Law Professor Bridget Crawford says

Earlier this evening New York Representative Anthony Weiner admitted that indeed the infamous underwear bulgewas his.   Weiner held a press conference in which he acknowledged that he had sent an underwear-clad picture of himself with an erection to a female Twitter follower.  He also admitted to other inappropriate internet flirting and sexually explicit cyber-talk with up to six women — before and after his marriage to Huma Abedin.  SeeTime Magazine‘s blog coverage of the press conference here.

Representative Weiner has said that he does not intend to resign from Congress.  I suppose he thinks that poor personal judgment does not disqualify him from office. After all, there are rich examples on both the left and the right of politicians who have made stellar contributions to the public good, in spite of making some terrible choices in their personal lives.

I am inclined to agree with Representative Weiner’s (implied) position that a lapse in personal judgment such as this one does not necessarily mean that he is unfit to do his job.  After all, what one of us has not made a poor personal choice?  Ok, maybe not that particular one…maybe not that particular type…but stone-throwing always is a lose-lose proposition.  I suspect that if attorneys were disbarred routinely for making bad personal decisions — especially about sexual matters, internet communications, or the overlap of the two — there would be far fewer attorneys in every state.

Troublesome to me is that Representative Weiner lied when asked initially whether the picture was of him.  (The Congressman claimed that he couldn’t say with “certitude” that the photo was or was not of him; Weiner asserted that his Twitter account had been hacked.)  Did politicians learn nothing from the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky debacle?  President Clinton was impeached for lying under oath, not for sexual infidelity.  To be sure, Representative Weiner was not under oath when talking to the press, but the damage would have been more contained if he had owned his mistake from the get-go.

Source: Feminist Law Professors

I certainly appreciate Prof. Crawford's tolerance and grace, and her acknowledgement of even admirable people's personal failures.

I on the other hand am feeling decidedly non-tolerant and graceful about at least three things.

1) When friends and supporters are going out on a limb defending you against accusations of things you really actually did you should own up to it.  Or at the very least they won't have much credibility when you need support for something you actually didn't do.  And at the very most because by embarrassing the shit out of you they're going to lose interest in supporting you at all.

2) I suppose I ought to be nettled that "here in the 21st Century blah blah blah" people feel they have to be circumspect and/or outright lie about sexual canoodling.  But that's not actually what this appears to be about -- it's about some guy sending what appear to have been unsolicited intimate photos to someone who wasn't expecting them.  That's more like, um, harassment.  If it turns out that the image was sent in the context of mutual and mutually-escalating cross-country cyber flirting then, eh, then we can talk about who should or shouldn't care.  Until then it's more a question (as I briefly noted in a defense of Weiner last week) about Rep. Weiner's prior associations with standard "good old Congressman" sexual harassers.

3) Great Adam's Umbilical Chord but what's with it with guys sending unsolicited photos of their fucking dicks?  There's a whole grand spectrum of Photos That Don't Work, which ranges from said unsolicited dick photos to unsolicited "porn for women" style baseboard-cleaning photos.  At the risk of sounding non-judgmental though?  Don't send any of them unsolicited, m'kay?

ZOMG! While digging further into the convention that rape in popular media is ok when it's women raping men, as in The Wedding Crashers, I ran into a pretty cool, and awesomely level-headed website that deals directly with the issue. It's called, not quite correctly, Television Tropes and Idioms. Not quite correctly, I say, because it covers not just tropes in TV but also movies, comics, and advertising. Also, in a way even better, in anime, hentai, and fan-fic.

What's fun about the site is that while they seem pretty solidly informed about the realities of sexual assault and rape they don't treat the issues as a gender or moral failing, they treat them as the lazy, knee-jerk, graceless, and unskilled writing clichés they almost always are.

