Hollywood scandal

The Human Q-Tip said:

It is selfish and cowardly to remain silent, and let an evil continue.

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Even 10 year old kids?

Or poor (literally dirt poor) women that are afraid for their careers, lives or their childrens lives if they report their abusers?

The Human Q-Tip said:

It is selfish and cowardly to remain silent, and let an evil continue.

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I'm sorry but that's not for you to decide.

The Oi said:

Even 10 year old kids?

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I addressed that in a prior post.

The Human Q-Tip said:

What is essential to stop perverts like that is people actually speaking out when it happens. When it is young kids, they'll much less capable of doing that. But older people, particularly adults like these women in Hollywood, must name names, and they can't wait until the story has already gone public to pile on.

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Leaving that aside....

Or poor (literally dirt poor) women that are afraid for their careers, lives or their childrens lives if they report their abusers?

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Legitimately afraid for their lives or children's lives? Sure.

But that's not what we're talking about with Weinstein. As for career, the worst he's going to do is not have you work on his movies. Many women who rejected the guy still achieved success.

And like I said, ordinary women who need a paycheck have to go through the "career" calculus, and yet do it anyway.

The worst are those who accepted hush money, because they've already gone through the process of complaining through their agent or whatever, so Weinstein wasn't going to hire them anyway. But taking cash and being silent so other women have to suffer is freaking low.

I'm not directing this at you, but it seems the popular "they were scared" rationale doesn't apply to criticism of men who knew about it but said nothing. Weren't they concerned about their careers too? Should a man who witnesses a sexual assault but refuses to testify or corroborate "not be judged" because he was scared too? Men have to stand up and risk their careers by Challenger Weinstein publicly, but women don't?

There have been a lot of pretty horrible things that have happened because ordinary people lacked the courage to speak out. "Concerned about the effect in their careers" is the usual excuse. Whether it is a cop refusing to report misconduct by other cops, an employee who fails to report massive fraud or illegal dumping of poisonous chemicals, or a military officer who witnesses a war crime, we all would demand that they speak out. People rage about cops not speaking out.

We don't accept "I was worried about my career" as an excuse for any of those situations So why should we accept it here? Much less accepting a payoff to keep quiet.

The Oi said:

OOHHHHH YEAHHH

(Busts load)

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Not sure why this post didn't get more love than it did. I've been laughing my balls off for three days straight picturing this happening!

Christ.

There are plenty of reasons survivors of any type of interpersonal violence (sexual assault or otherwise) don't report. Two of the top reasons would be:

1) the effects that trauma has on a person: low self-esteem and high self-blame even when something was clearly not their fault; want to avoid any recollection of the incident(s) because of the anxiety and depression that the memories bring with it; may not have completely in tact memory of the event because of how trauma affects those areas of the brain and therefore they may not be believed by others or they may not even fully believe themselves

2) the fear of how others would respond: will others believe me, or will they think I'm some lying bitch trying to ruin someone's life? will others blame me (e.g., what you were wearing, if you had anything to drink, if you were flirty at any point along the way)? will I have to re-live all of this again if I go through with pressing charges and a trial? will it cost me my job or something else significant in my life? will the perpetrator try to cause me even more harm?

I work in mental health in a college setting. I've worked with way more survivors of interpersonal violence who (for reasons above and others) chose not to make any report, compared to those who have reported. Yet the common misbelief is still that there are more wrongly accused perpetrators than there are survivors who don't report.

Hydroponic3385 said:

Christ.

There are plenty of reasons survivors of any type of interpersonal violence (sexual assault or otherwise) don't report. Two of the top reasons would be:

1) the effects that trauma has on a person: low self-esteem and high self-blame even when something was clearly not their fault; want to avoid any recollection of the incident(s) because of the anxiety and depression that the memories bring with it; may not have completely in tact memory of the event because of how trauma affects those areas of the brain and therefore they may not be believed by others or they may not even fully believe themselves

2) the fear of how others would respond: will others believe me, or will they think I'm some lying bitch trying to ruin someone's life? will others blame me (e.g., what you were wearing, if you had anything to drink, if you were flirty at any point along the way)? will I have to re-live all of this again if I go through with pressing charges and a trial? will it cost me my job or something else significant in my life? will the perpetrator try to cause me even more harm?

I work in mental health in a college setting. I've worked with way more survivors of interpersonal violence who (for reasons above and others) chose not to make any report, compared to those who have reported. Yet the common misbelief is still that there are more wrongly accused perpetrators than there are survivors who don't report.

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If you're talking about a rape victim who kept the whole thing to herself because of trauma, fine. But that is not the case with a whole bunch of the complaints about Weinstein and others, much of which seems to come down largely to "I didn't want to risk sabotaging my career."

First, many of the situations being described often aren't involving violence at all. Just harassment/pressure. Have some fucking guts.

Second, in a lot of these situations, the person did come forward, except only privately/through a lawyer or agent. They then got a settlement and agreed to keep quiet, which let the guy move on to rape/molest/harass someone else. That is morally inexcusable.

