Joanna Schroeder resents that passive-aggressive live-tweeter Melissa Stetten is being held up as some sort of model of feminist activism.
This whole thing is a giant clusterf@&k of stupidity*.
Apparently there’s a C-list soap star named Brian who drank some beer and talked to a smart, gorgeous model on a red-eye flight from LA to NYC. Supposedly he talked to her in a way that all too many B- and C-list actors talk to cute women: About being “famous”, about how authentic/talented/spiritual they are, about the famous people they’ve met… And they do all this without reading the social cues given by the woman they’re talking to. In LA we have a word for these guys: Cheesedicks.
Cheesedicks: Guys who are somehow so cheesy and trite that they actually cross into being complete dicks with their obtuse and self-obsessed dialogue.
How do we know about Brian’s alleged Cheesedickery? Because Melissa Stetten live-tweeted it.
No thanks, Brian, the actor sitting next to me on this flight talking about his role with Kurt Russell and his spiritual beliefs.
— Melissa Stetten (@MelissaStetten) June 6, 2012
Brian hates closed minded people but loves artists in the industry, and just called this one-sided conversation a “collabo” between us.
— Melissa Stetten (@MelissaStetten) June 6, 2012
There’s a lot of that on her Twitter feed, and it’s actually really funny. And yep, it’s classic Cheesedickery.
But here’s where it goes bad:
Yes, this is BRIAN! RT @Pat_Healy: @MelissaStetten Is this him by any chance? imdb.com/name/nm0696169/
— Melissa Stetten (@MelissaStetten) June 6, 2012
Now all her Twitter followers (and everyone on the Internet) know who he is. And that he’s married. And that he’s supposed to be sober (she tweets about him taking his Heineken into the bathroom with him).
Suddenly we have a sinking feeling. Brian’s annoying flirting and chatter has become something much, much worse. Suddenly we see someone’s life start to unravel.
And now the media floodgates have lifted and word of Brian’s cheesedickery is global.
People have come out against Stetten, saying she exploited him. Others have come out in support of her, like my own friend and GMP-controversy catalyst, Hugo Schwyzer, in an article on Jezebel:
The reason we should cheer Melissa Stetten isn’t because she’s a young, pretty model who used her snarky wit, her Twitter network, and Virgin America’s inflight Wifi to start an (literally) overnight media sensation. The reason we should cheer her is because she didn’t do what women in her position are “supposed” to do, which is quietly put up with the come-ons of older married dudes in various stages of intoxication. Brian didn’t just disrespect his marriage by slipping off his ring in the airplane lavatory before returning to his seat, he disrespected Melissa by presuming that she was young enough, dumb enough, and C-list-star-struck enough to fall for it. That so many don’t see Presley’s behavior as more than deserving of Stetten’s response says a great deal about what we expect women to endure.
Let me be clear: Brian Presley seems troubled. He may be in the middle of a relapse. He may be having troubles in his marriage. He may also just be a Cheesedick. And his obnoxious one-sided conversation (as characterized by Stetten) should be noted as really gross, and something people simply shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t slip off your wedding ring and tell people you’re not married when you really are. And you should read people’s social cues and just stop bugging them if they’re not reciprocating your conversation.
I agree with all of that.
But it isn’t a zero-sum game… Just because she was a jerk to Tweet it to the public world, doesn’t make him less of a jerk for whatever it is someone would think he’s a jerk for doing (i.e. possible relapse, flirting while married, ignoring social cues).
Stetten could’ve tweeted the events without confirming Brian’s identity publicly. She could’ve written the story up without his last name and had it published somewhere. She’s really funny, and the story is relevant. But my guess is that she confirmed his fame because she wanted the notoriety.
And she knew this would bring notoriety:
Did I just ruin Brian Presley’s life via twitter?
— Melissa Stetten (@MelissaStetten) June 6, 2012
And here’s what bothers me most: The presumption that women are so weak that we should use any tool available to us to stop men from bugging us. She can’t sit up straight, look him in the eye and say, “Please stop talking to me”? She can’t get up and ask for assistance from a flight attendant if her “stop it” didn’t work? Why are women portrayed as being such cowering children that we cannot stop something like this from happening to us? Or at least attempt to stop it?
What kind of feminism is that? To me, it seems like the kind that believes in keeping women weak—utilizing passive-aggressive techniques rather than direct intervention to end the behavior when it is actually possible.
Hugo insists that she stood up against what we, as a society, expect women to endure. But did she stand up for it? No. Did she stop this obnoxious behavior so that she wouldn’t have to “endure” it? No. She endured it so that she could exploit it.
GMP colleague and sex-positive feminist Julie Gillis says:
I am not sure anyone should be fair game for mass ridicule. I dislike it even when it’s a politician or major celebrity… Even if it’s absolutely true that he was bothering her, seems like the thing to do would be to get an attendant to help out. This is what I’d teach my child: if someone is bothering you, get a teacher. I would not teach him to tweet about what a jerk the other kid is.”
Is public shaming really the only tool we, as women, have against men who are making us uncomfortable? Certainly in some situations that could be considered the case. But this was on an airplane (and a Virgin one, nonetheless) in the United States where if you say your seat mate is harassing you, you’re gonna be taken seriously.
There are places and times in all women’s lives where our “No” isn’t taken seriously. There are situations wherein a woman truly doesn’t have a voice. Based purely upon what she offered on her Twitter account, it sounds like she didn’t directly attempt to stop his flirting. Maybe she did say “Brian, please stop talking to me” and explained that she wanted to sleep/listen to music/read/sit quietly, etc…
But if she had, why wouldn’t she have live-tweeted that? How, in fact, do even we know that her portrayal of the conversation is accurate?
In a Facebook conversation about Hugo’s piece, someone said this to me:
“I’m annoyed but not surprised that there is a question of her honesty … wow. How do you know she’s NOT lying? He’s done the obvious lying but hey, let’s question her ability to tell the truth. Victim shaming. Keep it up.”
Is this victim-shaming? Me saying that she shouldn’t have publicly outed him for this behavior is shaming her for being the victim? No, I’m not shaming her for having him talk at her. I’m simply saying that she handled this wrong in a situation where she had many options.
