Gutted about Rebekah Brooks

[BornSicky]

Fully aware that this is probably the last consideration on most people's minds fiven the gravity of the growing offences NI, NOTW and its staff are involved in, but wanted to voice this.

Journalism, especially tabloid journalism is such a male and historically misogynistic area, that to see a woman at the top of such a large organisation is rare and some might say a big achievement. Rebekah Brooks must have clawed her way up there and dealt with some pretty nasty crappy to get there, so why, oh why is she embroiled in, if not responsible for this disgusting series of events which may yet prove to be criminal?

I know that many women don't want to be seen as a standard bearer for their gender, but it is miserable (for me), to see such a senior and well known business woman that has such poor ethics.

I sometimes wonder if at that kind of business level women adopt more masculine associated traits (machismo), a la Thatcher, to keep in their field to the detriment of their character and identity.

Brooks wrote in her staff letter about doing positive things for high profile cases involving the abuse/murder of women and girls. Awful to now see that she is potentially guilty of harming most the people she claimed to care for most...

ah, this 'we' again.
If it's not Jamez it must be his twin sister.

"I am actually a man and maybe dress as a woman." So you are James then?

Your use of the word misandry marks you out as a fool, Jenny.

Misandry is a word which was invented to try and pretend that unthinking "all men are bastards" kneejerk crap, is the same as the systemic and serious disadvantage that all women in all patriarchal societies have faced throughout history and still face today.

Those who use it, generally have an agenda which says that every little bit of equality women get, damages men and that says that we don't need feminism anymore because except in poor faraway countries of which we know little, men and women are equal now and everything's fair. Anyone who thinks that or uses language that indicates they ghink that, can expect to get short shrift on this board.

Oh dear, it's far too difficult to resist...

All a bit ad hominem there Herbex. I'm a fool and it's all crap; very persuasive...

I don't mean or think or subscribe to any of your interpretation of the word misandry. Have you ever heard BNP members try and discuss how racist isn't a real word blah blah blah. Somehow these conversations always get dragged down to semantics as if the use of language is somehow more important than the actual message that it is being employed to convey. I defer to your greater wisdom though; what word would you use to pair with misogynist? Feminist, perhaps? Sorry, that's a cheap shot - but seriously? Are you saying that it is impossible to be sexist against men because there has been an historical imbalance (and therefore we don't need a word to describe it)? It does seem to me that you are not dealing with the points I have raised, but rather suggesting that (to over-simplify the case, and, Lord, I'm sure you'll pick up on this rather than the meaning I'm trying to convey AGAIN) the pendulum simply can't swing in the other direction - or if it does, it's of no consequence given the 'sins of the father' (to mix my metaphors. Will you forgive me that Herbex?)

Yes, I can see I get short shrift, but you've already decided that you understand my point and see its failings haven't you? Even without entering into the discussion, just seeing the word misandry is enough and you already have a position on what that means (even though it isn't remotely what I mean). Might I suggest that this is because people entrenched in a position (for often entirely understandable reasons, I must admit) are latterly unable to adjust. They fit what they hear into the debate as they understand it without genuinely listening with an open mind - this is simply following the usual human trait of being intolerant of non-conformity to, in effect, intellectual orthodoxy. Think Japanese soldiers stuck in the jungle being unaware that the war is over... (I can hear you already: "the war isn't over!" Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not saying it is. I'm talking about adaptive change.) Basically, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. (Sorry - couldn't resist, but you deserve it )

Blah blah yada yada... you're used to being listened to aren't you Jenny, or at least having people politely nodding and pretending to listen.

Sexism, racism, disablism, homophobia.... all these things do not have opposites, because there has never been an opposite social structure where women have owned 90% of the world's wealth and made laws and social norms which systematically disadvantaged men, where disabled people have structured society to meet their needs and make life really difficult for the able-bodied, where black people have systematically enslaved white people and transported them across oceans to work for nothing while plundering the natural resources of their original countries, where gay people have set up a society where straight people have been stoned to death for shagging members of the opposite sex.

When such societies have been developed, then we can develop valid words which illustrate the systemic unfairness of these societies. Untl then, any pretence that people who are prejudiced against privileged groups, are as big a deal as the privilege that those groups still maintain their grips on, is a load of old toss. IMO.

And as for your nonsense about pendulums swinging in other directions, that's not what feminism is about.

To those in privileged groups who don't recognise their own privilege and are threatened by the loss of it, any advance in the condition of the group they have underprivilged, looks like a wild pendulum swing in the opposite direction, rather than merely a balancing out of an uneven situation. That's why you get lunatics going around the streets chanting "rights for whites", as if white people have systematically been denied some right or other, just because they are white.

Which rights do you think women have achieved in the last half century, which has meant the pendulum has swung so violently over to the other side? The right to vote? To stand for parliament? To have equal pay? To have then fact that they bear and raise children recognised in workplace legislation? To have the right not to be raped in marriage? To have the fact that they are the primary carers of their children, to be recognised in divorce law? To have the right to have free, safe abortions if they need them? To have the right to have contraception even where they are not married? To have the right not to have their husbands beat them without the police treating it as a crime? Exactly which rights have been so injurious to men, that the pendulum has swung so wildly?

No, you wouldn't want to read anything that you don't already agree with would you Leningrad?

Another very personal beginning Herbex. Really, if you don't like the blah blah yada yada, stop replying.

If I read you right, you are saying that because of all the historic cases of abuses against women, nothing in the present - unless of equal gravity - is of any relevance. There will always be discrimination against people on the basis of their sex, but only where that sex is female. I don't agree. I think that it is perfectly possible that women can and do discriminate and that society accepts the low-grade denigration of men.

