As I mentioned in Tuesday's We Resist thread, the razor brand Gillette released an ad challenging toxic masculinity, which naturally prompted misogynist shitwheels to prove the very point yet again by responding with heaping fuckloads of toxic masculinity.
I've written a whole lot in this space about the harmfulness of toxic masculinity to every gender, and how vile its defenders are — but something else occurred to me as I watched (or rather could not avoid seeing) defenders of toxic masculinity rage endlessly over days.
IT'S SO GODDAMNED BORING.
Defending one very specific and limiting and impossibly rigid notion of masculinity is like arguing that there shouldn't be greyhounds or dachshunds or keeshonds or mutts because EVERY DOG SHOULD BE A LABRADOR. AND NO HORSES, EITHER!
Why would anyone want that kind of world? And the assholes who do don't even have the sense to realize that it's their fiercely guarding an oppressively stifling set of dehumanizing rules that makes them aggressive and resentful and cruel.
The evil of banality makes them vicious.
Stop being boring. Be creative. You don't have to be a labrador! Go be a poodle!
(My apologies to labradors, who are very accepting.)
An Observation About Toxic Masculinity
Hello! This Is a Reminder That Hannah Gadsby Is Very Smart and Very Good at Her Job!
[Content Note: Toxic masculinity.]
Given the opportunity to speak at The Hollywood Reporter's 2018 Women in Entertainment gala, comedian Hannah Gadsby talked about "the good men," and not in the way that women usually feel obliged to talk about "good men" on such a platform.
You can watch or read a transcript of the entire thing (which also calls in people of other privileges) at Vulture, but here is an excerpt made of ferocity and fire:
My issue is that when good men talk about bad men, they always ignore the line in the sand — the line in the sand that is inevitably drawn whenever a good man talks about bad men: "I am a good man. Here is the line. There are all the bad men." The Jimmys and the good men won't talk about this line, but we really need to talk about this line. Let's call it Kevin. And let's never call it that again.That.
We need to talk about how men will draw a different line for every different occasion. They have a line for the locker room; a line for when their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters are watching; another line for when they're drunk and fratting; another line for nondisclosure; a line for friends; and a line for foes. You know why we need to talk about this line between good men and bad men? Because it's only good men who get to draw that line. And guess what? All men believe they are good.
We need to talk about this because guess what happens when only good men get to draw that line? This world — a world full of good men who do very bad things and still believe in their heart of hearts that they are good men because they have not crossed the line, because they move the line for their own good. Women should be in control of that line, no question.
Life Preservers in a Toxic Sea
[Content Note: Patriarchy; white supremacy; rape culture; references to drowning.]
I am a strong swimmer.
I swim a mile at least three or four times a week. Length after length, back and forth, sometimes sharing a lane with other swimmers, the pool so full of people that it churns like the sea.
No matter how placid or turbulent the water, even when the surface roils with the movement of other swimmers and I get a mouthful of water when I expected air, I never feel as though I'm drowning.
The only thing that threatens to drown me is the vast sea of seeping venom, oozed by the corrupt and abusive people who are running this nation.
Running it from the halls of government, in federal buildings and private clubs. Running it from behind desks in newsrooms, and from ivory towers in academia. Running it from golf courses and locker rooms. Running it from statehouses, courthouses, warehouses, farmhouses, hen houses, outhouses, and dog houses.
So many men. White men, mostly — with their tokens, their pets, their enablers. Exceptional Women and the bootstrapping purveyors of respectability politics. The fools who believe that proximity to sadistic white men will keep them safe.
Every day, I wake up full of steely resolve, prepared to once again resist as mightily as I can, in all the ways that I can. I take my space among the rest of the resisters, who speak or march or donate or volunteer or write or make calls or lash themselves to fixed barriers and refuse to be easily removed.
And every day, I begin to drown. I take air from the people who swim at my side, fighting, and I give air back to them in turn. We fill each other's lungs with air, as the corrupt and abusive people who are running this nation try to drown us in the sea of their relentless malice.
Wave after wave of chaos, of harm. Of corruption and abuse and lies. Of silencing and threatening and attacking and caging. Of marginalizing and othering and dehumanizing and exploiting and thieving and raping and bombing and betraying.
I tread water in this churning sea, and I struggle to swim. I struggle to breathe, like everyone floating in the sea beside me.
We act as each other's life preservers.
I think about what those words mean, their literal meaning. We preserve each other's lives.
We preserve each other's lives, as vile men try to destroy them. To rescind our rights, to reject our agency, to ignore our consent. To step on our necks, to redistribute our treasure to their own pockets, to deny us livable wages, affordable housing, lifesaving healthcare. To neglect the safety of infrastructure in our communities. To kill us with poisons in the air and water and food and walls. To starve us, to hurt us, to paralyze us with fear, to refuse us opportunities to thrive or even moments of joy.
To try to make us agree with their damnable pretense that we are inferior; that there is something inherently better about white men.
I use the last of my precious breath to exhale a curdled sigh of contempt. For we know, we know, that it isn't true.
If it were, they wouldn't need to mount such a cruel and comprehensive effort to convince us otherwise. To drown us in their sea of bile.
I don't know if we are going to win this fight, but I am going to keep swimming. For as long as I can.
And I hope that while they busily piss into their toxic sea, they continue to underestimate how strong a swimmer I am. How willing we are to keep swimming; to be each other's life preservers.
They don't know yet that we will keep coming, length after length, back and forth, but they will.
They don't understand yet that I have bigger ambitions than "draining the swamp." I'm fixing to drain the entire sea.
Today in Toxic Masculinity
[Content Note: Gun violence; auto violence; domestic violence; misogyny; entitlement; disablism.]
On Friday, Dimitrios Pagourtzis killed ten people and injured at least 13 others at Sante Fe high school in Texas.
