Posts by Dylan Reeve
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Dude. I don’t know if you know this, but in some situations, every man is a potential rapist. When I’m walking home at night, every man is a potential threat to me. When an elderly lady is at home alone, every stranger could cause her harm.
I don't think that's true. Every man can be perceived as a potential threat, but almost every man is not a threat.
Telling every man to not be a rapist is conditioning women to believe every that every man may be a rapist, and generally increasing distrust between men and women.
And when we teach women that wearing Short skirts invites rape, that actually IS what we are saying. We’re saying that every man is a hemline/drunk chick/dark pathway away from being a rapist. It’s almost like y’all want us to be afraid.
I'm not sure if I wasn't clear. I do not believe we should be teaching women that anything invites rape (nothing does!!) - I think we need to eliminate that idea, but I don't think at the same time we need to start telling all men (and women) that every man is a potential rapist. Isn't that no better - "hey guys, we know you want to rape, but don't"??
DUDE. Women don’t make themselves victims. (Nor do men who are the victims of crimes.) Abusers and assaulters and rapists make people victims.
Again - totally not what I was saying. No one should be accused of making themselves a victim of crime. We acknowledge there are things in all circumstances that can reduce risk but not doing those things is never justification for crimes of any sort.
Not locking your front door doesn't justify someone taking your TV, etc etc...
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Rape culture is admonishing women to “learn common sense” or “be more responsible” or “be aware of barroom risks” or “avoid these places” or “don’t dress this way,” and failing to admonish men to not rape.
As much as I support the idea that admonishing women for failing to act in some way to prevent rape is absurd and wrong, I don't like the "failing to admonish men to not rape" part.
Rapists are the ones who rape. The vast majority of men are not rapists and when that idea of telling men not to rape idea becomes popular (it has at some events and in some circumstances) then it creates the opposite situation where instead of women being seen to be potentially inviting an attack, all men are seen as being potential attackers.
It's not unlike, in some ways, the paranoia that surrounds (in some places) men interacting with children. I know fathers personally who've been verbally abused for helping a stranger's kid who's fallen at a playground - I've never heard a similar story from a mother.
We shouldn't blame women for somehow making themselves victims, but it's also not beneficial to implicitly or explicitly that every man is a likely rapist.
That said, I don't know what a better approach is... Although I personally think that if we can stop blaming victims then that will help a lot.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Russell Brown,
Shit, it was dispiriting just reading about that ...
Yup. The three of us on the jury arguing for a guilty verdict were two guys and one woman. The other guy was in his 50s I think. Seemed business line. The woman was a little older than me I'd say. I was flabbergasted (not something I often am) to see women on the jury making those types of justifications especially. Maybe I shouldn't have been. It was all surreal and awful.
Fully expected we'd wander into our little room, talk for 15 minutes about what a scumbag the guy was and convict him, but nope.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Emma Hart,
I was really heartened to see a couple of people criticise Jones whom I’d seen run the ‘sensible precautions’ line themselves in the past.
There's nothing wrong with suggesting that people consider their personal image and how they might appear to others. But in the end none of it matters - no matter how "foolish" a person might be in getting themselves into some situation, nothing ever justifies the actions of another in attacking that person.
It's exactly the same as situations where cops kill some unarmed drunkard and people say "well he should have listened to their orders" - ignoring police instructions shouldn't ever be an offence punishable by death.
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I sat on the jury of a rape trial for three days in 2009 (I think) - it was one of the most disheartening experiences of my life.
As I remember it, the scenario went something like this:
The victim, a woman in her early 40s who would probably be described as a bogen by some, was approached by a younger man she knew through friends. He invited her back to his place to drink and smoke some weed.
They went to his place and had some drinks (8% bourbon and cola, to stay within stereotypes) and smoked a little weed with his flatmates. He then started to get a bit touchy feely with her, but she rebuffed him and then decided to leave. They all (the accused, victim and two flatmates) went downstairs and outside, but once they got outside he grabbed her, phsyically dragged her upstairs and locked the flatmates outside. He then took her to his room pushed her on the bed and ordered her to undress.
By her testimony she was afraid as he'd physically overpowered her and she basically shut down and just did whatever she was told out of fear.
In the mean time the flatmates called police who arrived after he'd assaulted her but while she was still locked inside. They spoke to her through a window where she, at his instruction told him she was fine, but unsatisfied and based on the flatmates' statements he was arrested and charged.
In the summing up of the case the judge explicitly told us that a defence to rape, given that she had not, according to her testimony fought or shouted or explicitly said stop, required that a "reasonable person" in the circumstances would believe they had consent to have sex.
I was the youngest on the jury (at about 29) and one of 4-5 males I think. I was one of only three who believed he should be convicted. The rest of the jury argued points like "well she didn't say no" and "she should have known better than to go to his place with him" and "they were doing drugs and drinking"
There was no dispute about the main claim of the events by the defence, only that the victim hadn't made it clear they weren't a willing participant.
In the end, mainly because I and one other juror made it very clear we wouldn't change our opinion, we declared that we couldn't reach a verdict.
After returning our non-verdict we became aware that it was a retrial. I'm going to assume that after two failed attempts to get a conviction that neither the police or victim wanted to go for a third try.
It was absolutely clear to me, from evidence presented by the victim and witnesses (the accused didn't testify) that there was no way any reasonable person could believe they had consent after physically overpowering someone and detaining them.
Like I said - one of the most disheartening experiences of my life.
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I think it could be possible to make an even lower budget version of Media [3/7] without sacrificing at least it's core ethos, but that's still not zero budget and an on-demand platform (which is what all online platforms are essentially) like YouTube isn't going to attract nearly as many viewers.
Without the viewers it's hard to offer value to an advertiser or sponsor. And also without being "television" it could be harder to attract some guests.
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I've been almost entirely disconnected from the Lorde thing. I had no concept of who she was or what she sang. I'd gathered she was achieving a lot of success, but the details in the post here make that even more impressive.
I've watcher a few of her videos on YouTube now and two things are immediately clear - she has a lot of talent, and any claim that she (or her lyrics) are sexualised is absurd.
Sweetman's review is all kinds of creepy for that reason. But beyond those claims it really just seems to be pointlessly contrarian.
That a teenager from New Zealand has managed to create this success, with her own skills and without the manufacturing that seems so common in modern pop music, is clearly something special. Why not celebrate it, as we do any other NZ success internationally?
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I've been subjected to psychometric testing only once (when I first applied for a job at TVNZ, I was offered that job and actually turned it down) - while I tried to be honest in answering it, it was clear that some questions really required certain answers.
It's not unlike the "are you are terrorist" question on arrivals documents for the USA - obviously no terrorist will answer that question honestly. Similarly, no slack and underskilled potential employee will honestly answer questions that are clearly intended to get that information from them.
It's even more baffling that such tests would be used in a redundancy situation when the company should clearly have plenty of information about the employees in question - how they fit into a team and how they work.
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Couldn't someone at least create some great post-apocalyptic film there? At least then we can all get something from this sadness.
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Hard News: The future: be careful what…, in reply to Anthony Behrens Esq,
Check out Slingshot’s marketing – bizzaro!
Yeah, they're going to the nudge nudge wink wink plausible deniability angle... "Oh noooooo, it's not so you can access overseas content in breach of the terms of those sites. It's just a convenient services for your overseas house guests"