Rape Is OK When It Is Female on Male

Obviously if you're watching a scene with a woman tied to a bed while a man forces sex on her, the final act of that movie will involve said man getting shot in the face by Bruce Willis. If, on the other hand, it's a man being tied down and forced into sex by a pretty lady, well, you're watching a wacky romantic comedy. — C. Coville, 6 Romantic Movie Gestures That Can Get You Prison Time, Cracked.com

Rape is a cruel and evil act, beyond kicking the dog or many of the most villainous acts in media. Except when they fall in love with the rapist, of course.

In a number of works, however, there is one other exception: when the victim is a man, and the attacker is a woman.

This kind of rape is often treated as nil since men are stereotyped as having nothing but sex on the brain, always eager for it and cannot be traumatized by sex if it is arousing. Consequently, a man raped by an attractive woman is considered a lucky man and a man being raped by an unattractive woman is comedy gold. Because of this, most examples are from comedies.

Compare Rape Is Okay When It's Female On Female, Rape Is Funny When It Is Male On Male, Rape As Comedy, and Rape Is Okay If It's Divine On Mortal.

Source: Television Tropes and Idioms (note: click through to see myriad links and examples)

So that's pretty straightforward -- right on the money when it comes to easy dismissal of sexual assault on men. (The Wedding Crashers is referenced in the lead quote and mentioned first under "Movies" in very-long list of examples.) And good for them.

But check out the scorn they heap on the fan-fic trope they call Rape Is The New Dead Parents (emphasis in 2nd paragraph mine.)

"It turns out that Darkness, Diabolo, Crab and Goyle's dad was a vampire. He committed suicide by slitting his wrists with a razor. He had raped them and stuff before too. They all got so depressed that they became goffik and converted to Stanism [sic]. —My Immortal

"The rape was thrown in there for good measure." — Bennett The Sage on the above

A lot of amateur writers out there find the tragic backstory appealing. After all, most of the interesting characters didn't get raised in Suburbia, USA with a loving, complete family that cared for them. That's just boring. But Character Development is hard... You mean you have to explain things? But it takes so long to establish mental illness, and physical handicaps would only get in the way. Can't you just say they got raped and be done with it?

Anyway, this is the tendency for writers who are just starting out, or for very lazy writers, often of fanfiction and role playing, but it can appear just about anywhere, to just casually drop rape into their characters' story for Deus Angst Machina or Wangst. Usually found in backstory, but it's not uncommon for rape to happen "on-screen" via two sentences that wouldn't qualify as IKEA Erotica. The writers want to add some dimension of frailty to their character and give a good reason for moodiness, but it's done in such a flimsy and unexplored way that it means... nothing. It's mentioned like mentioning a casual detail on a college application. Perhaps the hallmark of the Sympathetic Sue, this trope tends to evoke kneejerk righteous anger with its use. It takes one of those horrible things which take years to get over, if ever, and turns it into a rather cheap shock.

...

The classical line for this trope is "Jane once got raped when walking home one night [optional:and her parents didn't care]."

Note that this is not merely Rape As Backstory. While it often overlaps, that has its own page and is neutral. Also note that this is not just poorly handled rape; it has to be out of the story's attention within at most a minute and never show up again.

The trope name comes from the fact that Parental Abandonment used to be the stock "tragic background" of badly created characters. Perhaps due to a combination of dead parents being considered cliche by uncaring writers (and less common in Real Life) and the fact that they think rape spares everything short of the character's virginity, it has replaced the dead parents for lazy tragedy.

Physically abusive parents are quickly becoming popular as the go to tragic backstory. Then again, rape is often still involved.

Examples of this in amateur writing are too numerous to list and too forgettable to remember. It still occasionally makes its way into the more dubious works, however. Differentiated from Rape As Drama and Rape As Comedy in that its neither of these. It's just... there.

Before adding an example, please think of whether or not the trope could be removed without impacting the rest of the story any more than 2% requiring a rewrite.

See also how rape is dismissed in Rape Is Okay When It's Female On Female

"in large part based on the idea that lesbian sex is not "real" sex. Men, penises, and penile penetration are central to sexual relations; without a penis involved, there can be no sex, and without sex, there can be no rape. Therefore, anything a woman does to another woman is "not a big deal."

