It’s called advertising …. to men who like looking at beautiful women.
The Horror.
If this video advocates unethical conduct, I’d appreciate someone telling me what it is. No, treating the problem of illegal immigration as a joke is not the same as arguing that it is a joke. Try again.
Thank you.
________________________
Pointer: Instapundit
There is are good reasons why many women come to think of all men as potential predators.
Valerie Steighner authored a powerful essay titled “My 11-Year-Old Daughter Just Got Catcalled for the First Time and I Don’t Know How To Teach Her to Protect Herself From Predators.” Please read it. Here’s an excerpt:
She is 11 years old. She just graduated from elementary school and still plays with small plastic animals. And now along with vocab words, I have to teach her how to protect herself from disgusting men.
I told her that what that man did is called catcalling and catcalling is aggressive behavior and the best action is to ignore it. Usually, men that are willing to yell slurs about you and your body, if provoked, can be unpredictable and dangerous; it’s best to keep walking; don’t make eye contact and stand tall.
I felt so defeated as the words came out of my mouth. Basically, there is nothing we can do, but pretend it’s not happening….Obviously, I was sexually active all through my twenties, but there is a difference from being what others want and finding what you need…The predator lives everywhere. He lives on our streets, in our grocery stores, on our billboards and in our malls. He constantly reminds us what our value is and where we belong. How do I teach her to catch him, see him and to protect herself from him? How do I teach her that her body is not a source of shame but a source of power and strength? How do I teach her to hear the predator’s words to know what they mean and still stand tall and confident? How do I teach her to protect herself and still be open?
It sucks. It sucks that this has to happen to my daughter in 6th grade. It sucks that it’s only the beginning. It sucks that she has to learn about her body in the context of men noticing it.
What also sucks is that the problem is a failure of ethics and civilization to move fast enough. Men are programmed to want sex and to procreate, and once upon a time in America the kind of conduct a disgusting 50-year old focused on the writer’s barely pubescent daughter was a cultural norm. In some places, it still is. Women had no other function but to find a man, have his children and make the home run smoothly, and not finding a man was, in some settings, a catastrophe. In the American West, a woman in her thirties who was uneducated and unmarried was very likely to end up a prostitute: it was the single largest occupation for unmarried women. When so many women are whores, men get in the habit of treating women as whores, and women who don’t want that fate will provide positive reinforcement to flirtations that are really harassment and disrespect. [You can find the many Ethics Alarms posts related to this topic here]
Old habits supported by hormones, traditions and bad role models—like, say, Jack Kennedy, Joe Biden and Donald Trump–will die hard or not die at all. In many ways, the culture still supports the ugly behavior Steighner’s daughter experienced. Many ways. For example, in a current Geico commercial, the Gecko shows his trophy accompanied by that briefly popular song “Whoomp! There it is!,” which is essentially street harassment in song form. You will also hear it in sporst stadiums. Continue reading
Twenty-one female servers at Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino sued their employer, claiming that they were objectified, discriminated against and demeaned by being forced to maintain slim and fit figures as “Borgata Babes.” I wrote about this case in 2013, saying,
“While it is true that physical attractiveness can be an employment asset in virtually any job—note #2 on fired TV reporter Shea Allen’s “confessions”— there are some jobs for which it is the primary, or at least a substantial and thus legitimate requirement. Strippers, of course. Fashion models. Cheerleaders. Actresses. Personal trainers. Fox newsreaders. Hooters girls, and pretty obviously, Borgata Babes. To say that a business can’t make a decision to have fantasy sex objects as part of its appeal is an excessive use of political correctness grafted to state power. Essentially, the suing Babes are arguing that they can pull a bait and switch—use their well-toned beauty to get hired, agree to maintain the high standard of visual perfection that they presented to their employer, then go to pot and sue if their employer objects. Beauty is an asset in the workplace and a tangible one: the pressure on the culture to behave as if that asset doesn’t exist (the pejorative labeling of a preference for the lovely over the hideous as “lookism” is the weapon of choice) and to prohibit employers from ever hiring on that basis in jobs where it is a substantial and relevant qualification is as unfair to the fit and comely as requiring an investment banker to look like Kate Upton….”
