The speaker of the annual Planned Parenthood fundraiser was a doc who said she was continually confronted with conservative moms coming in with their daughters for abortions. These moms were abortion opponents, but this was an exception, not the icky type of abortions they opposed.
The human mind is amazing, in good and bad ways. How did Jefferson write about equality and keep slaves? The most anti-gay conservatives are always gay! I'm sure I have all of these same inconsistencies, but my own mind keeps me blind to them. Crazy, right?
I always say, the problem with most of these republican gay men who support Trump is that they are homosexuals who think “God hates fags”…. So they hate themselves and can’t just be happy. They want to control others because they can’t really control themselves.
What they need (what we all need) is a God who loves everybody: homosexuals, women who aren’t married, women who get abortions, people who decide they are different on the inside than they appear on the outside, even murderers and thieves and robbers. If God loves everybody then we could just use the LAW to decide who needs to be punished for what they do.
The problem with #MeToo was that it quickly became apparent that virtually every male alive was guilty of harassing women. It really was ALL men, and most men decided they wanted to preserve their rights to harass and assault women with no consequences.
It’s like the “bad cop” theory. A few bad apples? No, a bad culture, and the few GOOD apples that attempt to speak up are quickly put in their place. If you don’t participate in the madness you will be a victim of it.
Although, I DO see a small groundswell of good men holding their ground now. What it requires is men like my father RECOGNIZING some of their past actions that have been part of the problem, why those actions are problematic, and accepting that those types of behaviors CANNOT be sanctioned.
That’s what changing the status quo always takes, and it requires courage and patience. Something human beings are sorely lacking.
This is so true. What we really need are men who weren’t Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby but who still participated in the bad culture to speak up and say that ‘I was a creep, but I changed and the change didn’t ruin my life. I am actually a better person.’ It’s got to be like recovering alcoholics; ideally no one becomes one in the first place, but if it happens then there has to be a structure to make recovery possible.
I remember Kavanaugh’s confirmation. At first I thought, well if he did this thing in high school does that necessarily reflect on who he is today….?
And then the way HE responded made it obvious that it definitely DID reflect, very badly, on what kind of man he is today (and he’d continued to be so during college, apparently).
If only he had said, I was a kid and I drank too much and we weren’t raised to respect women and it was WRONG, and I raise my girls to expect better and I raise my son’s to DO better… and I’m so sorry Ms Ford. Or whatever… you see what I mean.
Instead he whined and cried and projected and threw a tantrum . And he’s now on the Supreme Court.
We live in an upside down society. Obviously…. welcome President Trump.
EXACTLY THIS. I would have accepted happily ‘I was a dumb teenager in a toxic environment but I know better now. I am heartily sorry for what I did.’ Instead we got ‘HOW DARE YOU QUESTION À MALE!! I AM THE SUPERIOR HUMAN AND YOU ARE A MERE WORTHLESS WOMAN!!!’
All men are not guilty. All men do benefit from it. Women accommodate lots of bad behavior from men who aren’t criminals just to keep you from becoming criminals. I am afraid of any man I don’t know because there’s a 33 to 50% chance he IS one of the bad ones and the world will blame ME for his bad conduct.
I apologize but as a member of #allmen but NOT a sexual predator, this is what really pisses me off. As someone who has worked to fix as much of this as possible for over 55 years, who has NEVER sexual assaulted anyone, being lumped together with the Trump's of the world makes me wonder why did we (those of us who crusaded for women's rights, who fought for longer sentences for violent crimes against women, who argued that the courts had to start believing women who were brave enough to stand up and charge predators with their crimes) believe that people and especially women would make the effort to distinguish when it is easier to just lump us all together.
It is precisely this kind of argument that perpetuates the us vs them mentality along gender lines instead of along predator vs non predator lines. And like it or not it weakens the pro woman position when you place all men in a single view which is clearly not accurate. When you choose to despise your friends without real cause, you may lose your strongest allies.
I’m glad you’re one of the good ones. You need to talk to other men who ARE the problem. Complaining to women who have good reason to suspect ALL men really does just cement the idea that men are hopeless. We aren’t your problem; the men who commit these acts are.
I’m confused about what you’re trying to say here…
Do you REALLY believe that by “all men ” she assumes to say that all men are predators? I read harassers. Sound familiar?
Or does it not seem like a form of harassment to threaten the “support of your strongest allies” and accuse women of perpetuating “the us vs them mentality” simply for pointing out the obvious underlying theme in our culture regarding the way men treat women?
Well, until the day comes that when you are out for a run (pretend for just a minute) and you see a woman up ahead and have to be wary and think I hope she isn’t going to hurt me, please stand down.