And check out Rape Is Funny When It Is Male On Male

But male rape is funny... At least to the guy doing the raping. — Theory of Everything

It's not.

A subtrope of Rape As Comedy. Usually played for laughs when a known straight character is hit on by another man, especially one that's physically larger.

Even when it's not supposed to be funny, it's still considered funny. Scenes like the outright rapes shown in films such as Deliverance, Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption are obviously supposed to be horrific; however they are routinely snickered at, rather than cried over as with male-on-female rape-scenes.

Anyway, it's a cool site throughout.

Matthew Yglesias illuminates one basic flaw in Penelope Trunk's assertion that in the future men will only sexually harass their superiors. Trunk reasons that reporting harassment always sinks the victims career, and that men's superiors will "have to keep their mouths shut if they want to keep climbing the [corporate] ladder," and therefore they'll make the best targets for harassment. Yglesias says

On the other hand, Steven Greenhouse reports that various kinds of harassment and assault of hotel maids are extremely common. Is it true, after all, that a maid has “nothing to lose”? Perhaps that would be true if the economy operated at a permanent full-employment state. Even if you did get fired, you could find some other hotel to clean in. But when unemployment’s 9 percent it seems to me a low-wage worker has a huge amount to lose.

Source: Center for American Progress

I'd think an even more basic flaw would be that if you piss off someone higher up the corporate ladder they'll be in an ideal position to stop your climb.  Even assuming there was no back channel "old girls" equivalent to the "old boys" networks.

But I'd like to highlight the final line in Yglesias' post:

Unless she’s represented by a strong labor union, which was the case for the maid at the Sofitel in question.

Because I think at the end of the day that explains right-wing antipathy towards unions.  It's not about wages (indeed, anti-union employers often brag about paying amounts equal to union wages.)  And it's not about workplace safety (indeed, Massey Energy was able to negligently murder its unionized employees pretty much with impunity at the Big Branch mine.)

Instead I think the answer is reflected in the light Jamelle Bouie shines on the most recent wealthy conservative scandal, this time by Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Typically, the traditional values agenda is defined by opposition to gay equality, abortion rights, and feminism. And while culture warriors offer different explanations for each issue, the core concern is deep opposition women's autonomy, and a belief in the right-ness of patriarchal rule.

Affairs, even ones that result in children, flow naturally of this worldview. Women are objects to be dominated (and if possible, claimed), and men -- as the "natural" leaders -- are free to indulge every whim, including those forbidden to people of "lower status."

Source: The American Prospect

I think that's about right.  What unions really do is allow people down the "corporate ladder" take on airs against their "superiors and betters."

Same I would add, with a nice 9-14% unemployment rate.  Either way when you've got no chance of finding another job and no chance of keeping your current one if you kick up a fuss a hotel employee has little choice but to brush off being bitten by the poodle with the diamond collar or submit to the man in the towel.

Penelope Trunk's just saying pointing out that if you're the kind of man who believes in the conservative principle of freedom to indulge every whim forbidden to classes subordinate to his (a.k.a. women) you can play that up the ladder as well.

Geek Feminism blogger Restructure! says, correctly, that there is zero intrinsic sexism in technology itself, or even room in tech to put sexism.  The problem, instead, is that the practice of tech is perpetually interrupted by those who want to bring

There is sexism in tech culture. However, I continue to love tech, because I think of the sexism as a separate, unnecessary appendage to pure tech. I cannot think of sexism as intrinsic to or inevitable in tech, because then I would be either self-hating, or I would have to give up my love for technology. Maybe my personal ontology is compartmentalized thinking in order to survive as a woman in tech, but I think it’s also true.

Source: Geek Feminism Blog

Contrary to gender stereotypes it's most often men in tech who want to talk about their feelings!  It's most often men in tech who won't leave their emotions at the door.

Actually, what I hate most about tech news sites is that when I go there for technology news, there are off-topic comments about love and relationships. It’s typically men discussing being single; having trouble with women; being Nice Guys™; giving advice about what women really want; talking about how women have it easier; bragging about how even their grandmother/mother/wife can use technology X; and other sexist generalizations about women.

