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#metoo was literally about bringing the attention to the scale of the problem and raising awareness, and normalize talking about abuse, so that it wouldn't cont

#metoo was literally about bringing the attention to the scale of the problem and raising awareness, and normalize talking about abuse, so that it wouldn't continue in silence. The court of public opinion has existed before and after #metoo. Let's not pretend that #metoo invented it. If twenty people were to go public and say that Justin Bieber beat each of them with a crowbar, Justin Bieber would have some 'splainin to do, whether or not there's a court case. If twenty people gave interviews and said that Martha Stewart personally fed them poisoned pies for shits and giggles, Martha would be affected by that, whether these people decide to sue or not. But the society made an exception for sexual abuse. Rape and drugging in particular. #metoo simply made it count just as much.

AmericanChopper 5y ago
Society never made an exception for sexual abuse at all. If I accused Justin Bieber of beating me with a crowbar, but somehow I was unable to provide any evidence at all that I was ever even injured, people wouldn’t take me seriously. If I successfully started a rumour that Biebs was a serial crowbar assaulter, it’s possible that it might get some media traction, but publishing rumours like that (at least used to be) the exclusive domain of tabloid media. However, if somebody makes an accusation of sexual assault, it’s possible for that to become a national headline without even any evidence that the two people have ever met. I mean, the slogan of metoo was “believe women”, which is the exact opposite of “presume innocence”. It applied pressure to police to arrest without evidence, for prosecutors to prosecute without evidence, for juries to convict without evidence, for employers to fire without evidence, and for society to exclude without evidence. The core objective of the movement was to fundamentally undermine the most important principle of our system of justice. Now that’s a particularly indefensible proposition when you actually think about it, so most people don’t try to. They just attempt some variation of your comment, where you attempt to deny the plainly obvious fact that this is what it was about.
- tallanvor 5y ago
  What are you talking about? Women are still often told that sexual harassment is their own fault for dressing the way they do, or get told "boys will be boys". It used to be expected that women would have to put up with it in the workplace. Rape victims get told that if they really didn't want it to happen they could have fought harder. There are still judges in the US giving lighter sentences or no jail time at all and citing this sort of reasoning. So yes, society has certainly made an exception for sexual abuse of all forms for many years and those excuses are still being made. Are things improving? Yes. Are those improvements good enough? Not by a long shot.
  - AmericanChopper 5y ago
    Which is a justification for the objective metoo set out to achieve, and it seems one a lot of people agree with. However those objective are very clearly to undermine the foundational principles of justice. Perhaps you find the arguments for this to be very compelling, but it’s simply a fact that metoo set out to promote a presumption of guilt, in all areas of society that it was able to influence. Most metoo advocates entirely avoid addressing this fact, and a lot of people reasonably disagree with metoo because of it.
    - notahacker 5y ago
      The principle that the standard of evidence for the state to deprive somebody of their liberty should be high /= it being epistemically sound to assume the person issuing denials is the most likely person to be telling the truth. And as far as concrete responses go, I would think it extremely unjust to lock up somebody purely based on anecdotes about creepy behaviour towards kids. But I also wouldn't hire him as a babysitter or a television presenter.
      - unbalancedevh 5y ago
        When false accusations/anecdotes result in someone being socially ostracized, it is still an injustice that can severely affect the person. I don't really think there's a prescriptive solution to this, but I hope society improves on it. Reality is what it is.
        notahacker 5y ago
        Oh, I agree with that (and likewise not being believed can severely affect a person whose accusations are true, and often also involves ostracism). Ultimately I think society improves when the crime is genuinely rare, which has the side effect of innocent people being less likely to be accused, but there isn't an easy answer to that either.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > There are still judges in the US giving lighter sentences or no jail time at all and citing this sort of reasoning. Name one case in the last 5 years where the judge uses the victims clothes as a reason for a light sentence in USA, and where the judge wasn't punished for it. It should be possible to find one right? If you can't even find one for a whole 5 years I wouldn't say that this is a problem we need to care about, once per 5 years in a population of 300 million is basically never.
tremon 5y ago
Yes, and that's why we have libel laws: to stop these kinds of things from being "judged" in the court of public opinion. Raising awareness and providing support are all fine and very necessary, but the extrajudicial punishments is where the movement lost my support. Still, extrajudicial punishment is what we're left with if the judicial system fails to do justice.
- romwell 5y ago
  Why did the movement lose your support? It didn't advocate removal of libel laws, did it? And "extrajudicial punishment" is a stretch for "I have a right to tell people what happened to me without shame and harrasment". Did #metoo make a call to burn people at stakes that I missed?
  - tremon 5y ago
    You're kidding, right? You think that all of the things listed below are instances of "I have a right to tell people what happened to me without shame and harrasment", and none are instances of virtual stake burning? Note: this is the result of just five minutes of keyword searches, I have no opinion on the actual merits of these cases, just disproving your claim that there is no extrajudicial punishment associated with the movement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenrobinsonjacobs/2020/06/30/adidas-hr-chief-steps-down-amid-diversity-concerns/#79b74b8f6850 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenrobinsonjacobs/2020/06/30/... https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2017/10/31/house-of-cards-canceled-as-fallout-continues-for-kevin-spacey/ https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2017/10/31/house-of-car... https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-... https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-cancelling-of-jk-rowling-is-really-about https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-cancelling-of-j... https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/the-wing-ceo-audrey-gelman-resigns-amid-staff-digital-walkout/ https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/the-wing-ceo-audrey-gelman-res... https://pagesix.com/2020/07/01/essence-ceo-richelieu-dennis-resigns-following-scathing-op-ed/ https://pagesix.com/2020/07/01/essence-ceo-richelieu-dennis-... https://www.distractify.com/p/tyler-joseph-canceled https://www.distractify.com/p/tyler-joseph-canceled https://www.rt.com/news/535587-depp-cancel-culture-festival/ https://www.rt.com/news/535587-depp-cancel-culture-festival/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579

