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.
So, a woman is allowed to protect herself from sexual harassment if, and only if,
a) people who were not there and do not know the circumstances judge it to be the correct way of protecting herself, which – surprise! – it never is, because the people who are judging from a distance always have a better solution to ‘what she *should* have done’.
AND
b) it does not harm a man. Especially the actual man who did the harassing. But not harming men is IMPORTANT.
Thank you for protecting rape-culture, Ms. Schroeder!
Well put. It’s pretty rich that a website allegedly devoted to what it means to be a good man is so energetically devoted to chastising women who dare to publicly criticize men behaving badly…
Protecting rape culture? Are you serious? Maybe, just maybe, people are annoyed at her for publically humiliating a man WITHOUT PROOF. Would you like it if someone posted a bunch of tweets detailing bad behaviour and attempting to cheat on your partner without a shred of evidence? I’ll flip it around then to believe what he says (that nothign happened) and she lied about it because she was annoyed at him leaving open his window. You’re support of her is protecting beingacoldheartedbitchfornoreason culture. Fact is all we have are 2 eyewitness accounts that differ, so why automatically believe one over… Read more »
That’s a fairly broad definition of sexual harrassment. When she started tweeting, it seemed to be merely a matter of annoyance, not harrassment. And pretty much everything she describes rises to the level of obnoxious rather than actual harrassment. And was he harrassing her when he was sleeping? But take gender out of it. Consider the example of Alec Baldwin’s tweets about various customer service people who have annoyed them, in at least one case giving identifying chracteristics (name, where the person works). in that situation, the worker has no recourse to say their own side of the story without… Read more »
Explain to me exactly how secretly tweeting their conversation actually stopped him?
Passive-aggressive stunts like this I expect from a 22 year old. But to laud that behavior as some act of protecting herself? It doesn’t make sense.
I might hear an argument that she created a world where men might better understand that talking to women you don’t know may make them uncomfortable, or that you might get exposed for obnoxious behavior. I might entertain that her stunt may have done some good that way.
But protecting herself? From Presley? On that plane?? Bullshit. It doesn’t even make sense.
Wait. I’m assuming you mean “protecting herself” means stopping the bothersome behavior.
But I can’t figure out any way that her Tweeting protected her.
He didn’t know the twitter behaviour was going on until after the plane landed, so no, she wasn’t trying to stop his behaviour. The OP reminds me of slutwalkers who take it a bit extreme in protecting themselves. OP, I don’t think anyone here would be bothered IF she had told him no, asked for help on the plane from stewardesses, etc but when it’s using twitter to humiliate him without him knowing, that’s not a method to try stop his bad behaviour at the time. At best it might be an attempt to get jackasses around the world to… Read more »
b) it does not harm a man. Especially the actual man who did the harassing. But not harming men is IMPORTANT.
Now I don’t recall Joanna being gender specific (in fact I think she’s addressed that in the comments already). Way to insert it.
But like Joanna asks exactly what part of revealing someone’s full identity and posting pictures of them while they are sleep is “protection”?
Oh and since you want to bring gender into it I have a hard time believing that if this were gender reversed the conversation could take place without use of the word creep.
A peculiarity of the male-female dance is that women use their looks to attract men. The lack of empathy of this woman becomes clear when we think about a man in an airplane seat next to a woman tweeting about how fat and stupid she looks. With pictures, just like this woman sent pictures of the sleeping man. It’s within his “rights” to embarrass the woman based on her looks, just like it’s within this woman’s rights to critique every word he says with the general public. The people who think this is right simply lack any empathy at all… Read more »
Good point. As always, the gender-swapping test reveals the truth of the situation.
Scenario: Male model is hit on by semifamous actress who is married and drinking; the guy tweets his mockery of her behavior and includes confirmation that she’s married and attempting to cheat, thus helping to wreck her personal life. Society’s reaction? Predictably, the man would be condemned as an insensitive coward (with Mr. Schwyzer doubtless leading the charge).
Both were acting like jerks. Both deserve to be ignored.
This C-List public figure inserted himself into this other C-List public figure’s life on a public plane through his flirting and other behavior, not through simply Existing While Unfuckable, and in doing so he made himself her problem. If the genders were reversed then it wouldn’t be his job to protect her from herself either. Of course in that case nobody would have suggested as much, especially since she’s a conventionally attractive, younger female model who the public loves to see put in her place.
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?
Did you try asking her?
The only reason this bothers me is because it’s a double standard. Can you imagine the reaction “Melissa” would have gotten if she’d been a man being annoyed by a minor female celebrity? I doubt male-Melissa would have been called “empowered” or a hero, or anything like that. The fact of the matter is we live in a society where anything a woman chooses to do to a man is considered justified. Consider what the reaction to female-Brian’s hitting on someone as a “married woman” Would she have been called a sleazebag for trying to step out on her husband?… Read more »
Did she ask him to leave her alone at any point? He may have been under the delusional impression she was enjoying the conversation. Harassment is illegal but talking to/flirting with someone in a “cheesy fashion” in a public place isn’t illegal, if the person has made no indication whatsoever they don’t want the conversation. Nonverbal cues and “vibes” don’t count, you don’t know for sure whether people will get them or what they will get from them, thats the whole passive aggressive thing. I actually have a mental condition where I don’t notice nonverbal cues. I feel like some… Read more »
Give attractive women everywhere a break. Ignore them…
Simple problems, simple solutions…
Or the other option is talk it to death. How’s that working out?
