I thought you might like this story from The Washington Post: Scary, judgmental old men https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-country-for-scary-judgmental-old-men/2017/11/23/4faa93de-cfb2-11e7-81bc-c55a220c8cbe_story.html
I am a fan of Michael Gerson. But I think he is making this issue too easy. In one of the NewsHours's moments of clarity the other night, Amy Walter said a dam has burst -- as Gerson says - but, she added more pressingly, we haven't figured out what to do with the water.
Boys will be pigs. Lately a lot of them are having their piggery made public. Out in the boonies, where things move faster, there is a growing list of office holders who Did the Right Thing and resigned after they were exposed. But, but and but:
Is there not a difference between grown women and 14-year-olds? Is there not a difference between a woman whose performance review and career depend on a man and a woman from another area of life? Is there not a difference between five drinks-and-the-sheets and a long-running affair? Is there not a difference (and in this case I am not sure, but most people seem to think so) between married and unmarried co-respondents?
What I am saying is that there seems to be a movement toward treating the offenders as all of a single ilk and making the Right Thing to Do the same in all cases.
That is one tendency that needs watching, after we discuss it, or at least recognize it.
The other thing that bothers me: Is there a way or ways censorious society can deal with a brother who has sinned, repented and mended his ways? Or is he consigned to outer darkness along with the unrepentant deniers and repeating offenders?
And schadenfreude causes me to wonder if ending the celibacy requirement would stop these outrages we are hearing about in politics and show biz. Some thought it would work when they thought only the Catholic Church had a problem.
I do agree that all these allegations show a change in attitude, but I'm not sure this will do anything to permanently change the situation. Laws may now come into being that will hold offenders accountable in the workplace, but that doesn't address what causes people to offend.
This is about what men think of women. What men believe about women, beliefs built for thousands of years, determine how they treat them. Women have been fighting for centuries to be treated like people, instead of being treated like brood mares, sex objects, domestic slaves. This is what feminism is all about.
The Catholic church is an example of the worst .... the new "reforming" pope will not allow women to be priests or even deacons. He won't allow them to do homilies. He writes that their main purpose in life is to have babies. He calls the the "strawberries on the cake". And meanwhile, he protects pedophiles and child porn producers withing the priesthood.
If I remember correctly Kinsey or someone divided males into about half that preferred monogamous sexual caring relationships, and another half who did not care who the woman was, or if the object was female in prison or human on the farm!
A feminist once divided men into husbands who were there for you when you needed them, and lovers who swept you off your feet but would not be there for you.
I would divide men into non-predators and predators because I think the genetic structures underlying male predation are more than sexual.
Any way if you see a male predator either sexually or otherwise, it seems clear he should be sanctioned because the chances are his predatory behavior will not diminish otherwise.
If one sees little evidence of predatory behavior sexual or other wise, then chances are a one time mistake is just a one time mistake. A woman who counsels priest offenders said there are priests who simply make a one time mistake out of loneliness, curiosity, etc.
Finally women have a responsibility not to be swept off their feet by lovers!. Whatever the genetic correlates of this behavior, they need to diminished in our gene pool since they are no longer needed as they once were.
We have killed our animal predators, the only remaining problem are the human predators such as the billionaires whom we continue to allow to prey about so many of us.
I think we're missing the element of trust here when it comes to the Piggery of which Tom speaks.
Most public figures know what they've done is wrong or they wouldn't be trying to lie their way out of it. So not only is some guy a masher, he's also a liar and a coward. That raises serious issues about judgment.
Some guy has an affair with a consenting adult, it's between him and his wife. I don't care. If Bill Clinton had said, "I boinked her, Hillary's real mad, my daughter is hurt, we're in family counseling, leave us and Ms. Lewinsky alone," the problem might have gone away instead of becoming a national dirty joke.
Some guy extorts sexual favors in exchange for job promotion or job security, that's criminal. He should lose his job and pay restitution.
Some guy is predating on teenagers, he should go to prison.
I am not as sanguine as Gershon that we have flipped some kind of switch on this issue. I think there is a backlash to come from the anti-feminists. It'll only take a crack in an accuser's story for Piggery to be restored as the norm.
I also think Americans love these stories, which keeps Piggery in business. It's a kind of legal porn. Gloria Allred leading sobbing women by the hand in front of cameras to give details about when where and how she was touched. I am guessing more than a few people get some jollies out of that.
