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archivyrep · 1 year

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Two "keepers of secrets" in fiction

In their glossary of tropes, #ArchivesInFiction talks about a "popular trope in which the Archivist is portrayed as an unapproachable curmudgeon who views the archives as their own personal fiefdom and is therefore protective of their records and their knowledge" which they call "keeper of secrets." In this post I'd like to highlight some of those people, as I know them, in series I've seen up to this point. Even tough the second example isn't a curmudgeon, he still is protective over records in his care but for a different reason.

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog. Originally published on Jun. 24, 2021.

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

This is the quintessential example of this trope and it was the subject of one my first posts on this blog. Putting aside the archives-library confusion in this film, which I, of course, wrote a whole post about, Madame Jocasta Nu, seemingly the Jedi Archives lone arranger, first asks Obi-Wan if he needs help, but then declares the archives are totally immutable, thinking there is no way that anyone could tamper with the records. Don't they have records management tools or something to check the records? Why do they blindly trust that no one tampered with the records? After finding that Kamino DOES exist, was there any consequences for her? I sure hope so. There is no doubt that she, and the archives, were of little help to Obi-Wan, who was faulted for chasing something that didn't exist.

I have to disagree with what then-SAA President Randall Jimmerson said about the film: "George Lucas presents a more confident view of archives." How in the world can that be the case? Isn't this view of an archives very cynical? I mean, I'm taking away from this that archives shouldn't be totally trusted. And also the fact that if items do not appear in archival records, they do exist.

However, I can agree with him that this vision definitely "shows the limits of archival control" and the illusion of the power of the archivist, who has a powerful and crucial role.

Other than this, in that post, Samantha Cross is right to call Nu a person of experience and age, and says that her confidence and complacency are worrisome,and argues there "a distinct lack of scrutiny and curiosity in Jocasta that’s endemic throughout the Republic." In that post I also noted that she served as Archives Director for over 30 years, formerly on the Jedi Council for 10 years, and that she was reliant on data of the Jedi Archives. This also makes clear the impression, for archivists, that everything in their collections is, as I noted in that post, all there is, that they have everything, that records could not be tampered with, which is absurd, to say the least.

Nu sort of reminds me of Filis in Tri-Squad VoiceDrama, who is also a lone arranger. Currently, there are almost 300 fics which feature Nu on Archive of Our Own. However, only ONE fic specifically mentions her as an archivist, and even that fic doesn't seem that positive to me, when it comes to archives, from what I can tell. [1] I did like this one (even though it slightly confuses libraries and archives) where she wonders what is hidden from them:

... Two hours later, having returned the youngling - Charzi, of Pod Kwinn - to her teachers, Jocasta was staring at the blank space on what should have been a top of the line star map of the entire known galaxy. It was the best known star map of the galaxy, being updated daily as new information came in from the exploratory corps and other private enterprises. And yet, she was staring at clear proof that someone had sabotaged her archives. No, not her archives. Pride and possessiveness were traits unbefitting a Master of her years and discipline. Still, this was a problem that needed to be rectified immediately. ... Jocasta’s eyebrows went up, but the scouting and exploring of a newly discovered system and interacting with the locals respectfully were long accepted parts of the Trials for those who chose the archival path. ... She was going to need to audit the entire library. Top to bottom just to see what else they’d missed. It was going to take years, even if the entire Education Corps and Archivists worked on it. Which they would be. ... Jocasta stared at the archives, gaze scanning over the shelves and shelves of books, scrolls, datapads. What else was being hidden from them?

I think one fic writer put it well, that after the Kamino incident, she "made a whole whack of archive backups and stashed them in increasingly unlikely places, which allowed at least some to survive long enough for Rey to get to them," adding that you don't get to be "Head Archivist by being casual about data integrity and backups, especially once you've been shown a problem!"

The same issues with Nu also are somewhat reflected in the animated series, although you could argue the series is a bit more fair.

The Joker

Carl, the records clerk, first shown. Look at those Hollinger boxes in the background! The records are being stored correctly in this scene. Did they consult any archivists when making this film? I sure hope so.

The archivist, er actually records custodian/clerk named Carl (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) is not a curmudgeon but he really wants to stick to the rules. As I noted in the post, Arthur Fleck wants to get records about his mother,but the records clerk lugs in a heavy storage box and does some digging for Fleck. He ultimately, however, says he can't give the file to Fleck without the right forms, saying he needs his mom to sign a "patient disclosure form." Fleck won't stand for this, and he ultimately grabs the file and runs away.

Apart from the metal gate itself symbolizing, as I noted in the post, the division between those who can access records and those who can't, there are other takeaways from this. For one, in this film, the records center is literally part of the system which is oppressing people. Secondly, the clerks are prevented by bureaucracy from providing patrons with access to records in a fair, equitable, and efficient way. Thirdly,is the division between those who can access the records and those who can't access the records. I wish more series and fiction would discuss this, but sadly, they do not.

Notes

[1] This expands when you only use the term "archives," with some only mentioning it in passing as "Jedi Archives," (same here, here, here, here, here, and here), another which confused libraries and archives sadly, along with those about flirting in the archives, one more specifically about her, missing records, various archivists, interactions between Nu and Jedi, surprise in the archives, finding a stray Padawan in the archives, vastness of information there, Anakin meeting Nu, and her dying during Order 66.

#keepers #star wars #attack of the clones #jocasta nu #tropes #archives #archival science #archival studies #the joker #samantha cross #pop archives #pop culture #reviews #order 66 #tri squad voice drama #ao3 #fan fics #kamino #brian tyree henry

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agentfrostbite · 3 years

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It's Saturday and I'm in the mood, so let's talk about Elijah Kamski

Specifically about how he treats his Chloes. Obviously this is an opinion, and everyone is entitled to theirs, but as I read Chlonnor ship fics (they are adorable and I am unrepentant), I notice that a lot of them have Chloe becoming a deviant after Connor chooses not to shoot her. I don't have a problem with this, per se, but I have noticed several things in game that makes me think she's already a deviant.

1. The other two Chloes are already deviant

It's a small detail that tends to get overlooked because you're busy focusing on meeting Elijah and "OMG, Amanda's dead??" and later whether or not Connor actually shot Chloe. But these two girls right here?

They're talking. They're chatting with each other. I know that doesn't sound like much, but look back on the rest of the game thus far. Androids that aren't deviant don't converse with other androids because there's no reason they should. They have a job, and unless they're being addressed by a human, that job doesn't involve talking. You know who does converse? Deviants. Additionally, they're just lounging in the pool, and I guess that Kamski could have ordered them in there because he doesn't like swimming alone/likes to swim with his Chloes/some other potentially creepier thing, but it feels a little too natural for that.

