Jezebel: Babe, What Are You Doing?
- Thread starter Chamomile
- Start date
You write this story in this climate about a celebrity you're going after their career. Babe was clearly doing it for the clicks, not saying that about Grace. That's the reason them chasing after her for the story matters.
I'm gonna repost something from the other thread:
Here's the reality: Weinstein and Spacey were both super important as the first stories to break and also in the long run detrimental as the first stories to break.... In as much as being quickly confirmed, extremely easy to denounce and both with very quick responses from society it blew open the doors for others to feel safe to come forward. However, what it also did was set the bar high from the get go, you see it all the time X guy isn't a Weinstein or a Spacey. This is especially a problem because the justice system failed these women and men and as a result there almost certainly won't be legal consequences, as a result the only thing left is societal and the only thing society can do is take their fame and career away... That's it.
Which leads to the biggest problem, because Weinstein and Spacey were first they not only set the bar of severity of abuse but also set the bar for punishment. So, we end up with a lot of discussion of well should people who didn't do what they did suffer the same consequences they did? Is that fair? Problem is, no it's not fair, it's not fair for the victims of Weinstein and Spacey, because they should be suffering much more severe consequences, serious jail time. In a just world, Spacey and Weinstein don't just lose their careers, they lose their freedom, even some of their fortune in civil court. So even though the end punishment for Weinstein and Spacey was to lose their careers, the lost of career is not the ultimate consequences, the most severe, actions like theirs should have, it's just the only one available for these specific crimes. As such, when folks look at people accused of lesser abuses and think why should those abusers suffer the identical consequences as Weinstein and Spacey they do so only looking at the consequences Weinstein and Spacey got and not the consequences Weinstein and Spacey;s actions should have had. So the answer to should a lesser abuser get the same punishment as Weinstein and Spacey? In many cases absolutely (I am not making the argument that Aziz is one of those cases) because loss of career is not the actual high bar of punishment, there is so much above it.
This brings me to the third problem. because folks do look at what Weinstein and Spacey's consequences as the high bar standard, there is almost a pressure brewing wherein we judge victims speaking out on the basis of how high they are on the Weinstein/Spacey scale. This is untenable, as it almost ends up asking victims to evaluate the abuse they have suffered and place it on that scale, with an almost unspoken request to not speak out if their abuse isn't in the Weinstein/Spacey zone, lest their abuser be given the Weinstein/Spacey treatment. It's created a basic scale of abuse which folks are comfortable listening to victims speak out about. Thing is that's completely unfair and is just another way of placing the responsibility on the victim. A victim of abuse has no responsibility frankly to consider their abuser before speaking out, how society reacts to the stories of their abuse and abuser is not on them, it can't be. It's untenable to expect victims of abuse to be responsible for the fate of the person who abused them, especially when the consequences we're talking about here are centred pretty much only on career ramifications.
Here's the reality: Weinstein and Spacey were both super important as the first stories to break and also in the long run detrimental as the first stories to break.... In as much as being quickly confirmed, extremely easy to denounce and both with very quick responses from society it blew open the doors for others to feel safe to come forward. However, what it also did was set the bar high from the get go, you see it all the time X guy isn't a Weinstein or a Spacey. This is especially a problem because the justice system failed these women and men and as a result there almost certainly won't be legal consequences, as a result the only thing left is societal and the only thing society can do is take their fame and career away... That's it.
Which leads to the biggest problem, because Weinstein and Spacey were first they not only set the bar of severity of abuse but also set the bar for punishment. So, we end up with a lot of discussion of well should people who didn't do what they did suffer the same consequences they did? Is that fair? Problem is, no it's not fair, it's not fair for the victims of Weinstein and Spacey, because they should be suffering much more severe consequences, serious jail time. In a just world, Spacey and Weinstein don't just lose their careers, they lose their freedom, even some of their fortune in civil court. So even though the end punishment for Weinstein and Spacey was to lose their careers, the lost of career is not the ultimate consequences, the most severe, actions like theirs should have, it's just the only one available for these specific crimes. As such, when folks look at people accused of lesser abuses and think why should those abusers suffer the identical consequences as Weinstein and Spacey they do so only looking at the consequences Weinstein and Spacey got and not the consequences Weinstein and Spacey;s actions should have had. So the answer to should a lesser abuser get the same punishment as Weinstein and Spacey? In many cases absolutely (I am not making the argument that Aziz is one of those cases) because loss of career is not the actual high bar of punishment, there is so much above it.
