though to be fair to rachel, it’s only been like a few months since the whole “do” list debacle. some healthy skepticism is pretty reasonable here
The 25th
I know but I just see the whole casts’ efforts to change and I just get mad.
Clif
That’s kind of wasted. Don’t know about you, but I can find lots more potentially productive stuff to get mad about.
The 25th
Well it isn’t a furious rage it is more of a peeved mad
Devin
Don’t know about you, but I can be mad about more than one thing at once, and sometimes about frivolous things. Y’know, as a treat.
Furie
Mg home was built in the 70s and has no straight lines. This has made painting a nightmare as all tools to cut off between areas don’t work. Figured you’d sympathize, as a treat.
misanthropope
sympathy is never a treat. that’s schadenfreude you’re thinking of.
There’s a museum on the IU campus that does not have a single right angle in the entire building. I get headaches every time I’ve gone in there and slight vertigo makes me constantly feel like I’m stumbling around as I move. I feel like I’m dealing with the alien geometries of a cosmic horror story. I don’t think I could handle being in your house if there isn’t a single straight line. Like, I guess it could be fine if you’re referring to circular rooms or whatever, but if even the floor isn’t flat it might be a problem for someone like me, lol.
Reaver
Jokes on you, I can be mad at mild issues in a comic AND Still be mad at serious issues too! I am a fauceted individual capable of multitudes!
yak
Myself I time-share my anger. I have 30-40 things in my list of stuff to be angry about, and each minute I switch to a new topic that consumes my soul with white-hot fury.
This strategy is very productive at getting lots of engagement on twitter and twitter clones.
Clif
That sounds efficient. I approve.
KtBear
@Reaver I can kinda understand how having more than one tap would make you capable of multitudes, I’m just struggling to see the relevance. But hey, that’s a me problem not a you problem.
Reaver
I HAVE MANY FAUCETS FOR THE POURING OF RAGE!
Mr. Bulbmin
A fauceted individual, as opposed to a spigoted individual.
People are very harsh on Rachel, but being bongoy to a sleazy guy who kept hitting on you and your bully of an RA is pretty understandable
Nymph
~exactly~
People forget (constantly, not just in this case) that the characters aren’t privy to the same information we all are. Being upset that Rachel is still angry at a guy shitty enough to rate every single woman he came across (except trans women apparently) just a few months ago, seems silly? That’s such a reasonable thing to still be angry about?
It’s the bongo part, really. She could just keep walking. She could just ignore him. SHE chose to make it awkward. SHE chose to make it a thing. SHE chose to make sure Joe knew that she was still angry (and what’s Joe supposed to do with that?).
Nightsbridge
The point is to make people who you believe make your space less welcoming and hostile to you and the people you care about more hostile to those who hurt you.
She is aggressive with Joe because he has behaved in ways that have actively eroded the safety of the space, and therefore, the fact that he is unwelcome must be reiterated and reiterated until he leaves and does not come back.
In Joe’s case, she’s wrong. Her unwillingness to entertain the fact that he could have changed is probably due to her conflating him with all the sexist Ryans of the world who would at BEST pretend to have changed long enough to begin predating again. (You have to understand. Most people on Joe’s road, don’t choose to change. NEVER choose to change…Except to get worse, and worse, and worse. She regards him as a threat because she has good reason to do so.)
But also, it’s kind of on him to prove that she’s wrong. He has a position of social authority and privilege and general prior behavior that kind of means that, if someone tries to feed you humble pie on shitty stuff you’ve done, you’ve kinda got to eat it.
He’s honestly handling this pretty well so far. He’s not becoming belligerent, he’s not trying to minimize what he’s done, he’s not making excuses or saying that she should be ‘over it.’ Whether she accepts that…Another question.
…But she’s also not exactly OBLIGED to accept it. No one is obliged to give shitty dudes a second chance.
Rogue 7
This all falls apart to me because it doesn’t take into account that Joe has been actively avoiding her. Like if this is their first encounter since October, in a very real sense he *has* gone away and never come back.
Like, if seeing him once in 3+ months just existing is too much for her to bear such that she can’t help but speak up, that’s reached the point where it’s *her* problem, not his. If her problem with Joe is him existing in public, then the only thing he can reasonably do to fix that is drop out of IU, and even the least charitable interpretation of his actions in the comic doesn’t rise to the level where that would be an appropriate punishment.
We have to accept that people we don’t like, even those we think are a certain level of harmful, have a right to exist in public.
Psychie
What position of social authority and privilege? Are you referring to the fact that he’s male? As someone who’s been male for nearly thirty years, I’ve never felt I had any amount of default authority on anything, especially not socially. Maybe it would be different if I wasn’t autistic, but I get casually dismissed all the time, and have people challenge me on basic things, like my right to exist in public, all the time. Believe it or not, the world has in fact changed rather drastically since the 1970s. A man’s reputation can be ruined just for trying to have a conversation with a woman, I’ve been treated like dirt for simply saying “hello” before.
I’m not trying to minimize the hardships women experience or try to play the “who has it worse” game, because that’s obviously going to vary heavily from place to place and individual to individual, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still places where men held authority by default here in the US (I know there are such places globally), but IU is decidedly not one of them, having lived in Bloomington since shortly before I turned 4 and having gone to IU in particular for several years.
