Alec Baldwin has a point

[Senethro]

People are confusing cause and effect here. While there is a certain amount of chicken and egg going on, the culture changed and then people spoke out.

Don't blame the victims. Blame absolutely everyone for not creating an environment in which the victims felt they would be believed.

 

[Berzerker]

Hush money has nothing to do with it. People don't believe victims for all sorts of reasons. Many of them are cops who are hearing the story before anyone else. Some are co-workers or HR or bosses. If a few people taking 'hush money' was really enough to distort people's acceptance, than their capacity to believe victims was never really there in the first place.

Your article isn't about hush money, this one is:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/28/us/rose-mcgowan-harvey-weinstein.html

I quoted that article identifying at least 7 victims who settled and 1 more (Rose McGowan) who didn't even know until this past summer she wasn't 'obliged' to keep quiet. She apparently didn't read her own settlement. "I was silenced for 20 years!" I noticed how she didn't mention the 100K she got as one of the ways she was silenced, her other alleged reasons came later and dont even make sense given her silence. Who 'slut-shamed' her for not accusing Weinstein?

And when Weinstein was finally being exposed by victims who didn't 'hush', McGowan was trying to get another 6 million for her continued silence when she needed the money. And I'm supposed to view her in the same light as victims who didn't take hush money and went public in spite of the risks? Now I like her, I dont relish criticizing her. But I cant condone what she did and I understand why she's unwilling to acknowledge her complicity in the conspiracy of silence she condemns. Passing the buck is as old as the Garden of Eden...

Now dont you suppose victims who did get hush money had an effect on later victims? Maybe they were more reluctant to speak out because nobody else was speaking out because they had settled - but some did speak out. And if we're gonna support them, we aint doing it by rationalizing hush money.

"The myth of silence" is an article about the silence that enabled a big shot at the New Republic to get away with it for years. The title is ridiculous, the article that follows explains how silence is not a myth. Maybe you should have actually quoted the article to make your case. But the victim focused on did go to her superiors and since the incident was more 'benign' than rape - he tried to kiss her (?) - I can understand why she didn't pursue it further. Some have pointed out an individual victim doesn't know of any pattern of predatory behavior and thats true, but they gotta at least suspect the pattern exists, especially for a rapist. I doubt a rapist limits himself to one victim over a life time if he remains free. The pattern is: there are more victims...

It's pointless to ask him questions. I'm still waiting on an answer as to how you can put responsibility on people for not speaking out, when speaking out wouldn't stop the rapist from continuing to rape women.

The answer I keep getting is "they took HUSH MONEY." As if that's all there is to it.

So speaking out didn't stop Weinstein because he wasn't stopped by victims who didn't speak out? is that your argument?

Yes, but the situation has changed, drastically, in the last few months.

What changed? Oh yeah, victims speaking out...

Berzerker, if you were to put responsibility on the parties of the rapist, rapists conspirators, the police and rapists other victims, then what sort of %ages would you put on them?

If I attached numbers, would you want to argue the numbers should be different? Thats quite a rabbit hole you're jumping down. Weinstein should be in jail (%100), his former Mossad agents (>%50), enough they should be in jail too. Course I imagine their defense would be they didn't know, they were just hired to protect him from 'gold diggers' making false accusations. But at some point these people had to realize Weinstein was a rapist, they cant be that oblivious.

As for other employees who turned a blind eye in favor of continued paychecks, their responsibility is less and probably not enough to be named in a criminal conspiracy. But I have to believe they're feeling guilty about it, I would, wouldn't you? They enabled a rapist and undoubtedly regret enabling him, even victims who took hush money. But some, like McGowan, are living in denial if they think their silence had nothing to do with Weinstein's ability to avoid justice for decades.

McGowan's employees were telling her to take the money, fund your art... What the hell? They weren't helping expose a rapist either, they were enabling his enablers. Letting victims believe they had no responsibility to pursue justice didn't help catch Weinstein. Yeah, just take the money... Plenty of blame to go around.

Roy Moore's defense - this is political, why didn't she speak up long before an election?

victim - I should have

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Don't blame the victims. Blame absolutely everyone for not creating an environment in which the victims felt they would be believed.

Okay. I genuinely want to engage with this and hope it will be taken in good faith (such a disclaimer is probably necessary due to a million previous encounters).

