He wrote a really attrocious article for his school’s newspaper, and has issued a first-class apology. No, really. It’s not one of those “I’m sorry if you were offended” apologies. It’s an all-out, “I effed up and I learned a lot and let me explain what I learned and what I should have done instead instead of getting defensive” apology.
Good on you, Mr. Brorby. I remain less impressed with the newspaper staff who thought it was a good idea to publish the first article, but it does seem like Josh is making a very serious effort to be a good and productive ally.
Good for him. After seeing his apology in the comments for the first article he wrote I felt kind of bad for him. Yeah, what he wrote was terrible and offensive, but being a college newspaper writer myself I can understand how it probably seemed like a great idea at the time and he realized too late how awful it was. I am glad that the article happened, and especially glad that this truly fantastic apology happened, because at least it’s opening up lines of dialogue between people–especially college students–about this issue. Good for you, Josh.
Sparkles all around. Thanks for posting, Jill.
If only more apologies were this well-crafted and sincere. Thanks for linking this, Jill.
I appreciated that article.
I think in the original case, the editors should have worked with the columnist to make it more clear earlier in the piece that it was anti-rape satire, designed to have a “whoa” kind of impact and perhaps get through to guys that tune out straightforward approaches.
Unfortunately, I think the lesson learned was that instead of fine tuning the satirical approach to avoid misunderstanding or hurt, it’s better just to take the safe, straightforward approach. And that approach is on full display in the apology. The problem is, I think the effect this has on the the targets of the original piece (potential date rapists) is to cause their eyes to glaze over, if they even read the whole thing.
I also think this blog owes Mr. Brorby an apology for selectively quoting his original piece in such a way as to make it appear that he was in fact actually advocating sexually predatory behaviour up to and including sexual assault.
Oh, please. Selectively quoting? I quoted like 3/4 of the damned piece! And upon a first (and second and third) reading of the piece, it really did read like a sexual assault manual. That is how many, many people read it. So no, I’m not going to apologize for what was an entirely reasonable response to a really ridiculous piece.
You know, no where in that apology did Josh Brorby demand any apologies back. In fact, what he said was,
Borked the code! Feel free to point and giggle.
How awesome. I am so glad he’s not doing the whole “now I know how Joan of Arc felt” routine. Though I note with disgust that we have guys here who feel the need to do it for him. But I feel pretty sure he’d disown their efforts. I don’t know Josh Brorby but I’ve got a lot of respect for him right now.
I’m sorry, but now my brain’s made the reference, I can’t stop myself from pasting a gratuitous link to “Bigmouth Strikes Again” along with congratulations to Josh Brorby on not being that guy.
Placebo cover because I’m going to see them soon. \O/
Now, if I can say something douchey for a moment …
Ok, no, if I know it’s douchey I probably shouldn’t say it. All right, non-douchey version: This is probably the third-best outcome. Best is he writes a different article in the first place, second best is he does an Obama/Special Olympics and apologizes before anyone calls him out on it. But having done neither of those things, really the least he could do is, having been called out on it, say “I fucked up and I’m sorry” without making excuses (though I’m not sure an explanation is the same as an excuse). And he did that. Everyone else who fucks up inadvertently should learn from that example.
Since there’s no visible difference between fucking up inadvertently and refusing to apologize, on the one hand, and actually being a dipshit.
Nicely done on his part. He fucked up, recognized it, and apologized, without any flagrant cookie-demanding. I hope he continues writing, and makes sure he gets honest second opinions on his satire before publishing.
@Hershele… I dunno… he DID get a wider audience for the second go round, and that second piece WAS really good, and he DID model minimal-standard-decent human being apology for those who… aren’t minimally decent human beings yet.
So I dunno, but you still make a compelling argument for this being third best option.
@Jill: “Oh, please. Selectively quoting? I quoted like 3/4 of the damned piece!”
Exactly. Even more egregious that you left out the last couple sentences, which make his intent crystal clear (and make it appear that in quoting so much but leaving that out, you were out to make a bigger splash with your post). So fine, call it selective non-quoting; and I wasn’t the only one who called you on it.
As for the fact that he didn’t ask for others to apologise–give me a break, of course he’s not going to do that after the way he was taken to the woodshed (and it would look whiney on his part anyway). But I think he is owed one regardless.