I knew so many of these women in the military. The ones who thought they were one of the guys. They are not. Ernst is not. And elevating Hegseth is not going to make her one.
Being one of the guys in the military will get you raped or worse. Ask me how I know. At the very least, Ernst will lose her job. If she does, I hope she”ll go out kicking and screaming “Me Too!!” all the way. These men are not now and never will be your friends. They are not comrades in arms. They will stick together and gang up on you. What happens after your sexual assault in the military is as bad as the assault itself. You are shamed, help is refused, and they will try to find a reason to kick you out with a dishonorable discharge attached if you dare to report a rape. If you get a rape kit done, it will get lost. If no one testifies (meaning one of the bro’s) on your behalf, absolutely nothing will happen to your perpetrator, even as the military goes through the motions. The only thing you can do is fight for compensation once you’re out. First they will offer 30%. Appeal. Keep appealing until you get 100%. This will take years sometimes. By the end you will have some serious PTSD, but no worse than if you weren’t getting a decent check every month and every benefit the military has. I would rather have seen my perp in jail so he could not get away with doing it again and again. I could not make that happen so I did the next best thing and took care of myself so that I could survive and tell you this story now. Understand, you must report, get the kit done by medical personnel,tell everyone you can, fight for your honorable discharge, get a therapist. The fight is long and hard, and you may never see justice done but you can get monetarily compensated and continue to fight for the rights of women to be able to serve honorably and unassaulted.
Veteran USAF 100% compensated for PTSD for sexual assault
Great essay. As an exvangelical who used to read French regularly, it amazes me the psychological and mental contortions I used to go through to explain the cruelty of my convictions to myself, to assuage my angst. To be out of that blinkered mindset has been like being born again; really born again.
Good point about using trans people as a screen. As a trans friend of mine said “nobody would go through this just to be the fastest swimmer in middle school.”
Ernst had an opportunity to change the system but loved power more; no one who is afraid to be ‘primaried’ (what a word!) deserves to be in the Senate! Why can’t she retire after this term, knowing she helped women in the military? Yikes! Power pangs get their claws in these politicians….
I made the mistake of letting a glimmer of reasonable expectation jump into my psyche. Wrote her a note. She confirmed her lack of courage and honor in the response. I will focus my efforts elsewhere going forward.
Joni is a perfect choice for conservative Iowans who are progressive enough to want women to have equal rights. White women, that is. I've written her many times over the years and on rare occasions when her staff sends an automatic, prewritten categorical response, they have always been off the mark, cheerful, and perfect content for My Weekly Reader (for those of you old enough to remember grade school in the 50s). As vibrant and independent as Jim Leach, Tom Harkin, and Harold Hughes were when they were in Congress, Joni Ernst is tepid and truly unexceptional as well as a perfect tool in the tool box of Republican nonsense.
RIP Jim Leach. I remember him coming to speak to my high school (Mt. Vernon, Iowa) in the 90s. "Tepid and unexceptional" is the perfect description for Joni Ernst.
Power is apparently quite addictive to both men and women.
So many Republican legislators willing to give up their principles in order to avoid being primaried. So many OLD Democratic Congresspeople (mostly men, but Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Feinstein before her) unwilling to pass the torch to the next generation.
It makes me feel both incredibly cynical and incredibly naive that I thought the reports of running two charities into the ground through mismanagement might actually have an impact, while also immediately knowing that credible sexual assault and sexual harassment allegation would do nothing to derail his nomination.
This fits with the election being about young white men. I was using an article about #MeToo in my class, and students voiced the concern about "not knowing what they could do" anymore. I mean, easy - don't assault each other. Jeez.
I used to work with survivors of domestic violence & sexual assault; one thing I learned through training is that a lot of people really don't get educated about consent, like at all. part of toxic masculinity is that men are still told that they're responsible to know about sex and make sex happen (in heterosexual relationships at least); women are told to be passive. it's a recipe for harm (and unfulfilling sex!) FWIW it may be worth sharing resources on consent with your students, like Love Is Respect (geared towards teens but appropriate for all ages).
Thanks for the suggestion. I work with college students, and at the time they were pretty well aware of consent and #MeToo. Most online students are 25+, at least in my classes.
