Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Because it needs to be said

blogjustine.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 635 posts

Re: Because it needs to be said

#211

Post by raverbashing »

VMG wrote: post #204
raverbashing wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem with American alcohol culture is that they treat it as a "big bad monster", rather than a part of life. Result: people not knowing their limits. Public drinking is allowed in Germany, however, funny as it seems it's not a barbaric (ahem) hellhole. Nor you see a lot of people "losing it" That's maturity.

> Public drinking is allowed in Germany, however, funny as it seems it's not a barbaric (ahem) hellhole. Nor you see a lot of people "losing it" Oh yes you will.

"A lot of". Of course I've seen it ;)

Curiously enough, I've heard some stories about Oktoberfest. Needless to say it's way more popular with tourists than with locals. And the mess (including train stations, hostel vicinities, etc), well, doesn't need explaining.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#212

Post by PhasmaFelis »

throwaway86 wrote: post #93
hawkharris wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right. I didn't mean to imply that citizens can initiate it on their own, but the author should at least try to press charges. The definition of sexual assault / rape varies by state. In any case, I don't think vigilante justice by blog post is an appropriate solution.

And yet frighteningly effective; here's an anecdote that includes a thought exercise to consider, and let me preface the thought exercise by making clear that I am not accusing anyone of lying in the situation linked here and intentionally have no opinion on it, for reasons that shall become clear. (In fact, I wish I hadn't read it.) Let's introduce Bob (not his real name). Bob is a mid-level engineering manager. Sin…

If some people lie about assault and cause needless pain, the solution is not "don't talk about assault." It's "don't tell lies."

Re: Because it needs to be said

#213

Post by throwaway86 »

wilkie wrote: post #208
throwaway86 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I worry about both because I realize that all victims deserve my sympathy and attention, regardless of how they were made a victim or whether there is enough of them to justify me giving them a second thought. And I'm saying that the blogging response to the one you do care about might be having unintentional consequences for the other that you don't care about, and advising caution on an obviously explosive…

In what you are arguing, you fail to realize that there is only one victim. And while that might be the accused, in this case where we have 3 accounts supporting the accuser... well... it's not wrong to side with either of them, but you can't really call out supporting her side as biased in any way.

You missed the part where I said I had no opinion on the specific incident that resulted in my comment. Go back and read that part; I read someone's entire comment before replying and hope for the same respect in return.

In particular, I lamented that I was aware of this incident at all and pivoted into my larger point.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#214

Post by adamnemecek »

sneak wrote: post #203
adamnemecek wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's supposed to warn readers who have had similar experience that the content of the article could cause flashbacks of their own experiences. And I somehow can't shake off the feeling that all it does is promote the victim mentality in the the author and the audience. Also good job white knighting your pants off in this thread.

That's not all it does. It's okay to be wrong. We've all been there.

You are right. It's not all it does, it's only the majority of all it does.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#215

Post by [deleted] »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #186
Confusion wrote: post #118

I think there's a deeper cultural problem here: that the behavior of Joe had that much of an impact on Justine's life in the first place. There are women that would experience the same thing, but would not retreat into themselves in this extreme way. There are even women that would shrug it off. However, the response of Justine matches ancient societal expectations: if a woman has been violated, she loses all value.…

This comes dangerously close to victim-blaming. Let me tell you that what Justine is feeling is absolutely not some social construct built exclusively on archaic misogyny. I have known more than one gay man who was raped and felt exactly the same way. You might consider that at least some of the women who appear to deal better with being assaulted are actually just putting on a brave front to avoid being pitied and c…

[deleted]

Re: Because it needs to be said

#216

Post by cynicalkane »

justin66 wrote: post #202
Confusion wrote: post #118

I think there's a deeper cultural problem here: that the behavior of Joe had that much of an impact on Justine's life in the first place. There are women that would experience the same thing, but would not retreat into themselves in this extreme way. There are even women that would shrug it off. However, the response of Justine matches ancient societal expectations: if a woman has been violated, she loses all value.…

Unmitigated bullshit. > However, the response of Justine matches ancient societal expectations: if a woman has been violated, she loses all value. "The response of Justine matches" (be more pretentious) the response of someone who has experienced extreme violation of trust by a close friend who was also an authority figure. If you like, invent a hypothetical scenario that involves public humiliation and violation of…

This is why many reasonable people simply do not like to talk about sexual assault, on here or in real life. It seems to cause people to default to a position where you must adopt one view (i.e. theirs) to the exclusion of all others. If you talk about the effects societal norms have on victims, or on strategies to navigate a misogynistic world, people will accuse you of "victim blaming". On the other hand there are people (like antirez, in this baffling post that went highly upvoted on HN a while back: http://oldblog.antirez.com/post/different-take-sexism-it.htm...) who think trying to understand the precarious position women in tech--or other boys' clubs--or heck, the whole world--live in is, in and of itself, misogynist. Talking in a reasonable, realistic, yet understanding way becomes impossible, and people are afraid of taking the slightest ideological risk lest they slotted in on some "side" belonging to one of many unreasonable positions. For many people this is uncomfortable even if they are on the "right" side! And they won't tell you how they feel either because that's just as dangerous. So the topvoted discussion is, invariably, angry nerds misrepresenting each other with a lot of insults thrown in.

