Workplace Sexual Harassment: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
7 replies, posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHiAls8loz4
Matt Laurer vs Bill O'Reilly.
:meatspin:
The culture of doubting any woman who claims harassment or rape drives me absolutely insane. One reason is I hate the pretense people put on of "Innocent before guilty! I just want to know the facts!" etc., when this is the only crime that I see people treat this way. You can fake a lot of crimes, but when I say my house burned down, the first thing you think isn't "Well maybe you're just committing insurance fraud" even though the statistics on fake claims from what I can tell are near identical.
I don't know why guys react this way, but I don't buy that they're 'just scared false harassment/rape claims could happen to them', which isn't even a good argument in the first place. I think a lot of guys are more scared either because they're the type of person who would or has sexually harassed or raped someone and doesn't want to be hung out to dry, or because find it uncomfortable when women are able to stand up and get justice for themselves.
But taking that at face value, that you're afraid that in every single sexual harassment/rape case that the accused is a victim of false accusations, well sure, maybe that's the case, but what's definitely true is that we're hurting actual victims with this culture of paranoia. I wanna say the vast majority of rape and sexual harassment cases, especially in the media, that I have seen, turn out to be true.
So all the women and men that have been nothing but honest have been hurt completely unnecessarily by your attitude of defaulting to 'oh well they're lying'. They've been subjected very often to years of nobody believing them, of harassment, of being put under a microscope, picked apart, and having their character assassinated. In the vast majority of cases, by protecting someone who might just be an innocent person having their lives destroyed, you end up doing the exact same thing you're afraid of to an actual victim.
All I can think about when it comes to this stuff is the Louis CK incident. Until he confessed to it, people were sure this was a false claim, that the people making these claims were liars, fame whores, whatever. The women who made those claims were harassed, nobody believed them, and then it turned out they were actual victims who were made even more a victim for ultimately no reason! And people think that any woman can just drop a harassment allegation or a rape allegation and just coast along.
No, if you're one of those people that was ~so sure~, you didn't just make life hard for fake claimants, you've made sure actual victims go through absolute hell. I hope you're proud of that!
Hey, if you couldn't tell that the Louis CK allegations were real until the moment he confessed and made it as cut and dry as it could possibly be, maybe you don't actually have the world's best bullshit sniffing nose the way you think you do and should cut it the fuck out.
I hate the culture we've created. I hate the bullshit excuses. I hate that we create an environment where women are afraid to speak up and then we hound them for being afraid to speak up making them more afraid to speak up. I hate that one victim of false allegations is considered more important than a thousand victims with true accusations who have been made to suffer. I hate that this kind of thinking pervades this website.
I feel like this video failed to address situations where men are sexually harassed by women. The culture we have in general is just terrible, with women being afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation, and men being afraid to speak up because nobody will believe a Woman could harass or abuse a man the same way.
I was harassed myself by some psycho girl and when I told anyone they didn't believe me and shrugged it off, I had to wait it out until she quit.
I agree with your overall point. We have created a culture where women are afraid to speak out, but that doesn't mean that those women shouldn't have to be able to prove their claims or that we do away with the notion of 'innocent until proven guilty'. And while there is definitely an attitude problem within society, one of the main problems with sexual harassment, and the way in which society handles it, is in the nature of the crime itself.
For example, the difference between a sexual harassment allegation and someone's house burning down is that sexual harassment isn't a crime that leaves behind much physical evidence. If someone's house burns down, unless I'm some retard conspiracy theorist who believes the victim is a crisis actor, then it obviously happened because I can go and see the remnants of the house for myself. Regardless of whether it was an accident or insurance fraud, it definitely burned down, that is a fact. Sexual harassment often doesn't leave any such evidence. It's somebodies word against another. Obviously, the case is strengthened if they have recordings, witness testimony, or other victims coming forward, but it's very difficult to prove that someone once touched your thigh ten years ago when it's just your word against theirs. It's almost always an invisible crime.
And I think people are right to be sceptical about any allegation and to not pass judgement until the perpetrator is proven guilty. Nothing annoys me more than trial by media or trial by public opinion.
Normally there's at least one person in these threads saying "John Oliver isn't funny, it's Family Guy humor", or something like that. And I usually ignore them, because he tries to be tangentially related, if not making some sort of point about how absurd the situation is or simply lightening up a dim situation. Not the greatest humor, obviously, but at least worth a chuckle.
But going from some woman being continuously harassed straight to "Smokey doesn't wear a shirt!" and "Coldplay still exists" just struck me as, well, ugh.
I always wanted to make a YT channel that was LWT but with all jokes edited out since I think it would be a far better show.
Man, Tucker Carlson really sounds like a Youtube skeptic.
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