It does seem like genetics has something to do with behavior ... recent studies have shown that men with more testosterone (revealed in things like face shape and finger length) are more likely to cheat on their wives ... Will You Cheat? How the Shape of Your Face Reveals Your Sex Drive
But there is a more to the problem than sexual activity. It has to do with men believing things about women, like thinking that they have a certain purpose or that they should act a certain way or that they are devious. There was an article in The Atlantic about how, from the time of Thomas Aquinas (and way before) there has been a male meme about what women are, justifying treating them like poop and objects to an end. If this doesn't change, the sexual offending won't either. Al Franken, That Photo, and Trusting the Women
The criticism of patriarchy both in church and society is a terrible strategy.
The problem is not men. The problem is what Christianity has classically defined as the 'world' that is the pursuit of money, power and status.
Most of the people at the top who have been doing that are indeed men. However most of the men are victims of the lust for money, power and status at the top just as much as women.
Sex is not the big problem in the church; money is the big problem. The bishops who covered up were concerned about money not about sex.
All this concern about male behavior is just going to solidify Trumps base and move their minds away from the things that might disturb them about Trump. We have not learned the lessons of the last election.
The problem is not men. The problem is what Christianity has classically defined as the 'world' that is the pursuit of money, power and status.
But Christianity and its theories about the world is what men made it to be. And some of those theories are about what women are, what they are for. Other Christian denominations have mostly revamped this but not Catholicism ... the pope still goes on about the complementarity of the sexes and he uses this idea to justify keeping women in their place.
I don't buy into the complementarity thing. But I think Jack is right that arguing about it distracts from what is most disturbing about Trump and his ilk. As Scripture puts it, "You cannot worship both God and Mammon." In fact none of the teaching about complementarity endorses rape, harassment, and coercion. One political party has basically sold its soul to Mammon. Otherwise we wouldn't see it supporting a pedophile in order to maintain its status as the majority party in Congress.
Yeah, I agree with Jack and Katherine: Follow the money. Sex is necessarily interpersonal, but money can't be anything but societal. Sex can screw up lives. Money can screw up a whole country. Cf. ours.
It's not sex per se and not money either, it's power.
The Trump supporters have been portrayed as mostly working class people who were worried about money, but as a recent Atlantic article points out, what really sold the Trump voter was racism, the dream of going back to a white America and putting non-whites in their place. I'd argue that it was also a dream of putting women in their places - this explains the hatred of Hillary and the embracing of a candidate who bragged about assaulting women. Power.
I am a fan of Michael Gerson. But I think he is making this issue too easy. In one of the NewsHours's moments of clarity the other night, Amy Walter said a dam has burst -- as Gerson says - but, she added more pressingly, we haven't figured out what to do with the water.
ReplyDeleteBoys will be pigs. Lately a lot of them are having their piggery made public. Out in the boonies, where things move faster, there is a growing list of office holders who Did the Right Thing and resigned after they were exposed. But, but and but:
Is there not a difference between grown women and 14-year-olds? Is there not a difference between a woman whose performance review and career depend on a man and a woman from another area of life? Is there not a difference between five drinks-and-the-sheets and a long-running affair? Is there not a difference (and in this case I am not sure, but most people seem to think so) between married and unmarried co-respondents?
What I am saying is that there seems to be a movement toward treating the offenders as all of a single ilk and making the Right Thing to Do the same in all cases.
That is one tendency that needs watching, after we discuss it, or at least recognize it.
The other thing that bothers me: Is there a way or ways censorious society can deal with a brother who has sinned, repented and mended his ways? Or is he consigned to outer darkness along with the unrepentant deniers and repeating offenders?
And schadenfreude causes me to wonder if ending the celibacy requirement would stop these outrages we are hearing about in politics and show biz. Some thought it would work when they thought only the Catholic Church had a problem.
I do agree that all these allegations show a change in attitude, but I'm not sure this will do anything to permanently change the situation. Laws may now come into being that will hold offenders accountable in the workplace, but that doesn't address what causes people to offend.
ReplyDeleteThis is about what men think of women. What men believe about women, beliefs built for thousands of years, determine how they treat them. Women have been fighting for centuries to be treated like people, instead of being treated like brood mares, sex objects, domestic slaves. This is what feminism is all about.
The Catholic church is an example of the worst .... the new "reforming" pope will not allow women to be priests or even deacons. He won't allow them to do homilies. He writes that their main purpose in life is to have babies. He calls the the "strawberries on the cake". And meanwhile, he protects pedophiles and child porn producers withing the priesthood.
Boys will be pigs. Not all.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly Kinsey or someone divided males into about half that preferred monogamous sexual caring relationships, and another half who did not care who the woman was, or if the object was female in prison or human on the farm!