Sadie Rodriguez, a mother of one of Pagourtzis' victims, 16-year-old Shana Fisher, said that her daughter was his first target, because he was angry that she had humiliated him by publicly rejecting him after he'd aggressively pursued her for four months, despite her repeatedly telling him no.
Sadie Rodriguez said her daughter Shana Fisher had endured "four months of problems from this boy".Then yesterday, Roger Self, a former police officer turned private investigator in North Carolina, took his family out to brunch, had them seated at a particular table, then left the meal to get into his vehicle and plow it into the restaurant, killing two people, one of whom was his own daughter, Katelyn Self, a deputy sheriff. The other person killed was his daughter-in-law, Amanda Self, an emergency room nurse. One of her daughters, only 13 years old, was among the injured.
"He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no," she told the Los Angeles Times.
...Ms Rodriguez said Mr Pagourtzis had been increasingly aggressive until her daughter stood up to him, embarrassing him in class.
"A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn't like," she said.
According to a pastor and family friend, Self was "wrestling with mental illness" and had been "beset by anxiety, depression, and mental breakdowns," but: "He's been taking precautions. He had all the guns removed from his house, so he was making steps that were rational steps."
Imagine anyone saying about a woman, or a man of color, who tried to kill their entire family that they had been making "rational steps" before they rammed their car into a restaurant where they killed and injured people in addition to their targeted family.
"Family has been loving him through this," the pastor said. "This was not a conscious act by their father, and they know that."Except, of course, that it was a conscious act. He chose the restaurant, he called the restaurant, he made a reservation, he invited his family, he chose a particular table, he sat down with them, he got up from the table, he left the restaurant, he got in his car, he started it, and then he deliberately drove it through the restaurant.
Let me be clear: Neither anxiety nor depression make people kill their families. They also don't make men decide that their wives and daughters and daughters-in-law and granddaughters are better off dead, or whatever fucked-up reason Self decided to harm his family.
Mental illness can exacerbate toxic masculinity. But it doesn't create it.
Today in Men Who Can't Resist Proving the Point
[Content Note: Sexism; racism.]
Imagine being a white dude who thinks right now is the perfect time in history to write a column about how unfair everyone is being to white dudes. https://t.co/1eqFRq6zsD
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 17, 2018
"All this is by way of saying to women: I'm on your side." No, you really fucking aren't, bub.
Not for nothing, but a white man who publicly insists on telling the world that he "recoils" at women calling for women to be employed in prominent roles across all industries is pretty much making the case for us that we need women from marginalized communities who have a commitment to intersectional leadership to fill leadership roles, because white men keep showing us that they can't be trusted to treat us as their equals.
Or even acknowledge that we have spent millenia being denied that equality. Or care about it, beyond grudgingly "conceding" our complaint.
A Terrible Reminder That White Supremacy and Patriarchy Are Inextricably Linked
[Content Note: White supremacy; domestic violence; descriptions of violence.]
White supremacist Matthew Heimbach, who came to national prominence by leading a hate group, shoving anti-racist protesters, and being quoted in a number of shameful Nazi-normalizing features in various news publications, has been arrested for domestic battery.
Marwa Eltagouri at the Washington Post reports:
Heimbach was charged with assaulting his wife and his wife's stepfather, Matt Parrott, who is also co-founder of Heimbach's Traditionalist Worker Party. The organization is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a new white nationalist group masking itself in "traditionalism."That Heimbach is a violent domestic abuser should come as no surprise. Despite their reprehensible, patriarchal rhetoric about "protecting" women, men who are grotesque racists don't treat women well, either. White supremacy and the patriarchy are inextricably tied together, and men who view exacting violence against people of color as their vocation don't come home from a long day of being vile shits to be loving husbands and fathers.
About 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, Parrott, 36, called police from a Walmart in Paoli, Ind., according to a police report obtained by the SPLC. Parrott told police he had fled to the Walmart with his stepdaughter after a confrontation with Heimbach, who had allegedly been involved in an affair with Parrott's wife. The stepdaughter told police that the affair had lasted three months but had recently ended.
But that night, according to the police report, Parrott caught Heimbach with his wife. He confronted Heimbach and told him to get off his property, but Heimbach wouldn't leave. Parrott poked his chest, then Heimbach allegedly grabbed Parrott's hand and twisted it down. Heimbach got behind Parrott and "choked him out" with his arm, according to the police report.
Parrott told police he briefly lost consciousness. When he woke up, he again told Heimbach to get off his property, and Heimbach again tried to choke him, according to the police report. Parrott again lost consciousness, and upon waking up heard his wife tell Heimbach to track down his stepdaughter's phone because it had a recording of Heimbach and Parrott's wife together, according to the police report. Parrott and the stepdaughter escaped to the Walmart.
After police met Parrott at the Walmart, they left to track down Heimbach, and found him in a verbal confrontation with his own wife. Heimbach's wife told police that her husband grabbed her face and "threw me with the hand on my face onto the bed."
All four people involved in the incident stated their occupations were "White Nationalists" in the police report.
The human mind isn't built to compartmentalize eliminationist hatred so it can happily coexist with a healthy, functional, loving home life. White supremacists run profoundly abusive households.
And I want to highlight that Heimbach repeatedly choked his stepfather-in-law, because that is not an insignificant detail. To the contrary:
"Strangulation inhabits a category all its own in domestic violence as a marker of lethality. A kick, a punch, a slap, a bite — none of these, though terrible, portend homicide like strangulation does."https://t.co/Mc30CFVfKk
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 4, 2018
This is a dangerous man on a very dangerous path, who is increasingly violent at home. That is a major red flag.
I desperately hope that Heimbach encounters and engages with someone from a group like Life After Hate and abandons this heinous trajectory. It is the only intervention I can imagine having even a chance of altering his course of violence, which is chillingly being empowered and encouraged every day from the highest office in the nation.
Today in Toxic Masculinity
[Content Note: Violent entitlement; animal cruelty; misogyny. Video may autoplay at second link.]
