I’m not going to praise Time magazine, since they’re just another tool of the conservative establishment, but they did make a wise choice in their selection for their Person of the Year cover, “The Silence-Breakers”, all the women who have started a wave of change against a culture of harassment.
Donald Trump gets several mentions in the article, and they aren’t flattering. He must be fuming. Frame it and put that on the wall of your golf courses, Donnie boy. I hope these women are part of the reaction that tears you down.
I hope this recognition is a small part of a change that’s beginning — just beginning. There’s a long way to go. I’m just reminded of how disgracefully our social media has been shaped to be a tool enabling harassers to thrive: how Facebook is openly discriminating against women who protest, while I know of a great many men on Twitter who are notorious abusers, and still are given a platform. Like Donald Trump.
Fuming…heh. And after the idiotic disclaimer that narcissistic nitwit declared the other day about taking himself off the running, this is indeed a fantastic choice for persons of the year.
Trump would post it with LIARS scrawled across it. Oh,…and threaten to sue them or Time for…..whatever.
I wonder if Time had made their decision before Trump’s foolishness about the cover.
<quibblyquibble≥Shouldn't it be 'Persons of the Year'?</quibblyquibble≥
@3 – I like to think they decided afterward just to goad him.
That’s a beautiful cover. It’s good that the women are not looking triumphant. As you say, there’s a long way to go.
The cover is wrong.
It’s missing Anita Hill.
“Artistic director -also accused of sexual assault- accused of leaking information about Nobel Prize laureates” https://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/artistic-director-accused-of-leaking-information-about-nobel-prize-laureates/
Once the culture of silence is broken, it turns out bastard who breaks rules in one area also breaks rules in another. How surprising (sarcasm)!
And, yes, social media is a portal into the Hell Dimension.
@ 6
Sadly, Anita Hill’s testimony did not launch a movement. It didn’t even demolish Clarence Thomas, as it should have.
The time was not yet ripe to launch a movement. Now it is. It’s one measure of the pace of social change.
The link provided really shows no strong evidence that Facebook is silencing women. It looks like they are making a good faith effort to curb some fairly harmful posts. It seems to be applying a similar standard one might use to smack down a comment like “all muslims are terrorists.” That kind of rhetoric, while obviously sarcastic in the former case, isn’t helpful and probably violates their TOS. That said, I think we should be open to the idea that social media has been a tool of bullies and harasses. But I don’t think you make a good case with the link provided.
On Facebook: I don’t think they
need to ease up on the women being banned. They just need to clamp down on men more.
“Ironic misandry” probably has to be disallowed because we rightly don’t accept “it’s satire/joke” for sexism and/or racism. I’m afraid asking moderators to judge intent, to separate satire from trolling, is too taxing in terms of volume they have to get through. This is especially true because privacy concerns render posts devoid of context. Save the ironic misandry for smaller more focused platforms.
This is definitely a good choice. Though I did hear on the news earlier in the week that Kim Jong Un was mentioned to be in the running. I can imagine that would have been equally galling to 45.
@Mike Smith
I’d extend Facebook good faith if they had any good faith. If the “ironic sexism” and just flat-out sexism against women was also taken down just as quickly. But it isn’t- that’s the point of the article.
It’s time for Franken to resign, and he will do so I’m sure.
aziraphale @ 5.
The fact that you posted this? You should be suffering a severe case of irony poisoning. :shakes head:
@ardipithecus:
While it may not have launched a movement notable to you, it certainly did launch a movement: education around sexual harassment in the workplace changed entirely as a result of Anita Hill’s testimony, and it is the very fact that Anita Hill testified to this in the 90s that made it possible for NBC to fire Matt Lauer this year. The argument that men just didn’t know they weren’t supposed to assault their co-workers only died because the prominence of Hill’s testimony made that argument no longer tenable.
That led to explicit corporate policies, which showed that the corporations were aware that such behavior both happened and was wrong, and that led to vastly larger jury verdicts in such cases. The vastly larger jury verdicts directly led to shareholders taking such conduct more seriously, which led directly to the changes in climate that made it economically reasonable to fire Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes. Public consequences for powerful men led directly to a willingness of women to speak out despite attacks and other negative consequences where before they could expect to suffer negative consequences while the powerful men against whom they testified were entirely immune to any serious loss, which led to the entirely reasonable calculus that speaking up was not worth the loss without some actual accountability from wrongdoers.
If you’ve worked in this movement for decades as I have, you know for fucking sure that Anita Hill, testifying as she did in some of the most high-profile hearings imaginable, is responsible for optimism and opportunities of 90s activists and that without that optimism and those opportunities, you would never have arrived at a USA-inclusive #metoo campaign.