It's not surprising as lots of people will do what they have to do to keep power. I had a good conversation with a class this past semester about a lot of things (we started at what's going on in gaming with all the firings, the striking, etc., and ended up at sexual assault), and I had a very sweet, very bright, very interesting student ask this question (he's male): "I'm a Christian, and this is awful. What can I do to help?" And I told him to call out bad behavior when he sees it, because the only thing that will change the male culture is good men doing something. So when some guy says "bitches be crazy, amirite?!?" in the locker room say "NO! You're not!" Defend women in non-women spaces. He seemed to listen. He wrote a great paper on masculinity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (it was a medieval lit class), B.A. Barracus from the A Team when he was a kid, Samson and Delilah (mentioned in SGGK), and a movie about a young Quaker man who was conflicted about fighting slavery in the civil war (he wanted to fight against slavery, but also was non-violent.) It was GREAT. Thoughtful, personal, insightful. So, long way around, there's hope in kids these days. :)
That said, I couldn't count on my fingers and toes if I was a millipede the number of friends I have and people I know (mostly women) who left Christianity because of the sexual assault problem that repeatedly went unaddressed.
"because you can lead David French (insert dingus name here) to a great point but you can’t make him less of a tool." - I'm so stealing this for future use...🔥💥😂
That's why she was non committal, I'd assumed, lest she be disqualified on grounds of being forthright about having ambitions. Now the pigs demand she prostate or be primaried. She got the party she deserves.
It’s been my experience that most people want change without change. That is, they don’t like this terrible thing, but they don’t want the actual system that cause terrible thing to change, because then, other things will change, too, and that would be uncomfortable/inconvenient/disorienting.
… you can lead David French to a great point but you can’t make him less of a tool.
Spot on.
I write about the incredibly dangerous and manipulative relationship I was in with a man somewhat like Trump (only this man hid it under mask of “dumb guy trying to do right”), a man with no conscience.
My “friends” who know him and NEVER reach out to support me in my healing from the abuse are the one’s I KNOW are stuck in some kind of manipulative situation, and are too afraid to see it clearly. They feel they have too much to lose. They are kind to me, and caring, but refuse to acknowledge what I’m writing about.
It’s all dysfunction. Like my own family. For some people the truth represents clear and present danger, instead of freedom. Which, I believe, is an illusion, but a ton of people seem to be lost in that illusion at present.
The speaker of the annual Planned Parenthood fundraiser was a doc who said she was continually confronted with conservative moms coming in with their daughters for abortions. These moms were abortion opponents, but this was an exception, not the icky type of abortions they opposed.
The human mind is amazing, in good and bad ways. How did Jefferson write about equality and keep slaves? The most anti-gay conservatives are always gay! I'm sure I have all of these same inconsistencies, but my own mind keeps me blind to them. Crazy, right?
I always say, the problem with most of these republican gay men who support Trump is that they are homosexuals who think “God hates fags”…. So they hate themselves and can’t just be happy. They want to control others because they can’t really control themselves.
What they need (what we all need) is a God who loves everybody: homosexuals, women who aren’t married, women who get abortions, people who decide they are different on the inside than they appear on the outside, even murderers and thieves and robbers. If God loves everybody then we could just use the LAW to decide who needs to be punished for what they do.
Wouldn’t that be cool?
That was supposed to the the whole point of Jesus. Oh well, I guess
Yeah but look at all those sexual predator priests. That "Jesus" thing didn't work out so well, did it. Sigh...
The problem with #MeToo was that it quickly became apparent that virtually every male alive was guilty of harassing women. It really was ALL men, and most men decided they wanted to preserve their rights to harass and assault women with no consequences.
It’s like the “bad cop” theory. A few bad apples? No, a bad culture, and the few GOOD apples that attempt to speak up are quickly put in their place. If you don’t participate in the madness you will be a victim of it.
Although, I DO see a small groundswell of good men holding their ground now. What it requires is men like my father RECOGNIZING some of their past actions that have been part of the problem, why those actions are problematic, and accepting that those types of behaviors CANNOT be sanctioned.
That’s what changing the status quo always takes, and it requires courage and patience. Something human beings are sorely lacking.
This is so true. What we really need are men who weren’t Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby but who still participated in the bad culture to speak up and say that ‘I was a creep, but I changed and the change didn’t ruin my life. I am actually a better person.’ It’s got to be like recovering alcoholics; ideally no one becomes one in the first place, but if it happens then there has to be a structure to make recovery possible.
I remember Kavanaugh’s confirmation. At first I thought, well if he did this thing in high school does that necessarily reflect on who he is today….?
And then the way HE responded made it obvious that it definitely DID reflect, very badly, on what kind of man he is today (and he’d continued to be so during college, apparently).
If only he had said, I was a kid and I drank too much and we weren’t raised to respect women and it was WRONG, and I raise my girls to expect better and I raise my son’s to DO better… and I’m so sorry Ms Ford. Or whatever… you see what I mean.
Instead he whined and cried and projected and threw a tantrum . And he’s now on the Supreme Court.