Joe is just another freshman like any other, he has a decently large friend group but doesn’t appear to be particularly popular outside of that group, he doesn’t wield any sort of organizational power, so what “social authority” do you think he has? Frankly, it would be super easy for her to make his life significantly more difficult using social power, given his reputation and his history with the “do list”, if she made reports of him making her uncomfortable or doing or saying anything to her that could be construed as SA or harassment or whatever, I guarantee she’d be the one believed by the institution, not him. As such, he is not in a position of higher social authority, the power imbalance absolutely favors her, not him.
thejeff
@Psychie, saying this as gently as possible: privilege is often invisible to those who have it. And you’re absolutely minimizing the hardships women experience and playing the “who has it worse” game.
That there’s a staunch core of Joe defenders here who think he’s never done anything wrong, that he was always just an ethical horn dog, despite him having an entire arc about his problems kind of proves it.
Joe was a creep to basically every woman he interacted with before his redemption arc started and he’s suffered basically no social consequences from it – except Rachel being a little mean to him.
Psychie
It’s not minimizing anybody’s hardships to say that I have never in my life been in a position of privilege. Frankly, I see women exercising all kinds of privileges I don’t have all the time. All I’ve ever felt, socially speaking, is minimized, attacked, and dismissed for being a man. I get treated like a threat or a predator no matter what I have personally done or how I personally behave, I have had actual weapons pulled on me just for existing in public on separate occasions. Once a woman pointed to me as an example of a “dangerous man” when explaining to her daughter just how evil men were and how they were to be feared when I was walking through the arboretum to get to class, this was a random stranger who I had never even seen before, she just picked me because I’m large and male and conveniently nearby. I’ve been verbally accosted for saying hello to a woman in a social setting before. I’ve been accused of “mansplaining” for answering questions that they asked me directly. Once on a bus I had my knees together and my shoulders hunched in to make my large frame take up as little space as possible because we were packed in like sardines and I was accused of “manspreading” because the bus turned and centripetal force caused me to lean slightly to the left and my shoulder slightly bumped into the girl sitting there before I caught my balance. I was once banned from an internet forum because a user claimed I assaulted her at a convention I never went to in a state I’ve never been to (thankfully nobody on that forum had personal information on me so that was the only consequence of that false accusation). I live my life trying to be unobtrusive, harming nobody, and I get treated like I’m guilty until proven innocent of crimes other people committed by random strangers who don’t know me and who I have certainly never done anything to. That’s not a privilege. I don’t have people believe me because I am a man, in fact I’ve experienced the opposite, where my contributions, efforts, experiences, etc. get minimized, dismissed, or outright disbelieved because I am a man.
And how the heck did I “minimize” anybody’s experiences when I was talking about MY OWN? How does talking about the hardships *I* experience on a daily basis, and the lack of any magical “privileges” that supposedly make my life sunshine and rainbows by virtue of having been born with a dick minimize anybody else’s hardships? I didn’t say women who have been victims of assault haven’t been victimized or that their hardships aren’t worse than mine, I’m just pointing out that men do, in fact, have plenty of hardships too that exist purely because of our gender. Misandry is fucking normalized for crying out loud, it is perfectly socially acceptable to hate men for being men, I experience it regularly, and pointing that out does not in anyway negate or dismiss the struggles of women.
My entire point is that everybody has problems created by society, but focusing on blaming men for all of it and acting like women are the only ones being harmed by society’s bullshit doesn’t actually make things better for anybody, it just makes things worse for different people. Maybe there are some sort of privileges that I have but somehow never seem to benefit from in any meaningful way, but meanwhile I see women experiencing all kinds of privileges I DON’T have all the time, and some of them blatantly exploit those privileges maliciously.
Yes, Joe was very creepy for a few months (in-universe), I’m not defending that or pretending it didn’t happen. I’m not challenging that claim. I’m challenging the claim that he is in a position of social authority, that he somehow wields social power over Rachel in this situation, when if she really wanted to, she could claim he did or said something to make her uncomfortable and have him removed from the gym if she wanted, or make up something even more heinous and have him kicked out of the university, if she makes any accusations against him right now, the people in charge, and frankly the general public if she’s particularly loud about it, would instantly believe her over him, partly due to his own previous actions, but also partly because he’s a man and she’s a woman. That is a thing that does in fact happen, and something she absolutely has the power to do if she wanted to. That means she has social leverage over him. Meanwhile, what social power does he have? What can he do, socially speaking, to harm her in any way whatsoever? He doesn’t have much in the way of general popularity or social credibility, so he can’t do anything to ruin her reputation, or her relationships, or to use her social life to pressure her to do anything she doesn’t want to do, he certainly doesn’t have the ear of any authority figures that he could use to make her life difficult if he wanted to.
Yes, he was a creep before, doxxing her with the do list was a very bad thing, and yes, she does not have to forgive him for it. I never said otherwise. I’m just asking what social authority he has over her, what privilege he has as a man that is in any way relevant to this situation, because those are the terms that were used and I’m disagreeing with them. Not the overall point that Nightsbridge was making, literally just that part.