The next time you hear some asshole complaining about "bitches' mixed signals," think about the women who die for saying no unequivocally.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2014
And if you have even the tiniest, infinitesimal urge to say Not All Men, tell me instead: HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHICH MEN?
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2014
Those tweets were posted in 2014, and they were not the first time I've written about this subject, because I have been writing about this for a long time.
And here I am, writing about it again.
Thankfully, the women about whom I'm writing today — women who said no to men who wouldn't take no for an answer — are alive, unlike many other women who were killed by men who couldn't bear to let live any woman who rejected them. Unfortunately, in one case, two dogs are dead.
Amy Lavalley at the Post-Tribune: Owner of 2 Pugs Who Were Beaten to Death Rebuffed Advances of Man Accused in Their Killings. "The woman who owned two pugs that were beaten to death last month in Porter Township reportedly rebuffed the advances of the man charged in the dogs' deaths, according to court documents. Anthony Priestas, 23...was arrested Tuesday on two felony counts of animal cruelty for allegedly killing the dogs Feb. 21 after removing them from the Winfield home of Brandy Ortiz, court documents said. Ortiz, who has said she received the dogs, Marley and Mugsy, as a Christmas present from her parents seven years ago, told police investigating the allegations that 'she remembered a male subject who has been trying to date her but she has stayed off his advances,' court documents said."
The description at the link of how Priestas murdered the dogs is very difficult to read. (Frankly, I don't advise it.) He was clearly full of uncontrollable rage, all because he felt entitled to Ortiz, who he didn't believe had the agency and right to tell him no.
WCCO Minnesota: Man Urinated in Co-Worker's Water After She Denied His Advances. "A 47-year-old Minneapolis man is accused of urinating into a co-worker's water bottle numerous times after she rejected his romantic advances. Conrrado Cruz Perez faces one misdemeanor and one gross misdemeanor charge of adulterate by bodily fluid in connection to the October 2017 incident. According to the complaint, a female worker at the Perkins Family Restaurant in Vadnais Heights reported noticing water in her water bottle tasting like urine for the past several months. She said it began happening after she told Perez that she only wanted to be friends with him. Since then, she said there were about 15 instances of urine-tasting water in her water bottle at work."
Stephanie Saul at the New York Times: Harvard Professor Resigns Amid Allegations of Sexual Harassment. "A prominent government professor at Harvard who has been accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior by as many as 18 women over several decades resigned on Tuesday following a decision by the university to place him on leave. The professor, Jorge I. Domínguez, 72, was the subject of a Feb. 27 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that reported that at least 10 women had accused him of sexual harassment. ...The Chronicle article told the story of Terry L. Karl, an assistant government professor at Harvard during the early 1980s, who said Dr. Domínguez...had made repeated attempts to kiss her, attempted to run his hand up her dress and, at another point, made a reference to raping her. As she rebuffed his advances, Dr. Karl said, Dr. Domínguez reminded her of how powerful he was."
These are just three stories from the past week. Women tell men no. Men respond by killing their dogs; peeing in their water; threatening their careers.
That women often "agree" to do things with men because they are afraid what will happen if they say no is something about which I've had occasion to write twice, lately: Once regarding Aziz Ansari and once regarding Louis CK.
And that's because "Why didn't she leave?" — or say no, or scream, or kick him in the balls, or violently hurt him, or any one of a number of escalating variations — is a ubiquitous bit of apologia deployed in response to every story of a woman being harmed by a man and living to tell the tale.
This is why. This is always why.
Because there are men who will do terrible things, worse things than they are already doing to us, if we say no.
And there's no way to tell whether a man is that kind of man until he shows us.
Joe Biden, What Are You Even Doing?
In Pennsylvania's 18th District, there is a special election to be decided in one week to fill the seat vacated by Republican Rep. Tim Murphy, who recently resigned after revelations that he urged his mistress to have an abortion, despite being a virulently anti-choice candidate.
It's a Republican district: Trump carried the 18th by 20 points in 2016. But Democrat Conor Lamb nonetheless has a legit shot at beating Republican candidate Rick Saccone. He's made himself competitive mostly by shit-talking Nancy Pelosi and demurring on gun reform, which isn't great, but, again, this has been a reliably Republican district and the special election is now a toss-up.
Anyway. Former Veep Joe Biden traveled to the 18th, which is near Pittsburgh, to support Lamb and rally the Democratic troops.
At the Pittsburgh rally [before a crowd of union workers], Biden stressed the importance of standing with unions, and protecting Medicare and Social Security.All of that is fine. Good stuff. It's important to remind voters that the Republican tax cut is rank garbage and hardly a gift to the working class.
Roughly 10 miles away at Robert Morris University, he again discussed the middle class with a packed room of Lamb supporters and took more swings at Republicans.
Biden slammed the GOP tax overhaul, saying it would lead to cuts in entitlement programs. And he denounced the millions spent on the airwaves to support Saccone and attack Lamb.
"If there's going to be a fight out there, I'm betting on that guy working construction or in a steel mill, I ain't betting on that fat cat writing a big check," the former vice president said, arguing that the grass-roots energy could overcome the barrage of critical TV ads.
But Biden didn't stop there. And it's no coincidence, of course, that this clip came from Fox News, to whom Biden delivered a perfect gift:
“They don’t get it” –former VP Joe Biden admits some Democrats don’t understand the working class anymore pic.twitter.com/o4y59LDWBP
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 7, 2018
I know what it's like, watching uncles, aunts, friends, neighbors losing jobs. My dad used to say, "Joe, remember: A job's about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about your respect. It's about your place in your community." [edit] Some people in my party don't even get it anymore. They don't get it. It's about our pride. It's about our dignity. It's about who the hell we are and what we've done. [edit] And it makes me angry; it makes me angry.Joe Biden is not talking about women here. Because jobs that confer dignity have historically been reserved for men.
