Filmmaker Cassie Jaye seems to have developed a weird affinity for bigots.
First, she cozied up to some of the most hateful figures in the Men’s Rights movement during the filming of her documentary The Red Pill.
Then, when her funding for the film ran out, she happily accepted financial assistance not only from the actual subjects of the film but also from a motley assortment of far-right ideologues — among them a notorious quasi-journalist who was famously tossed off of Twitter after his fans barraged Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones with racist abuse, and a delusional Trump superfan who literally believes he gave Hillary Clinton the flu with his mind. (After a big donation to Jaye, he got himself an associate producer credit on her film.)
Now she’s trying her best to drum up interest in her film, which has barely drawn any notice at all outside the overlapping spheres of alt-right lady haters and MRAs since it premiered at a New York theater earlier this month.
While The Red Pill got a glowing, if rambling, “review” from new pal/volunteer fundraiser Milo Yiannopoulos at Breitbart, and a somewhat less-enthusiastic thumbs-up from Cathy Young at the right-wing internet tabloid Heat Street, the two real film reviewers who’ve bothered to give it a look have panned it.
Katie Walsh at the Los Angeles Times took issue with the film’s “uncritical, lopsided” argument, complaining that Jaye “twists herself in knots to justify the movement’s misogynist rhetoric.” The Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl dismissed Jaye as an inept “propagandist” and warned potential viewers that, as the headline to his piece put it, “You Can’t Unsee ‘The Red Pill,’ the Documentary About a Filmmaker Who Learns to Love MRAs.” (His review of what he described as an “agonizing” film caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the MRA crowd.)
With little hope of attracting positive attention from film critics, and apparently desperate for any publicity she could get, Jaye agreed to appear on the podcast of an internet-famous bigot who has been described by one critic, not without reason, as “THE MOST WARPED USELESS PEICE OF SH*T THAT I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE TO ENCOUNTER [on the] INTERNET OR ELSEWHERE.”
I am talking, of course, about the rape-excusing, abuse-encouraging, lady-hating, gay-baiting white supremacist Matt Forney — he’s the one on the left in the photo below.
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/787198238575120384
She didn’t just give Forney a couple of minutes of her time; she sat down with him for roughly three-quarters of an hour for his podcast “This Alt-Right Life.” It’s a singularly unedifying discussion. At one point she mentions that she used to get into arguments with her boyfriend every month about nothing, something she now jokingly blames not on PMS but on her (former) feminism.
Badump-tsssh!
She also expressed sympathy when Forney mentioned that he himself had been the victim of a “false” rape accusation. (Imagine that, the author of a blog post titled “Why Girls Rarely Mean No When They Say No” being accused of rape!)
Not that long ago, Jaye was by all appearances a staunch opponent of pretty much everything Forney and his alt-right pals stand for.
In 2012, she released a documentary titled “The Right to Love,” which, according to its description on IMDb, is the portrait of a “Californian married gay couple and their two adopted children,” fighting against the forces of “discrimination, ignorance and hate” who would deny them their right to marry and raise children.
Now she’s appearing on the podcast of a guy who is a virtual embodiment of this ignorance and hate.
It’s not as if evidence of Forney’s despicable views is hard to find, and not just in the WHTM archives. The name of his podcast contains the phrase “alt-right.” In the list of “popular posts” highlighted in the sidebar of his blog one finds such lovely titles as “How to Crush a Girl’s Self-Esteem” and “Why Fat Girls Don’t Deserve to Be Loved.” (Neither title is meant ironically.)
And then there is the endless stream of racist, misogynist and homophobic abuse that is his Twitter account. Some highlights from the last several days:
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790064680907792386
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790364983171354625
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790367816360857601
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/790050589598162944
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/789976518596362240
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/789633067791122432
That last tweet — a reference to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s practice of murdering people by throwing them from helicopters — is technically a death threat, aimed at a National Review writer who has gotten many such threats from Forney’s colleagues in the alt-right, including photoshopped images of his 7-year-old daughter being gassed in a Nazi death camp.
Are these really the sorts of people Jaye wants to align herself with?