Much of what you describe are the exact same fears - "will it cost me my job or career/will people believe me/what will happen to me next" - faced by a lot of other people with whistle-blowing type decisions. The cop who must decide whether to report the other officer who planted evidence, the employee who witnessed fraud, etc. We don't credit those excuses there, and we shouldn't do so here.

Jennifer Lawrence described something that happened to her when she was 15. I don't fault her for keeping quiet then. But now, she's wealthy, powerful, and would be believed. Yet, the only thing she won't do is name names. McGowan's excuse is "I didn't want my name in his obituary.". Plus, that $100,000.

Those type of concerns are petty compared to the evil they let those people continue to commit against others.

First, when I say interpersonal violence, I'm referring to the umbrella term that includes dating/relationship violence, sexual assault, stalking, harassment.

Second, I wouldn't equate interpersonal violence to witnessing a fellow cop or fellow businessman do something against the law or company policy. Of course that doesn't mean that the latter couldn't also put someone in a shitty situation, but again, I wouldn't equate those examples.


*edit* But I do think it's fucked up that many people (who weren't themselves victims/survivors) have likely known facts about shit like Weinstein and have said or done very little over the years, or outright defend guys like Weinstein. I'd guess in some circumstances you can hypothesize reasons why they didn't do anything (e.g., maybe they've seen others try to whistleblow that led to nothing except them getting fired? maybe they're worried that whistleblowing will result in the victims/survivors getting even more hurt?), but overall that kind of shit is enraging, esp. if the perspective is something like, "eh, that's just how it is in Hollywood."

@The Human Q-Tip I get what you are saying but I think you are being too harsh on the victims. Hey aren’t the ones who assaulted people but you are blaming them instead of the person who assaulted them.

It’s difficult enough to be the victim of sexual harassment or assault. You want the victim to put their career on the line in a he said/she said situation where the other person has major power. The fact that there are so many victims, none of which went public, shows just how difficult it is to come forward.

I don’t blame the victims, if anything I blame the other people who knew he was like this and didn’t do anything or say anything.

I have personal experience with this. Someone I know was sexually abused over multiple years and said nothing because of serious threats threat went well beyond threatening a career the abuser made if they told. Turns out other people knew for decades that the abuser was molesting people and kept it to themselves.

KI4MVP said:

@The Human Q-Tip I get what you are saying but I think you are being too harsh on the victims. Hey aren’t the ones who assaulted people but you are blaming them instead of the person who assaulted them.

It’s difficult enough to be the victim of sexual harassment or assault. You want the victim to put their career on the line in a he said/she said situation where the other person has major power. The fact that there are so many victims, none of which went public, shows just how difficult it is to come forward.

I don’t blame the victims, if anything I blame the other people who knew he was like this and didn’t do anything or say anything.

I have personal experience with this. Someone I know was sexually abused over multiple years and said nothing because of serious threats threat went well beyond threatening a career the abuser made if they told. Turns out other people knew for decades that the abuser was molesting people and kept it to themselves.

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I think his issue is that it could have been prevented if someone said something. They took the money.

Maybe I'm wrong

Huber. said:

I'm sorry but that's not for you to decide.

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It's not up to me how I personally should judge someone's conduct? Exactly who else should be deciding my opinions?

David. said:

I think his issue is that it could have been prevented if someone said something. They took the money.

Maybe I'm wrong

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I understand the point, my point is that, jut like the subway case, and i’m sure many, many others, there were other people who know and said nothing. The victims themselves are the wrong ones to blame.

KI4MVP said:

I understand the point, my point is that, jut like the subway case, and i’m sure many, many others, there were other people who know and said nothing. The victims themselves are the wrong ones to blame.

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Agree. You are right. But not a dichotomy.

David. said:

I think his issue is that it could have been prevented if someone said something. They took the money.

Maybe I'm wrong

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No, you're exactly right. Look, I've seen this. I've seen women raise complaints of harassment, some of whom are extremely distraught emotionally. And the one thing they'll rarely agree to is to not discuss publicly the underlying conduct - not unless you pay a whole bunch more money, and usually not even then. They're pissed and don't want this to happen to other people. So generally, confidentiality is limited to the amount/fact of monetary settlement.

If you sign a settlement agreeing not to discuss what happened to you, then you 1) already decided not to keep this entirely private, to make the accusation, to piss off the accused, and to involve lawyers and others, and 2) demanded more money as the price of not warning other people what that guy did.

I don't see a valid moral defense to that. Sorry, but just because you are a victim doesn't mean you can't be a weasel.

The Human Q-Tip said:

It's not up to me how I personally should judge someone's conduct? Exactly who else should be deciding my opinions?

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As a marine would you tell your unit that you got raped by a guy? Or would you "move on" and continue with an otherwise promising career with a bright future? What if you did come forward and were offered a promotion for your troubles?

KI4MVP said:

I understand the point, my point is that, jut like the subway case, and i’m sure many, many others, there were other people who know and said nothing. The victims themselves are the wrong ones to blame.

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Often, victims are the only ones with first-hand knowledge capable of making credible accusations.

Again, if you're traumatized to the point where you can't discuss it, fine. But in many cases, these victims were harassed, not raped, and many actually did bring it up. They just allowed themselves to be bought off.