This brings me to the third problem. because folks do look at what Weinstein and Spacey's consequences as the high bar standard, there is almost a pressure brewing wherein we judge victims speaking out on the basis of how high they are on the Weinstein/Spacey scale. This is untenable, as it almost ends up asking victims to evaluate the abuse they have suffered and place it on that scale, with an almost unspoken request to not speak out if their abuse isn't in the Weinstein/Spacey zone, lest their abuser be given the Weinstein/Spacey treatment. It's created a basic scale of abuse which folks are comfortable listening to victims speak out about. Thing is that's completely unfair and is just another way of placing the responsibility on the victim. A victim of abuse has no responsibility frankly to consider their abuser before speaking out, how society reacts to the stories of their abuse and abuser is not on them, it can't be. It's untenable to expect victims of abuse to be responsible for the fate of the person who abused them, especially when the consequences we're talking about here are centred pretty much only on career ramifications.
Potential for Babe.net to get a fuck load of page views. I mean it looks like the site didn't even exist 10 months ago, and now they have gotten millions of views in less than a week's time. I'll put on my tinfoil hat for a second and say this who thing was probably engineered to make a name for the site at the cost of Ansari's career. Like these Babe.net people were willing to sacrifice the guy just to make their site known.
But at the same time, Hanlon's razor. So I probably shouldn't look for malice when incompetence can adequately explain things.
It's a Grace problem when you have prominent members of the MeToo movement calling her out on national television, especially on one of the most influential female-led shows by a feminist icon. All due to a poorly constructed story by an online publication looking to get in on juicy celebrity gossip.
A guy friend of mine had that take. "If that was rape, I've been raped." I wanted to get into how misconduct is still shitty to go through even if it's nothing prosecutable but we changed topics pretty quickly.
I reckon it's important at least is that we're having these conversations, stories are being heard, even if there are gonna be arguments in the reporting.
Media criticism is a normal part of editorial journalism, yes.
Is MeToo a club? Is there a membership fee? They got organizational hierarchy? Does being more feminist make you any more qualified or justified to delegitimize another woman's victimhood?
Do you see the problem with this statement though? It's turning #MeToo into an inclusive thing and shaming those who don't fit their mold of feminism.
You're not talking about Whoopi "Polanski's case wasn't rape-rape" Goldberg here are you?
I like this article a lot. When I first read Babe's story on Grace and Aziz I felt uneasy about it but I couldn't put my finger on why. Clearly Aziz was being scummy and Grace was a victim that deserves to be heard, but something was off about the whole thing. And I think this article puts that feeling into the exact words I was looking for. It was the reporting and how the story was told that really bugged me. It felt like a grab for clicks and a "shame shame shame" moment instead of earnest reporting and giving the victim a voice and propelling the discussion of sexual assault forward.
It's clear Babe messed up in how they revealed this because this particular story has had way more backlash while most of the other #MeToo stories have had near unanimous support. It should have opened up new conversations but instead it just brought up all the old, ignorant ones, and that's sad. Especially for Grace.
It's clear Babe messed up in how they revealed this because this particular story has had way more backlash while most of the other #MeToo stories have had near unanimous support. It should have opened up new conversations but instead it just brought up all the old, ignorant ones, and that's sad. Especially for Grace.
I got what they were doing with it. It was to show that Aziz didn't seem to really care about what she wanted in almost any fashion. Folks taking that line and making it out like Grace feels victimized for that too is kinda ridiculous...
