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~ Feverish ravings of a middle-aged mind

Random Blather

Monthly Archives: November 2014

The Anti-Anti-Cosby Ass-Clown Backlash

24 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by dougom in News, Opinion

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bill Cosby, Cosby, feminism, media, press, rape, Richard Stellar, sexual assault, Sharon Waxman, The Wrap, TheWrap

Toy-STory-Bad-journalism
Image courtesy of Det Snakker Viom

In case you haven’t been paying much attention to the news–I sure haven’t, honestly; it depresses me–recently Bill Cosby was accused of sexual assault/rape.  He denied it (as one might expect), and a few of his friends defended him and made the (reasonable) point about due process, assumption of innocence, and that he’s a good guy they can’t imagine would have done anything like that.  And I have to admit that it depresses me a lot; my sense of humor is apparently an amalgam of multiple sexual abusers like Woody Allen and Bill Cosby.  Lucky me.  (George Carlin is in there too.  And Bob & Ray and others.)  I don’t want him to be guilty any more than his friends.

But then multiple other women came forward with their own stories, in a manner that makes it hard to believe that Cosby is totally innocent.  And thus the debate was engaged, and the mainstream media went absolutely nuts, as it is wont to do.  Reminded me of the OJ highway chase, honestly.  Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, unemployment, the recent election results, the latest committee report that there is no there there regard Benghazi–all this might as well not exist.  It’s all Cosby, all the time.

A web zine called The Wrap (that I have never heard of) weighed in on the topic several times, and then yesterday published a post by a writer named Richard Stellar (ditto) that was titled, incredibly, “The Rape of Bill Cosby”.  As if this weren’t obnoxious enough, the lead sentence continued in this vein.  “Bill Cosby raped me.  Now that I have your attention . . .”  And it went on like that.  Disguised as an accusation of the media feeding frenzy, Stellar went on to insult victims of rape everywhere (“There is no legitimacy to justice if there is no real evidence, and evidence has a way of vanishing as memories dim with the marching of time”) along with accusing the women who have come forward of trying to “cash in” on the story.

So okay, this was horrific.  It was victim blaming in almost it’s most classic form.  But then, in a response to a Twitter-storm of protest, Sharon Waxman, CEO and lead editor for The Wrap, defended the post and Stellar, insisting it was a 1st Amendment issue and that the outrage was designed to squash alternative views.

What hogwash.

It’s spectacularly clear that Ms. Waxman simply doesn’t get it.  In her “apology” (which I put in quotes because it’s only one level removed from the classic non-apology apology of the form “I’m sorry if anyone’s feelings were hurt” that politicians use all the time), she writes, “Our Hollyblogs are written by independent bloggers and represent their own views.” Ms Waxman, I’m sorry, this is your Webzine; take responsibility for what it prints. Don’t try to fob off responsibility because it’s an “independent blogger”. Besides, as you yourself said, “Richard Stellar has been blogging for TheWrap almost since the site has existed”. Given that, it’s even more critical that you take responsibility; while Stellar may be “independent” in some absolute sense of the word, his long association with your publication renders claims of total independence dubious at best.

She also writes, “What would be the point of only publishing points of view with which we agree?”  This is a classic straw-man argument, one that she has gone to again and again on Twitter.  No one is arguing that.  Indeed, if you had posted–or Stellar had written–a post in defense of Cosby that didn’t denigrate his accusers in the title, not to mention attributing to them motives of which he can have zero knowledge and engaging in an epic spasm of victim blaming, while people would have protested, it would have been more like the “debate” that you say you want.  

I honestly wonder if Ms. Waxman truly does not understand why women are so reluctant to report sexual assaults or domestic violence, or why so many women held their tongues until someone finally couldn’t take it any more and had to report it.  And what is the likelihood that a woman suffering one of the most violating, humiliating of crimes really wants “15 minutes of fame” to talk about it?  I stipulate it’s possible, but must believe it’s very rare.  Particularly against a figure that has been almost universally beloved for more than a generation.  Is Stellar kidding about that?  It’s a ridiculous accusation, and insults the pain and suffering of the accusers.  It’s classic, almost a Platonic ideal, of victim blaming.  That she could publish such a piece and then defend it so vehemently is simply astonishing.

