#MeToo's Shortcomings

[IMPress Polly]

I think everyone who wants to has seen this year's Grammys by now, so I think it will be safe to make a post with minor spoilers about it at this point:

The occasion saw a number of female attendees wear white roses in support of the Time's Up initiative and a genuinely moving performance of Kesha's song Praying about fighting her abuser, accompanied by the following remarks by Janelle Monae, who introduced Kesha:

I am proud to stand in solidarity as not just an artist but a young woman with my fellow sisters in this room who make up the music industry. We come in peace, but we mean business. And to those who would dare try to silence us, we offer two words: 'Time’s up.' We say 'Time’s up' for pay inequality; time’s up for discrimination; time’s up for harassment of any kind. And time’s up for the abuse of power — because, you see, it’s not just going on in Hollywood; it’s not just going on in Washington. It’s right here in our industry, as well.

Then there was this nonsense:

despacito-luis-fonsi-grammys-2018-02.jpg

That was from the Luis Fonzi and Daddy Yankee's performance of Despacito: perhaps the most misogynistic tune I've heard since Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines offered us an explanation of how no means yes a few years back. The song, more directly than most, revolves around promoting the idea that women are sex toys, not people, and the visuals of fully-clothed men flanking nearly-nude women reflected that mentality. And therein lay the contradiction of the evening: on the one hand, you had many women speaking up either verbally or symbolically against sexual harassment and abuse, while on the other hand, you had performances promoting the very mentality that makes such things possible.

To highlight another relevant part of this equation, as summarized by Meghan Murphy of Feminist Current:

A study led by Stacey L. Smith, an associate professor at the University of Southern California and the founder of its Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, looked at the top 600 songs from 2012 to 2017, and found that only 22.4 per cent of the 1,239 performing artists were women. Beyond that, only 12.3 per cent of the 2,767 songwriters credited on those songs were women, and Ben Sisiro at The New York Times notes that female producers make up only two percent in a subset of 300 songs across this same period. Out of the 899 people who have been nominated for the last six Grammy ceremonies, 9.3 per cent were women.

The same applied at this year's Grammys: just 11 out of the 84 Grammys given out this year were awarded to women. Thus do we see yet again that the talent and messages of women in the music business are not appreciated; only their bodies.

The #MeToo movement and its institutional offspring, the Time's Up campaign, have called out individual predator after individual predator, but never the sexist culture that creates them. Murphy surmises that "Real accountability therefore demands we move beyond individual men, and towards a cultural shift." I agree. It is time for this movement to move beyond dependence on call-outs and start confronting the root issue directly. The problem is not simply a few bad men. It is the culture we live in; a culture that values us more for our bodies than for our hearts and minds.

Just my thoughts.

[Common]

Im taking a big chance of evoking Pollys rage, but ive never shied away from the tough stuff

A backlash to the Metoo movement has already started and its not an intentional thing to get back at women. Men are beginning to take extraordinary steps to protect themselves. CEOs will not be in a room alone with females of any rank from top execs to secretaries, they want a witness. Meetings with women and men one on one are going to be a thing of the past.

Womens groups have become alarmed that male run venues and companies will by pass hiring women because of the MeToo movement to make their business lives easier and less stressful

Every action has a reaction, the MeToo movement when it was outing weinstein and other serial abusers and rapists was fantastic and they deserved too be outed, but like all other movements its now moved into the realm of overkill. The reaction to the action here will be men taking great strides to protect themselves and that wont be good for women in the long run.

[Kacper]

The same applied at this year's Grammys: just 11 out of the 84 Grammys given out this year were awarded to women. Thus do we see yet again that the talent and messages of women in the music business are not appreciated; only their bodies.

And the head of the awards got himself in trouble for speaking the truth about this by saying women who want to achieve this level of success need to step up. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/a...-backlash.html

[IMPress Polly]

I see a lot of complaints about "overkill" from the movement in Common's reply, but no substantiation; no actual examples. I'll just let that be my answer.