There is a long history, in fact, of women — and men of color — being harassed and threatened for "taking away" jobs that confer dignity from white men.
By deliberately concealing that history, Biden is being, at best, extremely careless.
But then comes this: Flanked by workers who are almost exclusively white and male, Biden says, "It's about our pride."
To call that gross dogwhistle careless would be to give it good faith it doesn't deserve.
I am a practical person. I understand, no matter how much I don't like it, that a Democratic candidate in a Republican district may have to distance himself from national party leadership and hedge on gun reform.
But if the only way to win is to go full Nazi, party affiliation becomes nothing but a distinction without a difference.
Shame on Joe Biden. If this is a preview of what his 2020 campaign would look like, and I'm sure it is, he'd better fucking stay home. We're all full up on white supremacist patriarchy here.
The Thing About Mental Illness and Mass Shootings
[Content Note: Disablism; misogyny; gun violence.]
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll has found that most Americans believe mass shootings "are more reflective of problems identifying and addressing mental health issues than inadequate gun laws. In the poll conducted after a gunman killed 17 people at a Florida high school last week, more than three-quarters, 77 percent, said they think more effective mental health screening and treatment could have prevented the shooting."
There are so many problems with this position, not least of which is that the Parkland School shooter, Nikolas Cruz, had been in psychiatric treatment, which clearly did not prevent the shooting.
I have already written a lot about how problematic the focus on "keeping the hands out of people with mental illness" is:
December 2012: "In Pursuit of Doing Something Meaningful."
December 2012: "An Observation About Mental Illness."
January 2013: "Today in Terrible Ideas."
November 2013: "The Right Thing for the Wrong Reasons."
December 2013: "And What Is the Cost of Demonization?"
May 2014: "Welp."
December 2015: "Not Enough."
January 2016: "The President Takes Executive Action on Guns."
I won't repeat myself on this subject yet again. I will only make this one observation, which I am sure I am not the first person to make: There is no mental illness that causes someone to pick up a gun and start murdering people, and only affects men.
To believe that the primary issue regarding mass shootings — and thus what should be the primary focus of any solution — is mental illness is to believe that there exists a mental illness that almost exclusively affects men.
There is not.
However, toxic masculinity is a thing we could talk about. And should.
The erasure of women is one of the most pernicious and enraging pieces of misogyny in any patriarchal space. But the erasure of women, specifically the erasure of mentally ill women, in this particular construct is comprehensively contemptible. Not only is it misogynist and disablist, in service to notions that abet gun violence, but women are routinely accused of being "crazy" in every conceivable way and for every conceivable reason in every other aspect of our lives.
We are "crazy," we are "insane," we are "hysterical," we are "emotional," we are "irrational," we are every euphemism for mentally ill under the sun, we are "psycho bitches."
But when it comes to mass shootings, suddenly women are so uniquely sane that our failure to have the mystery mental illness that causes "people" to pick up guns isn't even remarkable.
We're crazy when men need us to be crazy to avoid accountability and we're sane as the day is long when we don't want to talk about toxic masculinity or access to guns.
I am a woman with mental illness, and I flatly refuse to be disappeared in service to this narrative. I exist. And so do millions of other women with mental illness. If mental illness is the primary issue, then why is only men who are picking up guns?
Just stop.
Dear Men: I Am Not a Character in Your Story
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
It happened again. I was doing laps in the pool when I noticed a man in the lane next to me start to time his laps to mine. I was pivoting too quickly at the end of each length for him to start a conversation, so he began loudly clearing his throat, inexplicably believing that listening to him gargle phlegm would capture my attention.
When none of his passive aggressive overtures worked, and kept not working for nearly 40 minutes, he took one of the floats he had piled up at the end of his lane — these guys always carry a collection of swimming accoutrements, for maximum attention — and carefully placed it at the end of my lane. As if it might have been accidentally swept into the pool there.
Of course, since I do the breaststroke, I saw all of this happen. I saw him pick up his kickboard; discard it; pick up and examine his resistance gloves; discard them; pick up the float; glance back at me; apparently determine my goggles are opaque; set the float in my lane; then begin fussing busily with his pile of stuff — far too occupied rearranging his gear to have noticed his float slip into my lane, obviously!
I reached the target, grabbed it, and tossed it into his lane. "Your float," I said. "Oh, I'm so sorry—" he began, turning toward me, as if this ridiculous ruse had succeeded as a conversation starter. "No problem," I said curtly, then dived back under the water, to continue the thing I wanted to do for myself.
I didn't want to talk to him, not even to tell him off. What I wanted was to keep doing my laps, without interruption or the throat sounds of a stranger who doesn't understand that I am not a character in his story.
It's no wonder he is under the misapprehension that I am. He was, as were we all, socialized in a culture filled with stories in which women are merely characters, tokens, plot devices, objects of desire or scorn in the stories of men.
Even in many stories that are ostensibly women's stories, like romantic comedies supposedly designed so specifically for women that they are demeaned as "chick flicks," women frequently have no purpose but to love difficult men, to fix and support and heal them, to help them realize their true potential, to marry them and have their babies.
What we never talk about is how the damsel in distress only exists to rescue her rescuer, from a life of devoid of every (straight) man's true birthright: To be gazed upon as a hero by a grateful woman.
Men are the heroes of their own stories; any woman's role is to make him feel that way. The mother who raised him from boy to man, the sister he defended from harm, the lovers he beds, the witches he vanquishes.
When a man approaches a woman like a character in his story, we know if we don't play the role of lover, we will be cast in the role of witch.
What I want is the option to not be seen as a character in any man's story at all.
I want to be viewed as my own author, my own architect, my own captain, my own governor. I want to be seen as fully human, with agency and autonomy and the right of consent.
I want men to look at me, swimming in the pool with fierce determination, stretching my arms to reach farther and extending my legs to kick harder with every stroke, my brows knitted and breath measured, and see that I am not a supporting role in anyone else's story.