Now a state appellate court has ruled that the casino can impose appearance requirements as long as it does so fairly and equally.
Score a victory for the freedom to acknowledge that beauty can be a legitimate job qualification, and against ludicrous political correctness.
_____________
Pointer: Res Ipsa Loquitur
And I don’t think her photo’s all that “stunning,” either. Happy now, Charlotte? And what are you smirking about?
On the left is Alexander Carter-Silk, 57, the head of Brown Rudnick’s intellectual property group in Europe. He had received a LinkedIn request from human rights lawyer Charlotte Proudman, 27, on the right. He responded positively with the friendly comment that he was “delighted to connect,”,adding “I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture !!!” as well as “You definitely win the prize for the best Linked in picture I have ever seen.”
The Horror. For this arguably excessive degree of praise for her posted image, Proudman decided that Carter-Silk must be shamed world-wide. She responded with this A-Bomb rebuke, and shared it on Twitter:
Naturally, Carter-Silk was immediately torn to shreds by a feminist social media mob. Continue reading
But it worked for Scarlett!
I’ve made Hax, the Washington Post’s relationship advice columnist, an Ethics Hero before. This time it’s for something more than her usual spot-on instincts about right and wrong, and more about her method of expressing them. You know I am not fond of weasel words, equivocation and gentle rhetoric when emphatic prose is called for, and Hax, though she is more prudent than I, laps her competition when it comes to firing off both barrels when it is called for.
In this response, she was responding to a man whose brother stopped speaking to him after he gently suggested to him that his niece had a huge honker for her face and it might be time to visit the local plastic surgeon. The advice-seeker lives “in a community where a lot of teenage girls have cosmetic surgery at 16,” he explained, and both his wife and daughter had their noses made button-like. “Was I over the line in making this suggestion in a private setting?” he asked Hax.
Her unrestrained, wise and glorious response: Continue reading
Jamelle Bouie, Slate regular, can’t imagine Democrats voting for a Republican over Hillary just because she jeopardized national security, flouted her own department’s policies, destroyed evidence, and has lied about both her conduct and its significance continually. “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski said yesterday that she is offended at Clinton’s lies about her e-mail, and is insulted that Hillary thinks that the American public is “that stupid.” She then said “If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, I would vote for her,” thus proving that she, at least, is exactly as stupid as Hillary thinks she is. Then, of course, we have Paul Begala, who memorably said, “Voters do not give a shit. They do not even give a fart… Find me one persuadable voter who agrees with HRC on the issues but will vote against her because she has a non-archival-compliant email system and I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window and say it smells like roses.” (I keep quoting this because it perfectly embodies the level of ethical character (that is, 0) of political operatives and the contempt in which they hold their prey, American citizens.). Then, on the recent post about ethics corruption and Clinton, regular commenter Beth wrote, speaking for informed, intelligent Democrats,
“..we’ll still vote for her in the main election over a Republican who will push for policy positions that we are against.”
I am not picking on Beth, whom I respect and consider a friend, but this is fascinating and alarming to me. She is a mother, and thus committed to teacher her children ethical values; she is a lawyer, and she understands, for example, that destroying material you know is likely to be subpoenaed is unethical and often criminal. She does not approve of lying. Yet she expects none of this to deter her and other intelligent Democrats from voting for Hillary Clinton.
The Democratic Party obviously is counting on this kind of reasoning, or they would not be offering such a corrupt, damaged, untrustworthy candidate. Indeed, I sense that the Beth Block doesn’t want to hear or read about Hillary’s slimy activities, because it makes them feel ashamed about what they think they will do two Novembers from now.
It should make them feel ashamed.
I wonder, though: how far will they go with this unethical and irresponsible logic? Thus I have these ten questions for them… Continue reading
I mean, what’s not to like?
