Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

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Author: Carrie

  • Don’t be a baby

    I used the term “man babies” on Radio Scotland this morning and pretty much immediately I received a private Facebook message demanding an explanation of the term.

    I’m not going to reply for two reasons.

    One, I don’t think the listener is asking in good faith, because it was perfectly clear what I meant. I was talking about LGBT characters in popular culture and said that there was a small but vocal group of man babies on the internet who threw their toys out of their prams whenever films, games or comic books featured characters who weren’t straight, cisgender white guys.

    And two, if I reply to a stranger’s private Facebook message that gives them access to my account and the ability to call my mobile phone at any time of the day or night. No chance.

    But I think it’s worth writing about, because it’s something that’s a real pain online.

    Man babies are a tiny, vocal minority of emotionally stunted men who lose their shit if something in the world is not made specifically and solely for them. They are not all men, most men or many men. But despite their small numbers they make a lot of noise.

    A man baby is Piers Morgan getting irate over the existence of vegan sausage rolls. It’s film fans attempting to sabotage the Rotten Tomatoes rating for Captain Marvel because the hero doesn’t have a penis, or for Black Panther because the hero isn’t white. It’s men whingeing “but when’s International MEN’S Day?” on International Women’s Day (it’s 19 November) or “but when’s STRAIGHT pride?” (it’s every day) in response to a pride parade. It’s men complaining that other groups are “shoving X down other people’s throats” by simply existing or having their existence reflected in popular culture.

    The baby bit is deliberate, and specific. Man babies are not people who disagree with me, who have opinions. They are supposed adults who act like babies.

    I’ve helped bring up two babies, so I’ve some experience of this. It takes a while before babies can handle the huge emotions that run through them. It takes time for them to develop empathy and understand that the world does not exist solely for their benefit and that that the world does not exist solely to respond to their demands, no matter how loudly they express them.

    They typically develop that understanding at around two years of age, but sometimes it takes longer. At the time of writing, Piers Morgan is 54.

    Man babies may use bigger words, but the sentiment no more mature. It’s: “Waaaaaah!”

    Vegans want their own sausage rolls! “Waaaaaah!”

    A superhero is black, or a woman! “Waaaaaah!”

    An LGBT character isn’t played for laughs or killed off horribly! “Waaaaaah!”

    A video game has a girl hero! “Waaaaaah!”

    A man baby is somebody who looks at the world and sees it as a beautiful cake made only for them. Nobody is allowed even the smallest piece.

    It’s not their cake! It’s my cake! My special cake, made just for me! I don’t want to share it! It’s mine! Miiiiiiine! Miiiiiiiiiiiiine!

    That’s what a man baby is. If you’re contacting me on social media to clarify or debate it, you probably are one.

  • On bathroom abuse

    While commentators whip up hysteria over the imagined threat of trans people in toilets, here’s the reality.

    Reuters:

    Transgender youth, along with those who do not identify as male or female, are at increased risk of sexual violence in schools that force them to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender assigned at birth, a study published on Monday said.

    Correlation is not necessarily causation; it’s possible that the policies reflect an environment where anti-trans sentiment is more widespread, and it’s that culture rather than the bathroom policies that lead to the abuse. But whatever the reason, it’s clear that columnists and social media trolls are perpetuating lurid anti-trans fantasies while ignoring genuine and widespread abuse of trans teenagers.

    There’s another well documented effect of this: trans people trying to avoid using toilets altogether. I do this: in an unfamiliar place I’ll avoid drinking so I don’t have to go, or wait well beyond the point of physical discomfort until I don’t have a choice. In schools, many trans kids contract urinary infections as a result.

    We’re much more scared of you than you should be of us.

  • “It was a heady time!”

    The New Yorker has published a lovely essay by Emma Rathbone, Before The Internet.

    Before the Internet, you could move to a new state and no one at school would know anything about you. You’d have no online history. You could be anyone. You would lean against the lockers with a faraway expression on your face and let people assume whatever they wanted. Like that you were a girly girl but could also be a tomboy. Or that back in your home town you’d been friends with a bunch of crows.

  • Katherine O’Donnell could change UK media

    This case could be very significant. Former Times night editor Katherine O’Donnell’s employment tribunal raises an interesting question: does the content that newspapers publish fall under their duty of care to their employees?

    O’Donnell alleges multiple counts of illegal behaviour towards her after she transitioned to female, and her claims lift the rock to show a “boy’s club” of entrenched sexism, bordering on misogyny. But the case also introduces something that hasn’t previously been tested. Buzzfeed:

    O’Donnell and her lawyer… allege that it wasn’t just what happened in the newsroom but also what those inside it published in the newspaper about trans people that constituted a hostile, transphobic place to work.

    If O’Donnell wins, newspapers and other media outlets would have to reconsider their reporting of all minorities – not just gender and sexual minorities such as LGBT people, but anybody with a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. Content that bullies and demonises groups would be considered workplace bullying.

    Should O’Donnell be successful, therefore, it would mean a newsroom’s output could be deemed an internal, employment issue too. News outlets may in future have to consider how their coverage of trans people and other minority groups could be in breach of employment laws that protect members of these communities on their own staff from discrimination and bullying.

    That doesn’t mean the titles couldn’t report accurately on minority groups or feature a range of opinion. But it could mean that the more vicious stuff would have to stop. It would be a welcome development in a climate where the press regulator IPSO won’t even rule that an invented quote was never said by anybody.

    I’ve been following O’Donnell on Twitter for a long time and she strikes me as a newspaperwoman of the old school, someone who really cares about her profession but who’s been treated despicably by her employer. The Times may come to regret that.

  • When hatred is more important than human lives

    [Content note: vicious transphobia, racial epithets and trauma]

    This is a photo of Tyra Hunter. She died in 1995.