2. Kamski pushes Connor toward his own decision

Looking back on the scene, it's clear that Kamski is trying to force Connor into making the choice of whether or not to shoot Chloe, against Connor's will. He directly pits Connor's programming against his collected software instabilities to see which is stronger. Yes, he is a scientist, first and foremost, so he's gathering data through his test, but I think he's strongly leaning towards - and pushing Connor towards - a pro-deviant standpoint.

His dialogue throughout the scene puts longer, more emotional, emphatic language on the idea of deviancy and the free will of androids - specifically of Connor. He pushes Connor to attempt an answer outside his programming ("Well, that's what you're programmed to say... but you...what do you really want?") and he places special emphasis on Connor's individuality ("Decide who you are. An obedient machine... Or a living being endowed with free will...") in the critical moment just before Connor decides whether or not to shoot.

That, combined with the fact that the two Chloes in the pool are conversing - and at this point, watching the scene, one notably with a concerned/uncertain look as she turns back around - tells me that Kamski is supportive of the idea of deviants.

3. Kamski closes off and expresses almost negative emotion if Connor does choose to shoot Chloe

If Connor decides that his mission is more important than Chloe and shoots, Kamski's attitude makes a definite shift. Where earlier he was toying with Hank and Connor, giving cryptic answers and sidestepping the main issue they were there to discuss, after Chloe is shot, he switches to straight answers and short replies.

Additionally, this post by @omentrash highlights Kamski's obviously upset expression when Connor chooses to shoot Chloe. Call it what you like, but to me, this says he absolutely did not want Connor to fire.

4. No matter what route you choose, Kamski tells Connor about the emergency exit

In any situation where Connor ends up in a place of partial or total deviancy, Amanda resumes control of his program and traps him in the white-out blizzard Zen Garden. In this case, the only way for Connor to escape is to use the emergency exit. But he only knows about it because Kamski goes out of his way to inform Connor of it (and we'll get to the ramifications of Kamski knowing about Connor having it later).

Obviously in the deviant best ending, Connor uses this to avoid shooting Markus and the surviving Jericrew in the back, and most of the time, this ending was preceded by Connor deciding not to shoot Chloe. So yes, it makes sense that Kamski would inform him about a way out, should something like what Amanda does happen to him. But he also tells Connor about it if Connor does shoot Chloe, which lets us know that Kamski is hoping that perhaps Connor will deviate somewhere later down the line. He didn't do it here, but he might when faced with the same situation at a future time. Kamski is looking out for Connor, even though Connor isn't a deviant yet, because Kamski has hope that he might become one.

5. Deviants are capable of acting like normal androids

I include this one to illustrate that just because Chloe appears to be a perfect hostess here

and shows no emotion when faced with life or death doesn't mean that she's not a deviant. We know that deviants can, when necessary, act like normal androids. Markus and North do it at Stratford. (Specifically pointing out the part where a human opens the bathroom door, and Markus snaps to attention at the side, like a good little obedient Android janitor.)

Kamski is the Man of the Century. He revolutionized life for everyone across the planet by successfully creating a robotic assistant species that walks, talks, and looks roughly human, while doing everything a human can do with far more efficiency. Of course he gets house calls. And if his androids are deviants - and at the very least, the two in the pool are, so why wouldn't his first android be one as well? - and people come calling, they'd need to act like proper androids. Chloe, especially, since she greets people at the door and is the poster child.

And you'll notice, even in her interview, she acts more human than most androids do. She stammers, she smiles, she's clearly nervous. She shifts back and forth, readjusting in her seat like a human would. Sure, she needed to do these things to pass the Turing Test, but there's a deeper feel to it than just good programming. I think she was leaning heavily toward deviancy at that point. Not there yet, but close. That was years before we see her at Kamski's house in the game. She must be a deviant by now.

6. Kamski left an emergency exit in Connor's program, meaning that he had some hand in Connor's creation

So Kamski leaves emergency exits in all his programs; I think we've beaten the dead horse enough at this point, but I gotta do it one more time because why would Connor have his program? Base code, sure. Okay, we can make that argument that every android has the same base code as the original program. But we can also make the argument - and it has stronger evidence - that Kamski himself had a huge hand in developing the RK series. Proof? Markus.

Markus was a gift from Kamski to Carl; we know this from Connor's scan of Markus at Stratford Tower. We also know that Markus was a unique prototype, since his police file not only states this but also doesn't have a picture of him. No photo at all. Just a blank face, and "Unknown series" and a DESTROYED.

If Markus was one of a small handful, then they'd have a photo of another. They certainly wouldn't have a "Unknown Series" on the file. This makes me think that Kamski made Markus on his own and then gifted him to Carl. I suspect this means that he still has connections at CyberLife, which he used to get the parts for Markus. By giving Markus to Carl, knowing that Carl would cause him to deviate, he set up the seed of the revolution. Now why would Kamski do that, unless he was pro-deviant?

Summary

CyberLife decides to create an android detective/negotiator with the most cutting edge technology and coding the world has ever seen. This model would hunt down deviants and bring them back, if possible, for analysis so CyberLife could lock down the problem and eliminate it with a software patch. It's a delicate operation; after all, Connor starts with his toes on the line of deviancy. Presumably, when he goes to rescue Emma from Daniel, it's his first mission, and already, he's struggling with software instabilities. To think like a deviant, you have to be as unpredictable as possible. That means that he's right on the edge, and he remains on that edge for most of the game, depending on what the player decides to do with him.

So CyberLife need some assistance getting the code ironed out to ensure their Deviant Hunter doesn't become a deviant himself (until the time is right), so they turn to the man who first invented androids and has already technically worked on the RK series: Kamski. They ask - or perhaps Kamski himself offers - and Kamski works on the code. Not all of it, not even the majority, just the few bits and pieces where their almost-deviant and anti-deviant codes clash. All of his work is surely checked - secretly, of course; no need to make him think they don't trust him - so there's really only one thing he can add to Connor's program: the emergency exit. And that's why Connor is his program, why CyberLife would allow the exit to remain, why Kamski points it out, no matter what you choose.

And Kamski would do none of this - it doesn’t make sense for him to do any of this - unless he's secretly cheering on the revolution from the sidelines.

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh kamski #elijah kamski #dbh chloe #chloe rt600 #dbh connor #connor rk800 #dbh markus #markus rk200 #dbh carl #carl manfred #deviants #deviant connor #long post #dbh meta #pro deviant elijah kamski #deviant chloe

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scarlettrose0 · 3 years

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Deceived or lying?

