[RD] Why Men Need to be Involved in the #MeToo Movement

[inthesomeday]

I hate to tell you this, but both courts and white supremacy predate capitalism, the former by millennia, the latter by at least a century.

Courts as a concept do, but obviously not American courts. And again you and I place the advent of capitalism on different timelines; mine begins on Spanish silver and gold mines in the 16th century.

 

[civvver]

The girl in that situation did say no. Firmly. Repeatedly.

No she didn't. She hinted stuff like hey slow down, maybe we should chill a minute, he kept pushing, which is not wrong or illegal in any sense. As soon as she said stop they watched some tv or something and then he got her a ride home. So what's the problem? Men are not mind readers (neither are women). Men and women both take initiative sometimes to push for what they want. She was not inebriated, she was a willing participant in whatever went down. It's not his fault she regretted it after. As soon as she said hey I'm done it ended.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In what context? Parents hitting their children? Any amount. It should never happen.

No, there must be a threshold. If you don't have any threshold whatsoever then a parent even touching a kid is abuse (constitutes a hit). I don't think that's actually your position, and suspect you do have some standard that's not articulated.

I disagree, because you are acting on the fringe and minute possibility that the victim is lying.

Yes, this will need numbers to back it up, plus a clarification of what constitutes "minute".

Vigilante justice without evidence is a negative to society, not a positive.

Okay yes I agree. Rape is probably one of the worst things somebody can do to another person, barring like... human experimentation maybe?

Murder is definitely worse, and there are some forms of torture that inflict similar humiliation, even more pain, and permanent physical mutilation to accompany the mental damage, so I'd argue that's worse...and the stuff you only see with war crimes and psychopaths.

Regardless of their track record, if women don’t trust the police, who are you to judge the other venues they seek justice through?

If police had that kind of track record I'd feel comfortable asserting that anybody who doesn't update anticipated experience after observing a 100% success rate is being inane.

Unfortunately, police are nowhere near that track record so it's a moot scenario. I don't trust them to consistently handle either legit or false accusations well based on observed track records.

I think it shows immense disrespect to disregard the mistrust among sexual assault victims towards the state and to invalidate their accusations unless they follow the narrow pathway to “justice” provided by the police and courts.

Trust is not a reasonable default state for anybody. There needs to be evidence. Word alone is weak evidence.

You, as in some random guy who may have never experienced sexual assault in his life, do not get to make moral judgements on how victims should or should not speak out against their perpetrators.

Yes, I do get to do that. I can see major systemic flaws in the rationale behind vigilante justice, and the complete lack of consequences for making social media posts that ruin someone without evidence. My judgments are up to me, not you or anybody else. Whether anybody cares is another matter. They probably don't.

 

[Lexicus]

and the complete lack of consequences for making social media posts that ruin someone without evidence.

Can you give an actual example of this happening?

 

[warpus]

No she didn't. She hinted stuff like hey slow down, maybe we should chill a minute, he kept pushing, which is not wrong or illegal in any sense. As soon as she said stop they watched some tv or something and then he got her a ride home. So what's the problem? Men are not mind readers (neither are women). Men and women both take initiative sometimes to push for what they want. She was not inebriated, she was a willing participant in whatever went down. It's not his fault she regretted it after. As soon as she said hey I'm done it ended.

Yeah, from what I remember reading and hearing about this, she didn't say no (to what was done), went along with everything, and expected him to read her mind.

 

[Synobun]

Can you give an actual example of this happening?

This is important, because so far all the false accusations I've seen in the #MeToo movement have been utterly crushed. I've yet to see a false accusation do anything to a celebrity during this movement. The people who lost a step or lost 'everything' either admitted to it or disappeared in the face of overwhelming evidence.

I'm generally on-board with not blindly believing a random testimony, but at the same time that doesn't mean that every testimony is by virtue equally baseless. If "uncorroborated claims" are truly such a threat it should be easy to point one out.

 

[inthesomeday]

Whether anybody cares is another matter. They probably don't.

Alright then I’ll go ahead and move on. Some guy in Australia can sit around and moralize all he wants, I don’t really care, you’re right. I’ll just look forward to the gynocentric dystopia social media accusations OBVIOUSLY lead to where democracy is replaced by ********sm and men are castrated from birth, because the forward movement doesn’t really care either.