Why do I owe him an apology for interpreting his article as written? I didn’t misrepresent anything. He made a mistake in writing the piece — which he has owned up to — and I called him on it when a reader sent me the piece. Now that I see he appreciates the fact that he made a mistake, I’ve linked to his apology and even said it’s really great. Even in the original post, I quoted a brief apology/explanation from him, right at the top. I still think the article was really fucked up (and apparently so does he). Why, exactly, is he owed an apology?
SlackerInc.
If this website was the only place that was severely offended by his original piece, well, you’d still be wrong but at least logic would be involved in your wrongness; but the terribleness of his article was recognized widely, including, clearly, in his own personal life. So Jill’s quoting of “only” 3/4ths of the article, and linking to the rest, has nothing to do with the overall reaction to his piece, which for your little complaint to make logical sense, is necessary.
And what’s the point of your complaint? The people actually involved are moving forward in a healthy, productive manner and you want to…what exactly?
@Jill: The reason you owe him an apology is not because you didn’t like his piece. That’s your prerogative and perfectly defensible. However, you should have framed your dislike in a fair, responsible way, making reasonable points about how it takes too long to make it clear where it stands, that it is insensitive to victims of sexual assault to graphically and seemingly flippantly describe acts like these in a newspaper column…etc. All perfectly valid and fair.
But that’s not what you did. Instead, as I noted above you selectively quoted the piece and added the following hints for readers as to how to interpret it:
You called his piece a “sexual assault how-to manual”. Then, after saying Brorby is not “the sharpest tool in the shed”, in the very next sentence you claim that “admitting that it requires a total disregard for the law, kind of strongly implies that he does this” Does the sharpest tool in the shed fail to comprehend after reading the whole thing including the last two sentences, that hs is not talking about things he does but rather, things he decries?
Let me put it to you straight: are you just too embarrassed and stubborn to admit that you totally failed in reading comprehension here? Or if you did not fail to comprehend when initially reading it (the whole way through, I would hope) that the above statements I quoted from you were flat out wrong, maybe you just refuse to admit that you did a hit job on him by selectively quoting most of the piece to make for a juicy blog entry, but purposely left out the denouement that makes it clear to anyone reasonably fluent in English that, no Virginia, he does not do this, and he does not in the least approve of other guys doing this either.
You wrongly (either knowingly, or cluelessly, you tell us which) accused someone of being a violent criminal who used his soapbox to exhort others to engage in violent criminal acts, and you can’t imagine why I think you owe him an apology (and owe the blogosphere a promise that you will endeavour to avoid such oversights/yellow journalistic tactics in the future)? Really?
But then, you’re still adamantly claiming that you didn’t “misrepresent anything”. Are you seriously going to stick to that position? Claiming that “he does this” was not at all a misrepresentation? Good grief–I just…I don’t know. I mean, huh?!? Say what?!?
@Jill: I note now that in one of your responses upthread, you do settle the issue of whether it was your misreading or purposeful misrepresentation:
“And upon a first (and second and third) reading of the piece, it really did read like a sexual assault manual. That is how many, many people read it.”
I would guess that “many, many people” read the excerpts you quoted, and your coaching as to how to interpret them, and took your word for it. But if you are stating that you read the last sentence three times and still thought it was a straight up sexual assault manual…well, okay: brave admission on your part I guess. It only took me one read to see otherwise, though I’ll fully admit that the first time through I didn’t catch most of the admittedly too-subtle cues before that last sentence. Once I had read the end though, it seemed pretty obvious.
Another question for you then: since you did quote so much of it, why not the conclusion? Wouldn’t it be pretty standard in a blog entry where so much of a piece is quoted, for the conclusion to be among that majority (perhaps trimming a little elsewhere to “make room”)? As a reminder, this is how that sentence reads:
“Check it out: you may have just lost a great friend, divided all of your acquaintances, defiled a neighbor’s home, lost the trust of everyone close to you, and cried yourself to sleep the following evening, but who cares, dude, YOU JUST HAD SEX!”
So that didn’t tip you off, but it also just didn’t seem like an interesting portion to quote? Hmmm.
As a rape victim, I thought it was inappropriate but I got the joke and the fact that it was satire.
I think with writing satire you’re always taking the chance that people won’t get it. It has to be really well done or you’re going to look like an idiot at best, and when you’re writing about rape you’ve increased the stakes immensely.