    Hunter, who was 25, was injured in a car crash. When first responders arrived on the scene, they cut off her clothes and discovered that she was transgender. Instead of treating her they verbally abused her and mocked her, and at DC General Hospital she received shockingly inadequate care. She died of internal bleeding in the ER.

    The District of Columbia was subsequently and successfully sued, with damages of $2.8 million awarded to Tyra’s mother. Dana Priesing, who observed the trial, wrote that the evidence clearly showed that “ER staff, as evidenced by their actions, did not consider her life worth saving.”

    Tyra was knocked out by the crash, but by the time the firemen arrived, she was conscious but dazed, and developing airway trouble from teeth knocked into her mouth. Tyra looked female at first glance, but in their initial injury assessment, a fireman discovered Ty’s male genitals, uttered the epithets (“This ain’t no bitch. It’s a nigger. He’s got a dick and balls.”), and ceased treating her.

    They failed to clear her airway for some period of time while they laughed at her as the crowd yelled at them to get to work. Other emergency personnel on scene approached some time later, after treating the other injured passenger. They found Tyra still lying on the grass, gagging and combative, apparently trying to escape the taunting firemen.

    …she suffocated from lack of oxygen in her blood. Dr. Baker testified that the sensation would have been “sheer terror.”

    None of the first responders or the medical staff involved in her death were ever disciplined.

    Imagine reading that and being on the side of the bigots.

    That’s where the Trump administration is.

    The US Department of Health and Human Services has announced a long-expected rule that would enable healthcare workers to deny people treatment based on “moral or religious objections”.

    According to acting Department of Health and Human Services secretary Eric Hargan a few months ago, this is necessary because “For too long too many of these health care practitioners have been bullied and discriminated against because of their religious beliefs and moral conviction.”

    The rule would allow workers to refuse to provide basic health care like birth control, refuse to treat women who have had abortions, and discriminate against gay or lesbian individuals and their families, including their children.

    It’s important to note that the healthcare being talked about here is not limited to healthcare that the religious people object to such as hormones for transgender people. It’s any healthcare for people they have a problem with. Fixing broken arms. Chemotherapy for cancer. Pediatric care for your children. Life-saving help after a car accident.

    What this rule says is chilling: if you’re gay or lesbian, trans or a sexually active woman, the Trump administration considers you less than human. Bigots’ hatred is more important than your right to life.

  • One of these things is different from the other

    When Michael Phelps, who is a straight white man, became the most decorated Olympian of all time he was hailed as a “legend” and greeted with glowing newspaper profiles on how “a biomechanical freak of nature” had a competitive advantage over other athletes because he had a “body made to swim”.

    When Caster Semenya, who is a gay black woman, became an Olympic champion she was greeted with racist, misogynist, homophobic hatred and a vicious campaign that now means she  will be forced to alter her natural body chemistry in order to remove her competitive advantage over other athletes.

    I wonder if there’s some kind of explanation for the way in which Michael Phelps, who is a straight white man, was treated differently from Caster Semenya, who is a gay black woman. It’s a mystery!

  • Come friendly bombs, and fall on Brexit

    A picture tells a thousand words, especially this one.

    For me at least, most of the thousand words are swears.

  • “The gravitas of a tuck shop queue”

    Many newspapers have based their digital strategy on lazy clickbait: contrarianism, hyperbole and trivia. There’s just one problem with that. It’s a road to nowhere.

    Writing in The Irish Times, former Sunday Independent editor Anne Harris describes the new media operations of Ireland’s beleaguered Independent News & Media group.

    A decision was made to prioritise digital, and the strategy was called digital first. This could have worked out fine were the right decisions made. But digital first was profoundly flawed.

    INM opted for click-based journalism, thereby bringing it downmarket. The idea of click-based journalism is already redundant. And you don’t need to be a marketing genius to know that when you bring a product downmarket it is almost impossible to bring it back up. Added to that, the market is always reluctant to pay for what was once given free.

    As Harris rightly points out, if your plan is to get people to pay for your journalism via a paywall you need to give them content worth paying for.

    …journalistic quality is the sine qua non of a paywall, and that will prove extremely difficult to achieve in an organisation that has not prioritised talent for some years.

    (The title of this post comes from a Twitter user describing Scots newspapers’ social media feeds.)

  • Not in their name

    The writer Aidan Comerford, who’s ended up getting a lot of online abuse for being supportive of trans people, asked women who support trans rights to share their photos so he could put them in a collage. The collage was to show that the anti-trans crowd are not acting in their name.

    In just a few days, he’s received nearly 2,000 photos.

    Some days are hard. Things like this make them easier.

     

  • Taking victims’ phones is a step too far

    Today’s stupid ideas: rape victims should hand over their phones to police or have the investigations dropped.

    There are two big problems with this. One, it’s victim-blaming: the number of false allegations is incredibly low and massively overshadowed by the solid, evidence-backed allegations that don’t lead to prosecution. The idea that a victim’s communications history and social media should be demanded before investigating rape is despicable. It’s also a gift for defence lawyers who could ask for such history so they can try to paint the victim as somehow responsible for her own assault if she didn’t live the life of a Carmelite nun.

    Two, you can’t trust the police to get it back to you. I’m seeing lots of women on social media with tales of phones held by the police for as long as three years, three years in which the bills still had to be paid; one woman was hounded by a debt recovery agency over her Vodafone bill for a device the police kept for months. By the time it was finally returned, the hugely expensive phone had been in police hands for so long that it was effectively obsolete and completely worthless. As the woman put it on Twitter: “I had to make do with an old handset (not a smartphone, an ancient handset by today’s standards) on a pay-as-you-go basis until I could afford otherwise. Having been the victim of a crime, I now felt I was being punished for reporting it.”