Yeah, from what I remember reading and hearing about this, she didn't say no (to what was done), went along with everything, and expected him to read her mind.

Mmm no, she expected him to read her very clear resistance. She did say no, repeatedly, and he continually escalated the situation under the guise of respecting her lack of consent.

 

[warpus]

This is important, because so far all the false accusations I've seen in the #MeToo movement have been utterly crushed. I've yet to see a false accusation do anything to a celebrity during this movement.

It's taken down a couple politicians here in Canada.

Hard to say what accusations are false and which ones aren't, though.

 

[Synobun]

It's taken down a couple politicians here in Canada.

Hard to say what accusations are false and which ones aren't, though.

False accusations have taken down Canadian politicians?

 

[warpus]

False accusations have taken down Canadian politicians?

It's unclear, since at this stage it's not possible to know which of these accusations are false and which ones aren't. So for now at least, it depends on who you ask

 

[Synobun]

So false accusations haven't taken down Canadian politicians. Gotcha.

 

[warpus]

So false accusations haven't taken down Canadian politicians. Gotcha.

But.. we don't know, right? You can't say either way. One of the politicians affected has vowed to run again. But.. it's been a bit crazy so I'm not really sure what's happened since

 

[red_elk]

This is important, because so far all the false accusations I've seen in the #MeToo movement have been utterly crushed. I've yet to see a false accusation do anything to a celebrity during this movement.

Probably because if the accusation managed to ruin someone's life, nobody knows that it's false.
And the moment it becomes apparent that the accusation if false, it becomes "utterly crashed".

 

[Ryika]

False accusations have taken down Canadian politicians?

The original question was not about "false accusations", it was about accusations without evidence. You twisted it, probably unintentionally, into "false accusations", but that's not the problem here. The problem is not that people face consequences from false accusations, the problem is that people face consequences based on accusations that are not yet proven to be true or false, and often never are.

 

[warpus]

What I responded to initially was a claim that "No false accusations have taken down anyone". My point is that we don't know either way, so you can't say that either.

 

[Synobun]

Probably because if the accusation managed to ruin someone's life, nobody knows that it's false.
And the moment it becomes apparent that the accusation if false, it becomes "utterly crashed".

Have you seen what happens to the person making the claim in a publicized false accusation scenario? I have. They don't walk away from it without consequences. It's really not at all like how some like to portray it where the evil woman spins a wheel, picks a victim, and then cackles evilly to themselves in their evil lair. Outside of their personal cliques, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim and not the one being blamed even in a he-said she-said world.

Simply throwing out a false claim and having it end up with you on top is quite rare. "Utterly crushed" is the right term because those who make false claims and get outed have their lives ruined. In the big picture, a stumble in the celeb's career is peanuts compared to the total annihilation of the false claimant's personal and social life.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I always find it weird when people apply "due process" to like, their opinions of rape and assault allegations. You ain't a judge, and innocent until proven guilty is a procedural standard for conducting criminal justice. It's not a guideline for how you should form opinions.

I find it much more weird to see (and I keep seeing it on here) this bizarre advocacy for actively avoiding evidence when trying to form an opinion about whether or not something happened. It keeps getting couched in this "well isn't it silly to apply strict legal standards to real life" language, but really what you're saying is that people should not ask questions and should believe what you're told completely uncritically. Why is this somehow the "correct" behaviour when it comes to women claiming to have been sexually assaulted, but not in any other circumstances? If people were that uncritical in general you'd call them fools.

 

[Karpius]

I am not overly concerned about accusations through social media. While I may find find false accusations through social media wrong and distasteful, they do not carry the weight of criminal punishment. The accused, if innocent, can seek damages through the civil courts which has a lower standard of burden on making a case. When it comes to social media, each of us can individually choose to believe, disbelieve, comment, scream, whatever and both the accuser and accused can expend themselves all they wish.

