Maureen Callahan in response to Bill Maher

[SnoopyPajamas]

I don't know much about Maureen Callahan. I've seen her here and there. Have agreed with her sometimes, disagreed at other times. But I thought this was interesting.

I didn't watch the whole thing, but the first forty minutes or so of this, before she moves on to other topics, was excellent. Apparently Bill Maher did a segment on his show, suggesting that women in abusive relationships should "just leave" or forfeit the right to talk about it, basically. Inspired by the Cassie / Diddy trial.

Maureen rips Maher to shreds, explaining why it's not so easy for women - even rich, famous women - to walk away from abuse. Maureen has come across as a bit catty and mean girl on other occasions, but this is the best thing ever seen her do and I have to applaud it.

Shame on Bill Maher.

I usually like bill mahers show. He generally isn't a woke scold like say John Oliver and has been willing to come out against certain things like the transitioning of children and males in womens sports. However, this segment last week left a pretty bad taste in my mouth and had me ranting at the TV lol. He has never married, and dates a lot of younger women as far as I know. Makes me wonder what is coming out about him that has him so defensive tbh

I agree. I feel the same about his show. It's a mixed bag, but he does sometimes hit the nail on the head and articulate something in just the way it needed to be said.

This just felt weird, though. I can't help but think that either there is a historic abuse allegation coming down the pipeline about him, and he's trying to get ahead of it, or there has been a recent incident in his relationship, and he is using his platform to reinforce this same point to his partner. That if she stays, she forfeits the right to complain about his treatment of her. That she's a gold digger, and abuse is the price she pays for a nice lifestyle. If she doesn't like it, she had her one opportunity to leave and she didn't take it, so she better understand, the world will blame her and take his side if she ever opens her mouth about it.

This is, of course, speculation. But it's such an abuser tactic, to use their influence in this way. To show how they can control the story. It really does make me wonder.

One thing that does hearten me is that he really was not carrying the audience with him. You could hear how hard it was bombing. A smattering of very forced laughter at the 'jokes', and all it very obviously male. Every woman in the room must have sitting there in dead silence, and you could tell. There was one loud obnoxious man, who kept woohoo-ing every comment, but he just came across as unhinged. He may have been a plant attempting to gee up the audience.

It very quickly started to feel like Bill was delivering this monologue to a single drunk frat boy, and a hundred awkwardly silent adults. There was one moment when Mr Woohoo laughed at something Maher clearly hoped would come across as a 'harsh truth', and the laugh stripped that veneer away and made it sound undeniably misogynistic. And you could see a brief flicker of doubt in Bill Maher's eyes. A feeling that maybe he wasn't coming across well here. That maybe he'd misjudged the audience, and his own powers of persuasion, and maybe, just maybe, this whole thing might backfire on him.

I hope it does.

Follow up. In which we learn that Bill hasn't listened to a word of criticism, let alone apologised.

Is it so hard to apologise to women? He must have had a high volume of complaints, if he's trying to double down and play misunderstood on TMZ.

Is it so hard to just say: "I got this one wrong. Women have come forward in their droves to explain to me the psychology behind why women stay in abusive relationships. I have also learned that leaving is when a woman is in the greatest danger of being killed by her abuser. I realise now that I minimised an issue I had a limited understanding of. Frankly, I was an ass and I got this one wrong. I'm sorry."