Erin Andrews - Awarded $55M

[NAOS]

I see JFC is already at full throttle.

 

[ConradA24]

Well said. Im sorry that those men made her uncomfortable when saying that she looks better when smiling. That sucks that she felt way.

I hope that if I tell a woman she has a pretty smile I don't hurt her that has never been my intention

The difference is, telling a woman that she has a pretty smile is A LOT different then telling her to smile so that she'll be pretty.

 

[Deleted member 848]

I don't talk to women like that, but I've obviously heard those sorts of statements and much worse. We used to have this old neighbor who would say extremely inappropriate things to women. He made those sorts of comments to my ex wife. Not only did she laugh, she'd give him a hug. Other women who I saw did the same. I hope my daughters will be able to laugh that sort of stuff off too. Can I see why some women find it offensive? Yeah. Do I think that's a fight worth fighting? No.

This is the worst possible hope for your daughters, if I'm being honest.


You're saying that the onus is on women to "deal with" verbal abuse. Boys will be boys, amirite guys!! Women are encouraged to 'laugh it off'??


Jesus.

 

[Deleted member 848]

and people wonder why most rapes go unreported.

It's because of **** like this. The rampant victim-blaming, dear ****ing God.

None of you spineless dudes would have the bravado to last 16 minutes of cross-examinations, let alone 6+ hours. Pathetic.

 

[Deleted member 848]

this is rather personal to me as a very good friend of mine was raped, and had to work through the court process in order to get the abuser arrested and convicted (which she succeeded in doing)-- I had to go testify myself.

She is easily the strongest woman (save for my mother) that I've ever met. And do you know what she told me after he was convicted?


"'Dalamon', I can't in good conscious recommend this path for any other woman who's been raped. If I had known it would have been this difficult and damaging, I honestly don't think i would have done it".

 

[JazzGal]

I think part of it is the very patronizing way it's said when a man says it to a woman. And the fact that a man feels no compunction saying something like that to a strange woman, completely out of the blue and unsolicited. Very few women would ever feel compelled to make a similar comment out of the blue to a random man.

Then again, I haven't read through the thread since about page one or two, so I'm probably not even on topic.

You are exactly on point.

 

[Deleted member 848]

Well said. Im sorry that those men made her uncomfortable when saying that she looks better when smiling. That sucks that she felt way.

I hope that if I tell a woman she has a pretty smile I don't hurt her that has never been my intention

again, it's a reminder of the paramount obligation of women to be beautiful. You really need to consider this.

From the moment a girl is born, society will preach to her that being beautiful is more important than anything else. This isn't true for sons.

And it's ********. That's what this is all about.

 

[ConradA24]

I don't talk to women like that, but I've obviously heard those sorts of statements and much worse. We used to have this old neighbor who would say extremely inappropriate things to women. He made those sorts of comments to my ex wife. Not only did she laugh, she'd give him a hug. Other women who I saw did the same. I hope my daughters will be able to laugh that sort of stuff off too. Can I see why some women find it offensive? Yeah. Do I think that's a fight worth fighting? No.

I hope you're being obtuse on purpose.

Most of us know the difference between an innocuous old man making jokes and everyone can think it's funny. BUT, you better make sure that your daughters know the difference between something that everyone can think is funny and comments that are just not okay!

 

[fishonjazz]

I kind of feel like many people in this thread feel like a person should feel a certain way when something bad or uncomfortable happens to them.

FWIW i dont think there is a certain proper way to feel. I just think that there are alternate ways to feel about things and that should be accepted and at times celebrated as well.