In his “review” of The Red Pill, Milo claimed, without evidence, that a virtual army of feminists was “scrambling to stop Cassie Jaye” and her film. In fact, feminists have mostly ignored The Red Pill. And the person who has done the most to damage Jaye’s credibility is, well, Jaye herself.
Axe: I’ve heard of Kentucky referred to as “Southern Light.”
@Everyone except T_S:
You’ve all got infinite patience with T_S. My metaphorical hat is off to every one of you, although I know every one you realize that she couldn’t give two shits; but the lurkers will read and learn.
@Handsome Jack
I don’t have a shitton of time before my meds kick in and I pass out, but I was able to quickly locate this report:
http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/old_reports/406.pdf
I am just super-spoiled by Kentucky reporting, because the CHFS reports are current as of October, whereas these data are a decade old. Yikes. Nevertheless, a few hot takes:
– 19% of children nationwide entered foster care at less than 1 year of age, for those children who entered foster care between 2000 and 2005.
– 36% were African American, which is far above the African American representation in the US overall.
– “Infants continue to be the largest group of children entering care, making up 18 to 20 percent of all children entering care from 0 to 17 years of age, from 2000 to 2005.” (page 18)
– “Infants have the highest entry rate of the four age groups, averaging over 8.9 per 1,000 per year from 2000 to 2005.” (also page 18)
– White children and HIspanic children have an incidence rate of 1.8 to 2 per 1000 children, whereas black children have an incidence rate of 4.3 to 5.4.
@Axecalibur
Culturally it’s South. Kentucky was a slave state, but because it picked Union it wasn’t subject to Reconstruction. This made it a popular destination for Confederate officers looking to evade Reconstruction and continue to oppress black people. Kentucky carries on this not-so-proud tradition to this day.
So, geographically we are Midwest, but I will have to choose South for cultural reasons.
I know this is bullshit just from years of personal experience, ranging from adult-aged creepers creeping on me when I was 11 years old to the bro driving by me last week who felt the need to let me know that he found me sexually unappealing. What sort of magical, happy fairy fun-land do you live in? Are there unicorns? I hope there are unicorns.
@Susan, I’m not sure how you can line up this:
with this:
There are ways in which the legal system treats men poorly; of course there are. However, it’s not common. Combined with societal tendencies to disbelieve women when men are talkin’, and you get a really terrible situation.
We’ve cited statistics, and we’ve shown laws from around the globe that contradict what you’re saying. Up here in Canada, joint custody with a 50-50 split is the default – and I know this, my sister’s going through it right now. Her ex is emotionally abusive, and he still gets 50-50.
He also doesn’t have to pay his child care payments at all. If he hasn’t got any work he doesn’t need to pay, and if he’s got work but chooses not to, that in no way infringes his right to see his children – they’re separate.
Further, if she wanted to get that child payment, she’d have to sue him for it. He wouldn’t go to jail outside of the most extreme circumstances, and his payments would still be scaled based on what he could pay.
Your anecdotes are less than worthless, they’re misleading you. Read the law, read the stats.
A few more foster care hot takes:
– 68% of children who enter foster care as infants go into traditional foster homes. Only 17% are placed with relatives.
– “A much higher percentage of children of Hispanic origin (28%) are placed in congregate care than of White children (19%) or African American children (20%). A higher proportion of White children (60%) are placed in conventional foster homes than of African American children (53%) or Hispanics (46%); African American children are more likely to be placed in kinship care (23%) than are White children (19%)” (page 24) This doesn’t relate specifically to infants, but I thought the racial disparities here were interesting.
– “Infants have a much longer median duration than older children. While the median duration for infants has declined from 18.7 months to 17.6 months from 2000 to 2004, the median duration in foster care for teenagers has increased from 6.6 months to 7.6 months from 2000 to 2004.” (page 33)
– Also on page 33: “Concerning racial/ethnic differences, African American children have the longest median duration of about 14 months for each entry cohort, while the median duration for White, Hispanic, and other children is only 10 to 11 months.”
@PeeVee
For the lurkers!
@PoM
Thought so myself, happy for the confirmation
@Lindsay
I disapprove of guys making unsolicited judgments on the appearance of random gals. Not cool. But I understand it. The opposite, rather naively, blows my mind everytime. I know why they do it, but it’ll never really make sense to me. I choose to be a little proud of that…
– For children who entered the foster care system as infants, at the end of 2005 30% were still in foster care. Only 24% were adopted. 29% were reunified with parents and 10% were placed with relatives.