A common claim among abortion advocates is that although legal abortion deaths are indeed sad, they're only a pale shadow of the carnage that would ensue were legal protection restored to unborn children. They use these claims to garner support among those otherwise reluctant to support legal abortion as well as to slander life advocates. I find no fault with people who innocently believe what they've been told. by people and organizations that they considered trustworthy. But once you have learned the truth, you have a responsibility to hold those who deceived you accountable and to stop passing on the deceptive claims. If you can't defend your stand without lying, should you be defending it at all? There are two approaches Big Abortion takes when trying to scare people into supporting legal abortion as a means of protecting women's lives:

Outright lying. They will trot out the long-disproven claim that 5,000 to 10,000 women were dying every year from abortion before legalization.

Lying by omission. They will use numbers that are accurate, but will totally remove them from context in order to draw a conclusion that is demonstrably false.

Let's start with the outright lie: that 5,000 to 10,000 were dying annually in the US from abortions prior to criminalization. Where did the numbers come from? Here's an interesting exercise: When you see the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths claim, check and see who they cite (if they even bother to cite a source at all). Odds are it will be Lawrence "Larry" Lader or some other late 1960's early 1970's abortion guru. This gives the impression that Lader (or whoever) looked at whatever the then-current situation was and wrote up his findings. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Dr. Frederick Taussig

The original source was a book -- Abortion, Spontaneous and Induced -- published in 1936 by Dr. Frederick Taussig, a leading proponent of legalization of abortion. Taussig calculated an urban abortion rate based on records of a New York City birth control clinic, and a rural abortion rate based on some numbers given to him by some doctors in Iowa. He took a guess at a mortality rate, multiplied by his strangely generated estimate of how many criminal abortions were taking place, and presto! A myth is born! At a conference* in 1942, Taussig himself apologized for using "the wildest estimates" to generate a bogus number. Although it took Taussig six years to reject his own faulty calculations, at least he did admit that he'd been wrong. Other abortion enthusiasts lacked Taussig's compunctions.

Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL,** admitted that he and his associates knew that the claims of 5,000 to 10,000 criminal abortion deaths were false. They bandied them about anyway, Nathanson confessed, because they were useful. This, too, is old news -- Nathanson came clean in 1979 when he published Aborting America. The abortion lobby has had nearly three quarters of a century to drop the numbers after Taussig himself admitted that they were wrong. Abortion supporters have had over thirty years since they were outed in public for lying. Still, as Nathanson said, the number is useful. It's scary. This is why friends of Big Abortion, such as Barbara Boxer, still continue to lie. If you have to lie and scare people into joining your cause, it seems like it's time for a little quiet reflection. Now for the lying by omission, which typically involves taking fairly reliable abortion mortality numbers from before and after legalization then crediting legalization for the drop. No less prestigious organization than the Alan Guttmacher Institute uses this statistical legerdemain: "As the availability of legally induced abortion increased, mortality due to abortion dropped sharply: The number of abortion-related deaths per million live births fell from nearly 40 in 1970 to eight in 1976." The truth is that you can take virtually any time period from when public health officials first started collecting the data and you'll find that abortion mortality fell.The only exception is a strange leveling-off in the 1950s that I've been unable to account for:

Are abortion advocates suggesting that somehow the loosening of abortion laws in some states in 1968 and 1969, the open gates to abortion-on-demand in New York in 1970, and Roe vs. Wade in 1973 somehow retroactively caused the fall in abortion mortality during the 1940s?

What caused abortion mortality to fall precipitously wasn't legalization. Legalization didn't even make a blip in the trends, likely because for every non-physician whose business fell away, a physician abortionist became sloppy once the risk of a prison sentence for botching an abortion was gone. I know of three erstwhile criminal abortionists -- Jesse Ketchum, Milan Vuitch, and Benjamin Munson -- who kept their noses clean prior to legalization but each went on to practice appallingly sloppy abortions that killed two patients after legalization.

What does this mean for a Post-Roe America? It means we're not going to see a huge surge in abortion deaths. It was improvements in medical care that reduced abortion mortality before legalization, and those improvements in medical care will keep abortion mortality low after Roe falls. This doesn't mean that Big Abortion won't get somebody killed and then parade the corpse around. They're pushing hard to convince vulnerable women that if there isn't a handy-dandy abortion clinic on the corner, there will be no choice but to reach for the rustiest coathanger in the closet. In times of stress, people tend to run on autopilot, so a woman who has heard nothing for years but "You'll have no choice but to resort to a dangerous abortion" will likely do just that: resort to a dangerous abortion.

The truth, though, is that everything is already in place to prevent any woman from ever dying from a botched abortion ever again. Prolife pregnancy help centers already outnumber dedicated abortion facilities three-to-one. As aging abortionists retire and seedy mills get shut down by the authorities in the wake of the Gosnell scandal, the balance will shift even further toward organizations that help women to address the issues that make them think abortion is their only choice. The abortion lobby, however, is doing everything in their power to hamstring these resources and to maintain the illusion that if a pregnant woman is facing challenges, somebody has to die.*** There is still much work to do, but we can be ready so that when legal protection is removed from abortionists and restored to the unborn and their vulnerable mothers, Big Abortion gets shut down once and for all. Nobody -- not one mother, not one baby -- needs to die.”

- Christiana Dunigan

*I can understand why some may not believe it, however there are sources in the blog. And, if your still not convinced, there’s a good article made by Washington Post on the topic, and it actually supported an pro-choice stance.

We know what will happen, which is that women will die. Thousands of women died every year pre-Roe.”

— Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood, in an interview with WFAA of Dallas, March 6, 2019

“Before Roe v. Wade, thousands of women died every year — and because of extreme attacks on safe, legal abortion care, this could happen again right here in America.”

— Wen, in a tweet, April 24 “We’re not going to go back in time to a time before Roe when thousands of women died every year because they didn’t have access to essential health care.” — Wen, interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” May 22

A reader asked us to investigate this repeated claim by the president of Planned Parenthood — that “thousands of women” died every year from botched abortions before the Supreme Court in 1973 nullified antiabortion laws across the United States in Roe v. Wade.

This turned out to be an interesting inquiry, taking The Fact Checker through a tour of decades of musty academic literature. Statisticians had tried to parse data on what was, for the most part, an illegal act. Unplanned pregnancy and abortions were deeply shameful at the time, so the official statistics were not necessarily reliable indicators of mortality rates from abortion. Still, by the time Roe was issued, 17 stateshad liberalized their abortion laws, and the Centers for Disease Control was collecting solid data on abortion mortality. If Roe is overturned, a significant number of states, such as California and New York, are expected to still permit abortions, so the situation would be more akin to the period immediately before Roe.

The problem with Wen’s claim is that is derived from data that is decades old. Let’s explore.

The Facts

Erica Sackin, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, directed us to a 2014 policy statement issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG): “It is estimated that before 1973, 1.2 million U.S. women resorted to illegal abortion each year and that unsafe abortions caused as many as 5,000 annual deaths.”