Let me ask some of you (dalamon, baby peters, conrad, moe, jazzgal, etc) a question:
I said in this thread that i would want my daughter to be able shrug off something like this (erin andrews videotaping) and move on with it having very little long lasting emotional effect on her. Is that wrong of me to want for her? would it be wrong of her to be able to be ok afterwards? Should i want my daughter to be devastated and lose faith in humanity and need counseling and carry this with her for the rest of her life and turn to drugs and alcohol and eventually killer herself due to the trauma the video caused?
I think its ok and justified that some people feel devastated and traumatized by something like this.... but is there also room in your minds for someone that says "oh well, in the grand scheme of things im not injured, sick, hurt emotionally, and in a coulple years no one remember this ever even happend. And i hawt as **** to boot!" Would that be ok or is that something that should not be allowed in society?

I know nothing is about me or men in general but i have a few things that happened in my life to share. Again, i understand that these things happening to me dont matter and give me no right to have any opinions on anything.

I was raped. I was good friends with girl. One night we went to the club with another guy friend of ours. At the end of the night they were dropping me off at my apartment. She asked if i had anything to drink in my fridge. I lied and said no. She then asked if she could use my bathroom cause she really needed to go bad. I said sure. So she and the other guy came up to use the bathroom.
Right when they came into my apartment she looked into my fridge (didn't even use the bathroom) and saw a box of wine (cause im classy like that). So she gets a glass and starts drinking. I ask them to leave. She tells the other guy to go down and start the car to get it warmed up.
Right when he leaves she jumps on top of me (i was sitting on the couch). She starts kissing on me and im avoiding the best i can. The other friend comes in to get her and sees us on the couch together and so he just turns and leaves. He went home and left her there with me.
She is grabbing me and taking my and her clothes off and i keep telling to stop and i dont want this.
Well it turns out that (pardon my language) i couldnt get hard so i thought to myself that was a good thing since it wont be able to go any further and i told her so. I said look, it aint even possible so please get up and i will take you home.
She pushes me back and says "I will take care of that problem" and proceeds to fellate me (is that the right term? Im trying not to be to perverse).
It does work. Then she climbs on and im still telling her no, i dont want this.

After the deed she sleeps in my bed and i take her home the next day. I was not happy about what had happened. I felt like a piece of meat and felt used. However i didnt let it make me lose faith in humanity or think all girls are like that or lose trust in women or make me depressed or whatever. I moved on. Enjoyed my life. Didn't get depressed. Didn't seek counseling.


Another time i was dropped off at a gas station near my house at 03:00 by a taxi and went in to use the ATM to get money to pay for the taxi ride. I withdrew a couple hundred bucks and went and paid the taxi and figured i would walk the rest of the way home. (it was only a few blocks)
Well, some guys must have saw me use the ATM. As im walking home i get hit in the back of the head from behind. 3 guys (i assume they were crackheads) attacked me and i fought back as good as i could (i think i broke one of thier noses) but im pretty certain that these dudes were on something. I hit a dude so hard in the face with a great punch that dropped him and hopped back up like it was nothin... Any way i got tired out and went to the ground and they kicked me a few more times and then took my money and ran off.
The next morning my roommate woke me up very concerned cause i had blood all over me from my mouth and two black eyes. (Some cracked ribs too)
It was pretty traumatic but i went to work the next day and im not scared to walk alone at night to this day. I didn't let it mess with me long term and dont have nightmares or see a counseler about it. Im fine.
Is that looked as the wrong way to feel and react to a situation like that?

I think that it is very wrong to film someone naked without permission. I think that is a major violation. I think the dude should go to prison. I will never do something like that. I have had girlfriends send me nude photos. I am the only on to have viewed them.
I think it sucks for Erin that she is so shaken and devastated by this act. I hope she gets the help she needs and can eventually get past this and be a happy person.

Would it be ok though if she was not traumatized? Would there be criticism by people that she was not appropriatley upset and offended?

 

[fishonjazz]

The difference is, telling a woman that she has a pretty smile is A LOT different then telling her to smile so that she'll be pretty.

Good distinction. Makes sense.
Kind of like a back handed compliment

 

[fishonjazz]

This is the worst possible hope for your daughters, if I'm being honest.