We live in an upside down society. Obviously…. welcome President Trump.
EXACTLY THIS. I would have accepted happily ‘I was a dumb teenager in a toxic environment but I know better now. I am heartily sorry for what I did.’ Instead we got ‘HOW DARE YOU QUESTION À MALE!! I AM THE SUPERIOR HUMAN AND YOU ARE A MERE WORTHLESS WOMAN!!!’
All men are not guilty. All men do benefit from it. Women accommodate lots of bad behavior from men who aren’t criminals just to keep you from becoming criminals. I am afraid of any man I don’t know because there’s a 33 to 50% chance he IS one of the bad ones and the world will blame ME for his bad conduct.
I apologize but as a member of #allmen but NOT a sexual predator, this is what really pisses me off. As someone who has worked to fix as much of this as possible for over 55 years, who has NEVER sexual assaulted anyone, being lumped together with the Trump's of the world makes me wonder why did we (those of us who crusaded for women's rights, who fought for longer sentences for violent crimes against women, who argued that the courts had to start believing women who were brave enough to stand up and charge predators with their crimes) believe that people and especially women would make the effort to distinguish when it is easier to just lump us all together.
It is precisely this kind of argument that perpetuates the us vs them mentality along gender lines instead of along predator vs non predator lines. And like it or not it weakens the pro woman position when you place all men in a single view which is clearly not accurate. When you choose to despise your friends without real cause, you may lose your strongest allies.
Sigh...
Fighting people in bad faith in my comments section isn't the way. Any further doubling down will result in a comment ban.
I’m glad you’re one of the good ones. You need to talk to other men who ARE the problem. Complaining to women who have good reason to suspect ALL men really does just cement the idea that men are hopeless. We aren’t your problem; the men who commit these acts are.
I’m confused about what you’re trying to say here…
Do you REALLY believe that by “all men ” she assumes to say that all men are predators? I read harassers. Sound familiar?
Or does it not seem like a form of harassment to threaten the “support of your strongest allies” and accuse women of perpetuating “the us vs them mentality” simply for pointing out the obvious underlying theme in our culture regarding the way men treat women?
Super grateful you don’t support rape…
Well, until the day comes that when you are out for a run (pretend for just a minute) and you see a woman up ahead and have to be wary and think I hope she isn’t going to hurt me, please stand down.
I knew so many of these women in the military. The ones who thought they were one of the guys. They are not. Ernst is not. And elevating Hegseth is not going to make her one.
Being one of the guys in the military will get you raped or worse. Ask me how I know. At the very least, Ernst will lose her job. If she does, I hope she”ll go out kicking and screaming “Me Too!!” all the way. These men are not now and never will be your friends. They are not comrades in arms. They will stick together and gang up on you. What happens after your sexual assault in the military is as bad as the assault itself. You are shamed, help is refused, and they will try to find a reason to kick you out with a dishonorable discharge attached if you dare to report a rape. If you get a rape kit done, it will get lost. If no one testifies (meaning one of the bro’s) on your behalf, absolutely nothing will happen to your perpetrator, even as the military goes through the motions. The only thing you can do is fight for compensation once you’re out. First they will offer 30%. Appeal. Keep appealing until you get 100%. This will take years sometimes. By the end you will have some serious PTSD, but no worse than if you weren’t getting a decent check every month and every benefit the military has. I would rather have seen my perp in jail so he could not get away with doing it again and again. I could not make that happen so I did the next best thing and took care of myself so that I could survive and tell you this story now. Understand, you must report, get the kit done by medical personnel,tell everyone you can, fight for your honorable discharge, get a therapist. The fight is long and hard, and you may never see justice done but you can get monetarily compensated and continue to fight for the rights of women to be able to serve honorably and unassaulted.
Veteran USAF 100% compensated for PTSD for sexual assault
You are a hero and I am so so sorry.
Great essay. As an exvangelical who used to read French regularly, it amazes me the psychological and mental contortions I used to go through to explain the cruelty of my convictions to myself, to assuage my angst. To be out of that blinkered mindset has been like being born again; really born again.
Statements like this give me hope!!!❤️
Good point about using trans people as a screen. As a trans friend of mine said “nobody would go through this just to be the fastest swimmer in middle school.”
Ernst had an opportunity to change the system but loved power more; no one who is afraid to be ‘primaried’ (what a word!) deserves to be in the Senate! Why can’t she retire after this term, knowing she helped women in the military? Yikes! Power pangs get their claws in these politicians….
Right?! Like are her only options Senator or unemployment?
Term limits for EVERYONE!! Please. I beg of you.