A feminist once divided men into husbands who were there for you when you needed them, and lovers who swept you off your feet but would not be there for you.
I would divide men into non-predators and predators because I think the genetic structures underlying male predation are more than sexual.
Any way if you see a male predator either sexually or otherwise, it seems clear he should be sanctioned because the chances are his predatory behavior will not diminish otherwise.
If one sees little evidence of predatory behavior sexual or other wise, then chances are a one time mistake is just a one time mistake. A woman who counsels priest offenders said there are priests who simply make a one time mistake out of loneliness, curiosity, etc.
Finally women have a responsibility not to be swept off their feet by lovers!. Whatever the genetic correlates of this behavior, they need to diminished in our gene pool since they are no longer needed as they once were.
We have killed our animal predators, the only remaining problem are the human predators such as the billionaires whom we continue to allow to prey about so many of us.
I think we're missing the element of trust here when it comes to the Piggery of which Tom speaks.
ReplyDeleteMost public figures know what they've done is wrong or they wouldn't be trying to lie their way out of it. So not only is some guy a masher, he's also a liar and a coward. That raises serious issues about judgment.
Some guy has an affair with a consenting adult, it's between him and his wife. I don't care. If Bill Clinton had said, "I boinked her, Hillary's real mad, my daughter is hurt, we're in family counseling, leave us and Ms. Lewinsky alone," the problem might have gone away instead of becoming a national dirty joke.
Some guy extorts sexual favors in exchange for job promotion or job security, that's criminal. He should lose his job and pay restitution.
Some guy is predating on teenagers, he should go to prison.
I am not as sanguine as Gershon that we have flipped some kind of switch on this issue. I think there is a backlash to come from the anti-feminists. It'll only take a crack in an accuser's story for Piggery to be restored as the norm.
I also think Americans love these stories, which keeps Piggery in business. It's a kind of legal porn. Gloria Allred leading sobbing women by the hand in front of cameras to give details about when where and how she was touched. I am guessing more than a few people get some jollies out of that.
Piggery comes in many forms.
It does seem like genetics has something to do with behavior ... recent studies have shown that men with more testosterone (revealed in things like face shape and finger length) are more likely to cheat on their wives ... Will You Cheat? How the Shape of Your Face Reveals Your Sex Drive
ReplyDeleteBut there is a more to the problem than sexual activity. It has to do with men believing things about women, like thinking that they have a certain purpose or that they should act a certain way or that they are devious. There was an article in The Atlantic about how, from the time of Thomas Aquinas (and way before) there has been a male meme about what women are, justifying treating them like poop and objects to an end. If this doesn't change, the sexual offending won't either. Al Franken, That Photo, and Trusting the Women
The criticism of patriarchy both in church and society is a terrible strategy.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not men. The problem is what Christianity has classically defined as the 'world' that is the pursuit of money, power and status.
Most of the people at the top who have been doing that are indeed men. However most of the men are victims of the lust for money, power and status at the top just as much as women.
Sex is not the big problem in the church; money is the big problem. The bishops who covered up were concerned about money not about sex.
All this concern about male behavior is just going to solidify
Trumps base and move their minds away from the things that might disturb them about Trump. We have not learned the lessons of the last election.
The problem is not men. The problem is what Christianity has classically defined as the 'world' that is the pursuit of money, power and status.
ReplyDeleteBut Christianity and its theories about the world is what men made it to be. And some of those theories are about what women are, what they are for. Other Christian denominations have mostly revamped this but not Catholicism ... the pope still goes on about the complementarity of the sexes and he uses this idea to justify keeping women in their place.
I don't buy into the complementarity thing. But I think Jack is right that arguing about it distracts from what is most disturbing about Trump and his ilk. As Scripture puts it, "You cannot worship both God and Mammon." In fact none of the teaching about complementarity endorses rape, harassment, and coercion. One political party has basically sold its soul to Mammon. Otherwise we wouldn't see it supporting a pedophile in order to maintain its status as the majority party in Congress.
DeleteYeah, I agree with Jack and Katherine: Follow the money. Sex is necessarily interpersonal, but money can't be anything but societal. Sex can screw up lives. Money can screw up a whole country. Cf. ours.
DeleteIt's not sex per se and not money either, it's power.
ReplyDeleteThe Trump supporters have been portrayed as mostly working class people who were worried about money, but as a recent Atlantic article points out, what really sold the Trump voter was racism, the dream of going back to a white America and putting non-whites in their place. I'd argue that it was also a dream of putting women in their places - this explains the hatred of Hillary and the embracing of a candidate who bragged about assaulting women. Power.