Seems to me the term “victim-shaming” should be reserved for individuals who are being told they deserve what they got. I don’t think Stetten deserved to have a Cheesedick spout at her on a red-eye. I just disagree with the passive-aggressive way in which she dealt with the problem.
And I disagree with feminists who believe that women should have the right to say anything they want publicly about any guy who pisses them off simply because the offender is a man.
If, in fact, Brian Presley said and did all the things Stetten says (and I have no reason to doubt her), then he certainly created this situation for himself. But Stetten is no feminist hero for exploiting it.
*Note: We’re all stupid sometimes. Especially me. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t explore the way we react to things.
About Joanna Schroeder
Yeah, good stuff. Also, I posted this on one of H’s pieces; “Nice ladies protect drunken married men from the consequences of their own actions. Good women keep their mouths shut.” This isn’t my beef. It’s not that I think he should have been allowed to make her life difficult in the moment. She should have told him, and loudly so that other passengers might hear, to back the fuck off and let her sleep. That wouldn’t have been “keeping his silence,” it would have been appropriately setting some boundaries, telling him off and what a jerk she thought he was, and getting back on with her life. What she did though, was take glee in embarrassing him on a mass scale. He wasn’t tweeting simultaneously (that we know of) tweets like, “Can’t believe this piece of A$$ I’m about to score, check out these photos of her.” And perhaps, since he was lamely trying to get his perhaps struggling with sobriety game on, he wouldn’t have anyway. But, this is less about good girls being good, and empathetic humans being human and just dealing directly with the problem at hand (him) rather than excoriating someone and his life, that she doesn’t know at all. I think if this was the reverse? If a male model was going after some B list Christian TV star for flirting with him, we’d double call him a creep, personally.”
I think that they both seemed like jerks, and frankly I wish I’d never heard of any of it. I really don’t have any need for scandals that are made of nothing but our own judgements.
I think that they both seemed like jerks, and frankly I wish I’d never heard of any of it. I really don’t have any need for scandals that are made of nothing but our own judgements.
That’s exactly right, Julie.
I’ve been amazed how many people have come out regarding this scandal saying things like, “This is what he gets for flirting when he’s married!” and I simply want to throw this question out there:
What would happen if there were a video camera on you during your last “girls night out” or “guys night out”?
I know there are very, very faithful people in the world who never flirt, and never do anything in appropriate. But are ALL these people who judge truly this pure?
I still say, he was “witnessing.” For those who don’t know how dehumanizing and smarmy being “witnessed” at can be, trust me, you would think he was hitting on you as well. And the first 8 of her Tweets tell the story of textbook witnessing. I can show you the textbook if you would like; I still have them from my misbegotten youth spent in Bible College.
Lynn, I’d love to learn more about this.
My misspent youth in Hollywood gave it the name Cheesedickery. Same diff.
But seriously, if you write a little ditty about that, I’d love to publish it.
“Witnessing” would make you feel like your being “hit on.”? I’ve been “Witnessed” to before since I lived in an area that had a vibrant evangelical community… I know what it is and it isn’t like being hit on unless Prince is doing the witnessing. It just means they want you get with Jesus.
Now the Good Men Project has certain guidelines about being polite so I will try my darnedest to be polite and try to say in the most delicate way how ridiculous that sentiment is.
What your doing is expressing a prejudice. A prejudice rooted in a sexist attitude toward men and expressed in a manner that makes you look like your a victim. (of “Witnessing”)
I think this kind of talk has very significant repercussions for how we look at Sexual Harassment in the U.S. When even preaching your beliefs has to be taken in a sexual way men are in danger of false accusations of sexual harassment.
“victim shaming”????!!!! Wait a second, so this half drunk guy sits next to you who is some semi-celeb (who I have never heard of) and that makes you an instant victim because he is male and you are female? Give me a fricking break. This is where the cyber “feminists” like Hugo and his lot really just drive me crazy. Not because I don’t fully support eradicating sexism, sex trafficking, sexual abuse in all forms…even continued sexual bias in the workplace. But because this idea that the oppressed of the world as individuals don’t have the power to do anything in the moment other than fight back in the most underhanded way. No one expected her to do nothing. What she did was cop out by turning the thing into a media circus rather than acting like an adult and dealing with another human being if he was bothering her. Ask to be moved or tell the guy to leave her alone. I like strong women (and men), not men who seem determined to come to the defense of supposed female victims in the name of feminism. That’s not what I believe feminism is about. It’s about female power.
Word. Concise reply here, and a kind one.
Amen to that.
She is a jerk, what she did was extremely wrong. Hugo is living in a dreamland if he can’t see that, and it’s kind of ironic considering what the radfems did to him and him pulling out of various activities because he was publically dragged through the mud. I recall seeing posts on a facebook of radfems messaging a youth group activity Hugo was involved with, and quite shortly after he pulled out. Now he is defending the same kind of action, it would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic and quite frankly scary. Seems it’s acceptable to piss all over a persons life, career via tactics that are considered bullying. Is he only against bullying when it’s bullying against women or something?
If this Brian fella was PROVEN to have sexually assaulted her or something, I could understand the need for people to hammer down on him, but this is hearsay of a guy failing miserably at hitting on someone, how the fuck is that deserving of the attention it’s getting? Did she actually tell the guy NO, stop hitting on me, I am not interested, It won’t happen? Or is this all relying on magical body language to tell him no? (the guy is meant to be drunk so already at a reduced mental capacity)
Here’s the thing….yeah, she was a douchebag for what she did….I’m a feminist and I can see that…but she’s no more guilty than he is. He was a jerk, she was a bitch. He was being sexist (not okay), she reacted in a way that she thought was her only option when obviously it wasn’t (not okay)
We all agree they’re both stupid.
My question is: why get mad at “feminism/feminists” for her actions? Ok, some people think it was okay, some people don’t….well, guess what…..WHO CARES?! If some guy grabs me…I know it’s not likely the fault of the MRA’s; he’s just a piss-ant and likely has no clue what an MRA is. She did this because she’s a bitch…it wasn’t because the feminists “made” her tweet it.
