I see-- giving course credit to the mattress art in itself would be an act of gender-based discrimination, in this analysis.
Um, calling someone “fat” is not a code for body-shaming. It is body-shaming. Our objection to the body-shaming was its irrelevance. If you want to attack someone because you believe they have made false accusations of rape, then do so, but do not drag their appearance into it. Women’s appearances are constantly being brought up when they have nothing to do with the subject at hand, and women are constantly being judged on their appearance when men in similar situations are not; it’s a pervasive and objectionable practice. Ms. Dunham’s weight has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of any rape accusation she may have made.
Exactly. Could be. Not saying it will, but I could see it. Particularly if you recall a couple of posts Hunt and I shared where we talked about sometimes Judges get a sense of what they want to do with a case. A Judge uncomfortable with the conduct of Emma and the professor, but who otherwise believes that the current way we interpret Title IX is correct, may want to look for the narrowest possible way to punish the specific conduct without making huge waves elsewhere. Realistically, that is what Judges should do in most cases. Narrowest possible ruling that fairly meets the dispute before them.
OK. But the question is if Lena Dunham called me a Big Fat Liar, would that be body shaming? Or would the defense of truth apply? If I was an advocate of the current muscular determination of Title IX, the answer to that question would scare me far more than the question of whether Columbia was wrong for looking the other way when Emma lugged her mattress around campus this year.
Truth is not a defense to body shaming. How could it be? If something is irrelevant, it’s irrelevant whether it’s true or false. Suppose Ms. Dunham is fat-- that still tells us nothing about whether her rape accusation was true or false.
I would never assume calling someone a ‘Big Fat Liar’ had anything to do with the Liar being fat. People call Obama a Big Fat Liar all the time, and no one would ever say he was fat. The lie is fat, huge, easy to see as a lie. An Ugly Lie also refers to the lie, not the liar.
Big Fat Liar in the context of someone else being called Pretty Little Liar is body shaming, and it’s body shaming in the context of an unflattering picture of Lena Dunham, who is often attacked for being allegedly overweight.
Nope, in my opinion, she should be allowed to advocate for whatever she wishes. But I believe that freedom goes both ways and the guy should be allowed to walk around with a sign saying** Mattress Girl is a big fat ugly slut**. But no one here believes that he would be invited to the State of the Union if he did, that Columbia would allow that to happen, or give him course credit for it. That is the problem. People object to the obvious one sided ness of the manner in which the Title IX rules/guidelines are interpreted and how the dominant media culture seeks to champion one world view.
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I keep thinking about this quote. It seems to be the norm that when women cry rape, they are called sluts (and liars). It’s written on walls and the internet, so a sign isn’t really that big a stretch. The only thing new here, in my opinion, is calling Emma a slut (and liar) doesn’t silence her. Same thing is happening with Andrea Pino and Annie Clark and EROC.
Who called Emma a slut? I said that she should be allowed to call Paul a rapist and he should be allowed to call her a big fat ugly slut. Let the marketplace of ideas decide who to celebrate and who to censor. As Judge Learned Hand said a long time ago when discussing our cultural decision to not restrict speech “some of us believe that this is, and always has been, folly. But upon it we have staked our all”.
But now we are attempting to proscribe certain types of conduct and certain types of speech under the guise of making campuses safe places, free from harassment. And we are where we are.
Regardless of definitions and numbers I’m pretty sure everyone believes rape exists and some individuals are rapists. Not everyone agrees “sluts” exist. No one I know IRL would be willing to try and define that label. They reject it entirely. So - as a counter accusation it just doesn’t make sense to me. Or calling someone fat or ugly, if they falsely accuse you of rape.
Someone can be a rapist. It is only a slur if it is untrue.
Someone cannot be a slut if we reject the whole concept.
Someone who makes a false accusation is a liar. “Big, fat, ugly, slut” is totally beside the point. It’s nonsensical. It really is just utter nonsense. But sure, free speech can be nonsense.
Cool. And I suppose that you find that definition harassing, right? You know, because it tends to group men together and imply that their collective morality is lesser than women’s. Or is it just funny?
I think the phrase succinctly illustrates the double standard that exists with regard to sexual mores – a woman is judged harshly for engaging in the same behavior (casual sex) that is often practiced by many men. It’s the proverbial “pot calling the kettle black” or “people living in glass houses throwing stones.” And no, it doesn’t apply to all men “collectively” but I think it is a societal truth that it is still considered more acceptable for men to have multiple partners than it is for women.
Off the top of my head I can think of at last 5 derogatory labels used to describe women who choose to engage in casual sex, and yet I cannot think of one for men who choose to do the same. In fact the words used to describe those men are usually overwhelmingly positive ones - words that denote power and virility.
Why do some men need to discredit a woman for engaging in the same activity that they find totally acceptable for themselves? And especially in the context of something so basic as her sexuality.
I would happily discredit a man who wrote a book falsely accusing a woman of raping him. I also wouldn’t care much if someone called him ugly, fat, whatever.
So would I, but I would do so in a manner that had relevance to the rape accusation.
@Ohiodad51 you are an attorney – how effective would it be for you to add a paragraph to a Motion to Dismiss describing how “fat” and “ugly” the plaintiff is? I am thinking that is not going to work out too well for you. And you know that already.
Of course that is true. The points I was making are 1)I believe there is a qualitative difference between calling someone fat and ugly and falsely accusing them of rape, a point I can not believe is open to debate, 2)I believe that we should not restrict speech in any way short of defamation, no matter whether the speech is objectionable on whatever grounds (ie “ugly slut”), precisely because in the free exchange of ideas over the top hyperbole diminishes the point in the same way that Lena Dunham fabricating a rape story not only destroys some guy’s life but makes it more difficult to address the point that she is supposedly concerned with and 3)I object to the categorization of every day words and phrases as sexist. Yes, there are phrases that are innately sexist (“panties in a bunch”, 'hissy fit", etc) but “Big Fat Liar” is not one of them.
Hmmm. Who do you mean by “we?” Speech is a slippery thing.
By the way, the people who put up the “Pretty Little Liar” and “Big Fat Liar” posters were dumb. They should have left Lena Dunham out of it, and they probably should have just put up posters with “Liar” on them. We’d be having a different conversation then, and it would be much harder to criticize what they did.
I don’t think we should restrict speech, but we should sneer at people who cheap-shot women by bringing up their appearance when it’s irrelevant to the discussion.
That’s exactly right. They should have put up posters with “Liar,” and left out the cheap shots. If they had, then we would not be complaining about cheap shots.
Someone also complained that it was an unflattering picture of Lena Dunham (I think horrible was the word).
And we should absolutely sneer at people who take cheap shot anybody. We should just sneer more vehemently at people who falsely accuse others of a crime.
And you do set yourself up as" judge and jury" @Ohiodad51 when you say the name calling was a justified response to a “false” accusation. Many of us have agreed that the Sulkowicz case is a very difficult one and personally I remain on the fence as to whether what transpired constituted sexual assault. She obviously believes that it did.