SlackerInc, please do not think that Josh Brorby’s reaction or feelings about being called out are the same as those you would feel if you were in his place. Implying that he actually wants an apology but is too terrified of those vicious feminists/ overreacting survivors to ask for one seems to be creepily transcribing your thoughts onto him. And from what I have seen in Brorby’s apology and your apologia, I suspect (though I’m not presumptuous enough to be sure) that the two of you are rather different people.
Terrible article, fantastic apology. It has rather made my day.
SlackerInc – Quoting – I do not think it means what you think it means.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quoting
And not only did she quote the piece as per merriam-websters definition, but she also linked to the article so that anyone who wanted to read the whole thing could. Jill has nothing to apologize for… but I’m thinking maybe you should.
The Dakota Student editors who allowed this article to be published still refuse to apologize. They site that Brorby’s rape satire had merit, and the womyn of UND demand an apology. http://media.www.dakotastudent.com/media/storage/paper970/news/2009/12/04/Opinion/Response.Brorby.Column-3845985.shtml?reffeature=recentlycommentedstoriestab
UND students still need support in regards to their pitiful response. Sadly, everyone’s so star struck by Josh Brorby’s apology that they fail to notice the numerous rape victims who still want to see the editors of the DS to apologize. Looks like our support was squashed on feministe before it ever did anything productive to give us a voice.
Oh, the local paper put up and article about it too, the columnist said commenters on the Brorby article were mostly made up of angry women and that these women failed to realized the satire tone of the article. Stupid women. http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/143666/publisher_ID/40/
WRT the editors deciding to publish in the first place: having worked in student media, I can tell you that a lot of the time the editors don’t really have an option about what they do or don’t publish, because there’s just nothing else to put in the space. If it’s half an hour to press time and you only have the one piece, it’s probably going on the page.
Not to excuse asshattery, of course, but I did run into this problem quite a bit when I was in school. I went to a pretty large college–20,000 students–with a weekly newspaper and a healthy journalism program, but we still wound up publishing things we would rather have chucked because there was nothing else and we needed a certain amount of text lest we publish entire pages of nothing but ads. It’s not always the editor being stupid.
SlackerInc, Josh Brorby said himself that what he was going for was a Jonathan Swift-style-satire. [Side note: for those of you who aren't aware, Swift wrote an essay ("A Modest Proposal") on poverty in the UK and suggested that the upper classes should eat the babies of poor Irish families to deal with food sparsity and overpopulation of the lower classes. It included tips on how to cook the babies and that kind of thing. It was intended to be farcical, was taken as such, and has seen been used by English classes the world over as a perfect example of satire. Many have emulated it, coming up with their own "Modest Proposals."]
Brorby has explained in the comments that what he intended for was a MP-type argument; in other words, he meant for his suggestions to be so ludicrous as to highlight the absurdity of our “sexual conquest” culture the same way Swift’s piece was so ludicrous that it highlighted the privileged attitudes of the English upper class and the class divisions in the UK. Brorby failed at this, though, and there is one important reason: Eating babies is clearly ludicrous. No one could possibly take that seriously. Rape, and sexual aggression, however, are so prevalent in our society that it is not at all ludicrous. It is a reality. That’s why his piece didn’t achieve the intended effect: it hit too close to home. We’re too immersed in a rape culture and misogynistic world. So any joke about rape is hurtful and dangerous.
In short, Brorby fucked up. He had to learn a lesson about how satire works: To present something as ludicrous, that thing had damn well better be ludicrous. And SlackerInc, when you refer to the “last line” in the piece that feministe chose not to quote, I assume you’re referring to this one: “Check it out: you may have just lost a great friend, divided all of your acquaintances, defiled a neighbor’s home, lost the trust of everyone close to you, and cried yourself to sleep the following evening, but who cares, dude, YOU JUST HAD SEX!” And while this does sort of bring the article to the right conclusion, it is one line in a long piece that I imagine many people couldn’t bring themselves to finish. Proper satire should not rely on one line to make the intent clear. So, it’s not that Jill spun the article unfairly, it’s that the article was written poorly. That one line can’t debunk the damage done with the prior two pages of writing. Jill addressed in her original piece that “satire” would probably come up, and it did, but not in the way she expected, so she took this opportunity to give the man’s apology as much publicity as she gave her own criticism. That is entirely fair. She owes him nothing.