This woman did what she did because she’s pretty and feels entitled to dismiss the peasants. This guy did what he did because a “man has needs and it’s his right”. Both acting out of “priviledge”.
Maybe it’s time for the more moderate people to walk away from radical feminists and MRA’s (two sides of the same coin) and start a new revolution….
Honestly Tom, I like you…I like some of what you have to say…but ever since the “great debate/battle”…you seem kinda pissed…as in “MRA’s might be onto something” kinda pissed. ….and it is upsetting because there are enough battle lines drawn.
Personally, you and Hugo are both needed by the movement….why? Because it creates balance imo.
Um, I think he’s mad at how some of the “cyber feminists” are coming to her defense and treating her automatically like a victim, not blaming feminism for her actions?
What’s the objective difference between this and what women do everyday on sites like Hollaback.com?
I am not sure at all. Im not a fan of any of it
I second Julie here.
At best all I can come up with is that the Hollaback thing is about guys that actually do something like rude commentary or attempts at actual touching. And every once in a while there is a story about such guys actually getting in trouble with the law for their actions.
This right here? Some woman that wanted to make a name for herself and Hugo still trying to figure out when women’s shit stopped stinking.
As best as I can tell, it’s anything goes on that website and there is absolutely no fact checking involved. And some of the content (i.e. tantrums) reminds me of people who speak in tongues.
Hollaback is women saying “we will fight back on our own since laws cannot/will not be enforced”. If a jerk harasses a woman on the street, it’s rare that she can run and find a cop in 1 min to report him, which means he goes unpunished for his behavior. This can’t be allowed. Some men are asses and need to know that they will be called out on their illegal actions. Plain and simple. Sometimes repeat offenders are identified and prosecuted (good thing)…sometimes getting their photo taken is enough to make them think twice.
Some men just plain hate women. They are like angry children who will do what they can to hurt others and they need to be dealt with by their victims…they need to know that they will be confronted at every turn…they need to accept that they must follow the rules like everyone else.
Same for women who hate men. ……or anyone who hates anyone. It’s time we all force ourselves to grow up.
I have to ask, what proof is there of them doing it? Like how do they prove it really happened as they say, do they record it? I ask because I have trouble with people posting photos or identification without proof to back it up.
This situation is varying degrees of bad and worse, but I think she is the reason it escalated. Instead of her promptly telling him, “Listen, champ, I’m not interested in any way shape or form. Why don’t you take another sip of your drink and let me sleep, okay?” She made a conscious decision to publicly humiliate this guy for her own enjoyment. He is somewhere between a clueless oaf and a cheesedick, but she is a cruel, heartless person. There are many overt ways that she could have gotten herself out of the situation — put headphones in, tell him to kindly stfu, get a flight attendant, etc — but she chose to publicly humiliate him on twitter. “Did I just ruin Brian Presley’s life on Twitter.” Yes, you did, which is exactly what you hoped with happen when you first started tweeting about the situation instead of trying to resolve it like an adult.
Yep and if some mras were doing this about a woman for some reason I can see the feminist community up in arms. I personally am appalled by both examples just lOok at avfm and their
Register her site.
The register her site is a bit much but for what it was MEANT to be is a good idea, I’d want to know if someone purposely falsely testifying to being raped because no chance in hell would I date them or even keep them as a friend. It goes overboard though with the bigot section, that part needs to be on a seperate site and there shouldn’t be any digging for info. The bigot section should just be on the female version of the manboobz site (if one exists).
“She made a conscious decision to publicly humiliate this guy for her own enjoyment. He is somewhere between a clueless oaf and a cheesedick, but she is a cruel, heartless person.”
Amen to that. She’s probably opened herself up to legal charges too…
I agree. It would have been more appropriate to first try to shut him down “locally’ instead of going straight to a global humiliation. Then, if a direct individual approach didn’t work, ratchet up the defense as necessary. Just the stated threat of Twittering about his behavior would probably have done the trick without the need to carry through on it.
Notice that she tweeted about him without his knowledge, which would have had NO impact on him stopping his behavior. The goal was payback, not to stop him from what he was doing.
This does not excuse either of them, but on the bright side perhaps people on planes will be a little more circumspect about laying it on too thick.
I went through the tweets.
I’m still trying to figure out if he was still harassing her when he was sleeping and she took a picture of him.
http://twitpic.com/9tdd17
Oh well, now that’s an interesting development.
Right?
I was coming home from my summer job this week, sitting on a train, with my earbuds in, reviewing material for my next class (I teach part-time for a test prep company), when the woman next to me struck up a conversation.
She was my age, and I guess she was attractive, I’m not really sure because I wasn’t thinking about it at the time. She mostly wanted to complain about the attitude of the fare inspectors who had just boarded the train. I tried to be polite and non-committal and get back to what I was doing.
Then I remembered all these ridiculous pieces here, on Jezebel, writings by Ozyfrantz, etc. on how men are constantly violating the boundaries of women because we’re all big selfish mansplaining jerks who can be described using old words like “creep” or brand new ones like “cheesedick.” Why was I so willing to put up with this type of behavior from a woman, when apparently my female counterparts burn these incidents into their memories with a branding iron of righteous anger?
Then I started to wonder what would happen if, as a man, I started making a mental note of all the women who constantly overstep my boundaries and don’t think anything of it. From the women who think I will buy them a drink simply because they have 2-X chromosomes (that I am buying a drink for my girlfriend often has surprisingly little effect on their request), to the women who ask me to pick-up/move/carry something in the “warehouse” section of Ikea because I’m a man and that’s apparently my job (no joke, happens at least once every single time I go to Ikea), to the young women from my classes who see no problem regularly asking for my notes (even though I’ve personally witnessed them refuse to share their own notes with other people).
I’m just no longer convinced that refusing to respect boundaries is a gendered issue.
I strongly suspect that women violate boundaries at least as often as men do, but men are told that we should put up with it, and so it doesn’t make us angry.