-African American children were approximately equally likely to be adopted when compared with white children, but more likely to remain in foster care overall. Hispanic children were significantly less likely to be adopted.
eta: that’s all I’ve got, this report is starting to run together for me.
@Dalillama: “Why would you consider this a meaningful question?”
I was responding to the seeming assertion by at least one or two people here that adoption may not be an option that biological expectant parents of non-white children can consider if they don’t feel able to raise their infants themselves. At least one other person also mentioned that disabled and female infants aren’t as easy to find adoptive homes for. So withiin context, it was a meaningful question.
I’m just going to say, not for the first time, how deeply upsetting it is to me that a major “men’s rights” issue is: how do I avoid taking care of my kids?
A woman I slept with is pregnant. Shouldn’t I be able her to terminate the pregnancy? No? Well, in that case, shouldn’t I be able to make my life functionally identical to how it would have been if she had terminated the pregnancy?
I have been denied visitation with my children because I’ve been abusive to them. That means I’m not using them, so I don’t see why I should be paying for them. Shouldn’t I be able to stop paying support?
My wife had an affair several years ago and conceived a child, who up until recently I had thought was biologically mine. Don’t you think I should be able to terminate my emotional and financial relationship with the kid? Sure, it might completely destroy their life, but what do I care, if they’re not a biological extension of me?
Assholes.
@That_Susan
This,
…is not consistent with this.
You cannot say that only the pregnant person decides and then go on to outline a literal limitation on that right. Forcing someone to deliver a baby after a certain point is also a violation of personal autonomy. This is simply the way that evolution made us, only pregnant people own their bodies. I don’t care what scientists say.
Don’t forget that some MRAs actually were the biological father(s) of the children they insisted were the result of ‘their’ woman fornicating with some other guy (because obvs she’s a ‘cheatin slut’ /s) – Elam refusing to acknowledge his daughter as his, for example.
@That Susan
If the guy is unaware, and remains unaware that there’s a child out there in the world someplace that he helped to create – clearly he’s not terribly concerned about being denied the opportunity to be an involved father or he’d at least have known the woman was pregnant when their relationship was happening.
The adoption situation in the U.S. is inconvenient for the picky prospective parents, to such an extent that many go after international adoptions, though none are quite as horrid as the ultra-conservative religious couples doing ‘rescue adoptions’ – fundraising to add another child to their adopted family collection. I’m sure you are at least somewhat familiar with that bunch, from NLQ posts.
I work with a large group of people that move in and out of the lab on a weekly or monthly basis. Some of them are “rescue babies” as you describe. It breaks my heart when they talk about their parents. Especially their Father. You can practically hear the capitalization in their voices. And the first thing they talk about when mentioning their Father is how much they owe him. Their ever-present evangelizing is solely for Him. But I can tell, in the quieter, casual moments, that they hate it. Their strained smiles and hesitant pauses. They know that something isn’t right, but they dare not breathe a word of it – or it’s Hell for them.
Twists my guts in knots, interacting with them sometimes. They’re wonderful people, kind and thoughtful. And ever so trapped.
@: weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo: “So, if a woman has sex before she is certain that she can be a single mom, she’s just shit out of luck and so is her kids. But don’t worry. She can just have the baby and give it up for adoption. Because going through pregnancy and labor is no big deal and it in no way affects you to give up a baby. Such amazing liberal opinions!”
Going through pregnancy and labor is most certainly a big deal! It was a big deal to me when I carried and gave birth to my own two children — but in my case, it was a big deal in a good way: I’ve always felt like I was the lucky one to get to have my children growing inside me, and also to get to nurse them and be their only food source for the first several months of their lives.
The other side of the coin is that the bonding of pregnancy and childbirth can be a big deal in a very emotionally painful way for a woman who lacks the economic security or support system to be able to raise the child herself.
“I see Susan is still ignoring my point about the rights of children to not live in poverty. This is very disappointing from someone who claims to want a good faith debate.”