Pointing out that men also have problems that directly result from being men is not minimizing the struggles that women have or even claiming that ours are worse, just that they exist too. I’m sick and tired of having my struggles dismissed out of hand just because women’s struggles are worse in many cases. How does saying I have directly struggled as a result of being a man take away from women’s struggles? How am I minimizing anything? Frankly, telling me that I’m not allowed to complain about the shitty treatment I’ve received just for being born with a penis is doing to me exactly what you are accusing me of doing. I talked about my own experience as a man, and somehow advocating for myself is attacking women? Do you see what I’m getting at? Do you see why I felt the need to include that line that I wasn’t trying to minimize anybody else’s experiences or say that my struggles are worse? I’m just saying my struggles EXIST AT ALL, and that they are contextually relevant as a counterpoint to the claim that Joe has social authority over Rachel in this situation, a claim that has still not actually been defended mind you.
I have dealt with significant struggles because I am a man. I empathize with women who have struggled because they are women. It is entirely possible to acknowledge that both can suck for different reasons and actively work to make things better for everybody. I do it, I know plenty of people, men, women, and otherwise that do it. But I still find myself needing to hash this out over and over and over again every single time I bring up my own experiences on the internet because people like you like to pretend that men have it so easy by default and any claim otherwise is misogyny or minimizing women’s struggles, which is ridiculous. Things can be bad for everybody, there is more than enough misery and suffering to go around, but maybe if we stopped all this stupid pointing fingers and trying to argue over who has it worse we could focus on making things better instead and hopefully reduce some of that misery and suffering for everybody.
Nymphie
@Phsychie, I’m not going to unpack everything you wrote, but I’d like to point out two major points.
1) you demonstrate TheJeff’s argument in the very first statement by saying “I have never in my life been in a position of privilege”. You can’t possibly know, and it’s easy to stay blind to it if you’re not even open to the concept.
2) Rachel wouldn’t be wrong if she brought up to the school that Joe was leaning against her door, hitting on her the second she walked out of her own dorm room, and at a later point have kept on refer to her by the number he ranked her as.
“Social authority” might have been a bit of a strange argument to me by Nightsbridge, but their point still stands that Joe is in a position of privilege here, his previous actions have made the public areas of campus, downright to their own dorm hallways, less safe. And Joe even pointed out his privilege himself, probably unknowingly, about how he gets away with creepy comments just because he is conventionally attractive. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/hiatus/
Nymph
She didn’t choose to be on his list. She didn’t choose to have her name and room number published alongside the list. She didn’t choose to be disgustingly objectified and have it become a public spectacle. God forbid she continue being upset about that just a few months after it happened.
She’s not in the wrong just because she isn’t staying silent and pretending everything is fine. Even if you’d prefer she didn’t keep talking about it, there’s actually nothing wrong with her doing so.
Rogue 7
So should Joe have to leave any public space as soon as rachel arrives?
I get that that’s hyperbole, I’m just not reasonably certain what Rachel should expect out of Joe if “avoiding her for 3 months” is insufficient and deserves to be called out. Like, what benefit would she get out of this conversation? She’s *already* called him out on being a creep. She clearly knows Joe knows that she thinks he’s a creep. What is her goal here?
Nymph
No, he shouldn’t, but she’s not required to keep her mouth shut about her annoyance either. Both things are true. He’s not doing anything wrong by being there and she’s not doing anything wrong by talking about how she feels. I understand that you think she has said all she needs to, but she clearly doesn’t feel that way.
Rogue 7
I think it’s more because you think about what would happen if Sarah was right and Joe was still only concerned with getting his dick wet, he still would have been avoiding her to avoid making hwr uncomfortable. He’d be doing exactly the right thing by Rachel regardless. Basically- “so if Joe can’t change, what do you want him to *do* with that, Rachel?”
Needfuldoer
Sit there and take unprompted verbal attacks, of course.
Taellosse
“Verbal attacks” is, perhaps, a bit of an overstatement. “Unprompted” is definitely inaccurate. Rachel has a poor opinion of Joe’s character, and isn’t shy about making that opinion known to him, certainly, but it is an evaluation based on entirely reasonable premises – his own past behavior – and she has kept the expression of her views regarding Joe entirely within the bounds of those factors. She has made no baseless accusations, and she has made no attempt to harass him outside of chance encounters that have occurred literally months apart.
Just because we’ve seen Joe do a lot of work on self-improvement and genuine effort to be a better person doesn’t mean Rachel has, and it’s not fair to expect her to have the same insight into his character arc as we do.
Astariel
She wants him to kill himself, obviously. He did something bad in the past and therefore he is ruined forever. Only people like Rachel, who have never ever done anything wrong in their lives and never will, deserve to exist.
Nymph
Yep. Not a gross overstatement of what’s going on here at all.
Taellosse
JFC, maybe take it down a notch or ten? She made a couple of snide comments, delivered in a completely civil and calm tone of voice, and accompanied them with literally no threat – either explicit or implied – towards his health, emotional well-being, social status, or even ability to complete his exercise routine undisturbed following their conversation.
Rachel has neither said nor done anything even remotely close to the same galaxy as exhortations of suicide.
RussellZee
Yikes. Do you, I’m just curious, here, but do you really think this sort of comment is helpful to a conversation? Do you think a snide comment from one fictional character to another is something that should have you making light of suicide to other real human beings in a conversation about a webcomic?
zee
Oh yeah for sure. Just the “redemption is a story” philosophy is really shitty, and it was supremely shitty to say to someone on suicide watch. Ruth was bad, she wasn’t bad enough to make that appropriate at that specific time. I’m in general hostile to the idea that people don’t change, it’s a defeatist and worthless attitude, it’s doomerism. It’s throwing your hands up and saying “welp, shit sucks. Oh well.” And denying people the capacity of change now of all times is just, really unhelpful
Thag Simmons
I get the cynicism. It’s not a good attitude in regards to personal improvement, but “abusers don’t change” isn’t unreasonable as a survival strategy. She’s out of line to be sure, but from her perspective I get it.