—-Liberal commentator Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine, in his article, “Are Biden-for-President Supporters All Sexist?”
Absolute Truth: My first reaction upon reading this: “No shit, Sherlock! What was your first clue?”
As I just wrote last week*, the entire Obama-enabling machine has been fueled by that premise for almost eight years, highlighted by claims last month by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) that Bejamin Netanyahu, believing that the Iran nuclear agreement is an existential threat to his nation (and he’s right, too), only took the extraordinary measure of addressing Congress because Obama is black. And no liberal pundit calls Clyburn out on this slur, this insulting and stupid slur. I haven’t checked Chait’s output over the last eight years, so I don’t know if or when he’s played that double-dealt card himself. Still, he deserves credit for honesty and a fair analysis that doesn’t reflect well on his colleagues. It is just irritating that he could and should have made the point long ago.
A second and third less-than-sober thought that quickly followed that first:
What prompted Chait’s ethical candor was this jaw-dropping article by Scott Lemieux at The Guardian. He really appears to think that there is no possible reason anyone would prefer Biden to Clinton. I mean, what could it be?
“In policy terms, Biden and Clinton are virtually identical. On domestic policy, they’re both moderate liberals who are too close to the financial service sectors in their home states. On foreign policy, they’re both moderate liberal hawks who voted for the Iraq War. It would be harder to name two major politicians with more similar policy profiles. If Biden is going to enter the race, it’s not because he disapproves of the direction in which Clinton is going to lead the country. And it’s hard to see any evidence that Biden is more electable.”
So, Lemieux concludes, the only possible explanation is that he has “one characteristic that makes him seem more “presidential” to too many journalists: a penis.”
Oh, that must be it! Not the fact that Clinton is a serial liar. Not the fact that she is a blatant influence peddler, a greedy hypocrite, a fake feminist, Bill Clinton’s enabler, a flop as Secretary of State, and completely untrustworthy by any measure.
These things don’t matter to auto-pilot progressives like Lemieux, because these strange and ethically disinterested people really don’t think character–or competence even—matters. As far as I can see, they would elect Machiavelli, Chauncey the Gardener, Lucretia Borgia or Jack the Ripper as long as they pledged to tax the rich, add more entitlements, open the boarders, make gun-owning nearly impossible, ban hate speech, open the jails and protect “the right to choose” under all conditions. It’s amazing. Frightening too.
Lemieux shows how biased and deluded he is by making it clear that he thinks Hillary’s e-mail evasions show she is as pure as the driven snow, and that it’s the biased news media—that’s right, the news media is biased against the poor, innocent, misunderstood Clintons—that is causing her poll numbers to fall.
With zombie progressives like this guy, I can’t tell if he’s been brainwashed or is lying. He writes,
“In addition to the misogyny, there’s something else going on here: the Clinton rules, the media’s tendency to give much more attention to spurious allegations than to proof showing that the allegations are untrue. In late July, a New York Times story initially alleged that a criminal probe had been opened into Clinton’s emails during her tenure as Secretary of State. The only problem is that the story was botched 11 ways from Sunday. First, the story was changed to reflect the fact that there wasn’t a criminal probe and then changed again to reflect the fact that the non-criminal probe wasn’t about Clinton.”
Yes, the story was changed, you shameless hack, because the Times unethically took orders from the Clintons. The allegations about Clinton risking national security, violating government protocol, destroying e-mails she knew would be evidence and lying repeatedly about the matter are true beyond question. Moreover, the FBI is investigating Clinton’s e-mail shenanigans, and the FBI investigates crimes. Several news sources have confirmed that it is a criminal probe, and of course such a probe is a probe of Hillary Clinton. This week several media volunteer spinners for Hillary, like the Today Show’s Savannah Guthrie, kept emphasizing that it is the server that is being investigated, not its user. That’s right, Sanannah, you disgraceful biased hack, the FBI is going to arrest the server. Hillary is 100% responsible for the misuse of the e-mails and the violation of policy. Deal with it. Better yet, report it.
