Regarding the LP controversy du jour. I’m currently catching up on the facts and assessing but I’m not a judge, jury, defense or prosecution. I’m not one to rush to pick sides cause it’s not about that but being fair to all parties so here are some reflections you can take as you wish.
The comments being accused of saying are inappropriate and I can certainly see how they’d make someone uncomfortable. The victim in this case has a right to feel upset and her husband has a right to be upset as well.
What bothers me, is that the focus by others isn’t so much on what was said and who said it but on whether another person in the presence of situation was able to pick up on the inappropriateness of the statements, the discomfort of the person on the receiving end of the comment, and decide he should jump in and say something in that moment.
Ideal world people would have the emotional intelligence to be able to judge a situation and what’s appropriate but even the best of us often misjudges a situation. I don’t think lacking situational awareness is tantamount to being sexist or assault, but when someone realizes they may have missed some cues one should aim to do better next time and learn from it and try to not be overly defensive. (Although we all naturally become defensive when we feel our character is challenged, it’s natural)
People attacking the victim and attacking the accused are letting what should be a discussion between those involved into an excuse for political attacks on BOTH sides, and I find it very disheartening that people are using this to reaffirm their dislike towards certain parties on both sides because it suites them and serves their desired outcomes.
Victims often don’t voice discomfort because they feel people may not believe them or they may cause more conflict than they feel is worth the comfort they may get from resolution. (You should always be willing to tell people something bothers you when it does, people don’t learn boundaries through osmosis).
Often times bystanders don’t jump in to help people because they feel uncertain whether there is a situation and don’t want to create a conflict where it wasn’t needed. I’ve certainly seen people who stood up for people to have them lash out at the defender afterwards for getting involved.
Based on what I know so far which isn’t much there seems to be a conversation about boundaries that should be had by those involved. The rush to condemnation by everyone on both sides is exactly why those much needed conversations rarely happen causing boundaries to continue to be crossed all over society cause no one can have a simple conversation to establish them.