So first of all, there does seem to be a slight discrepancy between, on the one hand, "only the rapist is responsible for his actions, nobody else", and then on the other hand, "society/absolutely everyone is to blame". I can see the merits of both points of view though, so even though they seem to be pretty contradictory, I can also sort of see them co-existing in some way. So I don't really want to quibble with that.

However, the second statement acknowledges the fact that people other than the rapist can be in some way "responsible", even if in a completely indirect way. Or at the very least that they have it in their power to have a positive effect. So my question is, for what reason are previous victims not included within "absolutely everybody"? And again, I don't mean that in a "gotcha" sense of taking the phrase literally, but just genuinely... why are they not included in that? I get that there's an element of sympathy and recognition of trauma and "they've been through enough" and all that sort of thing, but at the same time they are part of the everybody else and in fact they're closer to the problem than most people and potentially have more power than most people to enact change. If you think there's a society-wide problem with rape/sexual assault and too many offenders going unpunished, then it's hard to see how a high proportion of victims of such offenders essentially keeping quiet is doing anything other than contribute to that problem, no matter what sympathy you have for their reasons and motivations.

Regardless of what you think of my opinions or my "dangerous" attitudes (for example), I am just a guy spouting off on an internet forum to a bunch of other (mainly) guys who aren't going to be particularly influenced by me either way. I'm not a rapist myself, I don't know any rapists or harrassers (to my knowledge), I'm not in any real position of power of influence. There's not a whole lot I can really do as an individual to really do anything. On the other hand, a rape victim wields the power to at least potentially make a difference. However hard it may be for them, or unlikely to succeed in your (or anyone's) eyes, they can speak out, give all the evidence they have, and potentially directly lead to the conviction of a sex offender. Not only would that make a difference on the individual scale, the combined effect of many such actions could definitely drive wider societal change. Despite all the hurdles you see in their way, I'd still argue they are up there amongst the people who are most empowered to make any real difference. I get that you might argue that that is too big a cross to bear for them and that being a victim shouldn't make it their fight. And yes, it's not fair. But it doesn't make it wrong or disgusting to point out that it's the case.

 

[Berzerker]

People are confusing cause and effect here. While there is a certain amount of chicken and egg going on, the culture changed and then people spoke out.

Don't blame the victims. Blame absolutely everyone for not creating an environment in which the victims felt they would be believed.

Victims are why Weinstein is probably headed for a jail cell (who blamed them?)... Did other (silent) victims help create the environment for them to be believed? The culture changed because victims spoke out.

edit: I apologize to Charlie Sheen... I think I mentioned in this thread he was accused of sex with a 13 year old Corey Haim back in the 80s... Haim's mother said it wasn't Sheen.

 

[Berzerker]

Posted over at Poly

wow, Lawrence O'Donnell just eviscerated Roy Moore

well, Sean Hannity was doing damage control and thats when the damage was done

Roy Moore (and Sean Hannity) agreed a senate candidate shouldn't become senator if he was 32 and dating teenagers... But earlier in Hannity's interview Moore admitted he dated teenagers when he was in his 30s.

Moore said the 14 year olds accusation was contradicted by the descriptions of behavior offered by the older girls who Moore held up as proof, ie the older girls told the truth about Moore's behavior.

Jesus... JESUS!

edit: noooooo, another icon is falling

Mr Holland's Opus is hanging out

Yeah, a woman angered by Richard Dreyfuss' support for his brave son who accused Kevin Spacey, has accused him of months of sexual harassment

Man, I cant believe how many movies I wont be able to watch any more without thinking about these pervs

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Your article isn't about hush money, this one is:

The point was that one person speaking out - which I suppose is the expectation if they don't take 'hush money' at which point they are contractually obligated to not speak out - is not some magic bullet some in this thread suggest it is.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not seeing how taking money to not speak out when actual harm was done to you is somehow morally repugnant - assuming you suffer; which is why i wrote 'actual harm'.

It is a bad decision, of course. But it can happen that they thought they were (at least) not absolute victims anymore, cause they got some pay out of it (which would at least signify the other person identified how guilty he was in the first place).
Now particular character traits of any specific person taking money to stay silent... is another thing.

It certainly is terrible to feel you have to protect your work (eg an actress) or forward it by having sex with someone you detest. Not that there isn't some blame on choosing to do so (but it looks desperate).