Yes, I know you don’t have a penis; never mind. Try being a journalist.
Arguing that the FBI is focusing on the server and not Hillary is exactly the same as saying that the SEC was investigating Bernie Madoff’s business but that Bernie wasn’t a target. It was his business—if the business broke the law, he did. If Clinton’s e-mail server broke the law, she did.
I must be a sexist, right, Scott Lemieux?
At least Jonathan Chait isn’t fooled.
Finally.
*“It all was seeded, of course, by the cynical strategy, developed even before Obama was elected, to characterize the same kind of criticism all recent Presidents have been subjected to as racially-motivated, even as this ill-prepared leader has lurched from one disaster to another, domestically and abroad. This was excellent for the goal of making sure that African Americans, whose fortunes have suffered more under this President than any other group, voted for skin-color over self interest in 2012. It has also been a social and cultural calamity. Still, the strategy continues.”
I’m sorry, I can resist this.
In 2010, Krystal Ball was a 28-year old, almost credential and experience free Democratic Party nominee for United States Congress in Virginia’s 1st congressional district in the 2010 election. She lost to Republican incumbent Rob Wittman. During the campaign, old photographs surfaced of Ball and her then-husband at a college Christmas party, showing her dressed as “bad Santa,” leading her husband, dressed as a reindeer, around S and M style by a leash, and sucking on his long, fake, phallic red nose. Like this:
(By the way, I had mentioned this episode very briefly in 2010, and promptly forgot about. Ball is the one, as we say in the law, who “opened the door” again.)
Although she lost by a 2-1 margin, Ball made the rounds of various TV talk shows exploiting the salacious aspects of the photos (for this is what the programs were interested in) and playing the victim, arguing that the photos were used against her because she was a woman. The exposure, combined with the fact that she is physically attractive—this sexist standard doesn’t bother her, oddly— launched her current career as a pretty talking head, if not an especially enlightening one. (Naturally, she roams on MSNBC.)
Krystal was on Fox News yesterday whining yet again about her 2010 defeat and blaming it on the photos and a “double standard.” “I think that we should look at the example of Scott Brown,” she told a sympathetic Megyn Kelly. “He had pictures from the same age as those pictures of me, only he was completely naked, in the centerfold of a national magazine, and it was not even a bump in his campaign; in fact he has even said that it helped him a little bit in his campaign. And I’m not holding anything against Senator Scott Brown… that’s as it should be, in my view, because those kinds of things to me are not relevant to the campaign trail. And I do think there’s a double standard.”
Baloney. Continue reading
This happens all the time to Tim Hunt, and he just hates it…
I confess that I initially took little notice of the Tim Hunt episode because I thought it turned out right, and that few would disagree. I think the ethics issues are obvious and unambiguous. Apparently not, as some commentators argue that he was dismissed for “political correctness.”
Prof. Hunt, who is 72, and this is a major factor in his downfall, is a renowned biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for his work on cell division. He was also knighted in 2006. He was addressing an audience at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea this month, and for some reason was inspired to say this:
“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”
This was, as the professor would have known if he were n0t 72 and unaccustomed to the ways of social media, immediately tweeted around the world, making him the target of scientists, educators, students, feminists and almost everyone else but Rush Limbaugh. Horrified and still clueless, Hunt went on the radio to “clarify,” saying that his remarks were “intended as a light-hearted, ironic comment.” This is known as the futile “It’s just a joke!” excuse here at Ethics Alarms, but knights don’t read Ethics Alarms. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 
To this, Amy Tabb, a Sweet Briar alum, replied..
Now here is Humble Talent’s Comment of the Day, in response to Amy, in response to Humble Talent, on the post Ethics Heroes: Sweet Briar Alumnae and their Supporters. I’ll have my own post on the topic of “gender segregated” higher education in Women and Eduction, Part 3.