Bad Feminist

[mimekiller]

still worth noting with a fantastic looking Woody film on the way this year. This isn’t a Polanski situation where there’s not only a pattern but also an admission of guilt.

Woody’s Story has never faltered but Dylan and her accusers has changed many times.

[Phoebe]

Dude, even if he does/did only the things that are visible to the public eye, it is creepy beyond belief!!! Marrying the stepdaughter that you raised as your own child is absolutely grotesque.

[El Jefe]

[Mike]

Allen had nude photos of Soon Yi that were discovered shortly after she turned 21. So he was having a sexual relationship with her that started when she was 20 or potentially younger, although both parties assert that their physical relationship did not start until after she was a legal adult.

Allen is 35 years her senior and had been in a long-term relationship with Soon Yi's mother, Mia Farrow, at the time their relationship was discovered. Allen and Farrow had jointly adopted children together and by his own account, he acted as a father for years to all of Farrow's children, although he later changed this story in regards to Soon Yi. Presumably, Allen did not also adopt Soon Yi because A) she was already an adult when he adopted Dylan and Moses and B) she already had an adoptive father, Andre Previn.

Even if they did not have sex while she was underage, this is a man acting as the girl's father from the time she was 11 and turning that into a sexual relationship when she reaches adulthood and he is STILL acting as her father. It is a grotesque abuse of his authority and power over her.

[Bonefish]

As gross as it is... Why are we ignoring her agency in this? She did, after all, marry Woody. Long after she was an adult.

[Mike]

Not ignoring her agency in any way. I'm saying that what he did was an abuse of his authority and power. The fact that she made these choices doesn't change what he did.

Bill Clinton having a sexual relationship with an intern was a similar abuse of power and authority. Lewinsky was certainly an adult and seems to have entered willingly into the affair, but it doesn't change the fact that what he did was reprehensible.

The problem I have is with an authority figure entering into a sexual relationship with a person subject to their authority.

[mimekiller]

It's for sure not normal and even gross but is it...hmmm worthy of a BOYCOTT or worthy of impugning the moral character of anyone who acts in his films.

[Bonefish]

Of course it is. How would you know I am a good person if I can't tell you about how much good I am doing by selectively choosing what to boycott and what to not?

[Phoebe]

I think more people have put up with b******* than are virtue signaling, and the b******* that was put up with was a lot more serious than the terrible terrible crime of virtue signaling.

[Bonefish]

And what does a boycott accomplish? Does it fix something that has been done? No, the damage is already done. I mean, if you want to do it, sure, go ahead. I mean, technically I boycott most of that shit, because I am very selective about the media I consume. But I don't really put much stock in what I am doing.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we are talking about this as if it were something important. That whole damn industry is run through with exploitive behavior, and it's only just now becoming a thing that we are all suddenly supposed to care about. The personalities are... Meh... Like I am sure some are okay people, but you really can't be paling around with abusive, predatory dudes and be an ok person. See something, say something, right? So, how come none of these sumbitches said anything?

Such an interconnected and tight community, and somehow, these are exceptions(despite the damning frequency) instead of a more likely norm? Why haven't we been boycotting them a decade ago. Two decades ago.

Or did it just come out of the blue? Really? All of a suddenly we know, right? Rich and powerful people(mostly men) use their power and wealth to exploit other people(mostly women) to perform sexual acts? Really? Damn.

I don't like Woody Allen. I don't like sexual predators at all. And I ain't saying encourage him, but I just don't see the point, except for making sure people know you don't like something. Which is cool. But that's what it is.

[Phoebe]

I can't speak to what other people are doing or why, or how this fits with a whole industry of bad actors. All I know is that when it came out he married someone to whom he had been a father for much of her childhood, I was totally grossed out, and much of his filmmaking connects to his person, so it is largely infected by the gross. I'm not boycotting him; I'm uninterested. I saw that movie he did with Cate Blanchett because of her.

[Phoebe]

If you haven't read it yet, the Cat Person story in the New Yorker is good, and the reactions people have to it are vaguely fascinating. A lot of dating anguish probably could be resolved if people had to lead with their one paragraph take on the story. It should be some kind of screening mechanism. Apparently some guys read it and end up thinking the guy is a victim of cruel female manipulation and caprice. Not that her behavior is good, either - it's a great case study of a very common set of issues. But yeah, heterosexual guys, please do let everyone know if you think that character was a "victim", as that's useful info.

[El Jefe]

Is it okay to boycott him because he makes really shitty movies that bore you to death, slowly stealing all life from your soul, and draining it out through your eyes?

[Phoebe]

Yes, although remember that suffering steels us for worse suffering, so in that sense it might be thought of as a therapeutic exercise to watch the bad movies. I'm not really sure how the line is supposed to be drawn between the suffering that steels us and the suffering that destroys us and never ever gets any better, and so what the hell is the point of trying to be steeled with all that other suffering anyway? In other news I am ready to live in a cave alone for several months.