Nymph
We actually have No Idea how bad Ruth was. Rachel’s beef with her was from being roomies the first year and she specifically called Ruth a bully. Without knowing what happened between them, we have no way to gauge how reasonable her attitude is.
I’m interested to see what her problem is, I would love to deep dive Rachel’s story to find out the ‘why’ instead of rabidly condemning the response to whatever happened without knowing.
thejeff
We often talk about “protagonist centered morality” here to excuse pretty obvious villains (like Raidah), but this seems like a much clearer case of it.
she doesnt have healthy skepticism though, what she had is a problem, and decided to go off on him the second she saw him. Like if your introduction to someone is an insult, maybe dont even bother striking up conversation?
Barf Ninjason
The man made a public apology with doughnuts, that is not something most horny 18 year olds would do. I think she just doesn’t want to believe he can change because she’s so mad at him, and it’d be disappointing to have less of a basis for that righteous anger
i can understnad rachel being skeptical although even if you know ppl can change i don’t think she’d rly care enough to befriend joe or so , ppl can live how they want although it’d be sucky if one was obligated to be near another person and such b/c of work and classes, can’t be friends with everyone after all
Really, girl, can you let a person work out? Give him grief if he hits on you but other wise be polite and mind your own business. I suppose she actually likes him though.
how big is the gym i wonder? feels like they would have enough to each take a corner
if not, like a ‘female’ gym separated from the male one like how there’s shower rooms and ia ssume the laundry rooms aren’t co ed either
Nymph
Why would the laundry rooms not be coed? The ones in my college certainly were just a single room of machines for our dorm, and I’m not sure what benefit there would have been in separating them.
Needfuldoer
For the other thing the characters have been using the machines for, of course.
Steamweed
Individual dorms might have smaller gyms (like only a big bigger than a typical hotel gym). But the university itself has a separate, huge gym (that is itself the size of a typical hotel).
Doesn’t Javert kill himself the moment he thinks about easing off? I’ve only watched that movie one time. For the record, I wouldn’t joke about Rachel killing herself, it’d be too close to home. Someone else can do it, maybe by accident. Or she could eat some bad chorizo, nobody at fault, it looked fine and the freshness label said it was good for another month, no evidence of tampering, it’s just bad luck.
Javert kills himself after realizing he’s been wrong about Valjean all that time. That he’d wasted decades pursuing an innocent man, at odds with his own rigid black/white morality. And, having never had a moment’s doubt about his own actions, had no idea how to deal with that guilt. Hence, removing himself from the census, post-haste.
No kidding, the man is trying to work out. Personally I can’t stand it when people interrupt my workouts. Of course it’s because I’m self conscious and easily distracted… I hope she actually likes him and is trying to forge a relationship of banter and fun repartee, rather than just generally sowing discord everywhere she goes. I suppose she finds him hot and distracting and it’s trying to be on top of the situation.
Nadamás
Eh, I personally find that possibility a bit distasteful considering the actually understandable origin of her dislike of him being his objectifying attitude so it being about finding him hot fells, icky I guess.
Taellosse
Agreed! I know Rachel gets a lot of hate for having the temerity to dislike multiple members of the main cast of characters for their genuinely unacceptable past actions, but I would really prefer her own arc not be about anything so trite as sublimated sexual attraction.
Ike
People don’t dislike her because of that. People dislike her because of her attitude towards redemption and her steadfast belief that people are destined to be horrible forever. Which is a position the narrative we’re presented with directly contradicts. This is also basically the only thing we know about Rachel, we don’t have her tragic backstory to explain what made her this way, and we don’t have any potentially endearing qualities or traits for her to make us care about her as a character. She’s just kinda there, and occasionally she says something. I mean I guess she’s had two prominent scenes – one where she was really cool and laid into Joe for his bullshit, and one where she told a suicidal person that it was impossible for them to improve. The circumstances of the latter kinda overshadow the first one. This is the first time I can think of Rachel being given any significant attention since the “Redemption is a story” scene.
Feel like characters who got together in Walkyverse are cursed. Like the universe wants them to get together and that string tethering them makes them want to go further apart.
377 thoughts on “Hnnrrrgh”
The 25th
Yeah yeah yeah. We get it redemption is a story. But if redemption is a story it is a damn good one. Where is the popcorn
butts
“people don’t change and redemption is a story” yeah girl you are 20 years old and everyone around you has definitely reached their final form
butts
though to be fair to rachel, it’s only been like a few months since the whole “do” list debacle. some healthy skepticism is pretty reasonable here
The 25th
I know but I just see the whole casts’ efforts to change and I just get mad.
Clif
That’s kind of wasted. Don’t know about you, but I can find lots more potentially productive stuff to get mad about.
The 25th
Well it isn’t a furious rage it is more of a peeved mad
Devin
Don’t know about you, but I can be mad about more than one thing at once, and sometimes about frivolous things. Y’know, as a treat.
Furie
Mg home was built in the 70s and has no straight lines. This has made painting a nightmare as all tools to cut off between areas don’t work. Figured you’d sympathize, as a treat.
misanthropope
sympathy is never a treat. that’s schadenfreude you’re thinking of.