You're saying that the onus is on women to "deal with" verbal abuse. Boys will be boys, amirite guys!! Women are encouraged to 'laugh it off'??


Jesus.

Are you saying that he should hope that his daughter gets devastated and her life gets ruined and one day she commits suicide?

Its not ok for me to want my daughter to be able to handle offensive stuff with ease and have it not effect her very much?

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

This is the worst possible hope for your daughters, if I'm being honest.


You're saying that the onus is on women to "deal with" verbal abuse. Boys will be boys, amirite guys!! Women are encouraged to 'laugh it off'??


Jesus.

Saying that we don't need to make a big deal about these sorts of comments is not like saying that I am pro-rape. There is clearly a sexual dynamic between men and women and I don't think it makes sense to try to eradicate it. You will never succeed, and a large percentage of the people wouldn't want you to. It can be appropriate and positive for both sides, it can inadvertently go to far for one party, and it can obviously even go into criminal territory. It's challenging to draw that line of where criminal starts. I think any cause can be taken too far. Some people apparently don't feel that way.

 

[fishonjazz]

This is the worst possible hope for your daughters, if I'm being honest.


You're saying that the onus is on women to "deal with" verbal abuse. Boys will be boys, amirite guys!! Women are encouraged to 'laugh it off'??


Jesus.

If I could teach the rest of the world to be kind and not be offensive and perverted to my daughter then that is what I would do.
Unfortunately I can't so I'm gonna try to teach my child to look at the big picture in situations...try to teach her what I was taught about sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Don't sweat the small stuff and all that. The alternative is that she is upset and sad and angry allot of her life. She is carrying emotional baggage with her. There is allot of offensive bad stuff in the world and I want her to be as happy as possible despite that fact so I hope to minimize her sadness, emotional baggage, anger, fear, mistrust, etc as much as possible.
Does that make me a bad father because I hope she doesn't get offended easily and hope she has thick skin? Maybe. I hope not

 

[ConradA24]

Fish, (and Joe, etc...)
I don't doubt that you're a good guy (good husbands, great dads) and I'm guessing ultimately we really do all want the same goal. Happy, well-adjusted children. So I hope we're just mis-firing on communicating that. Of course I wouldn't want people to be depressed and bouncing back is the ultimate goal. I'll teach you something about raising kids... you need empathy, lots of it. That doesn't mean they get out of things, the complete opposite. A little bit of, "I'm sorry that you went through that and are feeling this way", and then some, "how can I help you?" but letting them fix it.

I want my daughters and everyone else's to have a sense of humor, and be able to let things roll off their back, but I also want them to know that if someone is saying or doing inappropriate things that they don't just "have to deal with it, and take it." They can leave, they can say something, they are empowered to change the situation, etc... RAWR! I want them to know how a good man needs to treat them, and to not settle for anything less, but they need our support and us showing them how to do that. That's all I'm saying.

 

[fishonjazz]

Fish, (and Joe, etc...)
I don't doubt that you're a good guy (good husbands, great dads) and I'm guessing ultimately we really do all want the same goal. Happy, well-adjusted children. So I hope we're just mis-firing on communicating that. Of course I wouldn't want people to be depressed and bouncing back is the ultimate goal. I'll teach you something about raising kids... you need empathy, lots of it. That doesn't mean they get out of things, the complete opposite. A little bit of, "I'm sorry that you went through that and are feeling this way", and then some, "how can I help you?".

I want my daughters and everyone else's to have a sense of humor, and be able to let things roll off their back, but I also want them to know that if someone is saying or doing inappropriate things that they don't just "have to deal with it, and take it." They can leave, they can say something, they are empowered to change the situation, etc... RAWR! I want them to know how a good man needs to treat them, and to not settle for anything less, but they need our support and us showing them how to do that. That's all I'm saying.