 

[Berzerker]

@ GEFM

Who do you think is responsible for exposing these criminals?

 

[Ryika]

Blame absolutely everyone for not creating an environment in which the victims felt they would be believed.

Manfred Belheim already addressed this post from the serious angle, but here's a fun bonus question:

If creating an environment in which victims feel they would not be believed is something to be blamed for, do you then not share a lot more of the blame than the people who disagreed with you in this thread do? After all, you are arguing that victims are generally not being believed, and that the police is biased against them, while other people dispute that this is a wide-spread problem, and try to encourage victims to come forward.

Even if you mean well, if it really is all about what the environment makes victims feel is going to happen, then you are a larger part of the problem than everybody else here, because what you say certainly will not increase the confidence of anybody to come forward.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Manfred Belheim already addressed this post from the serious angle, but here's a fun bonus question:

If creating an environment in which victims feel they would not be believed is something to be blamed for, do you then not share a lot more of the blame than the people who disagreed with you in this thread do? After all, you are arguing that victims are generally not being believed, and that the police is biased against them, while other people dispute that this is a wide-spread problem, and try to encourage victims to come forward.

Even if you mean well, if it really is all about what the environment makes victims feel is going to happen, then you are a larger part of the problem than everybody else here, because what you say certainly will not increase the confidence of anybody to come forward.

This is very reminiscent of the "People who point out racism are the real racists because they are the ones who think minorities can't fend for themselves" argument. I'm sure that wasn't your intent, but you did say it was "a fun bonus question" so I'm having a little fun with it.

People who call attention to a problem are causing the problem by acknowledging its existence, therefore causing it to exist, while people who deny the problem exists are helping the problem because denying the existence of the problem means there is no problem?

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

@ GEFM

Who do you think is responsible for exposing these criminals?

I think police and senior staff, when notified of crimes or misconduct, need to do something, but they almost never do, and not only that, they often then target the victim, so to blame a woman who is uncomfortable for telling someone because of it is unfair.

 

[Ryika]

This is very reminiscent of the "People who point out racism are the real racists because they are the ones who think minorities can't fend for themselves" argument. I'm sure that wasn't your intent, but you did say it was "a fun bonus question" so I'm having a little fun with it.

People who call attention to a problem are causing the problem by acknowledging its existence, therefore causing it to exist, while people who deny the problem exists are helping the problem because denying the existence of the problem means there is no problem?

Well no, denying the existence of the problem does not mean there is no problem, it just means the problem does not grow. If all that matters is what victims feel is going to happen - as Senethro suggested - then speaking out about a problem, whether it's realistic, or hysterical, only increases the problem.

My point however is not that we should thus stay silent, as that would mean that we can never "solve" - or at least lower the prevalence of - the problem, my point is that a solution cannot purely grow from that rhetoric, because that rhetoric just creates a self-fulfilling cycle - in the "worst" case, everybody would believe a victim if they came forward, but at the same time preaches about how we all need to be better, and victims would still feel like they can't come forward because the rhetoric is all they hear.

So to break that cycle, we still need victims who do the first step and come forward in the end, so this new attitude can actually manifest in reality. That's exactly what we've seen happen here, only after people started coming forward was the cycle actually broken.

That's why, while we should not fault individual victims for staying silent, we should absolutely argue for victims in general to come forward. It's again unfair that they have to play the martyr, but they're the only ones who can turn the change of attitude into actual change.

 

[Berzerker]

I am not seeing how taking money to not speak out when actual harm was done to you is somehow morally repugnant

It isn't... Morally repugnant is how I'd describe Weinstein and his slimy trail of lawyers and 'honeypots' who knowingly intimidated and lured victims. But that doesn't mean all these victims share a pedestal, or as McGowan said, 'the same'. The reason we have Weinstein's confession on tape is one victim went to the cops the same day of the incident and wore a wire to her meeting with him the next day. How would you describe her response to Weinstein? Admirable, courageous, we need more people like her?

McGowan took hush money, kept quiet for 20 years, then tried to get more hush money... Was that admirable and courageous? Do we need more people like her? McGowan says she was shamed into silence, she probably meant Weinstein's enablers threatened to publicly shame her if she spoke out. Ironically thats what she and her enablers are doing to Baldwin, shaming him into silence. Unfortunate is how I'd describe McGowan's response to Weinstein.