The problem, I think, is that it's not like men just can't talk about their feelings.  Men have feelings! The problem instead is that lacking acceptable venues to discuss them we almost uncontrollably let our personal feelings leak into all manner of places where they're not even slightly relevant.

Case in point: years ago I worked for a large software company.  One year the #2 executive in the corporation felt obliged to include a feelings statement while giving an award to the most productive programmer in the most heavy-iron project in hard-core of tech divisions in the company.  It evidently meant a great deal to the executive that he'd once seen this distinguished programmer in a bikini, but this fact was not, at all, relevant to the project, the programmer, the division, the underlying technology, the performance that led to the award being given, the award itself, nor, of course, the woman programmer in the nearly all-male shop who actually won the fucking award.

That the exec's remark produced WTF comments from a number of her male colleagues preempts potential allegations that such introductions of personal feelings in tech are either a) perfectly appropriate in technical discourse or b) inevitable in male-centric discourse.  Instead, it illustrates Restructure's point that men in tech are perfectly able to distinguish the difference between tech culture and male culture.

As an aside I'm... pretty sure it never would have occurred to the same exec to say to another awardee that "while giving this innovation and productivity award for core database-server coding I just want to add that I've seen this guy in the locker room and he looks pretty good in nothing but a white towel."  Which serves to illustrate the point that the feelings he was sharing weren't incidental but specifically male-gendered.

Another case in point: Last January the keynote speaker at a 2011 Australian Linux conference drew the following complaint from, among others, the blogger Mary, also at GeekFeminism:

This morning’s keynote by Mark Pesce included slides with the following
illustrations among others:

1. a pig and a duck apparently having sex
2. a black and white sexualised strangulation
3. a fetish scene with a woman in a mask spanking a man in a mask

Several of these were accompanied by a verbal metaphor to “being fucked” in case the visuals weren’t explicit enough.

Not to sound like a total prig here but while I probably wouldn't have a problem with any of those images in the context of a presentation on, say, erotica or fetishism at a sexuality conference I'd probably look askance if they were included in the same conference's budget presentation.  I certainly think it's, um, non-random that the speaker, Mark Pesce, felt compelled to express such non-germane feelings in a purely tech context.

Case in point: The "No-Sex" Class: The "Never Go Down on you either" ad.  I'm sure there's someone or other in tech who could argue all day that simple "booth babes" at tech trade shows somehow don't count as an insertion of non-tech feelings into a tech environment. But without such an intrusion of feeling into technical specification that ad, with it's sultry woman's face and the copyline "Don't feel bad, our servers won't go down on you either" wouldn't make... well... a lick of sense!

Final case in point: here's Cordelia Fine on psychologist (and literal gender essentialist) Simon Baron-Cohen's critique of her book Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, which is among other things an extended essay on the impropriety of inserting topically gendered feelings into scientific inquiry:

The Essential Difference author and Cambridge psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen generously acknowledged its scholarship, the instantly recognizable stereotype was nonetheless lurking in all its unalluring glory: I was “strident”; in pursuit of a “barely veiled agenda”; and guilty of the “mistaken blurring of science with politics.”

She said it here

Pot calling the kettle black much, Cohen-Baron? In what other scientific field is it so common to attempt to preferentially gather evidence in support of one's hypothesis ("men and women are different") instead of the more, um, conventional method of seeking to challenge, refute, or otherwise test it for confounding factors? That in itself would just be really crappy methodology. To object to having it called out by accusing one's opponent of stridency, or agenda pursuing, or confusing science with politics is obviously itself resorting to politics, rhetoric. Fine rhetoric point-scoring when preaching to the choir no doubt, especially if the choir tends to shower in the men's locker room. Just really crappy science.

Is it really too much to ask men in tech to first acknowledge and then find other fucking outlets to express their non-tech emotions? It doesn't just get in the way for women in tech, it gets in the way of tech!