If I walk up to a woman at a bar and grab her hindquarters, I fully expect to be slapped, have a drink thrown in my face, and then be escorted out by the bouncer. I would expect the woman involved to be quite angry, and she would probably tell her friends about it for the next week or so.
Yet I’ve definitely felt a strange woman’s hand on my own hindquarters on more than one occasion, and it’s usually met with a thumb’s-up from people around me, rather than consternation, head-shaking, and no bouncer has yet felt the need to do anything. More importantly: I don’t get angry about it, even though I’m not interested, have a girlfriend, and feel slightly embarrassed for those involved. It’s usually something I don’t talk about afterwards.
So, as I read these stories about Melissa-Nobody and Brian-Something-or-Other, I can’t help but shake my head slowly as the stereotypes play out once again.
We’re told that Brian-Whoever-He-Is didn’t act the way he did because he’s a human; rather he acted the way he did because he’s a man. And Melissa-15-Minutes-of-Fame is justified in a public shaming because she’s a woman, and women need to be able to shame men for their arrogant gendered behavior.
These stereotypes are perpetuated by sites like Jezebel, academics like Dr. Schwyzer, and an entire army of bloggers whose worldview is dependent upon making pretend that these behaviors are gender specific.
But what do I know, my tiny male brain is probably locked in an uncontrollable testosterone rage and just mansplaining.
Amen Mike L.
Actually- surprise, surprise ! Jezebel hive-mind said it is mansplaining.
“the women who ask me to pick-up/move/carry something in the “warehouse” section of Ikea because I’m a man and that’s apparently my job ” -
I agree with some of what you say but I in this quote I think the victimization rhetoric might be going full swing toward the idea that your being victimized by women when you aren’t.
I am SO WITH YOU Quadruple A!
I’m saying to women, “Just say ‘No’ and find a solution” (when possible, sometimes it doesn’t work of course).
I’d say the EXACT same thing to you as I say to women! Turn away from someone talking to you on a train. They 99.5% of the time don’t mean harm. If turning away doesn’t work, say something like I suggest in the original story: “I’m going to get some work done now, but it was nice chatting.” or “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit in the quiet now/read a book/sleep/listen to music/whatever”.
If this doesn’t work, you ask to be moved.
In Ikea? Say, “so sorry, I can’t do that for you right now. I think the Ikea employees wear blue vests, though.” in a nice way, and walk away.
PS I would help people in Ikea who needed help. No need to be a dick, they might be asking for help rom anyone and you looked nice. I help men and women lift stuff all the time because I’m freakishly strong for a small person!
In Ikea? Say, “so sorry, I can’t do that for you right now. I think the Ikea employees wear blue vests, though.” in a nice way, and walk away.
PS I would help people in Ikea who needed help. No need to be a dick, they might be asking for help rom anyone and you looked nice. I help men and women lift stuff all the time because I’m freakishly strong for a small person!
Easier said than done. I dig what you and AAAA are saying but at the same time this whole “you’re a guy so you must be able to do this right…” gets bothersome. And it doesn’t help that even a nice attempt at refusal can be met with “what kind of man are you.” Kinda leaves you in a spot where you feel that even a polite refusal makes you sound like a jerk, or since that word doesn’t appear to be strong enough when want to associate jerkish behavior with male genitals, a dick (seriously the use of dick like this makes me almost want to defend the practice of associating cowardice with female genitals).
In casual life, I say “dick” for anyone who is being a jerk and I say “pussy” to mean cowardice or being whiney. I’m COMPLETELY not PC. I get the big picture about why I shouldn’t but it’s really hard to stop. I justify it to myself by saying that I call women “dicks” all the time as well as “pussies” so I’m clearly just a disaster in this way.
But I hear you.
Anyway, sure, it never feels good to brush someone off when they’re making you uncomfortable. But that’s what women are faced with in situations like what she was in on the plane… We’re not supposed to say, “this isn’t what I want to do right now.” and we’re met with a lot of anger when we do. So we can identify with how you feel when you say “no” to something that women think you should be saying “yes” to.
And if more women understood that comparison, they may be less likely to impose upon a stranger. When you ask a stranger for help, you don’t know if he’s very late for something, or trying to find a small child who wandered off, has a hurt back, etc…
On the other hand, I never mind helping others as long as it’s not going to put me in danger or hurt me (i.e. right now my wrist is recovering from being sprained). Being yapped at by some random guy may not hurt me or put me in danger, but it can be very uncomfortable and both you and I should have every right to refuse to engage in something that isn’t great for us.
In casual life, I say “dick” for anyone who is being a jerk and I say “pussy” to mean cowardice or being whiney. I’m COMPLETELY not PC. I get the big picture about why I shouldn’t but it’s really hard to stop. I justify it to myself by saying that I call women “dicks” all the time as well as “pussies” so I’m clearly just a disaster in this way.
But I hear you.
You know I’m actually okay with you doing that. At least you using both rather than using one and screaming murder over the use of the other.
Being yapped at by some random guy may not hurt me or put me in danger, but it can be very uncomfortable and both you and I should have every right to refuse to engage in something that isn’t great for us.
I dig.
And lord help you if you actually aren’t able to accomplish what’s being asked of you. Upper body strength was most emphatically NOT distributed evenly among the Y chromosomal.
I never actually used the word “victim” anywhere, that seems to be a word you are putting in my mouth.
The point is that I am NOT a victim. I am a human being dealing with a common human behavior. However, some of my fellow humans want to redefine this common behavior as being gendered in order to further existing stereotypes about which groups in our society are “victims” and which are “victimizers.”
If we look at Dr. Schwyzer’s article we see that he refers to a polite response not as something HUMANS are supposed to do, but rather something that women are supposed to do. The very language presupposes a stereotyped encounter where the only type of person who would ever see their boundaries violated is a woman, and by extension that this sort of behavior is a situation in which women are victims.
My point is that this is actually a common, ungendered experience. There is no victim group in this instance, myself included.
I got what you’re talking about. The problem is not that men should be more sensitive to situations, but that women should be less sensitive to it, at least when taken as a gendered issue.