Nothing to nit pick about or argue about in that post!
If the same erin andrews thing happened to my daughter I would want her to speak up and go after the guy who did it because what he did was wrong.... And then I would hope that it didn't hurt her much at all and that she would quickly move on from it and forget about it. I would hope that she doesn't lose faith in humanity and lose trust in all men and be scared all the time and have it effect the rest of her life. That would suck imo.

 

[Deleted member 848]

If I could teach the rest of the world to be kind and not be offensive and perverted to my daughter then that is what I would do.
Unfortunately I can't so I'm gonna try to teach my child to look at the big picture in situations...try to teach her what I was taught about sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Don't sweat the small stuff and all that. The alternative is that she is upset and sad and angry allot of her life. She is carrying emotional baggage with her. There is allot of offensive bad stuff in the world and I want her to be as happy as possible despite that fact so I hope to minimize her sadness, emotional baggage, anger, fear, mistrust, etc as much as possible.
Does that make me a bad father because I hope she doesn't get offended easily and hope she has thick skin? Maybe. I hope not

this is the short-term solution-- but what happens is that this becomes the only solution proposed.

Instead of a societal-shift in addressing how sexist some of this **** is, what ends up happening is that we just keep telling women to roll with the punches, and nothing changes.

Of course if someone cat-called my mother today and she came home crying, I would try to comfort her, and tell her that it's okay, and try and help her be strong.

But if this was ALL that I did, then I'd be a bad son.

The onus is on every single one of us, men and women, to be involved in the fight against sexism, and against the unfair assault of our sisters.

Complacency in this issue unfortunately makes us almost as bad as the perpetrators. This is the key.

 

[♪alt13]

again, it's a reminder of the paramount obligation of women to be beautiful. You really need to consider this.

From the moment a girl is born, society will preach to her that being beautiful is more important than anything else. This isn't true for sons.

And it's ********. That's what this is all about.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, If I am perhaps you can clarify your point for me.

This post sounds a whole lot like the kind of thing a victim blamer would say. Your statement seems to me to make a judgement about the sexuality of women. It seems to imply that there is something wrong with a woman wanting to be beautiful. I just don't think that it is anyone's place to decide that for any other individual let alone for half the worlds population. Is it not reasonable for a woman to want to be beautiful even sexy and still be treated with respect? Would you say that these two things mutually exclusive?

 

[Deleted member 848]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, If I am perhaps you can clarify your point for me.

This post sounds a whole lot like the kind of thing a victim blamer would say. Your statement seems to me to make a judgement about the sexuality of women. It seems to imply that there is something wrong with a woman wanting to be beautiful. I just don't think that it is anyone's place to decide that for any other individual let alone for half the worlds population. Is it not reasonable for a woman to want to be beautiful even sexy and still be treated with respect? Would you say that these two things mutually exclusive?

No, what I'm getting that is that women never have the ****ing choice. Hate it or love it, they are going to need to prioritize being beautiful if they are to win the respect of our sexist society. There is absolutely nothing wrong with priding yourself on whatever the social-construct of beauty happens to be. The problem is that this is unfairly deified for women, and it leads to the slew of problems that our sisters face today. The choice is ours for men-- it isn't for women.

It's just like the stay-at-home-mom thing from a few weeks ago. There is nothing wrong with choosing to do this as a 'career'-- however it becomes problematic when it becomes the only choice.

 

[ConradA24]

Nothing to nit pick about or argue about in that post!
If the same erin andrews thing happened to my daughter I would want her to speak up and go after the guy who did it because what he did was wrong.... And then I would hope that it didn't hurt her much at all and that she would quickly move on from it and forget about it. I would hope that she doesn't lose faith in humanity and lose trust in all men and be scared all the time and have it effect the rest of her life. That would suck imo.

Agreed. But those would most likely be the short term affects and healing has no time table... I do think a lot of comes down to the kind of support (Empathy! ) you have as well.

 

[JazzGal]

Fish, I'm sorry that you have to live through such terrible experiences. I'm glad you've been able to move past it.