I made the mistake of letting a glimmer of reasonable expectation jump into my psyche. Wrote her a note. She confirmed her lack of courage and honor in the response. I will focus my efforts elsewhere going forward.
Joni is a perfect choice for conservative Iowans who are progressive enough to want women to have equal rights. White women, that is. I've written her many times over the years and on rare occasions when her staff sends an automatic, prewritten categorical response, they have always been off the mark, cheerful, and perfect content for My Weekly Reader (for those of you old enough to remember grade school in the 50s). As vibrant and independent as Jim Leach, Tom Harkin, and Harold Hughes were when they were in Congress, Joni Ernst is tepid and truly unexceptional as well as a perfect tool in the tool box of Republican nonsense.
RIP Jim Leach. I remember him coming to speak to my high school (Mt. Vernon, Iowa) in the 90s. "Tepid and unexceptional" is the perfect description for Joni Ernst.
Power is apparently quite addictive to both men and women.
So many Republican legislators willing to give up their principles in order to avoid being primaried. So many OLD Democratic Congresspeople (mostly men, but Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Feinstein before her) unwilling to pass the torch to the next generation.
Also saw this with RBG.
It makes me feel both incredibly cynical and incredibly naive that I thought the reports of running two charities into the ground through mismanagement might actually have an impact, while also immediately knowing that credible sexual assault and sexual harassment allegation would do nothing to derail his nomination.
This fits with the election being about young white men. I was using an article about #MeToo in my class, and students voiced the concern about "not knowing what they could do" anymore. I mean, easy - don't assault each other. Jeez.
I used to work with survivors of domestic violence & sexual assault; one thing I learned through training is that a lot of people really don't get educated about consent, like at all. part of toxic masculinity is that men are still told that they're responsible to know about sex and make sex happen (in heterosexual relationships at least); women are told to be passive. it's a recipe for harm (and unfulfilling sex!) FWIW it may be worth sharing resources on consent with your students, like Love Is Respect (geared towards teens but appropriate for all ages).
Thanks for the suggestion. I work with college students, and at the time they were pretty well aware of consent and #MeToo. Most online students are 25+, at least in my classes.
It's not surprising as lots of people will do what they have to do to keep power. I had a good conversation with a class this past semester about a lot of things (we started at what's going on in gaming with all the firings, the striking, etc., and ended up at sexual assault), and I had a very sweet, very bright, very interesting student ask this question (he's male): "I'm a Christian, and this is awful. What can I do to help?" And I told him to call out bad behavior when he sees it, because the only thing that will change the male culture is good men doing something. So when some guy says "bitches be crazy, amirite?!?" in the locker room say "NO! You're not!" Defend women in non-women spaces. He seemed to listen. He wrote a great paper on masculinity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (it was a medieval lit class), B.A. Barracus from the A Team when he was a kid, Samson and Delilah (mentioned in SGGK), and a movie about a young Quaker man who was conflicted about fighting slavery in the civil war (he wanted to fight against slavery, but also was non-violent.) It was GREAT. Thoughtful, personal, insightful. So, long way around, there's hope in kids these days. :)
That said, I couldn't count on my fingers and toes if I was a millipede the number of friends I have and people I know (mostly women) who left Christianity because of the sexual assault problem that repeatedly went unaddressed.
"because you can lead David French (insert dingus name here) to a great point but you can’t make him less of a tool." - I'm so stealing this for future use...🔥💥😂
Hadn't there been some talk that Ernst herself might be the nominee if Hegseth dropped out? She's probably better qualified (not saying much).
As it stands, the Cabinet will be filled with women hating pigs.
That's why she was non committal, I'd assumed, lest she be disqualified on grounds of being forthright about having ambitions. Now the pigs demand she prostate or be primaried. She got the party she deserves.
It’s been my experience that most people want change without change. That is, they don’t like this terrible thing, but they don’t want the actual system that cause terrible thing to change, because then, other things will change, too, and that would be uncomfortable/inconvenient/disorienting.
… you can lead David French to a great point but you can’t make him less of a tool.
Spot on.
I write about the incredibly dangerous and manipulative relationship I was in with a man somewhat like Trump (only this man hid it under mask of “dumb guy trying to do right”), a man with no conscience.
My “friends” who know him and NEVER reach out to support me in my healing from the abuse are the one’s I KNOW are stuck in some kind of manipulative situation, and are too afraid to see it clearly. They feel they have too much to lose. They are kind to me, and caring, but refuse to acknowledge what I’m writing about.
It’s all dysfunction. Like my own family. For some people the truth represents clear and present danger, instead of freedom. Which, I believe, is an illusion, but a ton of people seem to be lost in that illusion at present.