This idea (of significant heredity) is so engrained in our culture that it’s not going anywhere soon. Look at the Bible, where a lot of the plot is about explaining the lineage of X. Jesus has to be traced back to King David (the incongruousness of tracing him back to a vicious, womanising near-psychopath being skated over). Aristocracies are entirely based on the idea that you have status through ancestry. In the Gilgamesh epic, Enkidu is created without ancestry to humble the pride of Gilgamesh - but still has to be created by a goddess, which is a kind of trump card.
Of course, the British aristocracy survives by getting outsiders in to ensure the gene pool doesn’t go completely Rees-Mogg, but they are usually attractive women.
A million times, this.
That was one reason some people thought she might be a Kenobi. In the older movies, a British accent usually means a character is associated with the Empire, or in Obi-wan’s case at least, the Old Republic. Even Leia affected a crisp, clipped mid-Atlantic accent when addressing Tarkin. Strange that they had John Boyega Americanize his accent but not Daisy Ridley.
Ah, the patriarchy up to its old tricks (not the OP, what she describes in the thread):
No kidding. Need to keep the focus on not being jerks.
One of the BEST things I ever did was listen on a listening hotline. Because we had so many mentally ill and super creepy callers, I got taught how to talk to people like this politely and not disclose information just to be nice. I also got to practice a lot and learn that the skills work really well.
So all you have to say is, “Sorry. I am not comfortable sharing that information with you. Bye.”
One day when my daughter was about 4, I was in a little park with her and a man approached with his small, friendly dog. He had some sob story about how his dog had cancer and he wanted my daughter to pet him. I just kept firm, “I’m sorry, I am do not know you and I am not comfortable.” He kept pressing and I just kept saying no. I was really proud to be able to do that and model it for my daughter.
And yes I had had the experience before I learned that skill of having random guys follow me and one even managed to figure out where I worked and called me at my office. It was scary.
I’m sure she is rightly concerned a “loyal viewer” might want a bit more. I’d be concerned that that’s where he had seen her from before.
It’s such a laborious task to get through that response thread. So many idiots.
If there were any logic to what they’re doing, I’d expect Finn to talk like a working-class black Londoner and Rey to talk like somebody from some far-flung desert place, like maybe Australia.
I’ve now left BoingBoing and asked to have my account anonymised; whether or not that happens I won’t know. But I noticed when I went to log off (I forgot after handing in my notice) that at least one person had replied to a subsequent post. As I won’t see those posts and some people who post here might be left in doubt, I’d just like to clarify that, contrary to accusations being levelled against me, I personally do regard rape regardless of gender as a serious, violent crime which has long term implications for the victim even where no physical violence is involved. I’m not going into my own family history except to say that this is not an academic statement. At all. I could tell you quite a lot about long term consequences from experience.
I made the mistake of trying to explain in a post what I thought might have been the logic of the parole system in this country, mentioning in passing that US law tends to be much more Mosaic. I deleted prior to posting a passage about Breivik and how in Norway he will probably serve only 21 years, but decided it might be a derail.
I made a number of mistakes in the post which made it ill-advised. First of all I did not spell out my own opinion with absolute clarity. Second, because most people in the US would not understand them, I avoided terms like actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm.
The result was several posts of a rather personal nature, one more or less accusing me of seeking to find excuses for rape, and several from people who were anxious to tell me that all rape is violent.
I was on BB for I think something over a year and a number of respondents would have read some of my past posts. Despite this none of them simply asked for clarification, but went straight onto the attack. I did try subsequently to explain what I had meant but that went down badly too and I realised it was time to stop digging.
This, however, was not why I decided to leave BB. It was actually because of a post from 44 that attracted no criticism whatsoever, advocating castration for rapists. I got well into drafting a careful response and then thought, why bother? What am I doing here? I’m changing nothing. I’m getting irate at a gun happy poster on a blog demonstrating his utter ignorance of psychology, while other people seem to be getting off on virtue signalling. And I’m part of this.