…no. I don’t think I failed at reading comprehension here. I think he attempted to write satire and he failed, and I responded to what he wrote on its face. A lot — lot lot lot — of people did the same thing. The fact that he failed to write readable satire does not mean that his audience failed at reading comprehension. I didn’t do a “hit job” on him. I wrote about his piece the same way that I write about every other piece on this blog. I link to it, I quote parts of it, I discuss it. I actually quoted substantially more of his piece than I usually do. I did not purposely leave out the denouncements at the end. Quite honestly, reading the last paragraph in context didn’t read like a denouncement — it read like an extension of an entirely tiresome, offensive piece. In context, that last paragraph did not make it clear to anyone reasonable fluent in English that he doesn’t approve of this behavior. I’m pretty fucking fluent in English and so are a lot of readers here an elsewhere; many of us did not read it the way you read it.
Seriously though, dude, what the fuck is your problem? Brorby admitted he made a mistake. Perhaps I failed at reading the previous article correctly, but I really did read it as a rape apologia — and I’ve read enough of those to realize that they are rarely actually satire. I did the responsible thing by linking his apology comment at the beginning of the post, and now posting a link to his formal apology. And now, what, you want me to apologize for responding to an article that Brorby himself has said was totally fucked? And you’re going to come into my space and insult my intelligence, suggest that I can’t read English and demand — demand! — that I apologize?
Fuck off.
Wow, what a fantastic real life example of someone following the great ideas Tami had a few days ago for situations just like this.
I forgave him when I read his first apology, but now I think I actually kind of admire the guy.
Tone police troll is policing.
Also, SlackerInc, go back and read Jewell’s comment upthread. This whole discussion has turned into “poor Josh Brorby” instead of centering on the rape survivors and women on campus who were really hurt by this. Brorby himself is trying to turn the conversation back to them. So… let’s do that. Perhaps your anger would be better directed at the editors of the student paper, who stupidly published this editorial without the requisite editing and oversight?
That one line can’t debunk the damage done with the prior two pages of writing.
Agreed. Also all those people who commented on the original article blaming the hypothetical woman for getting drunk…. where’s your scathing mansplaining to them for obviously misreading this totally unproblematic and straightforward essay, SlackerInc?
Oh, I guess that article wasn’t so straightforward afterall.
And anyone who was too horrified/sickened/triggered/EFFING EXHAUSTED to go through two pages of crap just in case there was a startling reveal in the last paragraph, even though so much experience screams that this will not happen? Well, of course some people are just too “stupid” to finish reading something before processing a reaction to it. Of course.
Stop defending a piece that even the damned AUTHOR has renounced. It DID read like a how-to manual, which was why it was so inappropriate, and Brorby recognizes that, although clearly you don’t.
This isn’t to defend the original column – I think we all see why it was problematic – but I agree with several of the points SlackerInc is making.
I was mislead by the original post on Feministe. The post made it seem like Josh Brobry was purposely advocating rape. It wasn’t until I actually read the column that it was clear that Josh was insulting people who have attitudes supporting rape. I agree with SlackerInc that the blog author should apologize for fanning the flames by stating that the author was intentionally promoting rape when it was obvious he wasn’t. Or, if the blog author isn’t willing to do that publicly, at least privately admit to herself that they need to be more careful about attributing beliefs to someone who doesn’t hold those beliefs. As feminists, we know what is like when people ascribe beliefs to us that we clearly don’t hold. We’ve all taken risks in our writing and analogies in an attempt to make people understand the feminist perspective. Sometimes we fail.
Anyone who read the whole article would have written a different blog article that would have been titled “Student columnist attempts to write satire of rape culture – fails miserably” not “Student columnist believes it is okay to rape people”. Josh didn’t get defensive when he was called out for poor writing – why are you getting so defensive when you’re called out for doing the same?
“Fuck off.”
Oh, thank you so much for saying that. I wanted to say it, but didn’t feel it was my place. Slacker Inc. is behaving like an even bigger ass in this thread than he was in the last thread.
“Another question for you then: since you did quote so much of it, why not the conclusion?”
It doesn’t bloody matter whether she quoted the conclusion or not. That’s the part that is sailing three feet over your head. The -point- is that the vast majority of the piece was offensive and terribly triggering for rape victims. Being a rape victim, I feel I am pretty damn qualified to make that declaration. You are behaving like a typical, privileged, entitled man. Your indignation is has no place in this conversation. Josh Brorby does not deserve an apology. Regardless of his intentions, he fucked up severely. He is making amends for that fuck-up. But the making of amends does -not- negate the original fuck-up.
