necessarily evidence that our society doesn't valorize emotional outbursts from men since the articles are pitting themselves against cultural tendencies to valorize emotional outbursts from men. They could actually be read as evidence that our society has historically valorized such outbursts.

I see "righteous anger" as valorized regardless of the gender, with stress on the "righteous" part. That it gets ripped by some is due to disagreement about whether or not it is "righteous".