And that is what is at issue here, in my opinion.  Waxman’s TheWrap ran with a post that engaged in insulting, denigrating, dismissive victim blaming right from the title onward, and furthermore was easily interpreted to be insulting to any rape victims, not just those who might have been assaulted by Cosby.  (How many different ways can one interpret “Bill Cosby raped me”, other than as a lame attempt at “humor” that insults rape victims everywhere?  It enraged me, and I’m a male who has never experienced rape; I can’t even imagine how it felt to women who have experienced sexual assault.)

In her “apology” and her Twitter remarks, Waxman keeps trying to make the point again and again that the people protesting Stellar’s post don’t want to engage in debate, and that’s simply not the issue at all.  The issue is the way Stellar addressed his point of view, which was horrific.  It’s not unlike when anti-abortionists call pro-choice folks “baby-killers”.  There is debate, and then there is trolling, victim blaming, insulting, and being inflammatory; Stellar’s post was the latter.  It’s not like there aren’t plenty of “independent bloggers” who would be more than happy to write on this topic without being insulting and dismissive.  Why couldn’t The Wrap engage one of them, post it, and stop engaging in straw-man tactics and trying to grab the higher ground of “freedom of speech”?  Because freedom of speech doesn’t mean a WebZine has to publish everyone’s obnoxious, noxious opinions.  You want to publish an opposing viewpoint, go for it.  You want to continue publishing abrasive click bait, and you’ll keep getting castigated.

It’s up to you, Ms. Waxman.  Here’s hoping you have an open mind, and not just a reflexive defense mechanism.

Musing on a Guy’s Feminism

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by dougom in Opinion

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

feminism, politics

Joseph_Gordon-Levitt__big
Joseph Gordon-Levitt nails it IMO

Because of when I grew up, and in large part because of who my mom is/became, I have been thinking about feminism, women’s rights )reproductive and otherwise), feminism’s relation to sex, how men can (or can’t) be feminists, and so on a good chunk of my life.  Lately, as seems to happen on a regular basis, I’ve seen another round of posts, articles, and thought pieces on whether women can or can’t have it all, and which one is a more feminist approach.

Now, my opinions on the answer to this are inherently bogus cuz I’m not only a guy, I’m a straight, cis-gendered, white guy.  I’m well aware of my privileges and advantages, and how they benefit me basically every single friggin’ day.  Heck, I’ve even written about how much it pisses me off.  If you don’t believe me, or want to tune me out because of that, that’s totally fine.  I’m not trying to mansplain’ here; I’m just musing about what I think.

Now that I’ve qualified my place in the feminist movement, my answer to the “can/can’t she have it all” question is simple:  It’s the wrong damn question.  And this is kind of what I’ve decided feminism boils down to for me:  Equality for all, regardless of gender.  (With gender having the modern, more elastic definition, i.e. including trans folks & etc.)  That’s it.  Pretty simple, and something I have hard time anyone would not want to support.  Which means the question about “having it all” should really be asked this way:

“Don’t you believe everyone, regardless of gender, should have the opportunity and freedom to pursue their dreams in life?”

If you want to try to “have it all”, you should have that freedom (whether you’re a man or a woman!); if you want to just pursue your career, you should have the freedom to do that, without having to face the stuff I’ve seen in high tech; if you want to stay at home and raise your kids (like I did for more than a year!), you should have the freedom to do that.  That’s feminism to me:  The ability to have an equal chance to pursue your dreams, your desires, whether you “want it all” or not, dammit!

Freedom and opportunity; that’s all.