The rights of the children who could potentially be conceived not to live in poverty should definitely be at the forefront of the mind of every man and woman who decides to take the risk of having potentially-procreative sex. In the event that they take the risk anyway, and the mother decides to carry the baby to term and to keep the baby, and the father opts out, or the father decides to raise the baby and the mother opts out, I believe the parent who’s raising the baby should still be able to avail themselves of all the assistance available to families with incomes below the poverty line.
One of the reasons our government started going aggressively after fathers for child support was that mothers who didn’t get that support were more likely to be low-income and need public assistance. Obviously, I believe that any parents who DIDN’T opt out at the beginning remain obligated to support their children until adulthood; however, if one parent is raising a child alone because the other parent opted out, and that parent qualifies for and applies for assistance, then that’s just a burden that we the taxpayers will have to help shoulder.
@weirwoodtreehugger: communist bonobo: “If I’m to understand the rights hierarchy is fathers > affluent couples who want to adopt > mothers. If a mother is poor, she doesn’t deserve to keep her children. It’s better to take children from their mothers than it is to inconvenience fathers by asking them to contribute financially to the human they helped create.”
If you’re talking about what I wrote, then no, you didn’t understand. Both men and women have an equal right to decide whether or not to have sex and whether or not to use contraception. If an unplanned pregnancy occurs, the woman, as the one carrying the baby in her own body, is the only one with the right to decide whether to carry the baby to term.
The man has an obligation to inform the woman, soon after learning of the pregnancy, whether he wants to co-parent the child with her or sign away all rights and responsibilities. Once she learns his intentions, she can make a more informed decision herself. And vice-versa: If the woman doesn’t want to be a parent and the man does, he needs to think carefully about whether he’s up to the task of doing it all on his own. Either parent contemplating single parenthood should speak frankly with their own parents and other family members in order to know what kind of support system they’ll have if they do decide to do this.
People wanting to adopt a baby have absolutely no rights to anyone’s baby, unless the birth parents decide to relinquish those rights. No parent should have their child taken from them without clear evidence of abuse or neglect — and even then, they should only have their rights completely terminated if it’s clear that they’re not able or willing to do the necessary work to become a decent parent.
One more thing about your previous comment about a child’s right not to live in poverty: Even though I was married when I had my children, we’ve been through some hard times, including times when our income has dipped below the poverty line. We’ve utilized various public assistance programs. When my husband died last April, we began receiving social security, another form of public assistance, which brought our income up to where we no longer need or qualify for food stamps, but my children’s health needs are still covered by Medicaid.
Through all of this, I’ve always believed my children were wonderful kids, with every bit as much right as everyone else’s kids to a comfortable middle class lifestyle. That said, even though things are still tight, I think we’re pretty happy overall, and they’re good students with creative ideas and bright futures.
And even if I’d known during pregnancy exactly what the future held, I still would’ve gone ahead and I wouldn’t have given either of them up. So I don’t believe for one minute that more than a tiny minority of parents are going to opt out; they are missing so much if they do; being poor or lower-income is rough but it’s not the end of the world when you have each other.
As for anecdotes..
My first child was unplanned, had her dad had a choice I’m sure he’d have terminated his rights (read: responsibilities), it took him until the birth of his child to realise what a blessing she is, and now, 17 years on, of course she’s the apple of his eye. Though many years have gone by he still cannot apologise enough and it’s not really to me, but to himself.
My son was planned but again his Dad decided soon after the positive test that it was a terrible mistake. And again, as soon as he actually got to see that child, hold him, and the abstract became the reality, he wondered why he’d been so afraid.
I didn’t wonder why he reacted that way, pregnancy was very real to me, and I couldn’t ponder my navel anyway, I had to move on and deal with the fact I was pregnant (as well as his reactions to my being pregnant).
I’m not sure my anecdotal experience isn’t all that uncommon.
Women’s and men’s reproductive rights are not equivalent. Pregnancy is not as abstract for a woman as a man. Women are raised to constantly consider the consequences of sex and pregnancy because it’s our bodies, and our social standing on the line. I’d love for men to be put in the same position of responsibility to go along with their rights, but they aren’t, cannot be, and to suggest it could be that way would have worse consequences on both genders and the children involved.