There is no citation in the statement for the estimate of “as many as 5,000 annual deaths,” even though many of the other sentences are carefully documented. None of the citations around this sentence supports the figure, and there is no explanation about how it was calculated.

Kate Connors, an ACOG spokeswoman, initially referred us to a 1958 report that said “a plausible estimate of the frequency of induced abortion in the United States could be as low as 200,000 and as high as 1,200,000 per year,” adding that “there is no objective basis for the selection of a particular figure between these two estimates.”

That’s quite a range for the number of illegal abortions, indicating how fuzzy the numbers are. The ACOG took the high-end estimate for its statement. But this report contained no mortality rates or an explanation of the 5,000-death estimate, nor did any of the other material sent by Connors.

Meanwhile, Sackin also sent a variety of reports, many of which were referenced in a footnote in a document published by NARAL Pro-Choice America. One of the citations especially caught our eye: Frederick Taussig, “Abortion Spontaneous and Induced: Medical and Social Aspects,” (1936).

Why was a study from 1936 being referenced?

Taussig, who died in 1943, was a gynecologist and influential advocate of legalized abortion. In his book, he calculated that the number of deaths from abortion was between 8,000 and 10,000 a year. But it was not a very rigorous calculation, based on a mix of theory and data from the United States and Germany. Just 13 states recorded such data in 1927 and 15 in 1928. That added up to 912 deaths from abortion a year. Because the states represented 26 percent of the birth registration of the United States, Taussig multiplied it to come up with 3,508 a year. He then rounded it up to 4,000 to account for oversampling of rural areas. Then he assumed half of the deaths were concealed, so he doubled it to 8,000 and concluded it was no more than 10,000.

But he admitted that just five years earlier, he had estimated 15,000 deaths in another paper. “I am convinced my previous estimates were too high,” he wrote. A few years later, in 1942, he revised the figure yet again, down to 5,000.

The advent of antibiotics such as penicillin and imless risky. Another prominent researcher, Christopher Tietze, argued in a 1948 paper that the number of deaths from abortion was rapidly declining because of three reasons: contraceptive methods had improved so fewer women were getting pregnant, abortion providers were getting better at avoiding infections, and many lives had been saved because of the introduction of sulfa drugs and penicillin.

“It is felt, however, that the official statistics include the great majority of all deaths from abortion,” he wrote. “The outstanding fact about mortality from abortion is the steady and sometimes precipitous decline which has been observed almost everywhere. The reality of this decline cannot be doubted, and the extent of the fall is in all likelihood understated by the official statistics.”

The data collected by Tietze showed 2,677 deaths from abortion in 1933, compared with 888 in 1945, with much of the decline in septic cases associated with illegal abortions. (The numbers also include deaths from “therapeutic abortions,” permitted by law, and “spontaneous abortions.”)

By 1959, a leading researcher wrote: “Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians. In 1957, there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind. In New York City in 1921, there were 144 abortion deaths, in 1951 there were only 15.”

The writer was Mary Steichen Calderone, at the time medical director of Planned Parenthood. She attributed the decline in the mortality rate to antibiotics and the fact that 90 percent of illegal abortions were done by trained physicians.

The stigma associated with abortion does mean the numbers must be treated with caution. Misreporting on death certificates was possible, but the problem is said to have improved during the 1960s as public debate about abortion intensified. “Some 30 years ago it was judged that such deaths might number 5,000 to 10,000 per year, but this rate, even if it was approximately correct at the time, cannot be anywhere near the true rate now,” Tietze and Sarah Lewit wrote in Scientific American magazine in 1969. “The total number of deaths from all causes among women of reproductive age in the U.S. is not more than about 50,000 per year. The National Center for Health Statistics listed 235 deaths from abortion in 1965. Total mortality from illegal abortions was undoubtedly larger than that figure, but in all likelihood it was under 1,000.”

Tietze and Lewit, his spouse, were honored by Planned Parenthood in 1973with the Margaret Sanger award, the organization’s highest honor, for their research, including “identifying the effects of abortion policy on maternal health.” He died in 1984.

A 1978 study found that deaths from abortion declined even more rapidly after 1965 because of more effective forms of contraception and increased availability of legal abortion.

The CDC began collecting data on abortion mortality in 1972, the year before Roe was decided. In 1972, the number of deaths in the United States from legal abortions was 24 and from illegal abortions 39, according to the CDC.

Stanley Henshaw, who from 1979 to 2013 researched abortion statistics at the Guttmacher Institute, which favors abortion rights, said he agreed with Tietze’s assessment in 1969.

“In the 1960s, the officially recorded number of deaths from illegal induced abortion was under 300 per year. While there were undoubtedly other unreported abortion deaths, it is unlikely that the actual number was over 1,000. The figure of 5,000 to 10,000 is reasonable for the 1930s, when there were probably more abortions and less effective treatment of complications,” he said. “In my opinion, ifRoe v. Wade were overturned, women would turn to relatively safe medications that can be purchased over the Internet. There would be some deaths but probably not as many as there were in the 1960s.”

“While stigma, fear, and poor tracking mean we can never know the exact number who suffered before Roe v Wade was decided, what we do know is that even one woman’s death from abortion before it was legal is one too many," Sackin, of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement. "Abortion is health care, and it is one of the safest medical procedures there is -- there is no reason anyone’s health or life should be endangered by politicians hell-bent on keeping people from accessing this basic health care. Yet far too many politicians seem determined to take us back to the days before Roe was decided -- where abortion was virtually inaccessible and all those who could become pregnant paid the price.” The ACOG’s Connors urged The Fact Checker to contact David Grimes, a retired abortion doctor and researcher at the University of North Carolina’s medical school. “Tietze, whom I knew, readily acknowledged that his mortality estimates were just that: crude estimates. There is no way to confirm or refute them. Stated alternatively, there are no facts to be checked, only estimates, the usefulness of which can be debated,” Grimes said. “Whether the numbers of deaths pre-Roewere in the hundreds or in the thousands per year, the message for your readers is that nearly all of these deaths were entirely preventable.”

The Pinocchio Test

Wen is a doctor, and the ACOG is made up of doctors. They should know better than to peddle statistics based on data that predates the advent of antibiotics. Even given the fuzzy nature of the data and estimates, there is no evidence that in the years immediately preceding the Supreme Court’s decision, thousands of women died every year in the United States from illegal abortions.

Wen’s repeated use of this number reminds us of the shoddy data used by human trafficking opponents. Unsafe abortion is certainly a serious issue, especially in countries with inadequate medical facilities. But advocates hurt their cause when they use figures that do not withstand scrutiny. These numbers were debunked in 1969 — 50 years ago — by a statistician celebrated by Planned Parenthood. There’s no reason to use them today.”