Eventually one exclusive view gets upvoted to the top, and the thread is forgotten and life goes on, then another thread happens and maybe the same view dominates or maybe a different one does. How unenlightening. It's why I never take a position in these threads except maybe to offer pretentious meta-analysis, like I'm doing right now.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#217

Post by arrrg »

conformal wrote: post #143
hawkharris wrote: post #25

My ex-girlfriend wrote a blog post similar to this one, accusing me of sexual assault. I volunteered to take a police polygraph test, hired a lawyer and initiated a libel suit. Fortunately, I didn’t need to go further because she suddenly changed my name & her story. But the experience was still stressful and scary. Many commenters vilified me because they assumed her information was true. Prior to being falsely accu…

posting your personal account of someone's crimes against you in a blog is not a fair or reasonable way to deal with what is clearly a very serious matter. it sounds like what happened was awful and these types of incidents are common in many predominantly male professions, e.g. law, finance. i was recently seriously harassed and more-or-less sexually assaulted by an acquaintance's wife at a wedding in a swimming poo…

Posting the truth is never problematic. If what she wrote is indeed true then I cannot for the life of me see why writing that is in any way wrong.

If you want to say what she did is problematic then you have to argue that she is lying. Plain and simple. Do you do that?

It is obviously not an option to demand of victims to shut up about what happened to them. But that is in essence what you are demanding. Sure, if what she is telling is not the truth it’s quite obvious and kind of self-evident that she shouldn’t have posted it but if she is indeed a victim you would apparently tell her exactly the same. That seems quite insane to me.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#218

Post by hrvbr »

Confusion wrote: post #118

I think there's a deeper cultural problem here: that the behavior of Joe had that much of an impact on Justine's life in the first place. There are women that would experience the same thing, but would not retreat into themselves in this extreme way. There are even women that would shrug it off. However, the response of Justine matches ancient societal expectations: if a woman has been violated, she loses all value.…

Yes, my first impression is that she's very fragile and passive. "Assault" is a too strong word if the guy let her go when she left for a smoke. And why didn't she punch the aggressor? Friends can be punched too. Saying "no" isn't enough to claim she resisted. If someone uses his physical force against us, we're not supposed to just say "please stop" as if the guy were respectful enough to obey. And she went back to work for him? The girl doesn't know how to survive in a tough world.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#219

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway9848 wrote: post #188
sneak wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is not a deeper problem. It may be a problem, but it is minor compared to the fact that there are vast numbers of people who think that sexually assaulting people is okay. Different brains respond to severe emotional trauma in different ways. I urge you to spend some time with smart people with PTSD. Collect some data and evolve your beliefs.

Calling complete bullshit on you for "vast numbers of people who thing sexually assaulting people is okay". Either your definition of sexual assault is much different that standard usage, or you hang out with deplorable people. Edit: What did you hope to accomplish in your response? Edit 2: Also, perhaps instead you could educate us what it is we could learn by hanging out with smart people with PTSD. Since not all o…

[deleted]

Re: Because it needs to be said

#220

Post by erikpukinskis »

hrvbr wrote: post #218
Confusion wrote: post #118

I think there's a deeper cultural problem here: that the behavior of Joe had that much of an impact on Justine's life in the first place. There are women that would experience the same thing, but would not retreat into themselves in this extreme way. There are even women that would shrug it off. However, the response of Justine matches ancient societal expectations: if a woman has been violated, she loses all value.…

Yes, my first impression is that she's very fragile and passive. "Assault" is a too strong word if the guy let her go when she left for a smoke. And why didn't she punch the aggressor? Friends can be punched too. Saying "no" isn't enough to claim she resisted. If someone uses his physical force against us, we're not supposed to just say "please stop" as if the guy were respectful enough to obey. And she went back to…

> And why didn't she punch the aggressor?

She was in shock.

> Saying "no" isn't enough to claim she resisted.

Why does it matter if she resisted? Is it not rape if you don't resist?

Post reply on HN