 

[Kyriakos]

In the end i can't care about those holywood people in the first place. So much fakeness, and an industry built on superficiality and cliques.

 

[Berzerker]

I think police and senior staff, when notified of crimes or misconduct, need to do something, but they almost never do, and not only that, they often then target the victim, so to blame a woman who is uncomfortable for telling someone because of it is unfair.

Prosecutors grill rape victims because they know defense attys will... The victim has to be able to take it, and thats often true for witnesses in general. The system isn't perfect, but the adversarial nature helps ensure both victim and the accused get a fair shot. The woman who wore a wire was even less powerful than most others, but she should have never been put into that position. What "should" these victims do? They have 3 options - do nothing, take the hush money or help the cops nail Weinstein.

We can understand why some shied away from further involvement, but we cant condone or enable the decision to take hush money. Every witness to a crime is probably afraid, but where would we be if everyone did that? Isn't that basically why we're criticizing the 'conspiracy' of silence surrounding wealthy and powerful rapists? All those people could have put Weinstein away long ago but they acted out of self interest, not the 'public good'. That was unfair to his other victims...

edit: now Sulu is facing an accuser...

 

[Kyriakos]

This is very reminiscent of the "People who point out racism are the real racists because they are the ones who think minorities can't fend for themselves" argument. I'm sure that wasn't your intent, but you did say it was "a fun bonus question" so I'm having a little fun with it.

People who call attention to a problem are causing the problem by acknowledging its existence, therefore causing it to exist, while people who deny the problem exists are helping the problem because denying the existence of the problem means there is no problem?

So, when will (more) people step forward to speak about Bill Clinton? Super-predators-tied.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I just find it in extremely poor taste for dudes to sit here on the internet criticizing the behavior of rape/sexual assault victims. Your opinions are just not welcome or helpful.

+10,000

 

[Senethro]

Okay. I genuinely want to engage with this and hope it will be taken in good faith (such a disclaimer is probably necessary due to a million previous encounters).

So first of all, there does seem to be a slight discrepancy between, on the one hand, "only the rapist is responsible for his actions, nobody else", and then on the other hand, "society/absolutely everyone is to blame". I can see the merits of both points of view though, so even though they seem to be pretty contradictory, I can also sort of see them co-existing in some way. So I don't really want to quibble with that.

However, the second statement acknowledges the fact that people other than the rapist can be in some way "responsible", even if in a completely indirect way. Or at the very least that they have it in their power to have a positive effect. So my question is, for what reason are previous victims not included within "absolutely everybody"? And again, I don't mean that in a "gotcha" sense of taking the phrase literally, but just genuinely... why are they not included in that? I get that there's an element of sympathy and recognition of trauma and "they've been through enough" and all that sort of thing, but at the same time they are part of the everybody else and in fact they're closer to the problem than most people and potentially have more power than most people to enact change. If you think there's a society-wide problem with rape/sexual assault and too many offenders going unpunished, then it's hard to see how a high proportion of victims of such offenders essentially keeping quiet is doing anything other than contribute to that problem, no matter what sympathy you have for their reasons and motivations.

Regardless of what you think of my opinions or my "dangerous" attitudes (for example), I am just a guy spouting off on an internet forum to a bunch of other (mainly) guys who aren't going to be particularly influenced by me either way. I'm not a rapist myself, I don't know any rapists or harrassers (to my knowledge), I'm not in any real position of power of influence. There's not a whole lot I can really do as an individual to really do anything. On the other hand, a rape victim wields the power to at least potentially make a difference. However hard it may be for them, or unlikely to succeed in your (or anyone's) eyes, they can speak out, give all the evidence they have, and potentially directly lead to the conviction of a sex offender. Not only would that make a difference on the individual scale, the combined effect of many such actions could definitely drive wider societal change. Despite all the hurdles you see in their way, I'd still argue they are up there amongst the people who are most empowered to make any real difference. I get that you might argue that that is too big a cross to bear for them and that being a victim shouldn't make it their fight. And yes, it's not fair. But it doesn't make it wrong or disgusting to point out that it's the case.