However, what troubles me most, is the belief that we would be asking men to commit to the same decision as women have, in a lesser amount of time, but without any of the same circumstances, socialisation, or biological attachment to a child.
Yes that might be a good thing for the few men who would be cool forever terminating all rights and responsibilities, but it would cause an awful lot more fathers, like my children’s Dad I believe, to make a decision in the heat of fear and an abstract reality that really then disadvantages them for the rest of their lives.
Children and women aside, I’m really confused as to how this is about caring for men on the whole and their rights.
It saddens me that really these are responsibilities under the guise of rights, some are considering subjecting all fathers to, based purely on the financial implications of childbearing for some. Which is going to cause more harm to men? Not having the right or being as laboured by the responsibility of pregnancy, abortion, or adoption as women are?
That is for men and MRAs to answer, but so far I’ve yet to see MRAs understand fully what the responsibility that goes with our “privileged rights” actually entails.
I guess most men get it though, or they’d be raising their hands saying “I agreed to my abortion” the next time Trump or his like exclude men from the abortion discussion and blame and shame women 100% for it.
@Sigh: I don’t think I qualify as a libertarian since I support having a social safety net for people in need.
Sorry you don’t find my posts interesting. I’ve been trying to write thoughtful responses to every post bringing up points that I haven’t already responded to.
You feel Cassie hasn’t yet gone enough in-depth in gaining her understanding of of the red pill, and of feminism. Both philosophies and their spinoffs have so many interesting layers, and like the old saying by Albert Einstein, I also find the more new things I learn, the more I realize how little I know.
And in the midst of all this, there are people in both the manosphere and the femisphere who see me as extremely untrustworthy because I haven’t “picked a side.” I’m on the side of PEOPLE. And no, I’m not whining about the people who mistrust me for not picking a side. They have a right to their opinion about me, and I have a right to my opinion about them.
I look forward to seeing The Red Pill. And sure, everyone has a right to form their own opinion about it, and express that opinion, just as I do.
@Ooglyboggles: “Or how you are so liberal that restricting people’s free speech to say racist shit to asians like me is completely fine.”
Sorry if there are people saying racist shit to you. That’s not fine with me.
“Or how you’re conveniently ignoring when people are pointing out that non white, female and disabled children have a much lower tendency to get adopted.”
I haven’t ignored it. I’ve said that if the child can’t be adopted, both biological parents are obligated to support and raise the child. And if there are disabilities, there should also be government assistance, as there should also be if the family income is below the poverty line, like my own family’s income has been at times and we’ve availed ourselves of the help that was available.
@Policy of Madness: ’”Must be nice to be so privileged that racists and misogynists can’t really touch you. Certainly would be nice if everyone could be that privileged … wonder what could make that happen …”
Okay, not sure how that comment connects with my comment that you quoted above it about chatting with my church friends who have varied political perspectives. Maybe it goes hand-in-hand with having a “Policy of Madness?”
@Policy of Madness: Regarding the children in Kentucky who are in foster care, are you saying that 100 percent of them are children whose parents realized during the pregnancy that they weren’t going to be able to raise them, began actively looking for and interviewing adoptive parents, and relinquished their infants at birth but then nobody was willing to adopt those newborn infants?
If so, then we need to do a better job connecting people, because a lot of parents are waiting years and never getting to adopt.
…I don’t understand what Susan is harping on about? As far as I understand it, men and women have equivalent parenting rights. The kid is born and the parents have the option to either raise the child or not raise the child. If they both want to raise the child then they both raise togther or share custody. If only one parent wants to raise the child, then the other one has to pay support to the other one, so as to provide for the child they created. And if neither parent wants to raise the child, then they put the child up for adoption.
And, yes, I’ve seen the ‘but safe haven abandonment weh weh weh’ points. I HIGHLY doubt that a mother could drop the kid off and that the father would have no recourse to take the kid back if he wanted to be the one to raise the kid. Pretty sure he could just go to the police or CPS and report what happened, and ask for the kid back. I don’t think they have a “no take-backsies” rule. And if the father did decide to do that, then the mother would be obligated to support the kid. The agencies that be are certainly not going to complain about having one less kid to take care of and generally do their best to get the non-raising parent to pay support, because it cuts down on the money they have to pay for the kid (at least in the States, apparently Canada is much more laissez-faire about seeking support payments).