I am my own hero.
And then I want them to leave me the fuck alone, because it should be evident that I neither want nor need them in this chapter of my saga.
[Related Reading: Dear Men: You Don't Own Women.]
Weinstein Blackballed Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino
[Content Note: Rape culture; misogyny.]
Peter Jackson says Harvey Weinstein's Miramax led a "smear campaign" against @AshleyJudd and @MiraSorvino https://t.co/NBbbFsN7w4 pic.twitter.com/mCOpb9yCWX
— Variety (@Variety) December 15, 2017
Peter & Fran had me in - showed me all the creative, the boards, costumes, everything. They asked which if the two roles I preferred, and then I abruptly never heard from hem again. I appreciate the truth coming out. Thank you, Peter. https://t.co/iXKuK6Xqtx
— ashley judd (@AshleyJudd) December 15, 2017
Just seeing this after I awoke, I burst out crying. There it is, confirmation that Harvey Weinstein derailed my career, something I suspected but was unsure. Thank you Peter Jackson for being honest. I’m just heartsick https://t.co/ljK9NqICbm
— Mira Sorvino (@MiraSorvino) December 15, 2017
"At the time we had no reason to question what these guys were telling us," says Peter Jackson. Guys, you always have reason to question when another guy tells you women are "a nightmare to work with and...avoid them at all costs." That reason is misogyny. https://t.co/LveduL3OCv
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 15, 2017
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that there's no such thing as a woman who is difficult to work with. What I'm saying is this: Lots of abusive men leverage cultural narratives about women in general being difficult, being bitchy, being divas, being crazy to isolate women whom they have harmed and who refuse to be quiet about it.
If a man warns you not to deal with a woman on the basis that she's "a nightmare," you'd better make sure to find out for yourself exactly what that means.
Because it usually doesn't mean what you think.
Powerful Man Confronts Powerful Man
[Content Note: Sexual harassment and assault.]
During a panel last night in New York, accompanying a 20th anniversary screening of the film Wag the Dog, moderator John Oliver asked Dustin Hoffman about recent allegations of sexual harassment and assault. And Hoffman was not happy about it.
There is video of part of the exchange at the Washington Post, where Steven Zeitchik also provides a detailed summary.
The whole thing is fascinating, but, as I noted on Twitter, the most compelling part to me is Hoffman asking if he's a powerful man. Such a remarkable moment of a man diminishing himself to play the victim in response to accountability for victimizing others.
Oliver said that he considered not addressing the subject at what was intended as a genial chat but then decided he bore an obligation.Wow. WOW.
"I can't leave certain things unaddressed," the host said. "The easy way is not to bring anything up. Unfortunately that leaves me at home later at night hating myself. 'Why the…didn't I say something? No one stands up to powerful men.'"
"Am I the powerful man?" Hoffman asked.
Anyone who sees me interact with men on here has seen it. As soon as I object to how a man treats me, as soon as he feels confronted, he turns on me, and if I stand my ground, he turns himself into the victim. Now it's not about how he was a jerk, but about how I'm a bitch.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 5, 2017
Imagine being a man of Hoffman's privilege, of his wealth and visibility, who has spent decades at the top of his highly influential career, and asking "Am I the powerful man?"
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 5, 2017
"Am I the powerful man?" Yes, Dustin. Yes, you are.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 5, 2017
This is a dynamic that men must begin to understand — particularly because it doesn't work nearly as well when the confrontation is between two men, which should urgently move men to be challengers in precisely the way Oliver is here, instead of leaving the work to women.
Let me observe once again that a man who is truly in alliance with women doesn't treat the dismantling of the patriarchy as "women's work."
Not just because it's shitty and lazy, but because he knows that men have leverage to address abusive men in ways that women don't, because of the patriarchy.
John Oliver will be called a hero today. If I had done precisely the same thing, even if to a man who had harmed me personally, I'd be called a bitch.
That isn't incidental. And neither is the fact that Hoffman's victim-playing wasn't effective, because we aren't entrained to view men who hold other men accountable as unfair, uncharitable, mean.
More of this, please. I'm sure I'm not the only woman who would like to rest while men who assert to be allies step the fuck up for awhile.
Get It Together, White Men
[Content Note: Toxic masculinity.]
I spend my days writing about the Trump administration, which is a group of white cishet men (and some piddling number of enablers) who embody toxic masculinity.
In between writing about their aggressive fuckery, I write about mass shootings and other acts of public violence committed by men, virtually all of whom have some history of domestic violence, each of whom slaps a different toxic masculinist ideology on top of their heinous massacre.
And in between all of that, I write a seemingly endless number of pieces about the rape culture, and all the men who sexually harass and/or sexually assault women and children and, to a lesser extent, other men. And I write about all the (mostly but not exclusively) men who abet and defend those abusers.
My entire life at the moment feels consumed by documenting and resisting toxic masculinity.
I am fucking exhausted.
And I am fucking raw.
And I really need all the white men who reassure me #NotAllMen to get it together, step the fuck up, and start carrying some of this burden.
Because, since I write about toxic masculinity, I am also constantly subjected to it. In comments, in my inbox, in my mentions.
I can't breathe without the acrid stink of men being shitty.
And every goddamned day of my life, I am more resentful that men who claim to be Good Progressives, who insist they are my allies, who claim to be feminists continue to treat the dismantling of toxic masculinity as women's work.
You are not doing nearly enough, men. Not even close.
And I am sick of that, too.
Matt Damon Defends Himself, But.
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Matt Damon, who was accused of being enlisted by Harvey Weinstein to kill a story on his predation in 2004, has given an interview to Deadline in which he shares his version of events:
DEADLINE: It was reported that you and Russell Crowe were conscripted by Harvey Weinstein to call Sharon Waxman in an effort to derail a New York Times piece similar to the ones we are reading now.So, here's the thing: Sharon Waxman and Matt Damon can both be right. Indeed, I suspect that they are.