- https://www.washingtonpost.com/comments?storyUrl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fpolitics%2f2019%2f05%2f29%2fplanned-parenthoods-false-stat-thousands-women-died-every-year-before-roe%2f&outputType=comment

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the-firebird69 · 2 years

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Apparently bja is still clueless and he's sitting on the video that Max sent him that was the compilation of what Jen merrick has done to him. Their friends in college and they knew each other up in Lexington and my husband knew about us knowing each other at least my character knowing him and was not comfortable with it because he used to screw around with every girl and that's what he wants because he's jealous about everything and he is sitting there the interview saying he wants Chris to feel pain the neck so he goes ahead and does it but it's sitting on the package and he's not showing people because he says it's embarrassing and he's saying is Dennis you said emphatically when it looks like mark pisshile and he's hiding the package he's sitting on it quite literally the chair means what it is a lot of it was done from a shore and he was unsure a lot because of his little boat and stuff isn't good what I did he does but he doesn't understand how. In the show is starting to become about him not giving me up because he likes me and stuff that's not why it's because he was completely fooled 100% very easily and he fell for every single lick of it that's what my husband say too I can't stop from fully this morning it's far too easy to get away with stuff with he doesn't stop and think of trump who feels awful but doesn't care and feels better after even though he wants to say stuff or move along these people are playing several roles in the show no is hiding what I did I came to sure ask him on his boat while he was at work and I took his stuff and Intel and data on others then I went and I rated other places Jim as him taking tons of stuff and a lot of information on people in the Midwest cuz we had to and we're collecting Intel on them the whole time from this idiot who is collecting it on Max and everybody else it was taking it out and we took him down and we took his Force down over and over and over so he kept going after it more and more aggressively lost the more we gave about other people and his the more that he pressured me the more I took it kept on calling me a friend made sure that I was checked it over and over but not leave me alone one day he looks up at me and till Sunday and they turn on me and I smiled and Eric clay and I said not a chance buddy that sounds so sweet physically took him for everything is worth he's helping me it's not like assuming that neither I didn't know I was doing all that you know there was a woman's cause and thoughts that was the limit of it but it was not in the method is quite interesting these people are starting to get a little sick especially he's so stupid but the problem is he's a very mean person about him being stupid and f****** it all up

Jennifer Merrick

Wow you know it's probably what's on the surface is the method and it's probably a bunch of it and Katia says yes there is and it's all spice stuff and they're starting to find some of it and they're freaking out because it's everywhere and I know you're sitting there shouting at them telling them not to do it cuz they're watched and were watched you're going to get killed after he just keep shouting at you and shouting and dying

Zues Hera

15 reactions before but this little boy is having a conniption he's turning all red and he he's barfing and he's getting really mad I was thinking of not publishing not letting him publish it but that would be the wrong thing to do this little boy is a pain in the ass and a liar and he's a schmuck okay he's a pushover you've ever met there's a son of a b**** he goes around tries to piss you off all the time it did not work well for him he wiped out his Force every day about 10 million non-illion not million non-nillion non-illion not alien in New England most of his higher up every single day he couldn't really tell either that's another thing

Thor Freya

Olympus

Would never have happened Tommy Allen if you want such an a****** to me but you're a stupid way of dealing with me got you killed so many times

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gmmp-member · 3 years

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SHOULD SMART PEOPLE BUY SMART GADGETS?

Smart gadgets have taken the world by storm. However the million dollar question is should smart people get the said smart gadgets?. Let's simply delve in and find out.

I think the first point which we should establish is that everyone is smart. There isn't a single person on earth who is not well versed in anything. We call him smart in that thing. So!, say you like cars and understand them then you are car smart. But then you can say, author!, with such horrible articles I don't think you are smart in anything at all. In that case I will tell you that I totally disagree with you. I am smart in not being smart. You are also smart in realising that I am not that smart.

We should begin with the tech smart people. The people who will shell $500 more dollars in order to get a processor with 0.3Hz more speed. Those who will prattle about how the BIOS in that laptop is bad and how to undervolt the processors of their smartphones for better battery life. For those kind of people my advise is they should go for it. I mean they are literally burning to get their hands on those things and if they don't they will definitely explode. So let them get the Asus ROG phone and RGB away. Let them have the ability to be a tech king and with just a word make things happen in their house.

Then there are the money smart. The ones who belong to the club of stingy people. For these people I think getting smart gadgets is kind of useless. Not that they are not clever enough to use them since these things are simple to use, but is the tradeoff worth it. The said tradeoff being money vs utility. At the end of the day a gadget is a utility. By making it smart what exactly am I getting in return?. Take the smart light bulbs. I can control them from my smartphone, change the colour and even dim them. However I need to shell upwards of $30 for them whilst in contrast my local hardware can supply me with a $2 one. If I want a dimmable one, I just shell $4 more and get a bed lamp then face it towards the wall which will allow me to control the lighting depending on how far from the wall it is (clever huh!). If I want unique colours I will just turn the bed lamp upwards and put a semi transparent colored tumbler on top of it. Just a dollar for a full set with all the colours you can think of. That's $7 for everything vs the $30+.

The other thing is the smart version of gadgets cost triple the price of the normal gadgets and at times ten times more. The smart floor vacuum like the Roomba can do the job whilst I chill but it's expensive. The job which it does can be done by a dumb vacuum cleaner with me smarting it up in less than an hour. So is the tradeoff worth it?. What about the smart lawn mower?. Sure it can map my home and do the job whilst I sleep on a hammock and write angry blog posts. However guys!, the money I have to pay for that is way more. Not to mention that the more buttons something has, the more likely it is to break.

Then we have to address the smartness of the gadgets. A smart gadget most usually has a chip and the ability to connect to the internet. There is also a database created by the manufacturer so that the gadget can do smart things. At this moment, I think the privacy smart should jump in. Just think about the data which can be collected about you if the CIA or FBI wants to. Your air tag and smartphone will provide the exact movements which you made for God knows how long. Your smartwatch will provide your steps, speed, heartbeat and more for any given time. So you can find yourself in court being charged for murder and unlucky you, at the time the person died your heart beat spiked and all was recorded by your fitbit. If you have a smart camera we can know what you do when alone. Your lawn mower and vacuum will enable us to deduce the exact dimensions of rooms of your rooms and yard and even the assets you own. This is just the crust and I guess if we venture into the juicy bits you will be forced to become a caveman.