What part of that are you having difficulty understanding?
“It’s not always the editor being stupid.”
It seems to me that the intelligent thing to do in such a situation is simply not publish anything. Is publishing a newspaper really so important that it’s necessary to print degrading, offensive material just to meet deadlines?
For the 50th time: The article read as if Brorby was promoting rape. That is how I read it. Until I read his apology, I did not think that his article was satire. I did not think that he was trying to criticize rape culture. I didn’t see his apology until after I had written and published the post, which was not intentionally misleading and which responded to the article as it stood. As soon as I saw the apology, I put it at the top of the post so that readers would have that context.
I did read the whole article. Please keep in mind, too, that many people are now reading Brorby’s first article with the added context of his apology. I’m not sure that the reaction would have been the same if his article had been read, in full, as it stood.
And I’m getting defensive because you and SlackerInc are being assholes and accusing me of something I did not do and then flat-out saying that I can’t read. I’m getting defensive because, again, everyone is concerned about oh poor dude who the feminists are being meeeeeaaaaan to, when dude himself has said he fucked up and has apologized for it. I’m getting defensive because everyone is trying to make this a productive conversation and a handful of people are turning it into a “gotcha!” moment.
Look, I fuck up a lot. And I think that I have demonstrated over years of writing in this space that I am quite capable and willing to apologize and make amends. And here, I think I’ve made it clear that Brorby’s apology should be considered and even used as a positive example — which is why I linked to it in this post, and why I prefaced the previous post with another one of his apologies. So please, spare me your ridiculous demands that I apologize to Brorby for something that he himself says was a mistake and was deserving of criticism.
stonebiscuit:
WRT the editors deciding to publish in the first place: having worked in student media, I can tell you that a lot of the time the editors don’t really have an option about what they do or don’t publish, because there’s just nothing else to put in the space. If it’s half an hour to press time and you only have the one piece, it’s probably going on the page.
Not to excuse asshattery, of course, but I did run into this problem quite a bit when I was in school. I went to a pretty large college–20,000 students–with a weekly newspaper and a healthy journalism program, but we still wound up publishing things we would rather have chucked because there was nothing else and we needed a certain amount of text lest we publish entire pages of nothing but ads. It’s not always the editor being stupid.
The same editors of the Dakota Student refused to publish my friends article on white privilege in the paper last semester. Funny, cause they let this rape satire be published. When it comes down to it, this issues with the editors has more to do with the “old boys club” then whether or not this article had any merit. I also don’t want to hear any excuse from anyone saying this is the way papers are run. Ridicules.
Jill – My apologies – sorry to make you waste your time an energy on your response to my perceptions of the original post. I think your response to Josh Brobry’s apology was very fair. I certainly believe you when you say you didn’t read it as satire – that with all the rape apologia that circulates, that it can be easy to read through this piece and make the assumption that it is just one more piece of trash floating about.
“Check it out: you may have just lost a great friend, divided all of your acquaintances, defiled a neighbor’s home, lost the trust of everyone close to you, and cried yourself to sleep the following evening, but who cares, dude, YOU JUST HAD SEX!”
So that didn’t tip you off, but it also just didn’t seem like an interesting portion to quote? Hmmm.
As I believe someone mentioned in the comments, there’s an item conspicuously missing from that list: “You just violated a human being in the worst way possible.”
In a college paper, it is entirely plausible that someone would turn in a column that is a straightforward guide to committing rape. I read the post at Feministe after Brorby had outright stated that it was satire (but before he issued a full apology) and so never thought it was anything other than poorly executed satire in atrocious taste written by someone whose privilege blinded him to the fact that some of his readers would be rape survivors and many of his readers would be women, but I can understand how — even with the part Jill elided — it can look like a straightforward guide to committing rape.
Again, in context. If I found something like this in the Village Voice, say, I’d figure it for poorly executed satire from the first.
We always say in the male feminist/ally world that we neither ask for nor expect cookies for basic decency, and so I won’t offer Josh one. But he has done something unusual, in that he has been willing to let go of his ego enough to listen, really listen, to the criticism coming his way — and having listened to it, reflected on it, realized the gravity of what he did, and took serious rather than half-hearted measures to make amends.