[donttread]

I think everyone who wants to has seen this year's Grammys by now, so I think it will be safe to make a post with minor spoilers about it at this point:

The occasion saw a number of female attendees wear white roses in support of the Time's Up initiative and a genuinely moving performance of Kesha's song Praying about fighting her abuser, accompanied by the following remarks by Janelle Monae, who introduced Kesha:



Then there was this nonsense:

Attachment 22689

That was from the Luis Fonzi and Daddy Yankee's performance of Despacito: perhaps the most misogynistic tune I've heard since Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines offered us an explanation of how no means yes a few years back. The song, more directly than most, revolves around promoting the idea that women are sex toys, not people, and the visuals of fully-clothed men flanking nearly-nude women reflected that mentality. And therein lay the contradiction of the evening: on the one hand, you had many women speaking up either verbally or symbolically against sexual harassment and abuse, while on the other hand, you had performances promoting the very mentality that makes such things possible.

To highlight another relevant part of this equation, as summarized by Meghan Murphy of Feminist Current:



The same applied at this year's Grammys: just 11 out of the 84 Grammys given out this year were awarded to women. Thus do we see yet again that the talent and messages of women in the music business are not appreciated; only their bodies.

The #MeToo movement and its institutional offspring, the Time's Up campaign, have called out individual predator after individual predator, but never the sexist culture that creates them. Murphy surmises that "Real accountability therefore demands we move beyond individual men, and towards a cultural shift." I agree. It is time for this movement to move beyond dependence on call-outs and start confronting the root issue directly. The problem is not simply a few bad men. It is the culture we live in; a culture that values us more for our bodies than for our hearts and minds.

Just my thoughts.

Sex sell to both sexes. Among the sales are push up bras, club wear, v cut blouses, mini skirts, spiked heels, bikinis . Most of which are bought by women. You see part of the issue is those what ? Misoginistic ... women who..... do want to be seen as sex objects? At least until they don't of course? Meanwhile men wear long pants and suits to work and get harrassed less. Hummm

[Chris]

The problem with #MeToo is it's identity politics. Feminism today is identity politics. Painting mem as oppressors loses half the audience. That's a shame, as #MeToo's and Time's Up campaigns against predators is a good cause.

[Common]

I see a lot of complaints about "overkill" from the movement in Common's reply, but no substantiation; no actual examples. I'll just let that be my answer.

I dont have to give actual examples, Im not a part of it and I have no examples,
I posted what ive been reading

Polly for 6 yrs I was affirmative action officer, I gave affirmative action hearings. I can tell you this there were just as many totally bogus sexual harrassment accusations as there were truthful ones.

The easiest thing in the world is for a man and woman to be alone anywhere together and for her to say she was harrassed. I dont say that to diminish the victims of sexual assault. I just dont live in a lala land were everything female is just perfect and males are the flawed species

[Adelaide]

I was complaining about the #MeToo movement to my trauma therapist and I was surprised when she said, verbatim, "Yeah, it is $#@!ing stupid." My complaint was that there are a lot of victims who can't participate for one reason or another, for example, if their family and friends do not know about their assault, abuse, or harassment. My therapist had a lot to say on the subject which I found interesting.

At any rate, I have posted statistics about the number of men who would assault a woman, especially if you change the wording and call it something different, which seems to ruffle feathers. I think that maybe men are in denial about it, but women are also in denial about the number of men that are victimized at some point. Bit of a two-way street.

[Mister D]

I was complaining about the #MeToo movement to my trauma therapist and I was surprised when she said, verbatim, "Yeah, it is $#@!ing stupid." My complaint was that there are a lot of victims who can't participate for one reason or another, for example, if their family and friends do not know about their assault, abuse, or harassment. My therapist had a lot to say on the subject which I found interesting.

At any rate, I have posted statistics about the number of men who would assault a woman, especially if you change the wording and call it something different, which seems to ruffle feathers. I think that maybe men are in denial about it, but women are also in denial about the number of men that are victimized at some point. Bit of a two-way street.

Or maybe the methodology was poor.

[Green Arrow]

Sex sell to both sexes. Among the sales are push up bras, club wear, v cut blouses, mini skirts, spiked heels, bikinis . Most of which are bought by women. You see part of the issue is those what ? Misoginistic ... women who..... do want to be seen as sex objects? At least until they don't of course? Meanwhile men wear long pants and suits to work and get harrassed less. Hummm

I don’t care if a woman is walking around naked. Sexual assault is wrong regardless.