Besides the said problems, at times some smart awarding features of gadgets are simply implemented on the wrong platforms. Take the Samsung fridge with a big screen which can connect to the internet. Sure!, it's a conversation starter but how much will you benefit from it?. I mean you have a desktop, laptop, smartphone and a tablet all of which can connect to the internet. The fridge is for cooling things and you will be better off buying a normal fridge and tablet separately. That way you will save 60% of your money. Then there are speakers which levitate. As before its a conversation starter. However you will still get the same trashy sound which lack bass all because you thought you were clever enough to get a levitating one. Sure there are many gadgets which add to the utility of the said gadgets like the Amazon smart speakers but for the most part the implementation doesn't give any advantage to the user besides being cool.

These smart gadgets also sometimes simply add to the clutter around my house. Take a smart watch. Why do you buy the thing when you move with your smartphone anyway. Your smartphone is always in your pocket and you add a wrist band to check the phone in your pocket eh!. You have a full blown iPad with the pencil and yet you buy the e-ink tablet. Beats me why you have to do that. Some of these smart gadgets don't add anything meaningful to our lives and only manage to stress us.

If you want to get a smart gadget, imagine yourself with the missive after a year. Will you still want it then?. Dave2D always cautions people against buying a laptop simply because it has cool RGB. As he puts it, it's a toy which will simply bore you over time. So do you think the ability to cycle through 200 colours for your bulb will still be interesting after two months?. The fridge with the browsing capability, do you think you will still be browsing from it after a week?. It's all the things which we have to consider.

However if you insist on buying smart gadgets, I believe you should avoid flagship ones like the plague. If you go to Aliexpress and Gearbest, you can get these gadgets for way less with most not exceeding $10. Sure they have less quality finish and can break, however they can showcase whether you really need the gadget in your life. When you realise that you don't, then you will most definitely thank me.

If you really want to save money when purchasing your trusty gadgets, consider grabbing the book Attaining Financial Freedom by Edward Steward. Get it here:

#gadgets #smart gadgets #technology #buyonline #buying guides #smartpeople #nerds #money #budget #privacy

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 5 years

Text

It turns out purposely messing with your targeted ads isn't a good idea

Facebook is convinced that I am a young mother with a love of kraken-themed decor.

Unless you count my cat, who is 11-years-old and the animal equivalent of the grumpy old man from Up, I absolutely do not have a child. But for the last six months, my feed has been inundated with ads for baby products, from nasal suction devices to teething toys that look like plush versions of a bad acid trip.

Over the summer, my cat underwent a veterinary procedure that, to spare the nasty details for the faint of heart, required me to dab antibiotic ointment on his butt twice a day. Because he had a knack for getting out of his cone of shame and getting ointment everywhere, I put him in diapers for the day after the surgery. But diapers made specifically for pets are absurdly expensive, so I bought a pack of (human) infant diapers online and went on my cat owner way. I started seeing ads for baby products that night.

I know big tech companies have too much on me already. I've been on social media since I was 10-years-old, entering my email and date of birth on Neopets and Club Penguin, so my data has likely been tracked for more than half of my life. I'm online for a majority of my day, and I've accepted the fact that my digital footprint runs too deep for me to ever truly go off the grid.

Which is exactly why I've started fucking with my ads.

It's not just weird baby products. I've been curating my ads to show me extremely specific cephalopod-shaped home decor. After months of carefully engaging with ads, I've finally cultivated what I want to see on my Facebook feed.

Image: screenshot/morgan sung

SEE ALSO: All the social media opt-outs you need to activate right now

I'm not the only one. Caroline, a Twitter user who tweets under the handle @defundpoppunk, also curates their ads. After clicking on specific Facebook ads, they managed to prune their feed like an artisanal algorithm — a concept first floated by Twitter user @JanelleCShane — into a masterpiece: Unreasonably baggy pants.

It's like a cursed personal data-laden bonsai tree.

I click every ad I see on Facebook for weird pants in an effort to train Facebook to show me the weirdest pants. I think it's finally starting to pay off: pic.twitter.com/nS1oMl1Mv7

— olivia colman's oscar (@defundpoppunk) March 12, 2019

Caroline says they searched for jogger-style pants before, and has been getting ads for them ever since. For weeks, they've been clicking on any ad featuring "vaguely interesting-looking" pants.

Like me, Caroline is fed up with the unending lack of privacy we have, and started engaging with their ads just to mess with them.

"So at first it was a little bit of private trolling just because I know e-comm [e-commerce] people take their click through rates really seriously," they told Mashable through Twitter DM. "But then once I started my targeted ads actually changing, I got a little more deliberate about it out of curiosity."

Aside from being an "amusing reminder that everyone is being tracked online constantly," as Caroline said, playing with targeted ads is like playing a game.

There's something deeply satisfying about knowing that even though I as an individual can't really stop power hungry tech giants, I'm giving them a digital middle finger by engaging with the "wrong" ads. It's the online version of the Florida man who runs into hurricanes with heavy metal and American flags. Realistically, messing with my ads won't shroud me from the inevitable tracking that comes from being online, but it feels like I'm making it slightly more inconvenient for large corporations to know everything about the real me.

Shoshana Wodinsky, a tech reporter at Adweek, gets why deliberately polluting your targeted ads is entertaining.

"These kinds of big tech platforms are really powerful," she said during a Skype call. "They're like multibillion dollar companies and the fact that they screw up sometimes is kind of funny. Part of it's definitely punching up, but part of it's like, even these behemoths are somewhat fucked up."

Wodinsky has also experimented with purposely muddling her digital presence; she once changed her Bitmoji to be pregnant to see if it would affect her targeted ads. (She told Mashable that she is very much not pregnant, and during her interview, she said that the only children she has are her two cats.) Although she said it started "as a joke," she wondered how far she could take it.

"Realistically, I know that me pretending to be pregnant isn't going to do anything, but it's kind of like looking outside of the fishbowl," she said. "It's fucking over the big businesses, and who doesn't like to do that."

i gave myself a pregnant bitmoji to see if it would screw with the way ads are targeted toward me and..... im here to tell you that nothings changed pic.twitter.com/SmfWkpRGys

— שוש (@swodinsky) February 13, 2019

fb thinks im preggers,,,,,, success

— שוש (@swodinsky) February 13, 2019

Less than half an hour after creating the Bitmoji, her ad interests included "motherhood" and "breastfeeding."

It's unclear what prompted Facebook to include those options in her interests — it could have been her Bitmoji, or it could have been the fact that she tweeted about it.

Realistically, just clicking on and engaging with specific ads won't do much to your digital footprint; if you really wanted to go deep, you'd have to change your entire online behavior. Your ads aren't just targeted based on what you interact with on specific social media platforms, but what you search and interact with across the entire internet. Thanks to the cookies Facebook uses to track users, regardless of whether or not you're logged in, you can leave fingerprints all over the web. Truly tricking the algorithm would mean a complete overhaul of your search habits, your social media, and whatever personal information is publicly available.

