What the hell, people?

[lliira]

CN: interfamilial violence, celebrity gossip

So Solange Knowles physically attacked her brother-in-law in an elevator. That's not what I'm going to talk about exactly, though. I'm going to talk about the comments about it on gossip sites.

What is with all these women saying that it's justified because Jay-Z cheats on Beyonce? I don't know if he does or doesn't, but cheating does not carry a "get your ass beat" penalty! 

I get to add this to my ever-growing collection of anecdotes that shows that feminists hold women to higher standards than anti-feminists do, though. There is a terrifying "you go girl!" strain in about half the comments I've seen, and none of them are from commenters I know are feminists. Jay-Z was not being physically violent. He's not holding his wife or her sister hostage -- unlike many victims of domestic violence, they could easily escape if they wanted to, assuming he was hurting them, and I have seen no evidence of that anyway. 

I'm not completely anti-violence. It is sometimes the best possible option out of a short list of terrible options. But I am absolutely anti-pointless violence. Being violent against your brother-in-law on a public elevator while his bodyguard and your sister are standing there is entirely pointless.

Many people are saying "what if the genders were reversed?" This is not an argument I usually like, as things are usually much more complicated than that. But in this instance, I'll take it.

Comments

[silveradept]

I think there's a strain that justifies the violence because they disapprove of the double standard that rains opprobrium on women if they are exposed as unfaithful but will let men be unfaithful without consequence. Therefore, any physical violence visited on a man from a woman over even the allegation of cheating is justified, because he would otherwise receive no punishment for his actions.

[iosonochesono]

Not that I personally am of the "violence is justifiable" camp, nor have I met feminists who are. But in theory I could understand the mentality - not due to punishment being justifiable for the behavior regardless of who is cheating, but because that double standard ruins women's lives if they are the ones cheating. Women's careers usually get complete gutted over sexual scandals and infidelity, and are often harassed or treated as damaged goods if they are the victims of a cheating spouse, while the same doesn't usually apply to men.

That doesn't make physical violence justified, of course. But the double-standard is incredibly unfair and in many ways creates violence against women. Of course, I think the better course of action is to call it out and illuminate the issue... But that doesn't necessarily change things on a societal level :/

In the case of people who are public figureheads, I think it can get further complicated because a lot of people can be in business relationships (e.g. may be told to appear to be in a relationship for the press), or may have other arrangements that are okay with each other but not exactly popular relationship options. If a famous couple announced they were polyamorous or in an open relationship, that would probably be seen as scandalous in and of itself. But even in those cases, God help you if you're a woman perceived as cheating on a man, because you may as well kiss your career goodbye.

[silveradept]

Yes. The disparity is so great, that even retribution against the perception of cheating is seen as punishment for something gotten away with in the past or for something that will be gotten away with in the future.

A lot of fixing that double standard lies with men calling out other men on infidelity, or changing their own attitudes such that they no longer consider cheating to be scandalous to anyone. Which is many centuries of institutionalized B.S. to get through.

[lliira]

Actually, Kristen Stewart's career is doing just peachy. I'd argue that her career is in a better state than Robert Pattinson's -- and for good reason, because while she's not a great actor, she's better than him. Elizabeth Taylor was condemned by the Vatican and it didn't hurt her any. Gwyneth Paltrow cheated during her marriage (and in most of her relationships, including the one with Brad Pitt), and I doubt anyone would care if she weren't so generally elitist and insufferable, and it didn't hurt her career. As it is, no one really seems to care, and is much more intent on talking about how completely evil her husband supposedly is for cheating on her. Speaking of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie's probably the biggest female movie star in the world.

Then there's what I've seen in my own life, which is that if anyone cheats on anyone else, so long as it's not on the level of "constantly visits prostitutes," no one outside the family gives a damn, and it certainly doesn't do anything to someone's career, because if nothing else, people at work don't even know about it.

Cheating really is not a big deal to people not involved in the relationship except to the gossip world and the political world. It is a seriously not-big-deal within the Hollywood-pop music world. Now, men have most of the power in that world, and if someone without so much power cheats on a power player there, they're in trouble, so it's more likely that a woman will be in trouble for cheating than a man simply by the odds. But the evidence doesn't show that it hurts a woman's career to cheat generally.