When you’ve fucked up royally, the only way forward is to do the “next right thing”. Most people make the fuck-up worse through defensive counterattacks, and Brorby didn’t do that. A lot of men who are reliable allies in the feminist movement have similar youthful experiences; Jill, you’re right to say he’s made a serious effort to be a good and productive ally.
I think that the way the article was quoted did mislead me somewhat, but I certainly don’t think that was Jill’s intent (or that she should apologize.) It’s easy enough to read something, pick out the things that seem important to you, and then have those things not perfectly match what other people think were the most important passages.
As for the post title, considering Jill’s perception of the article at the time that title seems accurate. (Other titles could include “Guy writes hilarious article about how girls are stupid” or “sex with unconscious people is awesome” and that would be more in line with the perceptions some of the asshole commenters over there had.) Currently the consensus here seems to be that “Guy makes stupid and harmful but ultimately unintentional mistake and feels really bad about it later” and Jill’s follow-up post reflects that changed perception. So I don’t think she’s done anything wrong here.
Aaaaaand…this is why I reply “no” when asked if I am “a feminist”. Slacker123 was polite, didn’t get personal and has a point. This man was accused of being pro-rape. He is not. The fact that he sucks at satire doesn’t mean he is. And the usual response from the thoughtful, sensitive blogger: “fuck off”. Y’alls are just as bad as the people you condemn.
PS. I have a vagina and no, I won’t be back after posting this to read about what a brainwashed girly I am. Next time you make that incredulous face when contemplating the SHOCKING (!!!) number of young women who reject the feminist label, refer back to this, and to your own response to a perfectly reasonable comment/opinion from someone who happened to disagree with you slightly on the right course of action. Ridiculous. Truly.
Gut instinct can usually turn out to be correct,like knowing that josh brobry’s apology was well meaning and sincere.My gut instinct also tells me that slackerinc is one of those guys whos sulks and moans about ‘the pendulum swinging too far’ and ‘the feminization of society’ when things don’t go his way.
@Niki #26: “And while this does sort of bring the article to the right conclusion, it is one line in a long piece that I imagine many people couldn’t bring themselves to finish. Proper satire should not rely on one line to make the intent clear. So, it’s not that Jill spun the article unfairly, it’s that the article was written poorly.”
Niki, I agree with most of that–look at what I wrote in my comments upthread:
#5: “[T]he editors should have worked with the columnist to make it more clear earlier in the piece that it was anti-rape satire…”
#17: “[Y]ou should have framed your dislike in a fair, responsible way, making reasonable points about how it takes too long to make it clear where it stands, that it is insensitive to victims of sexual assault to graphically and seemingly flippantly describe acts like these in a newspaper column…etc. All perfectly valid and fair.”
#18: “I’ll fully admit that the first time through I didn’t catch most of the admittedly too-subtle cues before that last sentence.”
But Jill, as a blogger talking about the article and spreading it to a far wider audience, owed the article more careful attention than does the casual reader. And she says upthread that she read the whole thing three times. Doesn’t that make a pretty big difference?
Everyone who’s having trouble with the way Jill’s initial post portrayed the article should go re-read Niki’s comment @ #26.
The whole point of failed satire is that an article attempting to satirize rape will sound like a how-to-manual of sexual assault. If Swift had decided to suggest that to deal with the problem of poor Irish families, we should take their children and give them to the Catholic Church, the satire would have failed because the Irish government actually did that.
To satirize rape, you’d have to come up with something more horrible and despicable that what people actually do. I’m not even sure that’s possible, and I’d rather people just stop trying, especially when they’re not very knowledge about the facts on sexual assault. We should all keep in mind that the actions described in Brorby’s article are not “satire.” They are things that have actually happened to a lot of women, a number of whom go to college and read their college newspapers.
@Jill #27: “you’re going to come into my space and insult my intelligence, suggest that I can’t read English and demand — demand! — that I apologize?
Fuck off.”
Wow, you really cut to the chase there: “my space”. So let me ask you this: how is Brorby’s column, with original content followed by a comment thread, substantially different from a blog entry? Because I assume you don’t disapprove of people writing comments there critical of Brorby and demanding an apology.
Is it really as blatant a double standard as that you simply can dish it out but can’t take it? That it’s fine for people to go to others’ online material and criticise their editorial decisions in the comments, but not in “your space”? Stop and think about what you are saying here–I mean, wow.