DAMON: My recollection was that it was about a one minute phone call. Harvey had called me and said, they're writing a story about Fabrizio, who I knew from The Talented Mr. Ripley. He has organized our premiere in Italy and so I knew him in a professional capacity and I'd had dinner at his house. Harvey said, Sharon Waxman is writing a story about Fabrizio and it's really negative. Can you just call and tell her what your experience with Fabrizio was. So I did, and that's what I said to her. It didn't even make the piece that she wrote. As I recall, her piece just said that Russell and I had called and relayed our experience with Fabrizio. That was the extent of it and so I was very surprised to see it come back. I was never conscripted to do anything. We vouch for each other, all the time, and it didn't even make her article. Whether it didn't jibe with her storyline…it was an incomplete rendering of someone that I was giving but I had perfectly professional experiences with Fabrizio and I didn't mind telling her that.
I'm sure I mentioned to her that I didn't know anything about the rest of her piece, because I didn't. And I still don't know anything about that and Fabrizio. My experience with him was all above board and that's what I told her.
DEADLINE: After The New York Times piece last week, Harvey reportedly went to Hollywood power brokers urging them to defend him in messages that would be conveyed to the board of directors deciding if he should be fired. No one did, apparently. It would be easy to misinterpret your overture in a similar way. When Harvey asked you to do that, was there any mention that Sharon Waxman was reporting a piece on the indiscretions we are reading about now?
DAMON: No, I just remember it being a negative piece, a hit job on Fabrizio, was what Harvey was saying. Basically, that he had no professional experience. Harvey said, you worked with him. Can you tell her that he was a professional and you had a good experience, and that was it. I didn't mind doing it, because that was all true.
...DEADLINE: Just to reiterate, Waxman didn't tell you the point of her story?
DAMON: She didn't. She called us to apologize about this thing coming out, and she claimed she was in her car with her kids when I talked to her. It was a 30 second conversation.
For the record, I would never, ever, ever try to kill a story like that. I just wouldn't do that. It's not something I would do, for anybody.
Waxman wrote: "After intense pressure from Weinstein, which included having Matt Damon and Russell Crowe call me directly to vouch for Lombardo and unknown discussions well above my head at the Times, the story was gutted."
She makes it clear, to my reading, that Damon was enlisted by Weinstein as part of his (ultimately successful) pressure campaign to have the story killed.
Indeed, after Damon's statement was published, Waxman herself tweeted her endorsement of it:
I endorse Matt Damon's statement. He called me briefly,wasn't informed - nor shld he have been - abt investigative aspect of piece. @thewrap https://t.co/kTbOdYY7C8
— Sharon Waxman (@sharonwaxman) October 10, 2017
That, however, is not the end of the story — at least, it shouldn't be. Because what Damon never gets to in his statement of self-defense is that he was used by Harvey Weinstein to protect him from exposure as a serial sex abuser.
It may well be true that, as he claims, Matt Damon "would never, ever, ever try to kill a story like that." But that's beside the point. Harvey Weinstein would and did —and he used Damon, and his reputation as a decent guy, to try to kill Waxman's story.
"I was never conscripted to do anything," says Damon. Except that he was. He was conscripted to leverage his reputation on behalf of Weinstein, to protect his.
Damon may have been an unwitting accomplice, but he was an accomplice all the same, and he should be furious with Weinstein about that.
He should be absolutely stricken that Weinstein convinced him to do this favor under the false pretenses; that Weinstein exploited their relationship in order to avoid exposure.
If he is, I don't detect it in his statement. In fact, I don't see any evidence that he realizes he was used in that way at all. I see a lot of implied blame directed at Waxman: She should have informed him of the nature of her piece, he insinuates, but Weinstein knew what the piece was about when he asked Damon to call her. Where's the blame for him?
Waxman only picked up the phone and answered when he called at Weinstein's request. She had no responsibility to disclose her angle. The responsibility for full disclosure rests exclusively with Weinstein, who enlisted Damon to try to shut her down specifically because of that angle.
In trying to defend himself, Damon is shielding Weinstein from the accountability for lying and for using him, even if unknowingly, to thwart a woman who was trying to hold him accountable.
He may not have knowingly colluded with Weinstein at the time, but what he's saying right now absolves Weinstein by decentering him. This isn't about Sharon Waxman and what she did or didn't do. It's about Harvey Weinstein — and the fact that he used Matt Damon to ensure he could keep assaulting women with impunity.
Damon needs to be angry about that.
Men Who Are Bullies Hurt Women
[Content Note: Toxic masculinity; abuse.]
Harvey Weinstein is a serial sex predator, and lots of people who worked with him claim they didn't know.
Okay. For a moment, let's just take them at their word that they neither had personal knowledge of nor ever heard any of the loudly whispered rumors of Weinstein's decades-long predation and exploitation.
Then we're left with this: Decades of public reports about Weinstein's infamously rageful temper.
In 2002, Ken Auletta wrote a nearly 15,000-word piece for the New Yorker about Weinstein's behavior: "Those who have been witness to his outbursts, public and private, describe not a lovable rogue but, rather, a man with little self-control, whose tone of voice and whose body language can seem dangerous; at times, he appears about to burst with fury, his fists closed, his teeth clenched, his large head shaking as he loses the struggle to contain himself."
Auletta recounts anecdote after anecdote of Weinstein's abusive behavior threaded through strands of justification: He is a genius, passionate, a savvy businessman, an auteur. (In case you haven't heard.)
It is perhaps the most exhaustive — and exhausting — entry among the many submissions of similar theme, in the cottage industry that is (was) publishing articles about Weinstein's fiery temper, exposing the bully while simultaneously flattering him.
For at least 15 years, then, Weinstein's spectacular ill temper and shameless mistreatment of his collaborators has been known. Extensively documented.