Now, the right wing has done an exemplary job in throwing enough mud at the word “feminism” to make us lefties disown it to a lesser or greater degree.  I’ve given this considerable thought, and on the one hand I think the word “feminism” really sucks–right away, it makes me feel as a man that my help in pushing this really reasonable goal of equal opportunity and freedom is not wanted.  Or worse, actively discouraged, as indeed it is by the radical feminism side of the world.  You know: The folks who believe all penis-in-vagina (PiV) sex is rape; the wymyn who believe any male/female sex is assault.  And the second wave feminists, by saying things like “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” haven’t helped.  You hear that, and it’s pretty reasonable to respond, “Oh yeah?  Okay; fuck you, then!”

And of course, you get a vocal minority of these types of feminists who object to anything that is remotely sex-positive.  Porn is evil; PiV sex is evil; male/female sex is evil; BDSM is evil; kink is evil; opening doors for people perpetuates the patriarchal paradigm; getting married is demeaning (and evil); etc.  You get enough of this and you think, “Yeah, I don’t want to be part of that.  Combine that with the right making you feel bad about it anyway, and the pressure to disown feminism is pretty strong and widely held.

But you know what?  Screw those people!  “Feminism” means equal opportunity and freedom no matter your gender, dammit!  That’s it!  We’re all equal partners in the workplace, the home, raising the kids, forming relationships, sexual play, governing the country, state, and locales, and everything else!  Opposing that is not only sexist and bigoted, it’s anti-American, durn it!  We hold these truths to be self-evident, and all that.

So yeah, I think it’s not a good term for the principle (and “humanist” is worse), and wish we could come up with a better one like when “gay marriage” morphed into “marriage equality”.  (“Genderism”?  “Gender freedom”?  “Gender equality”?  I’m open to suggestions.)  But it’s what we have right now, and the first thing is we need to reclaim the word from the right-wing dipsticks like Rush “Feminazi” Limbaugh and his fellow idiot travelers and make it our own again, just like “liberal”, and to heck with them.  And the second thing is, we gotta get more men on board.

Anyway, that’s what this one guy here thinks.

shapeimage_6
I’ve been this guy & the haters can still suck it

GenX is Middle Aged & the World Yawns

08 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by dougom in Opinion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Baby Boomers, Boomers, GenX, John Updike, Morgan Freeman, Obama, Office Space, politics, Reagan

Unknown
Our dreams are modest–a bit of payback would be nice

Recently I read in Salon that the generation with which I most closely identify–GenX–is now reaching middle age.  The writer repeated a lot of common GenX tropes about how we’re all a bunch of loser slackers who do a lot of whining about our lot.  And as a (more or less) GenXer at the outer edge of middle age, I naturally had a few thoughts on that score.

I may have been born in 1963 and so am, technically, a “Baby Boomer.”  But I’m not.  When people were sticking flowers in guns, I was watching “Romper Room” (and wondering why that damn magic mirror never saw “Doug”).  When women were burning their bras, I was diggin’ on Morgan Freeman as “Easy Reader”.  I wasn’t watching Mrs. Robinson; I was watching “The Brady Bunch.”  You get the picture.  My “generation” came right after the Baby Boom.  We’re a wedge generation; too early for being Gen X; too late to understand sock hops or free love or all that.  We’re not even really a generation; we’re more of a condition.  A state of mind.  A longing, perhaps.

Put it this way:  When I tried to read one of Updike’s “Rabbit” novels–supposedly one of the major literary voices of the Boomer generation–I found it stultifyingly, brain-numbingly tedious.  “Get over yourself!” I kept yelling.  “Stop pining over your lost youth and do something, you useless git!”  If this was a typical “Boomer” voice, not only did I want no part of it, I couldn’t even relate to it.

Why?  Because it seems like as long as I’ve been a conscious entity aware of what was going on outside of my immediate area, the country has been in decline.  It started with Vietnam, of course, but then we had the various economic stuff of the 70s (Gas lines! Stagflation! Runaway inflation! Etc!), Watergate, the constant sense of impending nuclear armageddon (until 1990 or thereabouts), Reagan & Bush I running up the deficit and exploding the deficit and building up the military to a ridiculous level and wedging the income gap wide open, Iran/Contra, the S&L crisis, the housing bubble, the Great Recession, two profoundly stupid wars (which the Boomers got us into)–three if you count the recent mess in Syria, the fact that more than half of our parents got divorced, and on and on.