[iosonochesono]

I'd strongly disagree with that synopsis of Kristen Stewart. First, because both she and Robbert have been in movies since Twilight - the information is available on IMDb. Just because she has accepted more roles does not mean Robert Pattinson is being "less successful" and he is penciled in to star in future movies. It's also important to remember that Kristen Stewart has had connections in the media for a long time (her father is Jon Stewart) whereas I don't know Robert Pattinson to have any deeply-run US connections in the media. In other words, there are many factors at play beyond the media attention she received in response to 'cheating.' (Again, likely to have been given roles to play for the media.

Aside from that, as someone who actually likes her from what I've seen in interviews and having to learn to keep my mouth shut the hard way, that many people view her as stupid, vapid, and 'a bad actress' completely ignoring that the role of Bella Swan is exactly all that (for the sole purpose that she is meant to be a character others can project themselves onto.) She gets harassed so badly by paparazzi still she has to have security guards on her all the time and is constantly wearing inappropriate material and making gestures for the sheer hope of making the images un-sellable. Some people interpret bad attention as better than no attention for movie celebrities, but the things I've seen happen while people were stalking and harassing her is absolutely abhorrent. Things Robert Pattinson doesn't deal with and, from what I've heard him say in interviews, he's grateful he doesn't have to deal with them. I've never heard him say once he envies the position Kristen Stewart is in, and have in fact heard him say on occasion things that basically imply he thinks it's unfair.

Of course, even if she had been perfect and never broke character, this likely would have happened to some extent - Daniel Radcliffe noted how much Emma Watson was harassed during, before, and after filming than he or Rupert were, and has made the exact same point being made here. But the fact that they are constantly in the media isn't a sign that they are "doing better" - it is actually a testament to how much more women in the world of celebrities are stalked and harass by people looking for stories. That is not to say men do not deal with these issues, but it happens very differently and from what I've seen is often far less successful.

In the case of Twilight, Robert Pattinson isn't even the "other involved" - he is the person who was being "cheated on" (quoted because again, my understanding is these were largely roles they took on for media during the films.) The "Other Person" was a key person to directing the movies - but people don't stalk, harass, or assault him. And, incidentally, you're right, Robert is a poorer actor than Kristen Stewart (not that I hear people admitting that)... and he's had four movies as a lead to make that clear. And while he has connections now, many people in the USA that are involved in cinema have probably known Kristen Stewart since she was a little girl.

Monica Lewinsky is the one who was made a pariah in the "Clinton sex scandal" - Clinton, jokes aside, is still widely successful, a two-time President elect, and it's often ignored the vast amount of comparative power that he has. In fact, the Monica Lewinsky scandal is often something I hear GOP using as further evidence Hillary Clinton would be a bad President (I wouldn't want to elect her, but it has nothing to do with that so much as how she engages in 'feminism' in a way that throws other women under the bus.)

I'm... Not really sure what you're saying about Elizabeth Taylor (the Vatican isn't the media, even many Roman Catholics don't pay attention to everything that comes out of the Vatican, and media has changed a LOT since the 1930s - in those days personal business was likely to stay personal business, same as people didn't know FDR was in a wheelchair) and Gwyneth Paltrow is highly accomplished, but... She's not, to the best of my knowledge, a household-name actor. I mean, the only role I really know her from is Pepper Potts.

I'm also not sure how personal life can correlate to cheating as a celebrity, because... That's one reason I'd never want to be a celebrity. Far easier to move on with your life and have people forget an issue when it's not publicized and recorded to that extent. But... In my experience, women caught cheating deal with a lot more repercussions than men cheating, if they share social circles. Though I also know it can vary state to state. If women get pregnant before marriage in some states, they can be dismissed from certain positions on 'moral grounds' laws - particularly in professions such as teaching. In such scenarios, repercussions for infidelity have much higher stakes. I've seen such articles make the news, but the same does not happen with men.

But ultimately, we live in a world where potential employers make assumptions and hiring decisions on things like whether someone has a feminine name or not. We live in a world where men like Scalia reach positions such as Supreme Court or are Presidents of prestigious institutions like Harvard and argue that we should work less or our wages should be less or shouldn't be protected or that it should be "up to the state." We live in a society in which products targeting women are often (though not always) less in quantity and/or quality, but charged up to 65% more (e.g. deodorants and razors often fit this bill.)

Not that violence is justified for these reasons, but the thing is, more often than not, these things tend to target women in ways that hurt them. I think Beyoncé would be more likely to get away with cheating than some (particularly: if she has a larger fan-base than Jay-Z, which I don't know) but that between her sister and Jay-Z's career, I would be surprised if his was the one that came out more tarnished, or more followed by media attention.