The argument here seems to reduce to this: Members of the public have an affirmative obligation to protect the reputations of celebrities who project a public image at odds with their actual personal behavior, and this obligation persists even when we are treated poorly by that person in a way that directly contradicts his public persona. Much of this post consists of attributing motives to MS, and arguing about the validity of those motives. I don’t see how her motives are relevant; she could have understood herself as fighting the good feminist fight or amusing herself and her friends, I… Read more »
I’ll ask something similar to what I asked on another blog:
Do babies need to be publically shamed?
http://twitpic.com/8wdtz4
Look, I don’t know how I could make my point any clearer. I have no opinion on, and no interest in, the question of whether Melissa Stratten is a good person or not. I’m profoundly uninterested in some sort of global assessment of her character through a close reading and analysis of her enitre twitterfeed. I thought we were talking about her tweets about Brian Presley. I took this to be a discussion on Stratten’s behavior in this particular case; I’ve no interest in defending or indicting her as a person, because it’s boring and pointless. Why do you think… Read more »
It shows her contempt for other people’s privacy. She sees nothing wrong with tweeting a picture of a baby without the parents’ permission. She shows no discernment of private vs. public. (she also started tweeting before she knew the guy was a celebrity).
As well, she shows no regard for Presley’s q
wife, who is being humiliated for no reason.
But it would only be relevant if, logically, person A failed to properly respect the privacy of others in case B, then the same must logically be true in cases C, D, and E. This obviously doesn’t hold.
I want to know why you think members of the public have a positive obligation to withhold factual information in order to protect the non-accurate public persona of celebrities. Melissa Stetten’s various misdeeds have nothing to do with this.
Good grief, we’re not talking John Travolta sexually harassing an employee, we’re talking a minor celebrity obnoxiously coming on to a stranger. What Stetten did is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but it was obnoxious as well.
She had no idea he was a celebrity when she started tweeting. She simply thought that his boorish behavior gave her the right to violate his privacy even when he was sleeping. Her other tweets show that she doesn’t value other people’s privacy.
we’re not talking John Travolta sexually harassing an employee, we’re talking a minor celebrity obnoxiously coming on to a stranger. You’re right, I suppose, to point out that in the grand scheme of things, his behavior was not as bad as certain other people’s behaviors. What you haven’t done–but need to do to successfully make your point–is explain why you, I or anyone else has a positive obligation to help Brian Presley protect his (apparently rather misleading) PR strategy. I don’t understand why anyone not paid to do PR should have an obligation in this regard, and while you’ve changed… Read more »
Maybe some of us are worried that someone can say some harmful stuff, publicly humiliate someone without much more proof than a picture of the guy sleeping and that can seriously affect a persons marriage, etc?
The obligation is the same obligation that one has to respect the privacy of anyone else provided they haven’t committed any crime. It’s called tact. Brian Presley does not lose his privacy the moment he identifies himself a am actor. Nobody needs to be “on” 24 hours a day, or deserves to have their reputation ruined on the loosest of evidence. (I am not saying she made it up; I am saying she jumped to a lot of conclusions). In the old days of journalism, reporter never reported on the private lives of public figures unless it had actual news… Read more »
djw, I couldn’t agree with you more. Excellent points.
The obligation is the same obligation that one has to respect the privacy of anyone else provided they haven’t committed any crime.
I don’t believe for a minute you’d apply this evaluative standard to behavior consistently.
Say, for example, I learn that my best friend’s spouse has quit his job, and spends his days at drunken orgies instead. By your standard, I it would be wrong for me to tell my best friend about this, because hey, it’s not illegal!
Did she tell Presley’s wife? Did she confront Presley with his behavior? No. She aired this publicly with no real evidence or confirmation. There’s a big difference between confronting an adulterer (again, she had no proof) and broadcasting her beliefs about his alleged philandering.
“no real evidence”
What does this phrase mean to you? Direct eyewitness testimony is a pretty standard, straightforward from of evidence. Should she be under oath before she tells the story?
Seriously, once you do something to a person, it’s their story. You no longer have an expectation that the story is controlled the way you’d prefer.
Did he actually make a sexual come on to her? Her tweets show no direct advance, just some prattle about religion. He did not touch her, or as far as I can tell even make an explicit comment about her. The only evidence of philandering is lying about being married, which is purely circumstantial evidence. But any reporter would tell you that a single eyewitness account is not enough. At the very least she owed it to Presley’s wife not to use his name. And again, she shows a complete lack of regard for anyone’s privacy, even an infant’s. All… Read more »
Funny…I took this argument to be “members of the public have an affirmative duty not to publicly shame other members of the public for engaging in mildly boorish behavior when they have less harmful means of confronting and defusing the situation.”
But hey, what do I know? I only construct and analyze arguments professionally.
It’s (un)funny how many people are DESPERATE to keep a clean white hat on this obviously low class snob.
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.… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
“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… Read more »
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… Read more »
“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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.
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… Read more »
He probably didn’t notice because he’s a Cheesedick.
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… Read more »
Could not agree more.
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… Read more »
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.
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.
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… Read more »
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.
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… Read more »
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 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 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?
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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 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?
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.
“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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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?
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… Read more »