Publicly, We Say #MeToo. Privately, We Have Misgivings

Most news outlets did a really poor job being clear about what the picture was of. (Yes it was staged to look like he might have been touching; and at a glance in an airport on a muted TV many probably thought that's what he had done.)

Context and detail matter. Our TV culture is toxic in that it vastly over-simplifies and rapid fires everything.

Well put. What I would like to see is a public discussion around what constitutes a power dynamic large enough to make sexual advances unacceptable. Any two people have some degree of power differential, after all.

I could not disagree more.

In a world where great injustice have happened, the solution is rarely to abandon the legal system in order to right the wrongs. Too much collateral damage.

The article encourage us to discuss how to right the wrongs without abandoning the legal system. That would be a nice discussion to have on HN.

In this case, intent has no bearing on its utility.

What should guide the rhetoric of social movements is, to take it back to your college GE writing class, the consideration of "writer-based" vs. "reader-based" writing. In the former, you write what you feel based on how it makes sense to you; in the latter, the intent of the writing is to convey a message in the way that the audience can comprehend it.

That hashtag will and does imply "the accused is guilty." Something that would convey the intent you describe more directly would be along the lines of #DismissNoWomen or #TakeHerSeriously.

I think that this is a natural consequence of a world in which it's impossible to have a dialogue about some things. There are some topics in which it's essentially impossible to have a reasoned discussion about things that we disagree over.

This article talks about one: it's impossible to have this discussion with most people (including friends and family) because as soon as someone questions the generally accepted opinion, they're put on the defensive (in this case: "OMG why would you defend a molester?"), and the entire discussion becomes one of trying to defend yourself, and not about what you're trying to discuss.

The same thing happened with the Googler who questioned the idea of whether the tactics used for trying to improve Google's male-vs-female pay discrepancies. Instead of anyone responding to points he made in any sort of rational way, the discussion was immediately turned into "how can you defend someone who says women are worse than men?" -- not at all the case, but a quick way to avoid a factual discussion by pigeon-holing a person who dares to deviate from the generally accepted opinion.

This has also spread to politics: it's impossible to have any sort of reasoned debate about "hey, maybe isn't literally the devil across the board" -- the conversation immediately becomes one of trying to undermine the person ("OMG I can't believe you're defending Franken, a man who has assaulted women!").

It also happens when people try to debate things like whether the "Yes means yes" laws are useful, reasonable or effective; I've never seen a reasonable discussion about this (online or in real life), because if anyone questions it, they're immediately on the defensive, trying to argue that no, they're not defending rapists, and no they're not against a safe environment for women. Politically, it's brilliant marketing, because there is absolutely no way to argue against it without being immediately pigeonholed as a rape-defender, and then spending all of your time trying to dig out of a hole that you've been put into.

It's unhealthy, and I think leads to echo chambers -- no one dares to voice an opinion unless they know people will agree with them. And this ultimately makes the problem worse, I think, because without a reasonable dialogue about issues, and without being able to accept the fact that people may have logical reasons to disagree with you, I don't really understand how things will get any better.

Edited: Dialog -> dialogue