Meddling with your ad preferences by intentionally engaging with them sounds like a harmless prank, but it might have a dark side. Dr. Russell Newman, a professor at Emerson College who specializes in internet privacy, surveillance, and political communication, worries that any engagement with ads can have long term consequences.

"You might feel like you're exercising some bit of control, but in fact, you have none," he said during a phone interview. "There are unknown ways that the game you are playing right now will affect your future existence, and you won't really be able to know."

Newman stresses that we really have no idea what information can be pulled from our online interactions, and how it can be used in the future. Because internet users are "seen in a particular way, quantified in a particular way, and identified in a particular way," he says, engaging with certain ads and showing a preference for certain ads can preclude certain options. He worries that engagement like this can affect life-altering factors like credit score. It sounds far fetched, but Newman said convincing advertisers that my cat is actually my baby, for example, could possibly affect my future health insurance premiums without me even knowing.

"All the decisions that are going to be made about you going forward," Newman said. "Or the rest of your existence, are going to be based on the truth provided digitally."

Washington Post editor Gillian Brockell experienced the insidious side of online advertising last year. Shortly after she delivered her son, who was stillborn, the credit company Experian sent her an email prompting her to "finish registering" her child to track his credit for life. She noted in a viral Twitter thread that she had never even started registering her baby, and it was particularly cruel that companies wanted his information after his death.

I find this hard to believe. I'd been using Experian to check my credit regularly, & I'd never received any spam like this from them before, just a monthly email saying my report was updated. + the ad didn't say “family protection solution.” it said “register your child.” 3/ pic.twitter.com/dUPRxyWRKH

— Gillian Brockell (@gbrockell) March 12, 2019

"These tech companies triggered that on their own, based on information we shared, Brockell wrote in a piece reflecting on how she never asked to be targeted with parenting ads. "So what I’m asking is that there be similar triggers to turn this stuff off on its own, based on information we’ve shared."

Newman emphasizes that while Google, Facebook, and Amazon market themselves as a search engine, social media network, and online marketplace, respectively, the companies have a greater goal: advertising.

"It's notable that you're saying, 'My privacy is gone, so I'm just going to roll with it,'" Newman said during a phone interview. "The problem isn't that your privacy is gone, the problem is that we don't actually have a nationwide regime set in place in regards to privacy."

Luckily, there are a number of ways to scale back on ad tracking, from opting out of social media data collection to using private browsers.

Here's the bottom line: It turns out messing with my targeted ads probably wasn't a good idea. As satisfying as it is to make it slightly more inconvenient for advertisers, purposely engaging with ads for kraken-specific products is less damaging than limiting the data that advertisers can hold over me. Since my conversation with Newman, I've stopped haphazardly clicking on strange ads and opted out of sharing across my social media presence.

But old habits are hard to break, and I admit that when I'm scrolling through Facebook before bed, I'll still linger on ads that include octopi.

WATCH: BTS' 'Boy With Luv' shatters viewing records on YouTube

#_author:Morgan Sung #_uuid:649b666d-c788-3e44-a782-9379dd2624d2 #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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empressxmachina · 3 years

Text

Inquiries on WIPs, lore, and what to do with both

Hi!

I hope y'all are well! I didn't expect to make a journal today, but here I am! I do hope I get some answers because I do have some thoughts and questions.

word wall under the cut

First off, I've done a lot of proofreading and re-outlining lately.

How I keep coming up with ideas, I don't know. Why I can never sit down and write prose except for when I'm meant to be doing something else is even more unknown. But at least I'm thinking, I guess. I like what I'm pondering. I have done some intensive writing, though.

I made a manip that's been done and in the queue for months, and I liked it so much that I've made a whole novella (novel?) idea for it. If I do it right, then I hope to get about twelve (12) parts from it - they're all now planned - of which I've completed seven. I'm closer to eight (8) than not, so that's good, right?

Since the pic is done and so is its relative part in the story, should I just release it/them, or should I wait until it's all done?

I've even made a Wattpad/book cover for it; that's how much I like what I'm doing.

Regarding Welcome Home, Sasha, specifically, it's been plotted for months, too. But I'm having some issues with writing an expository soliloquy, aka the explanation of what the fuck happened to Earth.

The actual information is cut-and-dry, but I don't know how to best frame it. I find Ki to be an analytical person - sensible for a scientist, I suppose - but with a flourish. Putting his brotherly, almost fatherly love of Sasha on top complicates things further since he wouldn't want to break his heart... and the answer will definitely bruise at the very least.

Luckily though, how he'll react and everything after that is as straightforward as an apocalypse can be. Will I ever write it, though?

I technically have three (3) or four (4) continuations to long fics, but I don't know why I'm not releasing them. I want to, yet I don't? Is this my mediocre perfectionism in action? Is this normal?

Syntrophy has changed in my head, like, four times, regarding the relationship between the two MCs. Their separate stories have maintained but not how they connect to each other.

I wish I was kidding. There's so much I've deleted.

I've been adding excerpts to my manips and making visuals to go with stories. Read more about that in the next section.

Secondly, I've been conceptualizing visuals like mad!

Ideas just keep coming, and they don't stop coming.

The queue is probably at peak fullness, which is cool. I was hoping I wouldn't have to widen time between posting stuff because as much as popularity doesn't affect whether I make something, I wouldn't want y'all to just forget about me. You know?

I know some people don't even have a schedule or set up expectations, so I might just say "Fuck it," and leave submission dates to RNG. It hasn't been a problem, but I don't want pressure from time restraints to become a problem. We'll see.

Like the unnamed, new fic way above, some of my ready works are images from tales not-yet-released. I've done that before numerous times, but one in particular literally happens in what would be the literal next part to post, and I'm not done with writing it, yet, at least to where I'd like it to be.

Should I post the pic anyway, despite context being right behind a corner? I kind of want to, but I've already been putting it off so much...

I just really need to get motivated and focus using Pomodoro or something. Maybe I'd knock everything out if I did.

My most recent completion from literally this morning might just be my favorite in all my years of manip-making.

Meanwhile, the one finished right before it might be the worst thing I've ever made, and its excerpt just makes it worse. I enjoyed it thoroughly, though, which makes me question myself as I'm seeing patterns...

I want to draw/paint again. I've done stuff for IRL projects but not size content.

I need inspiration to just sit down and pen for hours or days.

Would y'all mind me doing sketches again? That'd be quicker.

Lastly, the real reason why I chose to make a journal:

I'm really considering putting expanded, not-yet-seen lore for my stories on my blog site (on WordPress), and I feel like I've pondered this before.