Stanistani
I stand with you in indignation.
Psychie
There’s a museum on the IU campus that does not have a single right angle in the entire building. I get headaches every time I’ve gone in there and slight vertigo makes me constantly feel like I’m stumbling around as I move. I feel like I’m dealing with the alien geometries of a cosmic horror story. I don’t think I could handle being in your house if there isn’t a single straight line. Like, I guess it could be fine if you’re referring to circular rooms or whatever, but if even the floor isn’t flat it might be a problem for someone like me, lol.
Reaver
Jokes on you, I can be mad at mild issues in a comic AND Still be mad at serious issues too! I am a fauceted individual capable of multitudes!
yak
Myself I time-share my anger. I have 30-40 things in my list of stuff to be angry about, and each minute I switch to a new topic that consumes my soul with white-hot fury.
This strategy is very productive at getting lots of engagement on twitter and twitter clones.
Clif
That sounds efficient. I approve.
KtBear
@Reaver I can kinda understand how having more than one tap would make you capable of multitudes, I’m just struggling to see the relevance. But hey, that’s a me problem not a you problem.
Reaver
I HAVE MANY FAUCETS FOR THE POURING OF RAGE!
Mr. Bulbmin
A fauceted individual, as opposed to a spigoted individual.
tim Rowledge
Tap those faucets!
Taffy
What color mana?
motorfirebox
i get it, but… nobody is owed second chances.
Thag Simmons
People are very harsh on Rachel, but being bongoy to a sleazy guy who kept hitting on you and your bully of an RA is pretty understandable
Nymph
~exactly~
People forget (constantly, not just in this case) that the characters aren’t privy to the same information we all are. Being upset that Rachel is still angry at a guy shitty enough to rate every single woman he came across (except trans women apparently) just a few months ago, seems silly? That’s such a reasonable thing to still be angry about?
Freezer
It’s the bongo part, really. She could just keep walking. She could just ignore him. SHE chose to make it awkward. SHE chose to make it a thing. SHE chose to make sure Joe knew that she was still angry (and what’s Joe supposed to do with that?).
Nightsbridge
The point is to make people who you believe make your space less welcoming and hostile to you and the people you care about more hostile to those who hurt you.
She is aggressive with Joe because he has behaved in ways that have actively eroded the safety of the space, and therefore, the fact that he is unwelcome must be reiterated and reiterated until he leaves and does not come back.
In Joe’s case, she’s wrong. Her unwillingness to entertain the fact that he could have changed is probably due to her conflating him with all the sexist Ryans of the world who would at BEST pretend to have changed long enough to begin predating again. (You have to understand. Most people on Joe’s road, don’t choose to change. NEVER choose to change…Except to get worse, and worse, and worse. She regards him as a threat because she has good reason to do so.)
But also, it’s kind of on him to prove that she’s wrong. He has a position of social authority and privilege and general prior behavior that kind of means that, if someone tries to feed you humble pie on shitty stuff you’ve done, you’ve kinda got to eat it.
He’s honestly handling this pretty well so far. He’s not becoming belligerent, he’s not trying to minimize what he’s done, he’s not making excuses or saying that she should be ‘over it.’ Whether she accepts that…Another question.
…But she’s also not exactly OBLIGED to accept it. No one is obliged to give shitty dudes a second chance.
Rogue 7
This all falls apart to me because it doesn’t take into account that Joe has been actively avoiding her. Like if this is their first encounter since October, in a very real sense he *has* gone away and never come back.
Like, if seeing him once in 3+ months just existing is too much for her to bear such that she can’t help but speak up, that’s reached the point where it’s *her* problem, not his. If her problem with Joe is him existing in public, then the only thing he can reasonably do to fix that is drop out of IU, and even the least charitable interpretation of his actions in the comic doesn’t rise to the level where that would be an appropriate punishment.
We have to accept that people we don’t like, even those we think are a certain level of harmful, have a right to exist in public.
Psychie
What position of social authority and privilege? Are you referring to the fact that he’s male? As someone who’s been male for nearly thirty years, I’ve never felt I had any amount of default authority on anything, especially not socially. Maybe it would be different if I wasn’t autistic, but I get casually dismissed all the time, and have people challenge me on basic things, like my right to exist in public, all the time. Believe it or not, the world has in fact changed rather drastically since the 1970s. A man’s reputation can be ruined just for trying to have a conversation with a woman, I’ve been treated like dirt for simply saying “hello” before.
I’m not trying to minimize the hardships women experience or try to play the “who has it worse” game, because that’s obviously going to vary heavily from place to place and individual to individual, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still places where men held authority by default here in the US (I know there are such places globally), but IU is decidedly not one of them, having lived in Bloomington since shortly before I turned 4 and having gone to IU in particular for several years.
Joe is just another freshman like any other, he has a decently large friend group but doesn’t appear to be particularly popular outside of that group, he doesn’t wield any sort of organizational power, so what “social authority” do you think he has? Frankly, it would be super easy for her to make his life significantly more difficult using social power, given his reputation and his history with the “do list”, if she made reports of him making her uncomfortable or doing or saying anything to her that could be construed as SA or harassment or whatever, I guarantee she’d be the one believed by the institution, not him. As such, he is not in a position of higher social authority, the power imbalance absolutely favors her, not him.
thejeff
@Psychie, saying this as gently as possible: privilege is often invisible to those who have it. And you’re absolutely minimizing the hardships women experience and playing the “who has it worse” game.