And the observation I want to make is this: Men who behave like that abuse women.
Because I am 100% certified uncharitable, I state that as fact, without caveat or exception.
There doesn't exist a man who rages at his colleagues, humiliates his employees, does not believe there exists another human being who can earn permanent excusal from his withering contempt, and doesn't abuse women. Because women are part of that life. Professionally and personally. They are abused like men in the abusive mogul's orbit are abused.
And when it is also a man who, as George Clooney described Weinstein, "was very powerful [and] had a tendency to hit on young, beautiful women, sure," that man doesn't check his rage and bullying and entitlement at the door of his hotel suite.
He carries that with him everywhere. He carries it with him into his sexualized interactions with women.
Clooney also said:
Think about it this way, too: I had knock-down, drag-out fights with him over the years, but he was also making films that other studios weren't willing to make, and he was making films that everybody loved, so you just put up with certain bad behavior because you felt like, well, if he yells and screams but he gets Pulp Fiction made, who cares if he yells and screams? But it's a very different conversation when you say, it's not that he yells and screams but that he's cornering a young, scared lady in a restaurant and telling her to stand there and be quiet while he jerks off. That's a very different kind of behavior, and had that been a public thing, I think there would have been some different results. I hope there would be.It's actually not a "very different kind of behavior" at all. To the absolute contrary, the behavior is exactly the same. What's different is that George Clooney is a man whom Weinstein viewed as a business associate, not a woman whom Weinstein viewed as an object for his consumption.
The problem isn't really that men (and women) of influence in the industry "didn't know" that Weinstein was sexually abusing women because they'd never seen evidence of it. The problem is that they didn't — like most people don't — understand that a powerful man with an outsized temper and a predilection for chasing women is inevitably abusing some of those women.
The problem is that we collectively refuse to admit we know that is true. That there simply aren't straight men who are lecherous bullies who aren't sexually assaulting women. That yelling and screaming and throwing public tantrums to get your way and forcing a woman to watch you jerk off into a potted plant really are the same behavior.
That it's far too easy to pretend it isn't when you aren't the one being cornered, but the one being asked to make the next great American film.
Another Reason Trump Isn't Fit to Be President
Yesterday, I dropped a tweet into the comments of the We Resist thread:
Trump on vets he met backstage: "They’re so proud once again. I must say, much more proud than they were last year at this time."
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) August 23, 2017
That quote didn't get much attention. And in the barrage of daily indecencies and indignities that define Donald Trump's despicable presidency, it's understandable that his boasting about how he has Made the Troops Proud Again registered as a mere blip on the radar.
But I have been thinking about that quote ever since I read it.
It's not that I believe it's impossible some military veterans are prouder now that Donald Trump is the president. Of course that's possible. (Especially since there are white supremacists in or veterans of the U.S. military, including neo-Nazis.) And it bothers me that some veterans are pleased to have an authoritarian white supremacist as their Commander-in-Chief.
But it bothers me even more that Trump bragged about it.
Trump often makes incredible claims about things people have told him, which no one else seems to have ever heard anyone say. So we have no idea if there are actual, living, breathing veterans of the U.S. military who looked their president in the eye and told him they are much prouder these days, or if Trump asked some vets he met an inappropriate question about their levels of pride and they murmured whatever they thought they should, or if he made up the whole thing altogether.
But it doesn't really matter — because more important than whether it was a lie is the fact that he would say it at all, even if it were true.
Because Trump isn't just flattering himself here; he's insulting President Barack Obama (again). Implicit in his comment is that U.S. military veterans couldn't be proud of the former Commander-in-Chief. (There's also the parallel implication that they wouldn't have been proud if Hillary Clinton had won.) They weren't so proud "last year at this time," but now they're "so proud once again."
This is just an extraordinary thing to say. It is something that Presidents of the United States just don't say. Ever. I cannot recall a sitting president ever saying anything even close to the suggestion that veterans did not respect their predecessor.
It is aggressively disrespectful to insult a former president this way, and it is aggressively disrespectful to use veterans to do it, and it is aggressively disrespectful to the office he holds.
There are so many reasons that Trump is unfit to be president, and here is yet one more. He has no respect for his office, which has always been abundantly clear, and further no respect for the discretion regarding its other inhabitants required to ensure the continued respectability of that office.
It's not that presidents are disallowed from criticizing other presidents — although, truthfully, that is very rare outside of campaigns. But what Trump is doing is not "criticism." It is a smear.
It is a smear designed to suggest that the military did not respect its first Black Commander-in-Chief, and wouldn't have respected its first female Commander-in-Chief, and only now that they are once again being commanded by a white man has their pride truly been restored.
That is ugly. That is not presidential. It is sinister.
"Instead, there’s just a Hillary-shaped hole where Hillary is supposed to be."
I've got a new piece up at Medium: "Just a Sea of White Dudes."
It's a piece I published here back in June, but I've updated it to reflect some recent developments. And because it still just feels relevant, every damn day.
So, in case you missed it the first time around, or want to read it again, here 'tis!
I Just Rolled My Eyes So Hard I May Have Accidentally Created a New Universe
The handshake hijinks of Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron continue apace:
Video Description: In a public square, Donald and Melania Trump walk with Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, saying goodbye as the Trumps prepare to leave France. Donald grabs Emmanuel's hand. Emmanuel grabs Donald's hand with both of his. They continue to walk. Donald pats the top of Emmanuel's hand. They keep shaking and walking, talking to one another as if there isn't an epic handshaking battle going on. Brigitte walks over, and Donald reaches out to her, kisses and hugs her, all while Emmanuel is still clutching Donald's hand. Donald grabs Brigette's hand, so now he is holding Emmanuel's hand with one hand and Brigitte's with the other. After 27 seconds of hand-holding, Donald finally lets go of Brigitte's hand and pulls away from Emmanuel's hand, patting his shoulder.
Jesus fucking Jones.