It’s just been one damn thing after another, as they say.  Sure, no World War III, but it’s not exactly been one long party, has it?

So why is my “generation” the way we are?  Because we’re busy, that’s why.  We have a lot of messes to clean up (some of which, admittedly, we created our own selves, like the tech bubble–though let’s be honest here: We had plenty of help from the Boomers in that one).  We don’t have time to wallow in angst and self-pity like Rabbit; we have to deal with shit.  And we have to do it with less money and more debt (personal and governmental) than previous generations.  And hey, thanks a lot for all that, by the way.

But if you’re wondering why we sometimes whine, there it is.  Sometimes it gets wearisome.  I can’t tell you how many of my friends are so, so, SO tired of having to continue to keep re-fighting the social values wars of the 60s.  Gay rights, women’s rights, sexual freedom, freedom from religion, minority equality, reproductive health and self-determination, even effin’ birth control, for Pete’s sake!  We thought that had been taken care of.  We look at the Tea Party types and their fellow travelers on the far right and want to scream, “You lost those battles!  We won!  WHEN will you get over it?!”  (I’ve personally reached the conclusion, much like Andrew O’Hehir writes in his post on Salon, that we just have to wait for demographics.  i.e., we have to wait for these older, white, cis-gendered, Protestant, heterosexual Republican voting folks to–let’s be frank–die off.  Yeah, yeah; there are some younger folks who have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the likes of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, but believe me, they’re a minority.  I just hope and pray they don’t destroy the country entirely in the meantime.  And frankly, I don’t have much hope.)

Now, you may make fun of some of us for moving back in with our parents, taking longer to get married, staying in school longer, etc.  I understand.  But we’re facing some serious shit, here, and we have fewer resources with which to deal with it.  It’s all downsizing, and out-sourcing, and off-shoring, and “make do with less”, and “work smarter not harder”, and rising productivity with no corresponding rise in wages.  Why do you think the tech worker’s social ur-Text is “Office Space” with its “dream of doing nothing”?

So we’re doing our best, which sometimes means living in Mom’s basement while we desperately look for a job that pays us exactly the same in real dollars as they paid dear old Dad in the 70s, with no hope of catching up to the Romney’s, Trumps, Kochs, and the like.  We don’t have the money to just dive into marriage, or buy a new house.  (Sami and I needed a loan to get married!)  We’re struggling, to be blunt about it, but we’re scrubbing away at the mess, and we’re doing our best.

I would never call folks my age and in the bracket 20 years behind me “great”, though I think we do pretty well.  But bear this in mind:  The “greatest generation” was to a large part in a similar boat.  They dealt with the aftermath of WWI, absurd income inequality, a crushing Depression, and a World War that, literally, threatened democracy.  They had Gilded Age jerk-weeds wanting to lord it over them just like we do.  They had Victorian-era blue-noses that wanted to control their wild kids’ sexuality just like we do (though ours are 50s-era).  And I betcha they complained plenty until they hit retirement age, at which point they only complained about kids on their lawn. (Rim shot.)  Will we get that kind of epithet when we retire and people look back on the period of, say, 1990-2020?  Who knows?  But I betcha money we’ll come off better then than we do now.  What we basically lack is a Roosevelt, a member of the rich, monied group who “betrays their class” to stitch society back together.  (If only!)

So yeah, now we’re moving into middle age (some of us are deep in!), and hardly anyone is writing about it.  That’s okay; we don’t seem to get noticed except when we complain or invent the iPhone or something (Jon Ive is a GenXer).  And we don’t seem to go all batshit crazy just cuz we come up with a good idea that makes a lot of money (I’m looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg, member of the “millennials”).  We just keep plugging along and, when it gets to us as it inevitably does, we complain.  So apparently we’re a bunch of slackers who don’t do anything.  No, we don’t; we just clean up messes.  Cuz someone has to.

Note: Some of this content is a repeat of a post I put up on Open Salon in 2009, shortly after Obama’s first Inauguration.

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