And better yet, how often does this happen elsewhere? It was often claimed that women were the ones who had the most media enforcement of gender roles. The problem was not that women faced it more, it was that it bothered them more, and so they spoke out about it. The only voices speaking were women, so people just assumed women were the only ones dealing with it.
We as people, deal with a ton of the SAME issues. The main difference that gender makes is how we are raised to deal with said issues.
A butt-grab is supposedly a good sign for a guy. And by the golden rule, he’ll grab the butt of a girl he likes. But the girl has been raised such that that’s offensive.
So basically, if everyone starts grabbing everyone else’s butt, we’ll get a bunch of guys who think they’re awesome, and the only ones we’ll hear talking about are women, so we’ll think women are the only ones who have to deal with that “problem.”
Mike L. has got this covered. I would love to see a response by Jezebel, Ozyfrantz, the academics, and whoever else you mentioned. I don’t think they take the time to listen to the other side of the story. Or if they do, it probably gets filtered out as, like you said, “mansplaining.”
First, I don’t think they’d call it “mansplaining” as I’m a woman…
Second, nobody should be calling ANY of this relating to this situation mansplainging. That doesn’t even make sense. If a feminist (or whomever) says something in this story is mansplaining, they don’t know what it means at all.
Mansplaining is when a man talks down to you like you’re an idiot and like you know nothing, and he knows everything, about a subject. I can’t figure out how there’s any mansplaining either in the original article or in mine.
But feel free to fill me in.
I usually gathered that “mansplaining” was just excessive description. Like, over-rationalizing why they feel a certain way, or explaining how innards of a car works when you only asked where the brake pedal is. But I’m fairly new to the term, anyway.
“Mansplaining is when a man talks down to you like you’re an idiot and like you know nothing, and he knows everything, about a subject.”
That is a synonym for “patronizing.”
Did you have a substantive reply or did you just want to nitpick my use of feminist terminology?
So, actually – what you are saying is that you feel kinda bad that your boundaries are not respected the way you’d like them to be, and that it’s unpleasant when people operate in a mode of entitlement. I get that.
What confuses me is that you somehow get from there to what sounds like you’re saying that women should accept similar treatment.
Lars,
It actually took conscious effort for me to “feel bad” and even then I’m not sure I do.
The point is that academics like Dr. Schwyzer, and websites like Jezebel, keep trying to define this issue as something that men do to women. In reality, this is simply something that people do to each other.
Are we better off if it doesn’t happen? Maybe.
Are we better off in a world where men are not stereotyped as the only gender that fails to respect common boundaries? Definitely.
I take women at their word. It’s a nightmare out there for them. I spent all day ignoring them. I’m doing my part to get back to square one between the sexes. How about you?
What kind of feminism is that? To me, it seems like the kind that believes in keeping women weak—utilizing passive-aggressive techniques rather than direct intervention to end the behavior when it is actually possible.
What kind you ask? The kind that says women are free to do what they want in the name of “girl power”. Even if it calls for doing things that they would scream the bloodiest of murder over if men did to women.
Well I was going to try to say more but Mike L pretty much has it all covered.
I have a lot of trouble caring about a kerfluffle involving a snarky, mean-spritied model gal and a drunk C-list actor dude. Why is this even news? Nobody should give a rat’s ass about either of these people. He shouldn’t have been a drunk buffoon, she was welcome to Tweet about him but it was crappy to publicly identify him. enough said, let’s all move on to something more important. Like, almost anything.
There are a few reasons to care.
First, this is representative of what happens every day, in one form or another. This is striking a chord with SO many people because of the fact that women can identify with the discomfort and sometimes deeply unsafe feelings that often accompany these interactions.
And I think men probably can do. Lots of guys right now are thinking, “Have I done this? If I had made someone this uncomfortable, would I know?” “What if someone said I did this, and I actually didn’t?”
And we’re talking about very BIG issues here in the context of this small, stupid thing. We’re talking about victimization, the presumption of the guilt of men, infidelity, and who is responsible for someone else’s behavior. This one case is small and insignificant, really, but the broader themes are not.
I understand it can be taken to be representative or larger issues, it’s just, I don’t know, I’m so tired of people using stuff like this to grab 15 seconds of internet fame. (I know that Andy Warhol said 15 minutes, but I think that’s shrunk to seconds in our era.)
What do you guys think about this comment we got on the GMP Facebook page about this story? I can see a LOT of merit to what she’s saying, though I disagree in practice…
“One the one hand, two wrongs most definitely do NOT make a right. On the other, it seems that as self-interested as people are nowadays, public humiliation is the only moral guide they understand.”
Sounds like a race to the bottom to me. I wonder if she’d still feel that way if it was her turn to be on the receiving end of such a “moral guide”
I think that she is partly right – narcissists only understand how to humiliate others and have no other moral guide. This woman’s behavior is hardly new. People have been putting others down behind their backs long before the internet.
Well, we then first have the pescy question: whose moral? Using public humiliation as a moral guideline (which in reality will be an arbitrary punishment with difficult-to-assess damages doled out by biased people who feel wronged) has always worked perfectly, right? Let’s re-introduce badges of shame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badge_of_shame). Good idea.
(Due to Poe’s law I have to say that I hope the sarcasm shows through)
On the other hand the circle is complete here. Brian Presley was publicly shamed for behaving improperly (talking, drinking and opening window covers on a flight) towards Melissa Stetten who again was publicly shamed for being passive-aggressive snitch who (like all of us) haven’t been completely honest in all things in her life. Both got defenders and detractors and I suspect neither of them will improve/admit any wrongdoings which again just proves that public humiliation works best in a small homogenous society and not so much in a large fragmented internet-enabled global society.
He’s supposedly going behind his wife’s back, but by tweeting about the situation instead of confronting the man she’s only shown the man that it’s wrong simply because of the negative reaction from the public.
She didn’t stop what was happening to her, she only set about humiliating the man.
What happens when the public humiliation has little if no effect ?
Some people live in circles where certain things we’d frown upon are widely accepted.
