Good on the host for insisting on getting the guy’s face fully on camera. That’s some quick thinking.
You can see she really didn’t want to address it at first. Like she immediately apologised, then the host stopped her to ask about it and she cringed when she said he had touched her. Only after the host put a stop to everything did she call the guy out on it, which she handled really well.
It seems to me her first instinct was that this could become a real problem for her, and she was safer just letting it go. It’s also probably way more normal for her than for the host.
One good thing is she is the visible person and the guy who assaulted her was just some random guy, so public opinion should easily go in her favour.
As a woman who got harassed nearly every day in the country I lived who responded to at least 40% of those with yelling and middle fingers, it’s not fun, it takes a toll on you, and some days you have to choose your battles carefully. That being said, I carried a taser gun and it made my life easier. When I left to another country that was safer, I gifted said taser gun to an American girl who was in that country in exchange and was sexually harassed by a taxi driver who drove her somewhere “hidden” and tried to kiss her and she found it hard to handle things after that.
Edit: made some things bold
You’re absolutely right, and I wasn’t trying to criticise her for any of her decisions here. Honestly without the host intervening she was probably making the best choice to keep herself safe.
It clearly would’ve been easy for everyone involved to dismiss the moment and let it go if they’d chosen to, and it seems like she didn’t feel like she could do anything until her host stopped things and gave her implicit permission to confront the guy.
I’m AMAB NB myself, but grew up pretty cis-passing, and I would’ve been pretty oblivious to most of the things she was doing here because my upbringing allowed me to be.
My point in making that comment was to help other oblivious AMAB folks see that the extraordinary part of this situation wasn’t the fact a woman was assaulted, because that is going on constantly. The extraordinary part is the attention it received, and the fact both her and the host took action to make sure it got attention.
I would hope if things escalated the camera man would have intervened…
That’s the moment-to-moment safety, and being with a group dealing with one guy you’re safer, yes.
The other issue is though, she’s on live TV. That means if she makes a thing out of it, she knows that there’s a chance the narrative turns her into the “angry woman”, the “karen”, a punching bag for misogynists nationwide, and possibly the target of an online hate mob. She couldn’t forsee what the outcome would be, and the much bigger danger lay in that unknown, and in the moment her immediate impulse seemed to be to smooth the issue over as quickly as possible to avoid any kind of attention.
With hindsight it’s good that that didn’t happen - although online hate mobs will latch onto some very esoteric targets that we don’t always hear about so there’s no guarantee there - and the fact an older man stepped in on her behalf before she said anything probably helps with that, because now the narrative looks more like a gentleman stepping in to rescue a helpless girl. That’s truly meaningless, I know, but those few seconds of hesitation on her part completely change the impression a lot of people would get. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is, and it’s a reality a lot of men completely miss.
This is also part of the difference that good allyship can make. He is the respected older man, so he can leverage his privilege to help her. Of course that also means he pushed her to do something she wouldn’t on her own, and I don’t know how I would’ve handled that situation myself. I guess also his reaction was immediate too, and I think I wouldn’t have wanted to let the moment go. You see something like that and it should make you angry, and leveraging that anger into a constructive response is maybe the best thing you can do. He at least asked her what happened, so if she REALLY didn’t want to address it she could’ve denied what happened.
Yeah. She’d probably been passively (or maybe even actively) taught that ignoring and tolerating abuse was the “professional” thing to do… that it was the price she had to pay for being a woman.
Fuck that noise. I’m glad to see this issue getting the attention it deserves.
Good on the anchor for sticking up for her. The reporter was just going to downplay it. She needed someone to take her side. She rocks for using that encouragement to confront the guy, and the anchor set a fantastic example by speaking up. He even said to her “excuse me for interrupting you.”
It feels good to see people support each other like this. They’re both awesome.
The reality women live with is even in this thread, which has more than one comment focusing on how stupid this guy was to do it on camera, rather than how stupid and disgusting it is to do it at all.
I guess because he’s a jerk for doing it, but a really dumb jerk for doing it on camera.
The weirdest part for me in this video isn’t even the groping, it’s that weird pat on head that looked like: okay little girl, bye
They say that rape isn’t just about sex, but power.
If you look at the grope and head pat in that lens, they slot right in to him showing her he has power over her life and that she has none over him.
Doing it on camera really flipped that on his head, but it also highlights the realities of womans day to day life, watching out for these shitheads.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive. Doing that with no cameras is disgusting, doing it on camera is that and stupid, proving what many of us thought of the people doing that in the first place
What the fuck?? This is so stupid I have a hard time believing it’s real. Does this guy have a single digit IQ or something? He did this in front of a camera. And then he came back after leaving. This guy doesn’t need to go to jail, he needs to go to an asylum and attend classes made for 5 year olds where they teach about consequences for actions. This is like, teenage dare level stupidity.
Also, that he ruffles her hair after the accusation. Like, I can’t decide if that was belitteling like “yes, little stupid girl, just image that I touched your butt” or a powermove “I touched you and I touch you again, watch me”. Either way, that this really a horrible view and show cases how much this behaviour is ingrained in some people.
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And the mf was looking proud of it too, which adds to the disgust i had already
Good. Put him away for assault. Sentence him on live TV. Throw a fucking party as you throw the book at him.
Make. An. Example. Out. Of. This. Douchenozzle.
Seeing a pattern with this and the women’s football coach. Incredible entitlement.
Live on TV, what a moron.
Yep, not only is he a cunt, but he’s a dumb cunt.
Dude definitely had a rapey vibe even after confronted.
Arrested the “suspect”?
I mean, no need to suspect anything, the footage speaks for itself
EDIT: reading the replies, TIL. Thanks folks!
It’s a suspect and an alleged crime until they’re convicted. Media outlets and journalists have been sanctioned by judges for not presuming innocence.
Only a court can convict someone of a crime, so police always deals with “suspects”, even if they know they’re guilty
Sicko and bastard. This shit cannot be tolerated anymore