[Phoebe]

Discovered there was a Twitter account posting men's reactions to that cat person story. LOLllllllled over it for a few moments before realizing, my God, most of these Twitter reactions probably aren't fiction the way the story is. Many of these comments might come from real human males. And then I shed a few small tears for all the people who might cross their paths, including me. It's like this story is some kind of a magic mirror that allows us to see all the assholes because of the way they respond to it.

[Phoebe]

Oh I don't know if it can get any better than this. The National Review has turned Cat Person into an occasion for earnest moral instruction to the wayward young ladies of the world. The confused young women who desperately need the moral guidance of the National Review, who don't want to have unfortunate sexual encounters, should not drink too many beers and should not have sex with too many partners that they just don't know well enough. They are not slut shaming, mind you, they just know all about the universal truths of happiness.

[Phoebe]

This link goes to a great article, which responds to some concerns I share about every manner and degree of sexual misconduct and actual assault and rape being shared on one giant sliding scale. I don't agree with everything she argues in it, but in short, a binding issue we should focus on is how women and some men have to navigate sexual harassment and ita myriad effects in order to deal with their normal, daily professional lives. When we start focusing on the specifics of the wrongs done in this or that incident, and sussing out degrees of guilt and punishment and vileness of perpetrators, we are sometimes merely inviting people to feel warm and fuzzy about protecting women from sexual harm, and not demanding that we think systematically about what this means for women at work. One of the best points in this piece is that she repeatedly explains how these incidents have major career effects on people who weren't even involved in the incident.

I could tell you an entire history of my professional life as dealing with all sorts of different bizarre encounters, or the aftermath of people's encounters with other people, or the overall difficult atmosphere that makes it, ah, specially challenging to do your job as well as possible. Everyone thinks it's so easy for women to get hired in industries where there aren't as many women, due to some kind of affirmative action backlash they assume is inevitably making female candidates more attractive. But the reality is that women are not considered safe in male dominated workplaces, and the slightest deviation from an accepted script for women can cause a female job candidate to be rejected immediately. I could tell you a story of my whole professional life that revolves around what I've had to do to make myself a safe female in the workplace without being neutralized by accepted Roles like Good Girl and Pushover or demonized as a Witch or Ball Buster. There are people who will struggle their damnedest to put you in one of those roles, so that they don't have to worry about you being more powerful. And sadly that definitely includes other women. I should write a book about the coping strategy but it would have to wait for retirement or maybe posthumous publication.

One thing I wish the author might have touched on, but she was moving on to another point, is that one of the most dangerous dynamics for the "lean in" situation, outside of the obvious threats of actual assault or harassment, is that men who are good, and whom you like, and who are important to success, sometimes like you back because you are successful. And this is very hard, because it's hard not to take that as a compliment, and it happens for the right reasons, and they want to see you succeed. But the same incredibly difficult dynamic is created for the woman even when you're dealing with what we might call a "good actor" in a situation like this. When men and women have a mutual admiration society going in the workplace it will cause negative consequences for the woman. I've never been on the other side of the power dynamic enough with anyone to know whether it causes problems for junior males who are in this situation, but I assume that it could. Nevertheless it will reflect badly on the woman in that situation too, in a way that it simply never will reflect badly on the senior male. A lot of people mistake the point here. This man is not doing something wrong. He's doing something right. The problem is that everyone else is happy to punish the women no matter what their response in this situation might be. The only reason that she got where she is is because of her Patron. He has all the ideas; she just carries them out. He's her Enforcer. Maybe they're trading some kind of extracurricular favors. And if they are that shows that he's desirable and she is a whore. She can't be trusted, above all. I am literally working every day of my life to make sure those things don't manifest any more than they have to. And at the very same moment, trying to make sure that every step you make, when you have a mutual admiration society with more powerful males, isn't the wrong one, or that you're not mistaken about the true nature of the relationship.

[mimekiller]

This is kind of what you've been saying Pheobe http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/mat ... d=51792548

[Phoebe]

Ehhhhh not really. I am not seeing that at all. First, I think he's totally lying about what he knew about Harvey W., and he said elsewhere he knew something about Gywneth Paltrow's story. Second, he's trying to differentiate between degrees of offense because he thinks all the outraged people are being too punitive and going too far in their zeal for retribution. Well, no, I don't agree with that at all. All of these people are doing things for which they need to be booted out of positions of authority or eminence. No problem with that. My problem is when so much discussion or media around this subject tosses them all into the same bowl, as if there is no difference between sexually harassing comments in the workplace and a violent sexual assault. The reason that's bad is NOT because we need to show more mercies to the harasser; it's because it has the effect of treating violent sexual assault radically less seriously than it should.

[mimekiller]

He's talking about how blatant witch hunts aren't productive and are creating a very toxic working environment where people are only digging around to post about Bad Shit that people have done instead of any of the good stuff.