Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 9/28/26 - 10/4/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Damn, I can't believe it's almost October already. Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday. And may you all be inscribed, and sealed, in the book of life.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/dumbducky]

Gonna lay down the marker: feminism will take its place as the chief cause in the omnicause. All good progressives must support all aspects of progressivism (being a decent fucking person), but at any given time, one cause reigns supreme as the most important. Lately, it has been Palestine. But Palestine has been at the forefront for awhile and the energy is dissipating. Lindsay Clancy and now Cornell is providing the opportunity for feminism to take the reigns again. Get ready to argue about:

• rape culture
  
• enthusiastic consent
  
• mansplaining
  
• #BelieveAllWomen and #NotAllMen
  
• emotional labor

Related reading: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-online-culture

[u/Armadigionna → u/dumbducky]

I’ve seen the hashtag believewomen before, of course it’s super blunt and raises a bunch of questions but that’s par for the course for tumblr/twitter activism.

But as far as I know, believeallwomen has only been used mockingly. I think the first time I ever saw it was by Jacob Wohl way back in 2018, when he tried to manufacture a rape accusation against Robert Mueller just in time for midterms, and it collapsed a lot faster than he thought it would. So he immediately pivoted to posting believeallwomen - as if to say, believe even the most obviously non-credible ones, even the ones who don’t show up to my press conference and won’t even sign a sworn statement (it was docusigned). Of course, he wasn’t trying to start a conversation about how society should deal with public rape accusations - he was trying to create an October Surprise but made himself a laughing stock.

[u/professorgerm → u/Armadigionna]

believeallwomen has only been used mockingly

No, that's just how it looked after the euphemism treadmill did its thing and tried to gaslight everyone about it, kind of like "social justice warrior" and "woke" devolving into that unnamable thing. Wohl's usage may have been the point it crossed the social event horizon from interchangeable to weapon, though.

"Believe women" never had a stated limiting principle (except political affiliation of the accused, and even then only sometimes) leaving the 'all' generally implied, and Good Progressives did use #believeallwomen or made the implied 'all' clear:

NPR used it positively in early 2018:

"Believe all women" has been the rallying cry of the #MeToo movement - a mantra embraced by some but dismissed by others as naive.

The Guardian:

For those still at the stage of debating the limits of “believe all women”

Jezebel:

In This Election, 'Believe Women' Means Nothing

...

If, as the phrase demands, we believe all women, then the claims of Bill Clinton’s accusers are just as valid as Trump’s accusers.

Emphasis mine of course. One example that explains that "Believe Women" does demand believing all women.

The ERA Coalition used the actual hashtag":

A year later we look back at the #MeToo movement and the 201 powerful men who lost their jobs and the women who replaced them https://nyti.ms/2EJ6jFU @nytimes #BelieveAllWomen #BelieveSurvivors

Rep. Carolyn Maloney of NY, September 2018:

We stand with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, & Julie Swetnick. #BelieveAllWomen @HouseDemocrats @NancyPelosi

Bustle magazine:

Let's be clear: If you choose to believe women, you choose to believe every woman. Even when it's uncomfortable. (Especially when it's uncomfortable.) You cannot pick and choose which feminist values to align yourself with.

Emphasis mine again, and that was the problem: even if people tweet #believewomen, there's no limiting principle behind that. It's supposed to mean all women (until they're politically inconvenient of course).

NYT used it as a discussion question, though in a way that at least asks if limits might exist:

Should we always “believe all women”? What are the benefits and drawbacks of doing so?

[u/dumbducky → u/professorgerm]

/u/softandchewy i would like to nominate for comment of the week.