As I said the last time around, I'm not amused by male power displays on the global stage. Of course I understand why Macron is playing this game. That doesn't mean I have to like it.
Although I'm not amused by dominance displays, I am deeply amused by this:
please some foreign leader or spouse buy a novelty arm for the Trump Handshake so when he yanks it just comes off
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) July 13, 2017
Genius.
Sweet lord I would pay so much money for this to happen and even more for it to be Merkel.
WTF Is This?
[Content Note: Misogyny; white supremacy.]
Actual Headline: "In defense of the white male."
Actual Paragraph from This Actual Article Actually Published by the Boston Globe in the Year of Our Lord Jesus Jones Two Thousand and Seventeen:
It's not hard to argue that white men have done more harm in history — from the keeping of slaves to the genocide of Native Americans, and a thousand other examples — than any other single group. But it can also be argued that they have done more good — in combatting evil regimes, in developing medicines, in inventing everything from the automobile to the cellphone to various methods of birth control. White men discovered penicillin, Novocain, the drug regimen used to treat people afflicted with AIDS. In many places the chances are good that if your home is on fire, it will be a white man who comes to put it out. And, if it were not for the millions of white men who gave their lives in World War II, we might all be starting the work day with the Nazi salute.Someone remind me: Were any of the Nazis white men?
LOL wow. Zero acknowledgment of history of WM keeping women/non-whites out of the sciences, fire brigade, military. https://t.co/kJt1J4QtDs pic.twitter.com/M6ojQslh0A
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 5, 2017
Yes, white men have accomplished quite a lot on the uneven playing field they created to favor them! Thank you, white men!
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 5, 2017
I mean, honestly. What is the Boston Globe even doing publishing a piece titled "In Defense of the White Male" esp. at this moment in time?
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 5, 2017
"In defense of the white male." One hundred and sixty-seven days into the presidency of a white man, the successor of a Black president and defeater of a female rival, who endeavors in every way to roll back equality for people who are not straight, white, cisgender, able-bodied, Christian, wealthy white men.
Fuck off.
Just a Sea of White Dudes
I am tired of writing about white men.
I am tired of writing about Donald Trump and his vile bigotry and his gross corruption and his rank disloyalty and his incompetence and his belligerence and his brittle ego and his vainglorious tweets.
I am tired of writing about the investigations of Donald Trump because of his aggressive contempt for the rule of law and democratic norms. I am tired of writing about the (mostly) white men who are investigating him and the (mostly) white men who are running interference for him.
I am tired of writing about Donald Trump's sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and I am tired of writing about his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
I am tired of writing about all the other white men with whom Trump surrounds himself — Mike Pence, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, Steve Miller, Don McGahn, Marc Kasowitz, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, Mike Pompeo, Steve Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, Tom Price, Ryan Zinke, Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry, and all the fucking rest of them.
I am tired of writing about all the white men who lead the Republican Party: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and all the white men who make up the majority of that party, and who sit around tables making decisions about things about which they have no business making decisions, like women's healthcare.
I am tired of writing about all the white men in the Democratic Party who sneer at requests to center women of color and elaborately roll their eyes at demands for intersectional analysis and accuse us of playing "identity politics" and tell us that we're the reason why Democrats lose.
I am tired of writing about all the white men whose votes are the only ones that seem to matter to either party anymore.
I am tired of writing about the white men in the political media, who take up all the oxygen and make stupid pronouncements about people and places they don't know. I am tired of writing about the white men in the political media who steal the work of women who were right long before they were.
The entirety of politics, with precious few exceptions, feels like just a sea of white dudes. And because I write about politics, I feel like all I do, with precious few exceptions, is write about that sea of white dudes.
This is fundamentally different than the previous eight years, in which our president was not a white dude, and the First Lady was present and a figure of national importance, and his Cabinet and the rest of his administration was meaningfully diverse — and that actually mattered. It felt different.
And it is wildly, distressingly different than what my hope was going to be for covering politics following the 2016 election. I was eagerly anticipating covering the first female president, who promised a cabinet comprised of 50% women, because she wanted "to have a Cabinet that looks like America, and 50 percent of America is women."
I was fervently looking forward to seeing that first female president meeting with her female staff and female advisors and female senators and female representatives and female foreign leaders.
Instead I am writing about a white dude who refuses to shake Angela Merkel's hand.
Writing about Hillary Clinton and her historic candidacy was one of the most meaningful highlights of my professional life — and I was expecting a future in which I would be able to write about her presidency, and the great women with whom she interacted as president.
Instead, there's just a Hillary-shaped hole where Hillary is supposed to be.
And an endless sea of white dudes asserts itself as a vicious throng, like a bunch of Agent Smiths ceaselessly replicating to assault our spirits and rescind our rights.
Forcing me to write and speak their names over and over.
And there are people who want to tell Hillary Clinton to go away. Who want to get rid of Nancy Pelosi. Who think that Donna Brazile should be quiet. Who believe that Kirsten Gillibrand or Maxine Waters or Elizabeth Warren or Gwen Moore or Tammy Duckworth or Kamala Harris or John Lewis or Elijah Cummings or Ted Lieu or Joaquin Castro are insufficiently progressive to warrant our support.
There's always a reason that I'm supposed to just keep writing about white men.
Well. I will, as politics obliges. But I'm not going to pretend I'm happy about it, nor that it doesn't matter.
I am tired of writing about white men. I've never been more tired of it, and that is because I had a chance to glimpse the possibility of more. And now I am resentful as fuck that we're back to this. This damnable pretense that there is something inherently better about white men.
If that were true, they wouldn't need to make such a cruel and comprehensive effort to keep the rest of us down.
Anyway. While they go about their business of enriching themselves while pretending to drain the swamp, I will continue to mention their names only in resistance, because I have bigger ambitions than draining the swamp: I'm fixing to drain the sea.
[Image credit: Pixabay.]
