As a white hetero male living in a liberal city, I found Crystal's normalization of bad male behavior to be shocking, enlightening and frankly... surreal. I had to listen to her comments several times to make sure I actually heard her correctly. Her main points:
1) Ford can't have PTSD - she wasn't even raped, just assaulted.
2) Talk to boys coming back from Iraq to understand real PTSD.
3) Daughter was beat up and raped, but after a few years of therapy she's fine. She's moved on. You forgive, you forget.
4) Crystal was assaulted (by older men) when she was young. So you just learn that you need to run. "Ha ha."
5) And of course everyone's favorite - Besides what was she doing at that party drinking in the first place.
In this particular case, it's conservatively holding onto the historic male/female power dynamic. But more broadly it's a normalization of the powerful by the weak. This is not an unchanging rule of the universe like the force of gravity - this simply requires continued cultural progress to mitigate our baser aggression. Parents and culture need to teach boys this is not acceptable behavior and girls taught this should not to be tolerated.
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The last part was disgusting. I need a bath. It would have been better to add an expert at the end talking about the rate of false accusations and how PTSD can easily result from one instance of being sexually assaulted, even if the person wasn't raped. Ugh.
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Did I miss the podcast on the IPCC climate change report? It merely says we have about a decade to take drastic action to curb global carbon emissions or we risk catastrophic consequences. Or was that not considered important enough next to the Kavanaugh story?
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@Mark B Male Domination is responsible for Climate Change. Men commit the vast majority of military, environmental, and sexual violence on this planet. The Kavanaugh story is the story of our self-destruction. If Male Supremacy does not end - and soon - we will destroy our ability as a species to survive on this planet.
Why weren't boys and men interviewed? And, in the first segment, I got the feeling that Kavanaugh was assumed guilty until proven innocent.
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@Jim Perhaps we should have interviewed the men who claimed they were molested by priests as children. Did you come to the defense of the priests? Or should we only believe men when they claim they were sexually abused?
@Jim: I think you are missing the fact that this is an interview about opinions, which falls under free speech. However, you are also missing the fact that the Kavanaugh case was not a criminal case, it was a job interview, so the bar is lower. Having said that, some people went way beyond the evidence and I was also concerned by that.
Personally I would have liked to have seen a thorough investigation by the FBI where they were not constrained.
It saddens me to hear the woman from Mississippi spout the same tired words blaming the girl for her choice of going to a party with not one word of how the boy or man should not grab or harass or attack a girl or woman. She does not hold the male responsible. So would her grandson get a message that any girl who is around him is "asking for it?" and he can do what he wants?
The young girls were more impressive, more enlightened as to a sense of right and wrong.
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I couldn’t finish this episode. When Crystal dismissed Dr Blasey Ford as having ‘no common sense’, delittled her experience because it ‘wasn’t rape’ and dismissed her experience as causing PTSD (all the while detailing her own daughter’s assault) I couldn’t go on. It is this sort of thinking / reactions which stop young women coming forward. I experienced a sexual assault in my early 20s and only a decade later did I ever tell my mother. The reason I told her was because she made an off the hand comment regarding one of the countless previous stories of sexual assault, about that if something like that ever happened to me “I’d have the sense to report it” and I responded “well I didn’t”. Sometimes it is only when we have maturity and life experience behind us that we are brave enough to come forward and acknowledge what happened. As women, society conditions us to repress experiences like Dr Blasey Ford experienced, to ignore it and hope it goes away. I was appalled by those 2 women during the 2nd part of the episode but applaud those young women at the beginning. I’m glad they’re starting to speak to each other about what is happening, and hopefully young women are slowly unlearning the coding put on them by society tfor stay quiet. My sexual assault has informed my politics, it means I will no longer be quiet, it means I will hold people accountable (both men and women) and I will call out injustice whenever I see it. To those young girls at the beginning stay strong
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The teenage girls were all so self aware while the commentary by Crystal was very frustrating to listen to and no where close to self aware. Actually, pretty self destructive!
She essentially said: most women get assaulted and/or raped at some point in their lives but you go to counseling for one or two years, forgive and forget and then move on and joke about other women for coming forward with their stories. Because they shouldn’t come forward, they should all just keep it to themselves. She also said that a 14 year old girl who goes to an outing with her friend and 4 boys is to blame for one of those boys assaulting her!! So, she obviously believes that it happened to Ford, she’s just trying really hard to rationalize why Ford shouldn’t have come forward.
And none of that is funny!! But she was cackling the whole time saying it. It’s all just so disturbing. How is sexual assault a partisan debate?! How can someone be so outside of themselves that they have to rationalize all of this in that very disturbing way?!
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How disheartening to hear grown women victim blame in 2018. While they admit they too have been sexually assaulted, they maintain that it should be kept private and there is no lasting trauma. Their acquiescence to the status quo condemns the next generation of women to more assaults and more trauma while cheating society of women's creativity and productivity.
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Definately - lets here the boys voice.
I just want to let you know that this case is beeing followed not only in US. I am originally from Poland and rised up there, Nevertheless this particular discussion is valid many places.
I am following The Daily for fun but notice that besides so many cultural differences between USA and my place some things are common.