My greatest concern is what standard we use in the courts and whether social media should have an influence on it. If we decide that victims who believe the courts will not bring the justice the seek should then be allowed to seek their own justice, we are indeed on the way to mob rule. There are a number of groups in America that would love to go back to those good ole days of lynch mobs. From white supremacists, to religious fanatics, to political extremists. We might think they are wrong for how they feel, but what does that have to with anything? if someone feels the court won't satisfy their complaint, then bring on the mob!

There are so many people who believe the courts don't serve them. They feel the courts are biased this way, or that way. They believe justice begins and ends with their testimony alone. So perhaps anarchy *is* the solution, yes? Let people dispense justice based on their own beliefs. Give the weight to all accusers. The next time some white guy makes some accusation against a black guy, I ain't gonna bother hearing the other side, because I will side with the accuser. And the next black guy who accuses an Asian of cheating him, I am siding with the black guy. The more I think about this, it truly is a much simpler system than we now. Perhaps not very elegant or articulate, but at least we cut through all that due process baloney.

Both side of the story? Pfffft! the first one who speaks up wins!

 

[Ryika]

What I responded to initially was a claim that "No false accusations have taken down anyone". My point is that we don't know either way, so you can't say that either.

Yeah but why do you even engage that question? Synsensa is like: "Here, let me quickly build a hill." and then you're like: "Damn. I want to die on that!" It's not important whether we have a proven case of a false allegation that has brought down a person or not, what's important is that the system that is being used allows for that to happen. Unproven allegations are believed, and come with consequences.

But anyway, if we really, really want to climb that hill, then German Weatherman Jörg Kachelmann is the obvious example here. That's long before metoo of course, but it's basically the same thing. He was accused of rape, immediately removed from his job and called a rapist in the headlines of a number of news outlets. Court found him innocent - not due to a lack of evidence, it was shown that the claims his accuser made, can not have been true, and not in minor details, but the broad story she came up with. He tried to get his position back, but was denied by the tv station because the tv station assumed that it would have negative consequences for them. He was proven innocent, and still had to live with the consequences.

 

[Synobun]

Yeah but why do you even engage that question? Synsensa is like: "Here, let me quickly build a hill." and then you're like: "Damn. I want to die on that!" It's not important whether we have a proven case of a false allegation that has brought down a person or not, what's important is that the system that is being used allows for that to happen. Unproven allegations are believed, and come with consequences.

But anyway, if we really, really want to climb that hill, then German Weatherman Jörg Kachelmann is the obvious example here. That's long before metoo of course, but it's basically the same thing. He was accused of rape, immediately removed from his job and called a rapist in the headlines of a number of news outlets. Court found him innocent - not due to a lack of evidence, it was shown that the claims his accuser made, can not have been true, and not in minor details, but the broad story she came up with. He tried to get his position back, but was denied by the tv station because the tv station assumed that it would have negative consequences for them. He was proven innocent, and still had to live with the consequences.

You really sure you want to go with that example?

Based on a false accusation of rape in 2010, the popular weatherman spent four months in investigative custody before he was released due to lies and inconsistencies in his accuser's statements. The highly publicized trial ended in 2011 in acquittal. Kachelmann's ensuing campaign to regain his positive public image included publishing a book with his wife Miriam on the trial[10] and pursuing lawsuits against his accuser and the press. On 30 September 2015, he obtained a court ruling ordering the Axel Springer publishing group and one of its subsidiaries to pay Kachelmann €635,000 in compensation for the negative media coverage in its newspapers and online news services, especially German tabloid Bild, the highest such ruling ever in German judicial history.[11] In 2016, Kachelmann was able to prove the falsehood of the accusation in a civil lawsuit. His accuser is now subject of a criminal investigation for charges of indirect, aggravated unjust imprisonment.[12]

After selling his shares of the Meteomedia company in 2013, Kachelmann founded a new weather forecasting company, the Kachelmann GmbH in 2014,[13] which runs the forecasting portal kachelmannwetter.com and completes the Kachelmann Group consisting also of the Swiss company Meteologix AG, the Australian subsidiary Meteologix Australia Inc. and the US weather forecasting company Weather OK Inc., which operates weather.us. The Kachelmann Group has developed its own forecasting weather model ('Swiss HD') that provides data and forecasts for the WeatherPhilippines Foundation Inc. (WeatherPhilippines).