Oh I got it too, but the sense I got from other journalists is that this was the reporting equivalent of hackneyed symbolism in a work of fiction. Just something so hamfisted and out of place in a story about a controversial sexual encounter.
I know Reddit is a great tool and all, but it's the fact this kind of shit gets promoted by it's userbase at large that makes me hate associating with the place.
Seems a fair critique of the piece. I know that the women in my life that I've spoken to about this particular incident, seem to fall in the category of "Ansari sounds like a scumbag/creep that I wouldnt want any of my friends or relatives to date but..." category and the writing style and choices certainly didn't help that whatsoever.
I guess but you see that so often in long form stories so whatever it didn't phase me... but then again the Media seems to believe it's either ending his career or shitting on Grace and nowhere in between.
It really just helps paint the article as a hit piece against Ansari, when it should have been a jumping off point to discuss the murkier area of sexual interaction in our culture that may not rise to the levels of a Weinstein, Spacey, or C.K., but are still problematic and should be discussed.
Yeah I'll second 2th and say that this piece was tailored thought out to be as controversial as it gets. Not really a good look on that website, but it definitely put its name out there.
Right. The shitty opinions people are expressing in light of this story wouldn't be any different had it been reported better.
Just a vile video all around. Not shocking anyone, the comments (at least in the reddit thread) are even worse
Anecdotal and all but this backlash to the Babe piece is coming from literally everyone on my Facebook and Twitter feed. It's not particular to men, it's coming from women and women I personally know who are victims of sexual assault. They are all pissed off about it.
yeah, i've been noticing it from men and women too. Our anecdotes don't speak as the end all of it, but considering how huge and one sided the other thread was, it's not how I expected to see people outside of here receive it.
Women and victims of sexual assault victim blame all the time. Even victim blame themselves.
Well this is really beginning to get out of control and ugly:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/ashleig...lting-email-from-writer-of-aziz-ansari-piece/
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/ashleig...lting-email-from-writer-of-aziz-ansari-piece/
I think this all kind of circles back to my original point of how the article served as a disservice to Grace.
I suppose a big issue with how I've been arguing my point is that I'm pointing to a problem without offering a solution so I'll start with that.
I think what would have served Grace better would have been if the people writing the article went into greater depth about why she stayed at the apartment and specifically how she communicated to Aziz that she was uncomfortable. The only explanation she gives for why she sticks around is that she doesn't want to "hate" Aziz which I don't think really translates well as to what she means by that. She says she doesn't feel violated until later when they're watching an episode of Seinfeld together, but up until that point we don't know what was going through her mind aside from general discomfort that she attempted to relay through non-descript non-verbal cues. Perhaps she couldn't recall? Perhaps it was omitted? We don't know. Her intentions for that night are completely left open to interpretation as is what constituted her non-verbal cues.
I think this leaves open a debate about personal responsibility and where that fits into the MeToo movement. Clearly there are multiple thought processes in regards to where that begins and ends.
Grace unfortunately becomes a poster child in that debate unintentionally when she gets called out on The View.
Now someone may be able to tell me this because I haven't found it, but has Grace made a statement since all this has come out? Because I'm of the opinion that this doesn't seem like something she was signing up for and I'm entirely interested in how Babe sold this story to her.
Now this could still be a very healthy and open debate about expectations in a sexual encounter and the effectiveness of verbal vs non-verbal cues as well as how and when men need to know when to stop persisting. However, that doesn't appear at least based on the article that this was the original intention at least as I read it.
holy shit
this makes the writer of the babe article seem phenomenally petty and childish
I have yet to see an actual sensible take on the whole thing. This is an extremely grey situation and people are digging their heels in the sand and taking sides like it's some sort of moral battle. When it could be an excellent cautionary tale and learning experience for people I've seen admit to not fully understanding the situation and relating it to their own experiences.
I've had a really mixed reaction to the entire conversation, and decided it was probably better to take a step back and listen. I'm pleasantly surprised to see so many smart, eloquent voices on both sides of the issue, specifically the women #metoo represents.
This just makes the babe.net article and it's author look really bad in the whole discussion.