On the scale of the individual I don't think that victims who choose not to come forward are acting irrationally, they're often making a reasonable informed cost/benefit decision. In the times and places where a woman having any extra marital sex was stoned to death the cost is clear. It used to be that rape wasn't even a crime committed against women, but against the man of her family (husband or father) due to the husband subsuming all her legal rights on marriage (under English common law). Aside - this was why it took so long for marital rape to be conceived as a crime as marriage was viewed as permanent legal consent. From 1970 - 1993 all American states began to recognise marital rape, many European ones doing so in a similar timeframe and only a few outliers (Soviet Union 1922) greatly preceded them.

So the legal concept of rape as being a crime against a woman and her liberty instead of against her family or honour only becomes sort of complete in the 20th century, and established in the lifetime of some of our posters. I don't think our legal systems or criminal investigation have yet satisfactorily adapted.

Ok some numbers from UK charity Rape Crisis https://rapecrisis.org.uk/statistics.php who have taken them mostly from Office of National Statistics publications.
Just short of 100,000 rapes in England and Wales each year, 15% of these are reported to police, 5.7% of those reported(!) result in a conviction.

Given that background and given that a victim's primary obligation is to themselves, I am not able to condemn them should they choose not to expend effort and time going through a difficult legal process. The system does not look to produce fair results and given the widespread nature of rape and sexual harassment I don't think it seemly to shrug the problem off onto victims.

I imagine this was all pretty much what you expected but this is my take on it.

If creating an environment in which victims feel they would not be believed is something to be blamed for, do you then not share a lot more of the blame than the people who disagreed with you in this thread do? After all, you are arguing that victims are generally not being believed, and that the police is biased against them, while other people dispute that this is a wide-spread problem, and try to encourage victims to come forward.

Even if you mean well, if it really is all about what the environment makes victims feel is going to happen, then you are a larger part of the problem than everybody else here, because what you say certainly will not increase the confidence of anybody to come forward.

Sorry, I'm not getting your point here. I can't quite follow your post from start to finish.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

There is something wrong when criminals know they can get away with crimes even if exposed.

The dude hired ex-Mossad agents and was arguably the single most powerful producer in Hollywood. He could have destroyed their careers, livelihood, privacy, everything if they didn't take the money

How can that even be legal?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

On the scale of the individual I don't think that victims who choose not to come forward are acting irrationally, they're often making a reasonable informed cost/benefit decision. In the times and places where a woman having any extra marital sex was stoned to death the cost is clear. It used to be that rape wasn't even a crime committed against women, but against the man of her family (husband or father) due to the husband subsuming all her legal rights on marriage (under English common law). Aside - this was why it took so long for marital rape to be conceived as a crime as marriage was viewed as permanent legal consent. From 1970 - 1993 all American states began to recognise marital rape, many European ones doing so in a similar timeframe and only a few outliers (Soviet Union 1922) greatly preceded them.

So the legal concept of rape as being a crime against a woman and her liberty instead of against her family or honour only becomes sort of complete in the 20th century, and established in the lifetime of some of our posters. I don't think our legal systems or criminal investigation have yet satisfactorily adapted.

Ok some numbers from UK charity Rape Crisis https://rapecrisis.org.uk/statistics.php who have taken them mostly from Office of National Statistics publications.
Just short of 100,000 rapes in England and Wales each year, 15% of these are reported to police, 5.7% of those reported(!) result in a conviction.

Given that background and given that a victim's primary obligation is to themselves, I am not able to condemn them should they choose not to expend effort and time going through a difficult legal process. The system does not look to produce fair results and given the widespread nature of rape and sexual harassment I don't think it seemly to shrug the problem off onto victims.

I imagine this was all pretty much what you expected but this is my take on it.

Obviously I don't quite share your cynicism, but none of that is unreasonable.

However, you state that you don't think they're acting "irrationally", and also that you're not willing to "condemn" them for not wanting to go through the process. But neither of these are positions I supported in the question and it's not really what I was asking.

As far as irrational goes - even if you go as far as regarding them as acting completely selfishly and taking "hush money", there's nothing irrational about that. I don't think that's an accusation anyone has levelled at them, but certainly I haven't.

As for not willing to condemn them for not wanting to go through a difficult process - I actually included that in the question. But again, regardless of your sympathies for them, that doesn't explain how they are exempt from the collective "blame" that you level at society as a whole. When they are in a position to at least try and make a difference, but choose not to, then they are surely contributing to the societal problem you speak of, no matter how sympathetic you are to their motivations.