As for reproduction, well, sorry dear. Reproduction isn’t equal, due to biology. People with uteruses are the ones who have to incubate the kid in their own damn bodies, they’re the ones who have to endure childbirth and pregnancy, and their the ones who get the say in what fetuses get to use their bodies. People with penises get to skip childbirth and pregnancy and breastfeeding, but they don’t grow the fetus in their own damn bodies, so they don’t get any say in what happens to it. If you want equal reproductive rights, find a way to give everyone wombs, and then everyone can have a say in what goes on in their own damn womb. Until then, take it up with Mother Nature.
I was adopted. Scildfreja Unnýðnes comment about the rescue adoptions and what they feel they owe. It’s not just them. It’s lots of us.
I hate these conversations so much. Although I’m sure lots of people have been very happy being adopted children, even adoptive parents can be really shitty and everyone wants you to CONSTANTLY BE GRATEFUL. (Don’t even get me started on extended family networks and ‘well-meaning’ family friends.)
The language about making sure infants are adopted out straight away is offensive in the extreme.
I’m glad people like Robert have been able to create wonderful families through adoption. What is terrible when people lob it around like some cure-all and only talk about the adoptive parents and how happy they are to get a baby. There’s two other sides to the adoption triangle, the ones people never seem to want to talk about.
@That Susan
I know this is a waste of time, but I’ll bite once more anyway:
Why do you think that the question of whether someone who is pointing out a problem personally knows someone who is suffering from that problem is relevant to the existence ofthat problem?
If I may: I’m actually a person who that happened to. I was denied by my bio father up, down, and sideways, even post-DNA testing. He never paid any child support (he apparently lived off of his very rich father), and only fought for one child: a first-born son, which I was not.
I also don’t doubt that I’m the only person in this thread with a similar experience.
_____________________________________________________
And oh, goody, Susan finally replied to me! *cracks knuckles* Now that I’m home from work, I’ve relaxed a bit and had some cider, time for some teal deer:
(Also Big Mac is Best Pony IMO)
Yeah. I am. And that’s not just my experience either. I’m sure several women both on this site and off can tell you all about dudes who say they “respect” women, and then will go off and do something shitty, but expect their proclaimed “respect” to be a Get Out of Criticism Free card.
For a specific example, many women here are (rightfully) leery of Male Feminists who defend their desire to use that label, mostly because there are lots of men who co-opt the label as a way to get into feminist spaces and attempt to use it as leverage against women.
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/867/521/834.jpg
I can’t tell you how many dudes I’ve seen disrespect the fuck out of women, and then backpedal with “but I respect women! My mom’s amazing!” when the woman calls them out for their shitty behavior. (Protip: Thinking your mom is awesome is not equal to respecting all women, nor is it equal to respect in any sense.)
Here’s a random example, though I do recommend you read the rest of the blog, Susan. Trust me, you’ll see a lot of fucking disrespect towards women, and you’ll rarely see the same dude twice.
Here’s some examples I pulled just from this blog:
Birth.Movies.Death Top Editor Devin Faraci Steps Down After Sexual Assault Claims (Faraci claims the title of feminist but sexually assaulted a woman)
How Not To Be a Male Feminist Creep: 8 Lessons From the Ben Schoen Meltdown (Ben Schoen claimed to be a feminist, then stalked and harassed a woman)
And I’m sure other people here would love to elaborate on their own experiences if asked.
The thing is, many men who claim to “respect” women, don’t understand what the fuck “respect” actually is. People like Paul Elam and Matt Forney and the rest of the manosphere claim to “love” and “respect” women, but look at the shit they write and put out to the world.
You can’t honestly tell me, with a straight fucking face, that these men sincerely actually respect women with the shit they do.
If you’ve never encountered a man who has disrespected you to your face, I daresay you’re incredibly lucky. A lot of us women really, truly, are not in that aspect.
Did you see the same coverage I saw?
Because here’s what I saw:
“I’m appalled because I have daughters!”
“I’m horrified because I have a wife!”
“I’m disgusted because I have a mother!”