I’m still trying to keep my gorge down over the fact that people thought it was understandable satire because he got in a “zinger” at the end with raping-people-is-bad-because-you’ll-lose-friends. No, seconding Rebecca here: raping women is bad because they’re human beings with human rights, and even feelings!
I realised Brorby was trying to be – oh FSM I dare not even call it satirical – but felt that familiar queasiness reading those lines that I feel when people say people are only moral, non-murdering types because they believe God will punish them otherwise. ‘Cause a) we all know how well the punishment-as-deterrent system has been working! and b) seriously? I’m so terrified to ever be in the same room as you, you amoral sociopath.
I’m so glad he apologized properly, and has been an actual human being about it.
Well, yeah. I pay to maintain it. I put in a lot of hours every day for very little pay to sustain it. So yes, it is my space. I don’t mean to say that it means I exclude anyone I want, but I do make an effort to maintain at least somewhat of a safe space for myself and for our readers.
I can dish it out but I can’t take it? Are you for real? I can — and do! — take criticism all the time. I try to learn from it and I try to develop as an activist and as a feminist. But you know, I also delete hundreds of comments telling me what a dumb cunt I am for not agreeing with everying that X Y or Z dude says. So I learn how to separate the good, productive criticism from the knee-jerk and the unproductive. That is how I get through my day. It sometimes means that, no matter how worthy you believe your criticism to be, I have probably heard it before and thought it through and have rejected it. Please don’t act like I haven’t engaged you or seriously considered your arguments. I have. I nonetheless reject them. I think you’re wrong. You think I am wrong. I am saying that, yes, this is my space and I retain my right to protect my own mental health in this space. That is not a double standard. It is disagreement. And it is disagreement in a zone that I feel ownership over.
Because the derail is completely boring and not at all productive: Jewell. How can we help?
So my last statement was clearly beyond my ability to punctuate properly. To be clear: SlackerInc = derail, Jewell = person I am asking a question of.
@Jill: I think you’re misunderstanding what I mean about a double standard. I’m not calling it a double standard for you to believe one thing, and for me to believe another. As you say, that is simply disagreement. What IS a double standard is to say “this is my space, how dare you come here and criticise me”, unless you also believe that you or your readers would have no right to go post comments critical of a writer on another site that had, in your view, defamed someone. I highly doubt this is the case; in fact, I’m virtually certain you would encourage your readers to do so if you felt someone were being unfairly treated. Thus the double standard: one standard for your site, another standard for all other sites.
And it says a lot that you equate my posts with all the people who post things like “dumb cunt”. That is a straw man, ad hominem smear, to conflate my posts with those; but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
Enjoy your little fiefdom (for you, it seems, what constitutes a “safe space” is a sycophantic echo chamber). I had assumed a feminist site would value other progressive notions like free and open exchange of ideas, including civil criticism of, and debate with, the powers-that-be. However, it appears I erred in that assumption, so I will take my leave.
i am completely in agreement with Niki. it may be satire, but it won’t be effective if the intended audience cannot recognize that the conditions for the piece’s truth would be ridiculous. if they seem like something someone would actually say, it won’t work. in a backhanded way, it’s a testament to brorby’s own naivety (which i can relate to, as i have made similar mistakes in my life, though not re: rape), in that he could not envision a world in which the point of view he was describing was not ridiculous. the sad fact is that the world we have contains these perspectives in it, and real women have been hurt due to them.
i also think that brorby has owned up to the pain he caused (though he did not intend to), and thus there is no need to defend his original piece, as even he has renounced it.
thus, our attention should always be on the one’s pained by a situation.
lastly, though i think the “debate” with SlackerInc has been getting more and more angry and less and less valuable, i think one point that may be objectionable in jill’s original piece is the suggestion that brorby may be a rapist himself. that is a serious accusation.
lastly, though i think the “debate” with SlackerInc has been getting more and more angry and less and less valuable, i think one point that may be objectionable in jill’s original piece is the suggestion that brorby may be a rapist himself. that is a serious accusation.
Okay, quote where ANYONE called Brorby a rapist. I’ve now read and RE-read that original post and thread three times because of comments like yours, and all I can see is a couple of remarks pointing out that Brorby *sounds* like a rapist in the article (which he does, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT HE WAS TRYING TO DO), all of which were made *prior* to his explanation and apology. Stop trying to shame people for pointing out when people are saying inappropriate things. How hard is this?
When I hear people talking like rapists, I am going to damn well tell them that they sound like rapists.
