Thread by @Ame0baRepublic

Everybody talking abt not being able to talk about #Franken w/nuance ...

Here:

— Boorish behavior ≠ full-on predator
— K-Gill is a consistent pol who did her conscience & I respect that sh**
— "Due process" is for courts
— Every1 says it sucks, even if they think it was right

AND (and this is truly the most important thing that I could possibly convey): A white man not getting what he wants is not a tragedy.

I don't even mean to be harsh. But our culture is hardwired to believe that if a man (usually white, usually wealthy, usually powerful) ...

... does not get what he wants, then somewhere, in some way, an injustice has occurred, and we work backwards from there. This is not the case.

Similar to (please put politics aside right here, because it is not the point I'm making, do not try to make it the point I'm making) Brett Kavanaugh, Brock Turner, or even the enduring myth of blue balls, we have been conditioned.

We are told that if a man does not get something that he wants, that he has been "railroaded" in some sense.

In K-Gill's case, we all know she wanted to be prez for a long time. So let's make opportunism the case. That's a valid question, I guess.

Why do all these I-regret-its receive INFINITELY less heat than she continues to for perceived "political opportunism?" They could have left her alone, the sole senator calling for his resignation.

But they didn't. What of their motives, their ambitions, their personal images that they wanted to protect by being on the perceived "right side" of things, until they saw the tide turn and play the "I regret it" card?

Many argue that Franken had no choice but to resign, that he was "railroaded." But it takes multiple people for a railroading to occur.

I don't see one Dem taking a scintilla of the kinda heat K-Gill has to answer for, even though their votes are equal, and they voted for him to leave.

Did THEY have a choice? If we're saying that Franken didn't have a choice bc he was confronted by his colleagues, and those colleagues didn't have a choice bc Gillibrand was the first, we're saying no Dem in Congress but K-Gill has agency.

To be polite, that seems untenable. And unfair.

And for what it's worth, and bear with me here: There is no reason to believe in the utter uniqueness of Al Franken. Nothing to do with being a bad senator, person, husband, human, what have you. Seriously, nothing at all.

There's just no reason to believe that his skills or presence denoted an inviolable irreplaceability. And if we're talking about messaging and the #MeToo movement (fraught political territory, I'm aware) ... I actually think that's kind of great.

I don't want men to even believe that there exists a level of skill, acclaim, or value that justifies certain actions, a lá "They're too important to this film production, so we'll let it slide" or even the more personal, "He's my boy, so I gotta support him"

The irony is that K-Gill's actions were quite consistent with what feminists have long argued for: a more detailed and nuanced view of sexual relations and power dynamics between men and women, rather than "Well, there's rape, and there's not rape."

Think back to that Babe article on Aziz Ansari. I can't count the amount of feminists I read on this very website praising it because it highlighted different levels of harassment or coercion or power that are culturally learned, and not entirely the product of nefarious men.

At that time, the argument seemed to be that not every man has to be Bill Cosby to have or be a problem. That some of the ways men behave are problematic and they should be called out on them, even if they are far less egregious than straight up sexual assault.

The idea was that this muddied space is where we can truly open up about power and the abuse thereof, and we can understand more stratified levels of wrongdoing, something between "Put him in jail" or "That's fine."

And what I hear when I hear talk of kneecapping or railroading, is a solid sub-group of people plaintively asking K-Gill something many women have told me they've heard in response to actually speaking up about varying levels of harassment they've experienced:

"Why couldn't you just let this slide?"

I don't think it's a fair question, and I don't think it's a question she should have to answer.

If this was a cynical ploy for popularity, as the going theory contends, it is not going well for her. The fact that it's not leads me to believe that either wasn't her goal or she VIOLENTLY misread the room.

And more to the point: Al Franken is fine. In fact, in the wake of this, he's easily earned more credibility and respect from many who would have otherwise been only tangentially aware of his accomplishments.

He clearly has the respect of his colleagues. He has a platform to speak out about issues he cares about. What happened was that he lost a job he was passionate about because of behavior that was deemed unacceptable.

And I'm really not even trying to burn down Al Franken right now. Like I said, everyone involved, K-Gill included, say this situation sucks, but that doesn't mean she regrets having done what she thought was right.

And I do believe that when we talk about male entitlement, this is what we're talking about — the belief that a woman "standing in the way" of something that a man wants has done something wrong.

A transference of responsibility from the person who engaged in certain acts deemed unacceptable to the person that pointed them out.

I'm just having a hard time figuring out exactly what she did wrong in this situation, given that sexual assault has been her marquee issue for a long time, and her colleagues agreed with her when they were not forced to.

And I feel disheartened because so many of the same people that I have seen make these specific arguments when discussing abuse of power, harassment, sexual assault, etc, have casually slid them to the side in favor of blaming K-Gill ...

... for doing the same exact kinds of things we ask more people to do in advocacy for women who suffer widely varying kinds of harassment.

So to recap: The situation does suck, and everyone thinks so.

But that doesn't imply an injustice.

Fin.

@threadreaderapp Unroll, please.