What I saw was a bunch of men getting angry because they are mad that Trump, or someone like him, might disrespect women they know. Which is a vastly different situation than “They’re mad that Trump disrespected women”, like you claim.
If I might drop this John Oliver bit from the Ray Rice scandals:
Here’s an example of what women go through when dealing with people they don’t know, and why we do it.
Here’s a video detailing the differences between a woman and a man getting ready for a date.
Did the man have to take all the same safety precautions as the woman?
Again, consider yourself lucky. I’ve had men get pissy with me because I wouldn’t tell them my real name five minutes after meeting them on a random website.
I’ve seen other women talk about how men will get pissy with them if the women don’t want to meet up for sex immediately, or get mad if a woman suggests a date that isn’t “come to my place and fuck”.
Here’s a fun fact: I have a greater chance of being attacked by a man in my own apartment than by a shark, especially because I live a few hours inland.
So, is it okay for me to be afraid of sharks, but not okay for me to be afraid of men?
Am I supposed to let my guard down around all men (and risk being very, very hurt or worse), because I might be “negative” towards them and hurt their feelings?
Why do you think that my safety is less important than some random dude’s hurt that I’m not going to be 100% relaxed around him from the get-go?
Yeah, I do.
The majority of rapists are men. The majority of assault perpetrators are men. The majority of murderers are men. I have a greater chance of being sexually assaulted by a man than I do of getting hit by a car.
Most men feel entitled to my time, my affections, my body, my every waiting breath, and will get angry if I don’t give it to them.
I can’t assume that Joe Guy that I met off of a dating site isn’t going to hurt me because he says he “respects” women and “would never do something like that!” Because that would be, statistically speaking, a really bad idea.
You know who else says they’re not a rapist/murderer/someone who’s going to hurt you? Rapists/murderers/someone who is most definitely going to hurt you.
On top of that, if the worst case does happen and I am hurt or assaulted, do you know how fucking hard it is to get the police to listen to you? Refer back to the Robot Hugs comic.
“What were you doing with him?”
“What were you wearing?”
“Why did you provoke him?”
“What/How much did you have to drink?”
Instead of asking me how to catch this guy, I’m very likely to get interrogated so the police can brush off my assault.
So, yeah, my safety does take priority over the feelings of men. And if men don’t like that, then maybe they should take that problem up with other fucking men and not me, or other women, for taking precautions against other men’s awful behavior.
I mean, why should I, or any other woman, have to suffer at the hands of men, and not be weary of them? Once bitten, twice shy, right?
Who the fuck said that?
What was actually said was “men shouldn’t be allowed to just skip out on raising a kid no questions asked”.
No one said a man can’t make the choice to do what’s right for his child, but we’re saying a man can’t just fucking ditch his child because reasons without consulting the woman who gave birth to his child.
We’re talking about a man going “lol nope” and abandoning ship without a word, and you’re talking about someone who sat down and was like “This is why I can’t raise that child”, which none of us have a problem with.
What’s with you and putting words in our mouths and not actually reading what any of us said?
It is fucking insulting, because it stems from the sexist idea that “women lie about everything” or the idea that “she just wants to get back at him”. It stems from the bullshit idea that women lie about rape, specifically to destroy the lives of men, and it runs with the idea that the rapist is somehow a victim of a woman’s desire to ruin him.
Here’s a fun story: I was actually raped. More precisely, I was sexually assaulted over the course of two years by someone in my home who had power over me as an adult, and I was a child.
I did try to tell other people in the house what was going on. You know what happened? They assumed I was a fucking liar.
They said things like I “wanted to get back at him”, and that I was “just being an angsty teenager” and took his side instead of mine. It was always my word against his, and people were always more inclined to believe him.
Had I been a boy, they would have taken me more seriously. I don’t doubt this in the slightest.
Then I took his ass to court, and now he’s in prison for (hopefully) the rest of his natural life.
So yeah, I do find it insulting when people “reserve judgement” on a rape victim’s testimony instead of go through with it like it actually happened (like we do with other crimes). Because we hold women to these lofty standards of Burden of Proof when it comes to rape constantly, and it’s just another way to shit on women and keep rape victims silent.