I think it's good the story is out there, I think it's good people know her account so they can have that knowledge when dealing with Aziz. I think it's good that someone lauded as the kind of person he comes off as in his show can be shown to be something totally different, it's a good takeaway. So, the story did some good, but yeah, Babe could have done it so much more responsibly to really help the cause and to really help Grace.
Men are personally responsible for not assaulting women, that is the only place it fits.
Doesn't exactly paint the author of the piece as someone who's wholly all together themselves.
This appalling shit from Way just puts an even bigger cloud over it. Disgusting.
Jezebel is just the same Gawker people. So old Gawker people are worried about journalism integrity? OK sure.
From another angle - if they're worried about the journalism here, something may be very wrong w/ how this was handled.
Why does it matter ? It's like dismissing the babe.net article just because it's from a relatively unknown website called 'babe'.net
The Jezebel article and it's content is relatively solid.
This whole thing is getting really messy, and to be honest I don't really know where I stand with this hole thing. I think what Aziz did was gross and he was extremely pushy, but I also still can't really comprehend why Grace wouldn't take her out of the situation at the first opportunity. I spoke to some people on this forum to get a better understanding as to why that might be hard for some people to do.
While I still understand the difficulty of doing so, I also feel like if you're really uncomfortable with a situation, you wouldn't go ahead with sexual acts if you were really uncomfortable. Though again I don't know, I'm not a woman and I've never had to be in a situation like that - so maybe I'm completely wrong.
Just trying to wrap my head around all the details; but I think the people attacking Grace and her story aggressively, like the HLN host and the two articles, also add more damage and removes from the conversation about how men can act around women and make them feel uncomfortable and not pick up on cues.
It's a shame because I feel bad for Grace, because of how pushy Aziz seemed to have been, but I also have a hard time understanding, on my end, how she didn't feel the need to remove herself at the first couple of instances -- however like the article that was posted in this thread states, maybe the way it was written and presented has to do with my perception of how things happened during that date? I don't know, but I've never been this conflicted about one of these type of stories before.
All I know is she went through a bad date and obviously did things that are uncomfortable to her and there should be a larger discussion about this, which is now getting derailed.
While I still understand the difficulty of doing so, I also feel like if you're really uncomfortable with a situation, you wouldn't go ahead with sexual acts if you were really uncomfortable. Though again I don't know, I'm not a woman and I've never had to be in a situation like that - so maybe I'm completely wrong.
Just trying to wrap my head around all the details; but I think the people attacking Grace and her story aggressively, like the HLN host and the two articles, also add more damage and removes from the conversation about how men can act around women and make them feel uncomfortable and not pick up on cues.
It's a shame because I feel bad for Grace, because of how pushy Aziz seemed to have been, but I also have a hard time understanding, on my end, how she didn't feel the need to remove herself at the first couple of instances -- however like the article that was posted in this thread states, maybe the way it was written and presented has to do with my perception of how things happened during that date? I don't know, but I've never been this conflicted about one of these type of stories before.
All I know is she went through a bad date and obviously did things that are uncomfortable to her and there should be a larger discussion about this, which is now getting derailed.
Wow.
Fuck man. I do see merit in Babe's story (just not the writing) but that writer needs to get thrown in a fire. It seems clicks > activism and journalism
That definitely puts it into a perspective where it's easier to understand why it's getting the reactions it is. Especially after this latest thing with Way and the email, it feels like it's becoming more about the writer/Babe than Grace's message. That's really unfortunate to me.
It's like people are fighting a proxy war over their own personal experiences & boundaries and forgetting about the important shit.
MeToo kinda need to evolve, it can't just be about exposing predators and a fund for victims legal costs. People actually blaming a victim again, because it's not assaulty enough. Come on. Instead of having conversation about sexual relationships and how gender expectations and norms shape those in a bad way, this shit happens.
I was really angry when I saw that response from the CNN Reporter.
I was really angry when I saw that response from the CNN Reporter.
absolutely agree on that, theres no way Grace signed up for all this