AmericanChopper 5y ago

Society never made an exception for sexual abuse at all. If I accused Justin Bieber of beating me with a crowbar, but somehow I was unable to provide any evidence at all that I was ever even injured, people wouldn’t take me seriously. If I successfully started a rumour that Biebs was a serial crowbar assaulter, it’s possible that it might get some media traction, but publishing rumours like that (at least used to be) the exclusive domain of tabloid media. However, if somebody makes an accusation of sexual assault, it’s possible for that to become a national headline without even any evidence that the two people have ever met. I mean, the slogan of metoo was “believe women”, which is the exact opposite of “presume innocence”. It applied pressure to police to arrest without evidence, for prosecutors to prosecute without evidence, for juries to convict without evidence, for employers to fire without evidence, and for society to exclude without evidence. The core objective of the movement was to fundamentally undermine the most important principle of our system of justice. Now that’s a particularly indefensible proposition when you actually think about it, so most people don’t try to. They just attempt some variation of your comment, where you attempt to deny the plainly obvious fact that this is what it was about.

tallanvor 5y ago
What are you talking about? Women are still often told that sexual harassment is their own fault for dressing the way they do, or get told "boys will be boys". It used to be expected that women would have to put up with it in the workplace. Rape victims get told that if they really didn't want it to happen they could have fought harder. There are still judges in the US giving lighter sentences or no jail time at all and citing this sort of reasoning. So yes, society has certainly made an exception for sexual abuse of all forms for many years and those excuses are still being made. Are things improving? Yes. Are those improvements good enough? Not by a long shot.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  Which is a justification for the objective metoo set out to achieve, and it seems one a lot of people agree with. However those objective are very clearly to undermine the foundational principles of justice. Perhaps you find the arguments for this to be very compelling, but it’s simply a fact that metoo set out to promote a presumption of guilt, in all areas of society that it was able to influence. Most metoo advocates entirely avoid addressing this fact, and a lot of people reasonably disagree with metoo because of it.
  - notahacker 5y ago
    The principle that the standard of evidence for the state to deprive somebody of their liberty should be high /= it being epistemically sound to assume the person issuing denials is the most likely person to be telling the truth. And as far as concrete responses go, I would think it extremely unjust to lock up somebody purely based on anecdotes about creepy behaviour towards kids. But I also wouldn't hire him as a babysitter or a television presenter.
    - unbalancedevh 5y ago
      When false accusations/anecdotes result in someone being socially ostracized, it is still an injustice that can severely affect the person. I don't really think there's a prescriptive solution to this, but I hope society improves on it. Reality is what it is.
      - notahacker 5y ago
        Oh, I agree with that (and likewise not being believed can severely affect a person whose accusations are true, and often also involves ostracism). Ultimately I think society improves when the crime is genuinely rare, which has the side effect of innocent people being less likely to be accused, but there isn't an easy answer to that either.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > There are still judges in the US giving lighter sentences or no jail time at all and citing this sort of reasoning. Name one case in the last 5 years where the judge uses the victims clothes as a reason for a light sentence in USA, and where the judge wasn't punished for it. It should be possible to find one right? If you can't even find one for a whole 5 years I wouldn't say that this is a problem we need to care about, once per 5 years in a population of 300 million is basically never.

tremon 5y ago

Yes, and that's why we have libel laws: to stop these kinds of things from being "judged" in the court of public opinion. Raising awareness and providing support are all fine and very necessary, but the extrajudicial punishments is where the movement lost my support. Still, extrajudicial punishment is what we're left with if the judicial system fails to do justice.

romwell 5y ago
Why did the movement lose your support? It didn't advocate removal of libel laws, did it? And "extrajudicial punishment" is a stretch for "I have a right to tell people what happened to me without shame and harrasment". Did #metoo make a call to burn people at stakes that I missed?
- tremon 5y ago
  You're kidding, right? You think that all of the things listed below are instances of "I have a right to tell people what happened to me without shame and harrasment", and none are instances of virtual stake burning? Note: this is the result of just five minutes of keyword searches, I have no opinion on the actual merits of these cases, just disproving your claim that there is no extrajudicial punishment associated with the movement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenrobinsonjacobs/2020/06/30/adidas-hr-chief-steps-down-amid-diversity-concerns/#79b74b8f6850 https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenrobinsonjacobs/2020/06/30/... https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2017/10/31/house-of-cards-canceled-as-fallout-continues-for-kevin-spacey/ https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2017/10/31/house-of-car... https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-as-mozilla-ceo/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/brendan-eich-steps-down-... https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-cancelling-of-jk-rowling-is-really-about https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-cancelling-of-j... https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/the-wing-ceo-audrey-gelman-resigns-amid-staff-digital-walkout/ https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/the-wing-ceo-audrey-gelman-res... https://pagesix.com/2020/07/01/essence-ceo-richelieu-dennis-resigns-following-scathing-op-ed/ https://pagesix.com/2020/07/01/essence-ceo-richelieu-dennis-... https://www.distractify.com/p/tyler-joseph-canceled https://www.distractify.com/p/tyler-joseph-canceled https://www.rt.com/news/535587-depp-cancel-culture-festival/ https://www.rt.com/news/535587-depp-cancel-culture-festival/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57426579