Today I watched one of the Valentine's Day episodes of Coronation Street.
Gary (Mikey North) plans a romantic proposal for his girlfriend Maria (Samia Longchambon). It all backfires and by the end of the episode, Maria is making out with her ex-lover Ali (James Burrows).
The problem is, Gary has recently gone through a villain stage. He became a bully, murderer, and loan shark. He finally came clean about the loan shark stuff and has been trying get back onto Team Good Guy.
On the episode I watched today, Gary hires one of his past loan shark victims to buy and deliver the engagement ring. Then he gifts (no strings attached) a small sum of money to another past loan shark victim.
Maria catches bits and pieces of these innocent/good deeds. Rightfully so, it all looks damn suspicious to her. She stops having faith that Gary's willing to change his ways.
While watching it, I wondered how in the world Gary'll be able to convince Maria she misunderstood what she saw. He's known to be a violent bully. He could have easily forced his past loan sharking victims to lie for him.
It kind of seems hopeless to me.
Then....
Another major storyline featured on the Valentine's episode is Ray (Mark Frost) being outed as a sexual predator.
Ray is the Manchester restaurant industry's version of Harvey Weinstein. He flatters women, gives them career opportunities; then arranges to have private meetings in hotel rooms with them.
Like the typical powerful sexual predator, he works with NDA's and lines like, No one respects women more than I do.
I'm so glad that times are changing, and it's no longer seen as okay to do the kind of stuff that Ray Crosby does. I'm also glad we're in this mode of believing the victims over the predator.
But when I'm watching the Democratic Debates and hear someone like Mike Bloomberg saying his bullshit, there is a tiny bit a part of me that wonders...worries? What if someone saying these types of lines actually IS innocent?
Well, with Bloomberg, there are a lot of women, so his innocence seems extra doubtful.
There was that thing, though, between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Not harassment or assault. But Warren claimed that Sanders once said a woman couldn't be president.
Now I wasn't offended by what Sanders might have said. If he said it, I interpreted it to mean that he thought in this climate, a woman couldn't win; NOT that he thought a woman couldn't handle the job.
I was bothered, though, by Sander's blatant denial, which pretty much IS publicly calling Elizabeth Warren a liar.
If someone accuses us of something and we deny it, then we are accusing them of being a liar.
In all these stories, SOMEONE has to be lying.
Well, I guess in some cases it could be a matter of forgetting. But I think lying is more likely.
Anyway, since I personally have encountered gaslighting and not-being-believed, my go-to is almost always to believe the woman and think the man is bullshitting.
But I'm guessing sometimes I'm going to be wrong.
I'm guessing sometimes society is going to end up being wrong.
Sometimes an innocent person is going to be wrongly and unfairly accused. But like with the Gary thing, I'm not sure how we can get around it.
Bad people and bad choices have dug us into this situation.
Gary built up a reputation of being dishonest and distrustful. I'm not sure it's possible to get rid of such a reputation.
Too many men have hurt women and lied to women. Because of this, they have set up a possibly horrible situation for men who do NOT hurt and/or lie to women.
If a woman makes up a false accusation, why, after all our collective experiences, would we not believe her?
If an innocent man says, I did not do this. I would never do anything like that, what reason would we have to believe him?
I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to say here.
Maybe....
I think it's that each time someone denies/gaslights/etc. they're making it harder for themselves to be believed in the future. But they're also making it harder for other people (possibly innocent) to be believed.
Gary (Mikey North) plans a romantic proposal for his girlfriend Maria (Samia Longchambon). It all backfires and by the end of the episode, Maria is making out with her ex-lover Ali (James Burrows).
The problem is, Gary has recently gone through a villain stage. He became a bully, murderer, and loan shark. He finally came clean about the loan shark stuff and has been trying get back onto Team Good Guy.
On the episode I watched today, Gary hires one of his past loan shark victims to buy and deliver the engagement ring. Then he gifts (no strings attached) a small sum of money to another past loan shark victim.
Maria catches bits and pieces of these innocent/good deeds. Rightfully so, it all looks damn suspicious to her. She stops having faith that Gary's willing to change his ways.
While watching it, I wondered how in the world Gary'll be able to convince Maria she misunderstood what she saw. He's known to be a violent bully. He could have easily forced his past loan sharking victims to lie for him.
It kind of seems hopeless to me.
Then....
Another major storyline featured on the Valentine's episode is Ray (Mark Frost) being outed as a sexual predator.
Ray is the Manchester restaurant industry's version of Harvey Weinstein. He flatters women, gives them career opportunities; then arranges to have private meetings in hotel rooms with them.
Like the typical powerful sexual predator, he works with NDA's and lines like, No one respects women more than I do.
I'm so glad that times are changing, and it's no longer seen as okay to do the kind of stuff that Ray Crosby does. I'm also glad we're in this mode of believing the victims over the predator.
But when I'm watching the Democratic Debates and hear someone like Mike Bloomberg saying his bullshit, there is a tiny bit a part of me that wonders...worries? What if someone saying these types of lines actually IS innocent?
Well, with Bloomberg, there are a lot of women, so his innocence seems extra doubtful.
There was that thing, though, between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Not harassment or assault. But Warren claimed that Sanders once said a woman couldn't be president.
Now I wasn't offended by what Sanders might have said. If he said it, I interpreted it to mean that he thought in this climate, a woman couldn't win; NOT that he thought a woman couldn't handle the job.
I was bothered, though, by Sander's blatant denial, which pretty much IS publicly calling Elizabeth Warren a liar.
If someone accuses us of something and we deny it, then we are accusing them of being a liar.
In all these stories, SOMEONE has to be lying.
Well, I guess in some cases it could be a matter of forgetting. But I think lying is more likely.
Anyway, since I personally have encountered gaslighting and not-being-believed, my go-to is almost always to believe the woman and think the man is bullshitting.
But I'm guessing sometimes I'm going to be wrong.
I'm guessing sometimes society is going to end up being wrong.
Sometimes an innocent person is going to be wrongly and unfairly accused. But like with the Gary thing, I'm not sure how we can get around it.
Bad people and bad choices have dug us into this situation.
Gary built up a reputation of being dishonest and distrustful. I'm not sure it's possible to get rid of such a reputation.
Too many men have hurt women and lied to women. Because of this, they have set up a possibly horrible situation for men who do NOT hurt and/or lie to women.
If a woman makes up a false accusation, why, after all our collective experiences, would we not believe her?
If an innocent man says, I did not do this. I would never do anything like that, what reason would we have to believe him?
I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to say here.
Maybe....
I think it's that each time someone denies/gaslights/etc. they're making it harder for themselves to be believed in the future. But they're also making it harder for other people (possibly innocent) to be believed.
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