That there’s a staunch core of Joe defenders here who think he’s never done anything wrong, that he was always just an ethical horn dog, despite him having an entire arc about his problems kind of proves it.
Joe was a creep to basically every woman he interacted with before his redemption arc started and he’s suffered basically no social consequences from it – except Rachel being a little mean to him.
Psychie
It’s not minimizing anybody’s hardships to say that I have never in my life been in a position of privilege. Frankly, I see women exercising all kinds of privileges I don’t have all the time. All I’ve ever felt, socially speaking, is minimized, attacked, and dismissed for being a man. I get treated like a threat or a predator no matter what I have personally done or how I personally behave, I have had actual weapons pulled on me just for existing in public on separate occasions. Once a woman pointed to me as an example of a “dangerous man” when explaining to her daughter just how evil men were and how they were to be feared when I was walking through the arboretum to get to class, this was a random stranger who I had never even seen before, she just picked me because I’m large and male and conveniently nearby. I’ve been verbally accosted for saying hello to a woman in a social setting before. I’ve been accused of “mansplaining” for answering questions that they asked me directly. Once on a bus I had my knees together and my shoulders hunched in to make my large frame take up as little space as possible because we were packed in like sardines and I was accused of “manspreading” because the bus turned and centripetal force caused me to lean slightly to the left and my shoulder slightly bumped into the girl sitting there before I caught my balance. I was once banned from an internet forum because a user claimed I assaulted her at a convention I never went to in a state I’ve never been to (thankfully nobody on that forum had personal information on me so that was the only consequence of that false accusation). I live my life trying to be unobtrusive, harming nobody, and I get treated like I’m guilty until proven innocent of crimes other people committed by random strangers who don’t know me and who I have certainly never done anything to. That’s not a privilege. I don’t have people believe me because I am a man, in fact I’ve experienced the opposite, where my contributions, efforts, experiences, etc. get minimized, dismissed, or outright disbelieved because I am a man.
And how the heck did I “minimize” anybody’s experiences when I was talking about MY OWN? How does talking about the hardships *I* experience on a daily basis, and the lack of any magical “privileges” that supposedly make my life sunshine and rainbows by virtue of having been born with a dick minimize anybody else’s hardships? I didn’t say women who have been victims of assault haven’t been victimized or that their hardships aren’t worse than mine, I’m just pointing out that men do, in fact, have plenty of hardships too that exist purely because of our gender. Misandry is fucking normalized for crying out loud, it is perfectly socially acceptable to hate men for being men, I experience it regularly, and pointing that out does not in anyway negate or dismiss the struggles of women.
My entire point is that everybody has problems created by society, but focusing on blaming men for all of it and acting like women are the only ones being harmed by society’s bullshit doesn’t actually make things better for anybody, it just makes things worse for different people. Maybe there are some sort of privileges that I have but somehow never seem to benefit from in any meaningful way, but meanwhile I see women experiencing all kinds of privileges I DON’T have all the time, and some of them blatantly exploit those privileges maliciously.
Yes, Joe was very creepy for a few months (in-universe), I’m not defending that or pretending it didn’t happen. I’m not challenging that claim. I’m challenging the claim that he is in a position of social authority, that he somehow wields social power over Rachel in this situation, when if she really wanted to, she could claim he did or said something to make her uncomfortable and have him removed from the gym if she wanted, or make up something even more heinous and have him kicked out of the university, if she makes any accusations against him right now, the people in charge, and frankly the general public if she’s particularly loud about it, would instantly believe her over him, partly due to his own previous actions, but also partly because he’s a man and she’s a woman. That is a thing that does in fact happen, and something she absolutely has the power to do if she wanted to. That means she has social leverage over him. Meanwhile, what social power does he have? What can he do, socially speaking, to harm her in any way whatsoever? He doesn’t have much in the way of general popularity or social credibility, so he can’t do anything to ruin her reputation, or her relationships, or to use her social life to pressure her to do anything she doesn’t want to do, he certainly doesn’t have the ear of any authority figures that he could use to make her life difficult if he wanted to.
Yes, he was a creep before, doxxing her with the do list was a very bad thing, and yes, she does not have to forgive him for it. I never said otherwise. I’m just asking what social authority he has over her, what privilege he has as a man that is in any way relevant to this situation, because those are the terms that were used and I’m disagreeing with them. Not the overall point that Nightsbridge was making, literally just that part.
Pointing out that men also have problems that directly result from being men is not minimizing the struggles that women have or even claiming that ours are worse, just that they exist too. I’m sick and tired of having my struggles dismissed out of hand just because women’s struggles are worse in many cases. How does saying I have directly struggled as a result of being a man take away from women’s struggles? How am I minimizing anything? Frankly, telling me that I’m not allowed to complain about the shitty treatment I’ve received just for being born with a penis is doing to me exactly what you are accusing me of doing. I talked about my own experience as a man, and somehow advocating for myself is attacking women? Do you see what I’m getting at? Do you see why I felt the need to include that line that I wasn’t trying to minimize anybody else’s experiences or say that my struggles are worse? I’m just saying my struggles EXIST AT ALL, and that they are contextually relevant as a counterpoint to the claim that Joe has social authority over Rachel in this situation, a claim that has still not actually been defended mind you.