It is clear that Melissa Stetten dislike a lot being disturbed when flying. Brian at least is an adult responsible for his own actions, it’s worse with this kid who cried a lot on her flight: http://twitpic.com/8wdtz4
Yeah, that’s nice. Publish an identifiable picture of a small kid you don’t know on twitter where you tell him to shut the fuck up or else the Langoliers (plane eating monsters from a Stephen King novel/novelette) will eat him.
Are you kidding me? More and more this woman is beginning to sound like a total brat. It’s bad enough she took and posted pictures of Brian Pressley without his consent, but who the heck takes pictures of a stranger’s kid and posts them?
I said up above that this women is just a cruel person, and the more I hear about her the more I am sure of it. She thoroughly enjoys publicly humiliating others. One of my greatest fears in life is again getting myself involved with a woman like that. It happened once before and it has scarred me ever since.
Cruel? Possibly. Sounds like she’s using social media to try to live her life as it was a reality show. As if the actual shows weren’t stupid enough.
ht tp://fandaily.info/celebrities/is-model-melissa-stetten-650-mega-million-winner/
Some more from her apparently. Her credibility is diminishing…Joanna, can you show that picture to Hugo and ask him what he thinks of her posting that?
Everything I’ve read about that says it was an April Fool’s Day joke.
Wouldn’t surprise me, guess it looks like an April fools joke. Credibility raised! Now hopefully someone will post proof he did what she said instead of the he says she says drama, was she kind enough to record the conversation via camera phone or something? She posted pics of him asleep so I don’t think she cares about privacy laws much.
My god, that’s very, very, VERY uncool.
ht tp://twitpic.com/90coag and some more.
ht tp://twitpic.com/9dizjc
Hmm what’s the trend, post photos of people n say rude stuff about them for what reason?
“http://twitpic.com/8wdtz4
Yeah, that’s nice. Publish an identifiable picture of a small kid you don’t know on twitter where you tell him to shut the fuck up or else the Langoliers (plane eating monsters from a Stephen King novel/novelette) will eat him.”
Although the comments by her followers are not her fault, one of her followers made what I can only interpret as a racist joke about the kid in the picture. My potential sympathy is diminishing by the second.
So I was one of the people who LOL’ed when this first went around. Not because she “got back at him” or “he got what he deserved”, or whatever. No, what made me laugh was the absurdity of two semi-celebrities trashing around, each in their own way making complete asses of themselves. They both demonstrate horrible judgement, and they both use their (small) claim at celebrity status to somehow justify their stupidity. The result is a classic farce.
To me, their both in the wrong, and I absolutely feel good about laughing at them.
This brings up the point of non-verbalized boundaries. While this is a more extreme case, it does seem common sometimes to just let a guy go about whatever he’s doing without setting boundaries, then later publicly humiliate him or spread rumors if he DID cross said boundaries. It’s almost as though the explicit GOAL is to have your boundaries crossed, perhaps to prove a dark theory about someone, draw sympathy, or find solace in a victim status.
Victim blaming? No. I’m not blaming her for a rather slimy approach by a married man. Action and reaction are independent, and her choice of reaction was, well, the most damaging one amongst her options.
It’s almost like degrading or provoking a black man, maybe shoving him, to illicit a response, then using the response to prove that “black men are violent. See? See?” The situation is independent of ethnic group or gender.
Is this really what we should be teaching our girls? Don’t express your boundaries (except for, maybe, subtle, ambiguous hints?) and if he crosses those boundaries, you’re entitled to treat him as badly as you wish?
It’s like failing to mark a boundary between two properties, then shooting those who cross the boundary because they were trespassing. All it will do is synthetically bloat the incidents of boundary-crossing amongst men.
I’m against any kind of live tweeting like this. It’s ironic, but for all our alleged sophisticatiOn we’re becoming more and more like Puritan New England. (No, I am not defending Presley; I am saying that the “punishment” seems a little severe.) we are getting to the point where reflection and contemplation is considered a waste of time.
To take this out of the sexual arena, I think the idea that everything we do is somehow public domain very disturbing. I work in retail, which is considered public space. Heaven forbid I have a bad day. What if my attempt to recommend a product is misconstrued as pushiness or worse a cheap come-on?
Consider this example: A few months before his public shaming of a flight attendant, Alec Baldwin tweeted the following:
“Starbucks on 93 and B’way. Uptight Queen barista named *** has an attitude problem.”
(name redacted by me, but Baldwin tweeted it in ALL CAPS)
However, the guy’s fellow baristas came to his defense:
http://www.cinemablend.com/pop/Starbucks-Barista-Responds-Alec-Baldwin-Angry-Tweet-34988.html
The difference, of course, is that Baldwin has millions of followers.
Another, more innocuous example is when a relatively anonymous guy tweeted something to the effect that the actor Simon Pegg was boring. Pegg retweeted this and Pegg’s many followers trashed the guy mercilessly, until Pegg called them off. Are we really so combative that we can’t let someone have an opinion on an actor?
Finally getting back to the main topic: to all the people hailing Stetten as a hero, let alone a feminist hero: the name of Presley’s wife is public knowledge. Did she deserve to have her husband’s philandering made public?
Could not agree more.
Hear, hear! I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been arguing all week to my friends that while Brian is clearly a jerk, Melissa’s duplicity in all this is pretty alarming. She’s pretending to have the moral high ground, but while she laments his dishonesty for flirting behind his wife’s back (and drinking while “sober), she’s being about as two-faced as she can be by broadcasting her complaints to the world while seemingly making none of them clear to Brian himself. (My only questions is: how did Brian not see she was tweeting the whole time?) Ladies, yes, push back on guys like this as much as you can. But do it to their face, too, not just behind their backs.
He probably didn’t notice because he’s a Cheesedick.
You mean this Melissa Stetten? ht tp://fandaily.info/celebrities/is-model-melissa-stetten-650-mega-million-winner/
You know what fucking disgusts me about all of this?
There isn’t a shred of proof he said any of that. It’s her word and her word is acceptable to shame him, harm his family, ridicule him. And what’s sad is people believe her and don’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Was there a recording, a way to prove he said any of that? Or did she do another claim for attention like her photoshopped lotto ticket?
Now without proof, can he sue her for libel? Obviously this has slandered his character, caused major public embarassment etc so what legal options does he have?
