Quickies
Quickies: Monica Lewinsky, street harassment, and hacking traffic lights
- Monica Lewinsky on what it’s like to be slut-shamed by the entire world – “I don’t actually know why this whole story became about oral sex. I don’t. It was a mutual relationship.… The fact that it did is maybe a result of a male-dominated society.” From Amy.
- No, I will not deal with street harassment – “Most people who are attracted to men enjoy some sort of male attention, but not all of us enjoy it from any man, at any time, in any place. Kind of like I love pizza, but I don’t want people to shove pizza in my face every time I leave my apartment. Actually, I would probably start to kind of hate pizza if that happened, especially if trying to refuse the pizza led to slurs and threats of violence.”
- Researchers find it’s terrifyingly easy to hack traffic lights – From Criticaldragon1177.
- Anti-trans trolling spree forces Wikipedia to ban US House staffers for third time – “Wikipedia instituted the ban on Wednesday night after users operating from the House IP address made a series of anti-trans edits to the page for Netflix series Orange is the New Black. Anonymous users operating from the Republican-led House were persistently re-editing the page to slur trans actress Laverne Cox by mis-gendering her mentions on the show’s page.”
- Cute Animal Friday! Dogs enjoying popsicles. Pallas cats playing with tubes and sand.
I’m 28 now, so I was rather young when all the Monica Lewinsky stuff was going down. And I only barely had a grasp on what was happening with it all. But I actually recall thinking even as a young kid… why is everyone focusing so much on this woman and not the (male) president? Shouldn’t the blame be equal? But given how nearly everyone me was talking, this was some crazy psycho who didn’t know how to let go, like it was a real life Fatal Attraction.
A couple months ago, I went back and watched the big interview Monica Lewinsky did shortly after the incident had quieted down, and damn, did it give me a different perspective. She actually held herself with enormous dignity at a time when merely her surname could be used as a pejorative. And when she broke down when talking about how her treatment impacted her family life, I got the MAJOR major feels. I have far more respect for her now.
My recollection of the Clinton-Lewinsky media circus was that Clinton got at least as much flak as Lewinsky, if not more. Phrases like “Willy’s willy” and “can’t keep his pants zipped” were memes at the time. Also note that the Republicans used it as a basis for one of the charges that he was impeached on. On the other hand, pro-Clinton partisans tried to portray Clinton as a victim of a scheming Lewinsky in a (IMHO misguided) attempt to defend him. It didn’t work very well because Clinton was known as a womanizer even before he was elected.
(For the record, I voted for him both times, but was pretty PO’ed at him. Everyone knew the Republicans were looking for something to hang him for, but he did it anyway. And blew whatever power he might have had to do something in his second term.)