I have dealt with significant struggles because I am a man. I empathize with women who have struggled because they are women. It is entirely possible to acknowledge that both can suck for different reasons and actively work to make things better for everybody. I do it, I know plenty of people, men, women, and otherwise that do it. But I still find myself needing to hash this out over and over and over again every single time I bring up my own experiences on the internet because people like you like to pretend that men have it so easy by default and any claim otherwise is misogyny or minimizing women’s struggles, which is ridiculous. Things can be bad for everybody, there is more than enough misery and suffering to go around, but maybe if we stopped all this stupid pointing fingers and trying to argue over who has it worse we could focus on making things better instead and hopefully reduce some of that misery and suffering for everybody.
Nymphie
@Phsychie, I’m not going to unpack everything you wrote, but I’d like to point out two major points.
1) you demonstrate TheJeff’s argument in the very first statement by saying “I have never in my life been in a position of privilege”. You can’t possibly know, and it’s easy to stay blind to it if you’re not even open to the concept.
2) Rachel wouldn’t be wrong if she brought up to the school that Joe was leaning against her door, hitting on her the second she walked out of her own dorm room, and at a later point have kept on refer to her by the number he ranked her as.
“Social authority” might have been a bit of a strange argument to me by Nightsbridge, but their point still stands that Joe is in a position of privilege here, his previous actions have made the public areas of campus, downright to their own dorm hallways, less safe. And Joe even pointed out his privilege himself, probably unknowingly, about how he gets away with creepy comments just because he is conventionally attractive.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/hiatus/
Nymph
She didn’t choose to be on his list. She didn’t choose to have her name and room number published alongside the list. She didn’t choose to be disgustingly objectified and have it become a public spectacle. God forbid she continue being upset about that just a few months after it happened.
She’s not in the wrong just because she isn’t staying silent and pretending everything is fine. Even if you’d prefer she didn’t keep talking about it, there’s actually nothing wrong with her doing so.
Rogue 7
So should Joe have to leave any public space as soon as rachel arrives?
I get that that’s hyperbole, I’m just not reasonably certain what Rachel should expect out of Joe if “avoiding her for 3 months” is insufficient and deserves to be called out. Like, what benefit would she get out of this conversation? She’s *already* called him out on being a creep. She clearly knows Joe knows that she thinks he’s a creep. What is her goal here?
Nymph
No, he shouldn’t, but she’s not required to keep her mouth shut about her annoyance either. Both things are true. He’s not doing anything wrong by being there and she’s not doing anything wrong by talking about how she feels. I understand that you think she has said all she needs to, but she clearly doesn’t feel that way.
Rogue 7
I think it’s more because you think about what would happen if Sarah was right and Joe was still only concerned with getting his dick wet, he still would have been avoiding her to avoid making hwr uncomfortable. He’d be doing exactly the right thing by Rachel regardless. Basically- “so if Joe can’t change, what do you want him to *do* with that, Rachel?”
Needfuldoer
Sit there and take unprompted verbal attacks, of course.
Taellosse
“Verbal attacks” is, perhaps, a bit of an overstatement. “Unprompted” is definitely inaccurate. Rachel has a poor opinion of Joe’s character, and isn’t shy about making that opinion known to him, certainly, but it is an evaluation based on entirely reasonable premises – his own past behavior – and she has kept the expression of her views regarding Joe entirely within the bounds of those factors. She has made no baseless accusations, and she has made no attempt to harass him outside of chance encounters that have occurred literally months apart.
Just because we’ve seen Joe do a lot of work on self-improvement and genuine effort to be a better person doesn’t mean Rachel has, and it’s not fair to expect her to have the same insight into his character arc as we do.
Astariel
She wants him to kill himself, obviously. He did something bad in the past and therefore he is ruined forever. Only people like Rachel, who have never ever done anything wrong in their lives and never will, deserve to exist.
Nymph
Yep. Not a gross overstatement of what’s going on here at all.
Taellosse
JFC, maybe take it down a notch or ten? She made a couple of snide comments, delivered in a completely civil and calm tone of voice, and accompanied them with literally no threat – either explicit or implied – towards his health, emotional well-being, social status, or even ability to complete his exercise routine undisturbed following their conversation.
Rachel has neither said nor done anything even remotely close to the same galaxy as exhortations of suicide.
RussellZee
Yikes. Do you, I’m just curious, here, but do you really think this sort of comment is helpful to a conversation? Do you think a snide comment from one fictional character to another is something that should have you making light of suicide to other real human beings in a conversation about a webcomic?
zee
Oh yeah for sure. Just the “redemption is a story” philosophy is really shitty, and it was supremely shitty to say to someone on suicide watch. Ruth was bad, she wasn’t bad enough to make that appropriate at that specific time. I’m in general hostile to the idea that people don’t change, it’s a defeatist and worthless attitude, it’s doomerism. It’s throwing your hands up and saying “welp, shit sucks. Oh well.” And denying people the capacity of change now of all times is just, really unhelpful
Thag Simmons
I get the cynicism. It’s not a good attitude in regards to personal improvement, but “abusers don’t change” isn’t unreasonable as a survival strategy. She’s out of line to be sure, but from her perspective I get it.
Nymph
We actually have No Idea how bad Ruth was. Rachel’s beef with her was from being roomies the first year and she specifically called Ruth a bully. Without knowing what happened between them, we have no way to gauge how reasonable her attitude is.