To get back to the post, I think that people are trying to find ways to forgive RB because it suits them to do so. I also think that it is generally acceptable to blame male culture. I also think, and have had you prove it to me, that anyone who thinks that this is to let RB off the hook or that blaming male culture is itself a form of sexism is screamed down pretty savagely. This serves to prove my point about entrenchment. You also repeatedly invoke the emotive issue of rape, again suggesting that the violence of this crime renders all other issues redundant.

"If I read you right, you are saying that because of all the historic cases of abuses against women, nothing in the present - unless of equal gravity - is of any relevance."

So um, no, you're not reading me right, my argument is not as stupid and un-nuanced as that.

"To get back to the post, I think that people are trying to find ways to forgive RB because it suits them to do so."

Where has anybody said they want to forgive Rebekah Brooks? Are we reading the same thread? I don't get that, no-one wants to forgive her, as far as I'm aware, everybody hates her. What on earth are you reading, what prism are you seeing these posts through? Why do you think posters here want to let RB "off the hook"? No-one wants to let her off the hook, or her puppet masters, the Murdochs, either.

As for your absurd proposition that noticing that RB is shielding James Murdoch is somehow a ranty feminist "blaming male culture" position, seeing as how respectable journalists on the BBC and other mainstream media have also noticed this, I don't really think your arguments hold much water. Do you really think Robert Peston et al are radical feminists infiltrating the Beeb?

It must be lovely to live in an echo chamber.

Not sure OP I would describe Thatcher as "macho".

I don't like her , but think she was a strong woman, not a macho woman.

don't know enough about Brooks to judge.

Which rights which women have gained within the last half century or so, have swung the pendulum the other way?

I think you'll find that the nature of the post was to try and understand how RB could be so bad and that there was a suggestion that she took on male attributes, ergo, male attributes are bad, a good woman corrupted etc. I've never mentioned Murdoch - I said the posters were blaming male culture, I'm not sure how you've twisted this? It's obvious that you can't see my arguments holding water because you're viewing them through the filter of your own, throughly entrenched, position.

But listen: whatever. Ok? Whatever. Each point that I make, you blur or reinterpret by introducing different issues that are incorntravertible in order to defeat possiblilities that are not. You ignore questions that I ask in order to pose questions of you own that deal with absolutes and therefore have no releveance to what I am saying (see your post at 1644 for an example*) and, fundamentally, you have a fixed view that precludes any other opinions. You won't see it this way. Well, you wouldn't would you? The one thing I'll thank you for is at least attempting to engage with my opinions rather than just sniping from the sidelines like some others. No doubt you will take these brave little souls as vindication of your position, however. I say again that society indulges in intellectual orthodoxy and non-conformists always get savaged. The only moral of this story is that there's rarely any point in trying to introduce alternative views to people who already have their colours nailed to a mast. Last year I had occasion to get involved in a debate on a BNP page... I met a similar reception there; they are completely convinced of their position too.

You know, the best way to understand what someone feels about their position is to argue against it. Generally you have not managed to put a strong case against what I have said, but rather dismiss it or move it into other areas - most of which seem pre-rehearsed to me. This, in my experience reflects recieved wisdom rather than a gradually reasoned and open minded thought process.

*I am not talking about rights, I am talking about attitudes. Where did I mention rights? The only answer you had to my question was to call the very idea stupid.

oh Jenny, lovey, your position is the intellectually orthodox one. Don't kid yourself you're a non-conformist, your arguments, while tediously and circuitously posed, are really dead ordinary.

I think we've bored each other enough now, haven't we?

I too felt a little more let down (not sure if that';s the right way to put it)that the main scum in this story is a woman.

I'll just point out that again you only insulted my opinions. That's really easy to do.

But, if you can avoid the temptation to have the last word (and use a few more random and derogatory terms that sound good regardless of content), then yes.

Yes, yes insulting your opinions is really easy to do. I'm not sure what else of your's I'm supposed to insult, but your opinions is an admittedly easy target. The pompous way you express them might also be an option, but it's nearly bedtime, so I'm not sure I can be bothered to go there.

Bothered enough to take a shot at the last word with anouther cheap jibe though, obviously...

Fair, fair everything should be fair!- Life isnt fair, life is ultimately a competition and the winners get to the top.

Fair play for her for doing that I don't care if she is a backstabber, liar etc.. she used her brain to get there.

I'm not being funny but as a man I respect that the strongest get to the top Man or women, weak Men get Squashed too!

Winners have the Glory

Man or Women life's a competition..Weakest Die :)

No offence but that's the way I feel.

She was arrested today, poor girl.

And among the stories about her past mighty deeds for the Murdoch empire I read this one:

^LONDON — In 2004, Clare Short, a Labour member of Parliament, learned what could happen to British politicians who criticized the country's unforgiving tabloids. At a lunch in Westminster, Ms. Short mentioned in passing that she did not care for the photographs of saucy, topless women that appear every day on Page 3 of the populist tabloid The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. "I'd like to take the pornography out of our press," she said.

Big mistake.

"'Fat, Jealous' Clare Brands Page 3 Porn" was The Sun's headline in response. Its editor, Rebekah Wade (now Rebekah Brooks and the chief executive of News International, Mr. Murdoch's British subsidiary), sent a busload of semi-dressed models to jeer at Ms. Short at her house in Birmingham. The paper stuck a photograph of Ms. Short's head over the body of a topless woman and found a number of people to declare that, in fact, they thoroughly enjoyed the sexy photos.^

That was meant to be in italics. Oh well.