It struck me, when Mrs Ford's case has been revealed to public I actually had to consciously use my logic and try to understand the wrong doing. I mean, it did not feel it was obvious to condemn such a behavior among teenagers, not even mention the time that has passed since it happened. I thought: what a big deal?
But more and more now it became clear that girls & and women might see this so much differently.
I think it will take some time to accept that this particular case is left without any real explanation - hope the discussion will continue because it is more common.
PS. I have no opinion regarding the decision of the senate regarding the new justice
Is it possible to interview a panel of teen boys? Right now their futures are so vital for positive culture change. Although it was reassuring to hear about Moving Traditions on Morning Edition today, our public should hear more discussions with them as well. I think anecdotally that parents do not talk to their teen boys at all about relationships, so there exists a void in their development. A majority are lucky to come through instinctively knowing what consent means (I'm lucky to have many male friends who get it), but that isn't nearly enough. We need to involve and hear teen boys as much as teen girls in this difficult time.
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@Mother of Two, You are absolutely correct. Why didn't they interview boys and men. I was a teenage boy in the late 60's and early 70's, and if one of my old girlfriends accused me of attempted rape, I hope I'm assumed innocent.
@Jim: and I hope the case is examined carefully and thoroughly as is necessary for such a serious charge.
It is so elevating to hear teenagers discussing such a dark and stormy subject , event so intelligently. SO reassuring that some were able to watch the hearing during school, albeit a private school, hours.
This is pertinent and current. Harsh to hear that young women of high school age have been assaulted and the misplaced cautions they receive instead of warmth.
All these old white men who are sent to the Senate from their little disparate puzzle-block states from our country who clasp together in monolithic reaction act the same way whenever they are confronted with a public problem that affects more than their Republican party.
Although they act as if they have no choice about being backward and stone, they do have a choice and are cowards to deny their own humanity.
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I love this podcast. My wake up news. Today however, my morning was bent in two with the Green/Walls false equivalency interview. I first thought it was SNL. What particular alcove in Hell can we find these two
women? One is really mean and the other seems spineless. We can find out what they think on the Daily Show or by watching a Trump rally.
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The first part of this episode is phenomenal journalism. Unfortunately, the second half was an irresponsible and superficial attempt to create the appearance of “balanced” journalism. The episode’s attempt to act as a sympathetic listener to women who have been profoundly affected by sexual assault is entirely undermined by the episode’s subsequent legitimization of rape culture. The lasting damage caused to survivors of sexual assault, the psychology of sexual assault, and rape culture are points proven in science and medicine; they are not political concepts subject to debate. As a woman who lives every day with the effects of PTSD, it is difficult for me to listen to open mocking of women with PTSD and not take it as a personal insult. Shame on The Daily for failing to frame these issues with the decency and respect they deserve.
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I listen to this podcast everyday on my bus ride to work. I was cringing listening to the second half of this segment. Hearing young women in the first half saying how this hearing made them feel like no one cares what happens to them, and then hearing older women totally confirming that was frightening. As a women who was sexually assaulted in high school I can 100% confirm that it caused long lasting impact on my life as an adult. You can never blame a victim for what happened to them. Truly frightening podcast.
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It was hard for me to listen to Crystal's views about Trump's comments on Dr. Ford at his rally in MS. I really wanted to stop listening because her comments about sexual assault were so callous and uncaring. What was most shocking was that her own daughter has been assuaulted. She seems numb to the fact that sexual assuault has real long-term impacts and should be taken seriously.
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@nightowl
I completely agree. I really have been upset since hearing this portion of the interview. I wanted to see if THE DAILY could interview the daughter about her experience.
And did she really “get over it” or is that the face she had to put on for her mother?
Do survivors like this minimize their own experience and coping skills as their way to compartmentalize their trauma because admitting how awful it was would be too shameful/painful?
I feel hopeless because everything is politicized. Things that I believe should be non partisan, healthcare, environment, and assault for crying out loud...are all divided and spilt down the middle and it’s tearing us apart.
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@nightowl She was simply appalling, coarse and ignorant. I had a difficult time not turning it off. It's so disheartening hearing such will-full hateful ignorance being espoused for the sake of partisanship at the cost of their own humanity.
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I listen every morning as soon as I wake up. Just first want to say thanks for putting out such a quality show. The final segment where the two women are interviewed about Trump's speech in their town where he made fun of Ford's testimony has me ill. The conservative woman speaking in the piece has convinced me that we are doomed here in America. She has been indoctrinated and is incapable of free thought or empathy. We are in trouble.
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I feel like I need to take a shower after hearing that woman still insisting that women need to be responsible for mens’ actions. How many steps backwards have we taken?
As I head into my male-dominated career today, I feel that glass ceiling slowly converting to carbon-hard diamond, pretty to dream about but impossible to break through. Pretty maids all in a row.
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Why did you talk to just girls in the city and not boys?
What do the boys think?
What kind of behavior do boys currently engage in? I would start with asking boys who go to private school, same age as Kavanaugh.
Btw - I live and work in the city, and one -on-one plenty of women don't think it happened, or people are making too big deal out of it. And these are professional, accomplished women who are married, who are also very attractive and frequently been harassed. The breakdown pro/con is about 50-50.
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