Daniel Sloss talking about holding other men accountable for abusing others. Because he failed:

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

"But when one in ten men are shit and the other nine do nothing, they might as well not fucking be there."

"Because if I'm being 100% honest with myself, were there signs in my friends behavior over the years towards women that I ignored? The answer is yes and that's on me until the day I die."

Sometimes we give way too many passes to our friends.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

This also applies very much to the issues of the waves of harassment that black and brown folks on the fediverse face.

We're utterly failing to hold our friends to account. We see the signs and ignore the red flags.

You can't fix this through tech. It's attitude and examining our own internalised white supremacy that hurts everyone.

Stop ignoring those flags.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

As Daniel Pointed out:

"If you think this does not affect the women in your life, talk to them after this show and watch your world crumble before your very eyes.

If you think this does not affect the women in your life, it's not because it's not happening to them, it's because they don't trust you enough to talk to you about it."

Extrapolate it out to other abuses on here.

Paul_IPv6

@onepict

when i was in college, i went to a "youth encounter" weekend with a bunch of folks from my old high school.

this was a "nice" suburban high school, middle to upper middle class.

at the time, i was shocked when i found out that over half the women there had dealt with some form of coercive, unwanted sexual encounter.

sadly, over the rest of my life, i've been shown over and over that this wasn't at all exceptional or unusual, that the percentage was probably even a bit low.

we need to believe victims and stop excusing perpetrators.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@paul_ipv6 Indeed.

There's a website called everyone's invited. Where folks wrote their accounts of sexual abuse and harassment at school and university.

It pretty much starts at a young age for so many women, men and non binary folks.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/27/moment-of-reckoning-for-uk-schools-as-5800-accounts-of-abuse-published

Matthew Loxton

@onepict
Hi Esther

I've never been particularly good at noticing such flags, and have no idea if there are some happening right now that I am missing on Mastodon or in my physixal life.
I bet there are a ton of other people like me who just don't detect the signals or understand what they mean

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

My experiences starting from the age of 12 at the hands of the opposite sex of abuse and harassment aren't particularly unusual.

Several experiences over the years. Awful, but I know I've got off lightly.

Hold your friends to account. If you're feeling a wee bit guilty, try not to lash out. Listen, read.

Do the work, then keep holding your friends to account.

https://dotart.blog/cobbles/on-bears
https://dotart.blog/cobbles/ignoring-boundaries

🌾 Rí Rua 💮🕊️

@onepict the on-bears, I am really enjoying this line:

The default response for women is “bear”. Partly because we recognize the value of a shit-post. But also because it's a truth.

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@mloxton I think all you can do is read the accounts if you can, and try not to jump to the conclusion that someone is making it up.

There's a point in time though with abusers that they leave a pile of debris.

A friend gave me an apt metaphor years ago:

"It's a bit like black holes, you can't see them, but you can see the debris of stars being torn apart."

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@ruari yeah .

It was kinda ridiculous the reaction by men to the whole thing though.

Chu 朱

@onepict

I once hosted a "women in politics" event (this is 10 years ago now). At the time, the Premier was a fairly unpopular woman. A man put his hand up and said that we've already tried the woman in charge thing and it isn't working. Why are we still at this.

Being the host, I immediately grabbed the mic and I said "When men in power screw up, we don't hold other men accountable for it, yet all women are responsible for her faults?"

The double standard that already existed is weighty.

Men are never expected to be accountable for the actions of other men.

When minorities do something bad, other minorities are expected to be accountable.

When women do something bad, other women are expected to be accountable.

The only exception to this has only ever been white men.

When white men shoot up schools, bring down banks, embezzle money... all these are exceptions and lone wolf actors. This includes abusing women.

David Mitchell :CApride:

@onepict @chu

“we've already tried the woman in charge thing and it isn't working. Why are we still at this.”

If that’s the measure we use, then why the hell are we still putting men in charge? … we’ve been doing that for centuries, and it objectively isn’t working.

(well, isn’t working unless the point is to ensure only other men will get their turn in charge… )

🌾 Rí Rua 💮🕊️

@onepict went looking for more Daniel Sloss on YouTube, there was surprisingly little.
I think he was the comedian in the Russell Brand documentary on channel 4 too.

I wonder if he's facing less promotion because of his stances

Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:

@ruari it's entirely possible.

Comedy much like tech has it's own missing steps and influential abusers.

But any community can have that. I remember in fencing in the late 90s when I was a student we had a few missing steps in the community.

It's why it's important for folks to call it out. It's hard to encounter, and every part of you wants to look away and not acknowledge it.

Consider though, how much harder it is for us when we trip on those hazards, then keep encountering the hazard.