She willingly and publically humiliated him, and I’m sure she knew it would cause considerable damage to his life especially as he is married so quite frankly I hope he sues her, even if he was a jerk. There are much better ways to deal with jerks than drag their family through the mud without proof. I think in Australia the cyberbullying laws may cover this, which is up to 10 years jailterm…I may be wrong though.
So what is the potential result of this? He loses his wife/family, his drinking becomes worse, he gets ostracized by the community and his job opportunities are harmed, he commits suicide. All possible reactions, all for what? A feel good feminist fight back at the misogynist man moment? Hardly, it’s a cruel n cold act. Why not ask the flight attendants for help, say clearly to the man no, ask fellow passengers to intervene?
Ok… it’s ture that she doesn’t have proof, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing someone would make up. I don’t agree that it was right of her to do this, but it probably did happen.
I’ve known women (and men) who’d lie to the mother in far more intricate ways than this. It’s been established she lied about the lotto ticket (unless the reporting on that was fake), so I wouldn’t put it past her to makeup some shit about some guy OR misinterpreting him being friendly as him trying to hit on her. Sometimes people make shit up for a sad grasp at attention. It’s a he said she said situation, she’s lied once, I haven’t seen any lies from him so….her credibility is in question.
Five things
Politely say “no”. Politely accept “no”. Respect yourself and respect others. Don’t “get back at those who’ve hurt you” through other people. Choose to behave like grownups…EVERYONE.
See? Majority of our interactive problems are solved.
Yes, yes, and yes.
And in that situation it doesn’t matter one bit WHO the people were, what they did for a living, how famous they are, or how attractive they are. What the hell difference does it make that he wasn’t a well-known actor or that she was young and attractive? Are we suggesting that it would be more okay to be (allegedly) hit on by a really famous actor? Is it really more sleazy because she’s younger than he is? It would be more okay to make someone uncomfortable if he was single and not married? Seriously?
Maybe I’m reading too much into the commentary here, but the descriptors people use here maybe say more about the commenter’s concerns than the real ethics of the situation. For example, the fact that he’s older than her really should have no bearing on whether or not what he did was acceptable. Annoyed is annoyed. There ought to be universal considerations that go beyond quasi-celebrity situations.
First of all, the term “cheesedick” is extremely sexist and everyone needs to stop using it NOW.
Second, the only jerk here is Melissa Stetten. What she did was heinous and her complete lack of character makes me no believe most of what she says.
If you read my other writing, you’ll know that I use a lot of words very consciously that people consider sexist… Bitch, pussy, cheesedick, dick, creep, mansplaining, henpecking, etc. I get a lot of hell for it, but I stand by it. I use them all interchangeably for both men and women.
Though I’ve never called a woman a cheesedick, I would if I met a female cheesedick.
What’s the female equivalent of it in Hollywood… Trying to think… I’d probably call her a Starfucker which is a really common term around here. But both men and women are Starfuckers. To be “Starfucked” is what Brian seemed to want Melissa to be over him. But you can be a Starfucker if you either brag about celebs or drop names OR if you actually fuck stars just to be close to them.
Cheesedick usually implies a level of not caring if you’re being a complete asshole (I use that word too) to someone else.
Yeah, I’d be willing to use that about a woman if the situation arose. There are females who are dicks and men who are bitches, too. They all mean different things.
I’m an equal-opportunity offender.
Do you say the N word too?:P I am sure there are limits to the anti-PC speech you have, if not then I could introduce you to some people I know who love to say the most outrageous shit as a game. NOTHING is sacred in that circle, it can be such poor taste that it’s actually funny just to see how low they reach, but I am not shocked anymore, all the shocks have been used up!
I do not use ANY racial slurs.
I think because I have 4 years of a degree in gender studies at UCLA I feel a need to “take the piss out of” gender terms.
I do not criticize people of color who use the N word or Jews who joking say “Heeb” or something. Not my business. If an individual said to me, “Please don’t say Cheesedick around me, it bothers me” I wouldn’t. But in my own writing, I am who I am. My motives are right out there in front.
I really want to know if the guys who are so against the word “dick” swear to God they never use the word “bitch”…
I think some of it is the annoyance at hearing how sexist bitch is, whilst seeing some feminists use gendered slurs, feels a bit hypocritical. I use dick n bitch but I try not to limit it to a gender, I also use the C word a lot but in Australia it mostly means something like a very bad person, eg someone that steals their mothers/fathers life savings is a C, the first time I heard it used in a gendered way was from an American referring to her vulva! Confused me bigtime!
I think context matters more than the words themselves, I see white n black friends use the N word in a bullshit playful banter way, I cop the word “wog” for being of sicilian descent, and I don’t mind it because it’s all just play. When it becomes serious it pisses me off though, ie when people start truly being racist, ignorant, bigoted etc. But that could just be the culture here, a lotttt of shit stirrers n crass language where I live!
Alrighty, here is where I see a difference. Something like the n-word, or fag or other similar slurs are about putting someone down because of a social category they belong to. The word “cheesedick” is about calling someone out on their behaviour. There is a HUGE difference between the two.
Now where “cheesedick” does run into trouble is the way it interacts with gender. It implies that it’s more of a problem with men than women, and I imagine that statistically it kind of is. Our society still has pretty set roles when it comes to pursuing romance, in which the man is expected to make the first move, and so generally that’s what happens. Not all the time, by any means…but there is huge social pressure on men to make the first move, and equally huge social pressure on women not to make the first move. So, in general, our society’s set up so that men are hitting on women, and women are left as responding.
Which, I suppose, is part of the problem that Joanna is talking about in her article. But back to the topic of these comments, which is whether cheesedick is sexist. I’d say no. It’s no more sexist than something like ‘henpecking’ or ‘mansplaining.’ It’s problematic, yes, but not sexist. And mostly it’s problematic in that those terms highlight how certain behaviours have become associated with a specific gender, sometimes completely inaccurately, and sometimes due to the way society actually does limit behaviour and emotions that people have access to based on their gender.