I’m interested to see what her problem is, I would love to deep dive Rachel’s story to find out the ‘why’ instead of rabidly condemning the response to whatever happened without knowing.
thejeff
We often talk about “protagonist centered morality” here to excuse pretty obvious villains (like Raidah), but this seems like a much clearer case of it.
Amós Batista
THIS
Balger
she doesnt have healthy skepticism though, what she had is a problem, and decided to go off on him the second she saw him. Like if your introduction to someone is an insult, maybe dont even bother striking up conversation?
Barf Ninjason
The man made a public apology with doughnuts, that is not something most horny 18 year olds would do. I think she just doesn’t want to believe he can change because she’s so mad at him, and it’d be disappointing to have less of a basis for that righteous anger
anon
i can understnad rachel being skeptical although even if you know ppl can change i don’t think she’d rly care enough to befriend joe or so , ppl can live how they want although it’d be sucky if one was obligated to be near another person and such b/c of work and classes, can’t be friends with everyone after all
mindbleach
“Can you be less hostile when I’m just sitting here?”
“Redemption is a story, so no, I’m stuck like this.”
V
Really, girl, can you let a person work out? Give him grief if he hits on you but other wise be polite and mind your own business. I suppose she actually likes him though.
AlexanderHammil
this is very mild hostility
anon
how big is the gym i wonder? feels like they would have enough to each take a corner
if not, like a ‘female’ gym separated from the male one like how there’s shower rooms and ia ssume the laundry rooms aren’t co ed either
Nymph
Why would the laundry rooms not be coed? The ones in my college certainly were just a single room of machines for our dorm, and I’m not sure what benefit there would have been in separating them.
Needfuldoer
For the other thing the characters have been using the machines for, of course.
Steamweed
Individual dorms might have smaller gyms (like only a big bigger than a typical hotel gym). But the university itself has a separate, huge gym (that is itself the size of a typical hotel).
staszu13
She does in the Walkyverse
Nobby Nobbs
A woman insulted a man who insulted her? To the chair! No, the gallows! No, the guillotine!
mindbleach
Arguments are easy when you make shit up.
mindbleach
“Ease off, Javert.”
“You want her to DIE?”
… okay, Taffy’s coming in hot.
Taffy
Doesn’t Javert kill himself the moment he thinks about easing off? I’ve only watched that movie one time. For the record, I wouldn’t joke about Rachel killing herself, it’d be too close to home. Someone else can do it, maybe by accident. Or she could eat some bad chorizo, nobody at fault, it looked fine and the freshness label said it was good for another month, no evidence of tampering, it’s just bad luck.
Freezer
Javert kills himself after realizing he’s been wrong about Valjean all that time. That he’d wasted decades pursuing an innocent man, at odds with his own rigid black/white morality. And, having never had a moment’s doubt about his own actions, had no idea how to deal with that guilt. Hence, removing himself from the census, post-haste.
Doopyboop
I get why Rachel doesn’t like Joe but I feel like Joe’s response in panel 5 is actually very respectful.
Yumi
Yeah, Rachel only got from that to what she said in the next panel by those being her beliefs anyway.
Erica
It is, Rachel’s just being an asshole
butts
i mean she’s the one who initiated this whole interaction. could’ve just kept walkin’
Bryy
But that would defeat the purpose of Rachel needing validation.
Thag Simmons
She does presumably want to get her workout in
V
No kidding, the man is trying to work out. Personally I can’t stand it when people interrupt my workouts. Of course it’s because I’m self conscious and easily distracted… I hope she actually likes him and is trying to forge a relationship of banter and fun repartee, rather than just generally sowing discord everywhere she goes. I suppose she finds him hot and distracting and it’s trying to be on top of the situation.
Nadamás
Eh, I personally find that possibility a bit distasteful considering the actually understandable origin of her dislike of him being his objectifying attitude so it being about finding him hot fells, icky I guess.
Taellosse
Agreed! I know Rachel gets a lot of hate for having the temerity to dislike multiple members of the main cast of characters for their genuinely unacceptable past actions, but I would really prefer her own arc not be about anything so trite as sublimated sexual attraction.
Ike
People don’t dislike her because of that. People dislike her because of her attitude towards redemption and her steadfast belief that people are destined to be horrible forever. Which is a position the narrative we’re presented with directly contradicts. This is also basically the only thing we know about Rachel, we don’t have her tragic backstory to explain what made her this way, and we don’t have any potentially endearing qualities or traits for her to make us care about her as a character. She’s just kinda there, and occasionally she says something. I mean I guess she’s had two prominent scenes – one where she was really cool and laid into Joe for his bullshit, and one where she told a suicidal person that it was impossible for them to improve. The circumstances of the latter kinda overshadow the first one. This is the first time I can think of Rachel being given any significant attention since the “Redemption is a story” scene.
Devin
Honestly all of Joe’s lines in today’s strip show some pretty good maturity, I think.
Time to give Rachel the opportunity to prove herself wrong!
Dread Pirate Robin
Feel like characters who got together in Walkyverse are cursed. Like the universe wants them to get together and that string tethering them makes them want to go further apart.
Mr D phone posting
The red string of fate refuses to be cut
Rose by Any other Name
… huh. One wonders what that says about Walky and Dorothy long term.
TulipKitten
… Or Danny and Sal. ?
Mr. Random