Anita Hill belongs on the cover.
Fuckin’A, Time. Shivers and tears. Ya done good.
That said, yes, Anita Hill belongs on that cover, absolutely. Without her groundbreaking actions none of what’s currently happening would be possible.
Anita Hill’s actions didn’t occur in this year. That’s probably why she wasn’t included.
Also I see the Democrats are being useless idealistic gits on the Franken front. Great job guys. Enjoy working with Moore because we not getting rid of him this way. And more to the point by nationalizing the story in the way you did people’s tribal partisanship will kick in and Moore will be elected easily.
The powers that be in the Democratic party deserve to be locked out of the halls of power for at least a generation given that they are blind morons who can’t recognize reality.
@yet another mikehole #17:
By which you mean the thirteen female Senators who called for Franken’s resignation on the basis that there are six separate harassment complaints again him? I think they know more about the climate of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill and how best to address it than you do. I think they are also well aware of the message they are sending, and the work they’re able to accomplish whether Franken remains seated or not.
But suuuure, one gropey dude is the party’s savior and no one can possibly get anything done without him. Ok.
In Australian news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-07/who-are-the-women-on-times-person-of-the-year-cover/9234318
PS I had wondered about that elbow, but not enough to seek to inform myself.
“According to Time, that elbow belongs to an “anonymous young hospital worker from Texas” who is a victim of sexual harassment, but who fears disclosing her identity may negatively impact her family.
“Her appearance is an act of solidarity, representing all those who are not yet able to come forward and reveal their identities,” Time said.”
@17
I of course am referring to the reality of Franken being replaced soon by another gropey dude who, as a bonus, would see girls barefoot and pregnant at 16 and all queer people rounded up and killed.
I am further referring to the reality that the Democratic party just handed a sure fire way to do away with Democratic officials to the GOP. They only have to find (or more likely fake) sexual harassment accounts. (Note: I believe Franken is guilty)
This is exactly why hate speech laws, to use an analogy, are such a terrible idea. The Democrats by unilaterally disarming have weaponized this. Prepare for the wave after wave of so called gropey Democrats being found out to further break any political clout the Democratic party still has.
The barbarians are at the gates. We don’t have the luxury of moral stand.
The GOP would see us subjugated, killed, and completely destroyed. Those are the stakes. Survival is the only goal now.
Wake the fuck up.
Mike Smith #21 addressing Mike Smith #17…
too many for me
I go to bed.
寝ます。
21 should begin @18 onamission5
Although Franken has done a lot of good work (while simultanously being a douchebag off camera), now that he is going, the Republicans have a monopoly of (known) sexual harrassers.
They can no longer point at someone and say “But the libruls are also doing it!” And with the GROTUS (groper of the United States) and real-life Mr. Herbert (future senator Moore) they now *own* political sleaziness. I do not expect the cynics in charge to do anything to better their image, so they are stuck with trying to say “it’s all fake news!”
And they are now taking 400 billion from Medicare (hurting their own base) to favor their campaign donors. And *still* driving up debt. In 2018, even if the Democrats mishandle the election campaigns, it will be a clear choice between “acceptable” candidates and sexist, corrupt candidates for the United States (SCROTUS ?).
@Mike Smith,
Franken is going to be replaced by Tina Smith, probably, who is at the very least not a dude and is probably not gropey.
When Veritas tried to drum up fake sexual harassment claims, the Washington Post saw through it.
We don’t win by throwing women under the bus. Sorry you don’t see us worthy of our rights. Sorry you don’t see a way for a party to have power without catering to harassers. And sorry you apparently think that this is just a “moral stand” and not people’s actual lives.
@25
O’Keefe’s little stunt worked. The vast majority of Alabamians disbelieve the allegations against Moore. While that isn’t just O’Keefe it does render your point moot. More to the point, the Democrats already have capitated to fake propaganda to hurt their own power. Does ACORN strike a bell? It’s immaterial that the Washington Post caught this time. The Democratic party just created powerful reasons to try and try and try again.
Moore is going to be in the Senate and the expected ploy here “we got rid of Franken” isn’t going to work.
A bus is coming no matter what given the conditions we are under. I’m saying it should at least be for a reason.
Enjoy the high road to the gas chamber and corrective rape.
I’m just over here wallowing in the irony of a post about heroic women reporting sexual assault and harassment and taking down powerful men ending with threats of rape against women who support a powerful man losing his job for sexual harassment.