It wasn’t an eureka moment - I have wondered before about other threads where the US and the UK seem to inhabit different planets - but I thought, you know, I have nothing to contribute. This is not my world.
I am aware that criminal justice is an emotive subject, but that in my opinion is why it is such a failure. The British MP Ken Clarke, who was an experienced criminal barrister, was briefly put in charge of it in the UK and his attempt to bring in evidence based policies resulted in howls from the tabloids and his removal. As a kid my father used from time to time to tell me about trials at the Old Bailey that barristers he knew were involved in (he was on the commercial side,so dealt with sharks rather than gang leaders), and it’s clear that prison solves nothing; it’s an elastoplast (band-aid in the US). It engenders its own special corruption - private prisons, unions of guards, hierarchies of prisoners, drugs. I have no answers myself. Well, killing off all violent men would, technically, work provided you could be sure they wouldn’t get into positions of authority and use the system to their own advantage (also known as “becoming a warlord”).
So for anybody who has read this far I’d like to clarify my view - which is that violence against women and children is in fact possibly the largest social problem we have (eliminating it might eliminate a lot of other problems) but focussing on whether one person is or is not locked up or castrated is a deflection. The death penalty for murder in some US States doesn’t seem to be working, while in Saudi and Iran many innocent people get executed every year. Calling for the castration of rapists is unlikely to make the slightest dent in the number of rapes. A major change in attitudes is needed, and that actually means a social revolution, one that begins with children before they even start school; in fact even before they are born (prenatal poverty), since the evidence suggests that the abused are the next generation of abusers.
The movement against molesters and rapists needs to gain traction. The mighty need to be cast out from their seats, not just a minister or a few presenters and producers. Anger is an appropriate emotion but it needs to be directed anger, with cool dispassionate intelligence developing the weapons.
I doubt we will succeed till we eliminate the system by which sociopaths can become billionaires and presidents. That might look like a cop out (“We can’t do anything about crime till we have socialism”) but the message needs to be got out there.
This has become too much about me and I may regret posting it later, but due to the cross-board overlap I did not want people to think I was simply walking away because to explain myself would expose me to more attacks.
Finally, if the literature on sociology and criminal justice lacks appeal - and I would say it is an extremely tedious read - if you want to get a flavour of how the British establishment sees things, I can recommend the books of P D James. She actually worked in the criminal policy department, and the books which include Kate Mishkin convey, I think, something of the complexities of police work.
That’s the dilemma, isn’t it? These problems have no simple answers; in fact, they are extraordinarily complex. Maybe the long-needed pushback by women against molesters is a one positive step along the way.
I don’t blame you for leaving the other place. I got fed up and left in August I think. I still read the articles as they are interesting, but it seems to me (a totally non-scientific observation) that the number of comments has gone down.
I appreciate your comments always; very insightful.
I think the only way it will happen is when women stop collaborating with their abusers.
FWIW, if I were still posting at the BBS and had seen that I would have absolutely called 44 to account for that line. I’ve done it a few times before (not sure which posters I would have been responding to, so possibly 44 every time or others). I’m sure there are quite a few others here who have also left, who would have said something to counter that false premise.
The more posters who leave the BBS, the more of an echo chamber it will be.
For a majority of women, that would mean not “collaborating” with their fathers, uncles, teachers, boyfriends, husbands, bosses, etc. That’s simply not possible for most.
Exactly. When the focus is so tightly upon the abuse itself, it’s easy to forget that for the abuse to happen, there had to be a power imbalance in the first place.
This is a good analysis.
If I could possibly add something, the thing that I noticed was the dynamic between Vice Admiral Holdo and Poe (“I’m a man, why won’t this confounded woman listen to me?”).
It was all I could see, a man being discounted in the same manner women are every day. It reminded me of that old trope about people learning something from seeing it in a movie, and this possibly a bit too meta for them to handle.
I understand that. But every revolution begins with a vocal minority, e.g. the Suffragettes.
BTW I am a trustee of a charity in this area and I’ve known some of the women experiencing this kind of abuse. The horrifying thing is the way they kind-of accept it as part of life.