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First of all, how fucking dare you make those assumptions about anyone here, especially when you were all preachy about “judging someone by their actions and not their qualifications” earlier.
Second of all: fuck right off with your bullshit, unfounded “hunch”. How fucking dare you use rape victims as a fucking cudgel like that. I am fucking disgusted with you right now.
Fuck. You.
Sincerely. I have no other words right now. For all your talk of “judging people by their actions” and whining about how we aren’t actually addressing your arguments, you waltz in here and want to accuse us of this shit? Are you fucking serious?
You don’t fucking know anyone here. You’re pulling shit out of your ass, based on faulty fucking logic.
Yeah, yeah you are.
You’re making bullshit assumptions based on bullshit “hunches” instead of, oh I don’t know, asking us what we think about certain topics, and you are sincerely asking if you’re “unfairly demonizing” people?
Seriously?
Unless they’re women, then they’re just mean for “demonizing” men by putting their safety first.
Or unless they’re “third wave feminists”, then they don’t give a shit about male rape victims because Susan has a hunch that they don’t.
Yeah, fair trials and due process everyone!
I never said their feelings weren’t hurt, nor did I say they weren’t entitled to that. However, that’s all they suffer.
And, again, my fucking safety and the safety of women comes before men’s feelings. I’m so sorry (not sorry) that I’m not willing to put my life on the line to not make Dave Dude sad because I don’t fucking trust him right off the bat.
Maybe Dave Dude and other men should realize that they have to work to reverse the fucking negativity that other men cause and continue to perpetuate, rather than be like you and say that it’s all us women’s fault for being mean and “demonizing” men instead of blindly trusting every man we meet.
You’re literally saying that men’s feelings are more important than women’s safety right now, and it boggles my fucking mind how shitty that view is.
However, let’s move on. You fucking put words in my mouth (again). What I said was men don’t suffer any society-wide repercussions, not any “genuine” repercussions.
They don’t deal with stigma, they don’t deal with profiling, they don’t deal with sexism due to the idea that men are more likely to be violent.
In fact, that’s fucking celebrated as part of masculinity. Look at any story where a man beat a woman, and you’ll find other men in the comments section cheering him on and rationalizing his behavior by saying shit like “She deserved it because [reason]!”
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Is anyone else tired of Susan and their bullshit now? Because I certainly am. Especially after that implication that we don’t fucking care about male rape victims because we’re “demonizing” men.
Seriously Susan, you can fuck right off with that bullshit. And when you get there, fuck off again until you get back here, then fuck off once more.
<3 eli. My cousins were adopted, and were never treated as anything but dear family. I frankly didn't realize it at all until I was older, which is embarrassing and baffling, since their skin colour is so different. But we really didn't see that, growing up.
I know that isn't every adoption story, and I'd be surprised if it's even a significant minority. Thank you for sharing, it can't be easy.
Err, apologies, that was a typo, I meant liberal of course. I realised too late to edit.
You missed the comment in my next post perhaps, where I apologised for that statement having obviously spent too slow in my one post whilst you posted several!
Sure, but just understanding some basics would be a reasonable expectation to have of a documentary with that ideology as the title, claiming to represent the other.
Like you, I’ve engaged with both sides for years, I don’t expect her to have the same understandings (or opinions) as I, but I do expect her to genuinely listen to both sides if she’s claiming to present unbiased work.
Fear not my trust or mistrust, it matters not a jot to either of our collections of pixels on this screen ;). My goal for myself is to listen with the principle of charity, I appreciate those who do the same. However, I don’t care if people get personal or defensive, I’m not invested in their trust or mistrust, what others do is almost always understandable, these are emotionally charged issues we’re dissecting.
Neither do I align with a side, there are always two sides of the coin, and truths in both. However, after much thought and examination I’ve developed quite a skepticism particularly for MRA solutions, that doesn’t mean they’re all wrong about the issues.
This seems a bit backhanded? Your original point was about dissenting views on the film being akin to the censorship of ideas, no? My reply was to point out the censorship of dissenting views in creating the film to start with. I’m more than happy for you to watch it and have your view. I would encourage anyone who views it to appreciate it excluded other opinions however, and isn’t as unbiased, or open handed, as claimed to be.