Can we all please, please notice that we’ve let one single asshole slide this whole thing backwards?
Jadey;
“You called his piece a “sexual assault how-to manual”. Then, after saying Brorby is not “the sharpest tool in the shed”, in the very next sentence you claim that “admitting that it requires a total disregard for the law, kind of strongly implies that he does this” ”
Quote from Slackerinc. The part where Jill kind of strongly implied he was a rapist. You might not have noticed it because Jill ignored it completely in every reply to Slackerinc. I don’t think the whole interpretation of Brorby’s post deserves an apology, like someone said before; with satire you always take a gamble that someone doesn’t get it, but I do think that calling someone a probable rapist does.
Good on Josh Brorby–I wish more people who messed up would actually listen and think the way he did when he was called out.
What Niki and Malta said.
It’s NOT SATIRE if you’re just writing something that other people can write and have written on the subject in total seriousness. Readers aren’t telepaths; if two or more authors express the same ideas, we have no ability to tell who means it in earnest and who was thinking satirically as they wrote it. The author has to tell us that through his writing (by using exaggeration, implausible ideas, or commentary) and Brorby’s column didn’t do it.
Um, yes, THIS. Seconded.
And not for nothing, but “admitting that it requires a total disregard for the law, kind of strongly implies that he does this” is not the same as calling him and out-and-out rapist. Brobry himself said he understood why he came off that way, and it seems like an awful lot of spiteful hairsplitting to try and spin this into something worthy of a Congressional Inquiry.
But then, I don’t think you sniveling concern trolls are actually interested in the facts, just the favorite hobby of the Concern Troll–derailing. Cut it out.
Jill does not have to apologize to Mr Brorby because she has already shown him the graciousness of linking his apology and calling it first-class. That is the mature response to an apology.
As women we are conditioned that on the rare occasions a man says sorry to us and means it we are supposed to say, “Oh that’s OK, I overreacted, I am sorry too.” Doing this minimizes the original thing for which HIS apology was warranted, and causes him to think it didn’t actually matter that much and she was just in a mood or something, and her to think that her feelings aren’t as important as his pride (which, after all, is the basic equation behind apologizing; does your pride matter more than doing right by someone you hurt, even if unintentionally). It’s the same mindset that says, “Oh you’re just saying that” in response to, “You look beautiful.” All it does is make you look ungracious for denying the other’s judgement in giving the compliment (which an apology IS, in some ways), and also makes you out to be ugly (even if you think you are, why draw attention to it so rudely?), or in the wrong when you weren’t, or somehow “less than”.
The right thing, when receiving an apology, is as with a compliment, to say, “Thank you.” This takes two forms: “Thank you; I appreciate that you care about my feelings” if it’s a subjective situation (ie he’s saying sorry because he cares and he feels bad he has been hurtful, not because you both have come to an agreement about what was right in the first place, eg your cat scratched him and he injured it in getting it off him; he recorded 2 programs he liked and the DVR then didn’t record the program you liked, but you hadn’t told him about it, he just didn’t ask). In an objective situation where it’s clear who’s wrong (eg he ran over your cat/deleted a program he knew you wanted to watch to make space for 2 programs of his own, without warning) you say, “Thank you; I really appreciate you taking responsibility.”
Jill has shown graciousness in giving this man’s apology an equal platform with his mistake. And in accepting it. That is all that can possibly be expected of her and actually shows the maximum respect for Mr Brorby by validating his own attempt to be gracious and assuring him that he has not thrown himself on his sword for nothing.
groggette 12.10.2009 at 11:41 am
Oh but that’s not nearly as satisfying as scolding feminists about their tone.
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Malta 12.10.2009 at 6:52 pm
This will now be my go-to statement for all bogus “it was satire!” defenses. Well put.
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invisible_hand 12.10.2009 at 10:07 pm
Oh boo friggin’ hoo. As usual, one man’s reputation trumps the personal safety of millions of women in a culture that considers a couple tequila shots to be the equivalent of consent.
Personally, I pegged it for satire right away. But then again, I’m a guy, so maybe it was more obvious to me what another guy meant. Which doesn’t change the fact that he badly misjudged his audience, which is all important for this sort of thing.
And I disagree completely that satire _should_ be obvious from the start. IMO, the best satire is that which has you going for a while. For instance, a “Immigrants go home!” screed which you only figure out midway through is talking about European colonists. YMMV, of course.