The sexism isn’t in the use of the work dick in association with cowardice (at least not with me). It’s in the hypocritical stance of “it’s wrong to call people bitches but it’s okay to call people dicks”.
Sexist, problematic, or whatever you want to call it. The problem is that one is being condemned and the other is being defended. And constantly seeing that happen is what made me question Joanna’s use of the word dick.
It’s what I’ve said plenty of times HeatherN. You can’t expect everyone else to cease fire while demanding that you get to keep firing.
Watch Chris Rock “I hate N”s ” (it’s on youtube), The N word is used for both as you say and also a description of certain behaviour, thug/gangster behaviour. Fag is also a dual word, both to put down gay people but also to describe effeminate men.
What you’re talking about is a reclaiming of those words by the groups those words originally were used to shame because they belonged to that group. The context in which those words are spoken alters the meaning slightly…a gay man who uses the word ‘fag’ and a African-American who uses the ‘n-word’ provide different nuances of meaning to that word.
But when a non-African-American uses the n-word as an insult, and a straight person uses the word ‘fag’ as an insult, etc…the insult is to the social group they belong to, not to their behaviour.
Ugh, did you even watch the video? I’m not talking about reclamation. I’m talking about the joke he says at the ATM he doesn’t look over his shoulder for BLACK people, he looks over his shoulder for N’s. He associates the N word with criminal behaviour. Fag can be used to insult a person’s BEHAVIOUR, if a man here in Aus does something that is seem as too feminine he might be called a fag to infer that his BEHAVIOUR is at fault, not to say he is actually gay (although some will assume it).
Dude, the Chris Rock example is still part of reclamation. It’s someone who is part of the same ethnic group using a term that is meant as an insult to insult that ethnic group. An African-American insulting another African-American with the n-word is necessarily not insulting their ethnicity. Thus this changes the meaning.
The example of ‘fag,’ is more examples of how gender and sexual orientation are conflated. A feminine man is perceived as being gay, not just feminine. Again, the insult is tied directly to a perceived social group.
“Cheesedick,” on the other hand is just about behaviour. As I explained, the way it interacts with gender (a social group) is different than the way the n-word or ‘fag’ intersects with a social group (race and sexual orientation, respectively). It’s genderded in the way in which men are assumed to be the ones approaching a woman, and not the other way around.
It still can be about behaviour, and the Chris Rock example is 100% clearly about behaviour AND the group.
Not to be gross, but when I hear “cheesedick” I think of, er, uncut men.
Cheesedicks: Guys who are somehow so cheesy and trite that they actually cross into being complete dicks with their obtuse and self-obsessed dialogue.
Looks to me its gendered in a manner that says if they come go into the trite and cheese territory its a green light to call it jerkisness associated with maleness.
(Yeah I don’t need to type while on sleep meds).
People…if she’d called him a “dick,” full stop, then yes it’d totally be gendered. Because then it would be like the n-word or ‘fag.’ The term ‘dick’ on it’s own implies that being male is somehow connected to being an ass-hat.
The term ‘cheesedick,’ however is about the behaviour…it’s people who are cheesey (the bad bit) who happen to be men (descriptive). As opposed to men (the bad bit) who happen to be cheesey (descriptive). As I said, the term ‘henpecking’ or ‘mansplaining’ is similar. The way in which these terms intersect with gender is to do with out gender roles interact with people. So in this case, like I mentioned, the way it intersects with gender is in the way in which men are socialized into making the first move.
It’s saying this behaviour is bad, and it applies to men more because men are the ones who initiate more often. Being male isn’t the disliked behaviour (being male isn’t even a behaviour); being oblivious to social cues is.
“Something like the n-word, or fag or other similar slurs are about putting someone down because of a social category they belong to. The word “cheesedick” is about calling someone out on their behaviour. There is a HUGE difference between the two.”
This is completely false, but even if it were true, SO WHAT? A word that criticizes behavior that conflates a type of behavior with a particular gender is still sexist and still wrong.
“The example of ‘fag,’ is more examples of how gender and sexual orientation are conflated. A feminine man is perceived as being gay, not just feminine. Again, the insult is tied directly to a perceived social group.”
Wrong. 90% of the time men call each other “fag” without actually thinking that the target is literally gay. Calling a person “fag” is primarily about criticizing behavior, and stopping that behavior, not about putting down a whole social group, and therefore okay based on your specious reasoning.
“It’s gendered in the way in which men are assumed to be the ones approaching a woman, and not the other way around.”
It’s every bit as gendered as calling something “afro-rigged” is racial. So why defend it?
OMFG.
Seriously. STOP PLZ.
So if someone invents the portmanteau “cheesenig*er” for someone who tries to approach someone with a typical “playa” attitude, you’d be okay with that?
I really want to know if the guys who are so against the word “dick” swear to God they never use the word “bitch”…
I’ll do you one better. I acutally used to use them both often and freely but, thanks partly to feminists, I removed bitch and pussy (in reference to cowardice) from my vocabulary. Well if its bad for one its bad for both right? So I worked on removing dick (in reference to jerkish behavior) as well.
Then I noticed something.
In even the most of progressive spaces it was basically a no no to use the words bitch and pussy….but dick was still fair game.
So while I can at least acknowledge that you use both it seems the big lesson here is its wrong to call women bitches and to associate cowardice to female genitals but its just fine (and apparently hip) to associate jerkishness with male genitals.
“I really want to know if the guys who are so against the word “dick” swear to God they never use the word “bitch”…”
The only time I get on someone’s case about their use of the word dick is if they get self-righteous about bitch, pussy etc
Offensive language doesn’t bother me, it’s hypocrisy. If you don’t care when people are called bitches, I’m not going to get on your case about dick.
“I think because I have 4 years of a degree in gender studies at UCLA I feel a need to “take the piss out of” gender terms.”
So white graduate ethnographers can say the n-word. Awesome.
“Though I’ve never called a woman a cheesedick, I would if I met a female cheesedick.”
Why not just call everyone a cheesec*nt?
“I really want to know if the guys who are so against the word “dick” swear to God they never use the word ‘bitch’…”
Do you also really want to know if women who are so against the word c*nt swear to God they never use the word “dick”?