As repeatedly mentioned, I have too many ideas but not even drive to collect them all into something worthwhile. But I'd like to get them out there somehow so others can indulge in my babies as much as I do. Some creators have blogs just for certain stories and their characters, settings, etc. that I adore, and I want to feel that in a way, too. However, most people don't have ten (10) or more stories at once that they equally love. Fuck, I need to edit my blog with more pages for more things I've conjured but isn't there, yet.

I feel that by doing so on my site,

People who do want to know how a plot of a tale will go, because I write as quickly as molasses runs yet have an outline for everything, can know.

It'll be organized as I see fit but my own control (unless WordPress does something drastic).

In addition, the data wouldn't be directly attached to the works on other sites like here, either, in case ideas change or people are averse to spoilers and want to stay away.

Reading all this over, couldn't I put the same data/lore in DA journals, Tumblr posts, etc., too, adding tags or titles to mark what's what? Couldn't I also put the works themselves that are here or even the damn music list on my site, too? Should I?

Am I overthinking this? I think I'm overthinking this.

That's it, I think.

Does any of this make sense? Please let me know your thoughts on anything but mostly the blog stuff if you can.

(I've also put this on DA if you'd prefer to respond there.)

Stay safe, and Happy Equinox! I'm glad I'll see flowers blooming again soon.

#rambles #lore #blog #updates #ideas #journal

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ramialkarmi · 6 years

Text

Sexual harassment isn't a Hollywood, tech, or comedy world issue — in fact, it affects everyone

Sexual harassment doesn't just affect the Hollywood elite or major tech companies.

Allegations of sexual harassment have impacted most industries.

A new poll from MSN shows just how far-reaching the issue is.

Sexual harassment in the workplace isn't an industry issue. Nor is it a toxic workplace issue. It's an issue that affects literally everyone.

A number of industries have been implicated in the wake of producer Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct, including Hollywood, politics, and sports. Before that, sexual harassment at work made headlines with tech's "bro-culture" problem. Before that, it was the media industry with Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly's oustings. And the list goes on.

When pretty much every industry out there is involved, it's naive to simply point the finger at these institutions and damn them for perpetuating a systemic issue.

To be sure, toxic workplace cultures are partially to blame — companies with these values are far more susceptible to sexual harassment.

But don't let these characterizations lull you into a false sense of security. Sexual harassment is a problem that affects everyone — not just those in high-profile positions or industries.

Sexual harassment is more rampant than you want to think

Overall, about one in three people (31%) in the US admit to having been sexually harassed at work, according to a poll from Business Insider's partner, MSN.

MSN polls its readers and then uses machine learning to model how a representative sample of the US would have responded, using big data, such as the Census. It's as accurate as a traditional, scientific survey.

For women, the situation is drastically more dire.

Overall, 45% of women polled said they have been sexually harassed at work. This translates to about 33.6 million women in the US.

The group that experienced the most harassment were women between the ages 30 and 44 — almost half (49%) said they had been sexually harassed at work. Not far behind, 47% of women ages 45 to 64 said they were sexually harassed at work, followed by 41% of women ages 18 to 20, and finally 40% of women 65 or older.

Sexual harassment at work doesn't just affect women.

While 15% of men said they had been sexually harassed at work, a higher proportion of men between the ages of 30 and 44 said they had been sexually harassed in the workplace: 22%.

Speaking up rarely ends well for the victim

Former Fox News Channel host Gretchen Carlson stunned the media world when she filed a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes in 2016.

In her lawsuit, Carlson said Ailes repeatedly sexually harassed her, and that she was fired from her job of 11 years for turning down his sexual advances.

The lawsuit ultimately led to Ailes' resignation from the network, which he had run since its founding in 1996, and Carlson settled the suit for a reported $20 million in 2016.

But Carlson did not walk away from the accusation unscathed.

At Fortune's Most Powerful Women (MPW) Summit in October, the TV journalist said she faced concentrated backlash on social media when she came forward, and many people close to her distanced themselves. "You find out who your friends are in a big way," she said. "It can be a very alone experience."

Carlson also said that, for many people who confront sexual harassment head-on, the fallout can often be steep:

"First of all, if you do come forward, you'll be labeled a 'troublemaker' or a 'bitch.' More importantly, you won't be believed. And, some people have even suggested that you do it for money or fame."

Carlson said it takes courage to put your career on the line and report sexual harassment in the workplace.

"When you know that that's the culture that we still live in ... it's the most important decision of your life to dig deep for that courage, to know that you might torpedo everything that you've worked so hard for," she said.

It's unsurprising, then, that 73% of the women who said they had been sexually harassed at work also said that they never reported it. Of the men that said they were sexually harassed at work, 81% said they never reported it.

Sexual harassment can happen anywhere, anytime, and be perpetrated by anyone

Certain factors may make organizations or institutions more susceptible to instances of sexual harassment.

A 2015 report from researchers at Kent State University and the University of Texas at Tyler found that the "prevalence of male norms in the male-dominated environment may result in a more hostile workplace for women who are perceived by men as violators of the gender norms."

But as Adam Bear and Joshua Knobe wrote in The New York Times, when normally inappropriate or unacceptable actions continue unabated, people tend to adapt their mindset, and sexual harassment becomes normalized and seen as less worthy of outrage.

This could happen literally anywhere — and in many places, it seems that it already has.

When asked to rate their employers' efforts against sexual harassment, 42% of the people MSN polled overall said their employers have done enough, while 26% said they haven't.

But when you ask women, who are disproportionately more likely to experience sexual harassment at work, the number of people satisfied with their employers' approach to sexual harassment at work drops to 36%, while 33% of women say their employers haven't done enough.

What's more, with 31% of the American workforce reporting they've been sexually harassed at work, if you work at a company with at least three people, odds are either you or one of your coworkers has been sexually harassed at work.

While this means you may not be affected directly, you are undoubtedly affected indirectly by the financial and emotional damage sexual harassment's causes.

According to Working Woman Magazine, a typical Fortune 500 corporation blighted by sexual harassment incidents can expect to lose $14.02 million adjusted for inflation annually from absenteeism, lower productivity, increased health-care costs, poor morale, and employee turnover.

And it cannot be good for any employer's bottom line when sexual harassment settlements and legal fees themselves cost the company tens of millions of dollars.

In fact, thanks to the growing number of allegations, Business Insider's Lauren Lyons Cole reports that some companies are purchasing employee practices liability insurance to protect against the financial risk of sexual harassment.

These policies have become a multi-billion dollar industry, with companies collectively paying over $2 billion in EPLI premiums last year.

"Claims are so common now that it's more or less part of the cost of doing business," New Jersey employment lawyer Stephanie Gironda told Business Insider.

SEE ALSO: Only 3 of the 50 most-loved CEOs in America are women — and the reason why transcends the corner office

DON'T MISS: A Facebook exec says the best way to remove bias against mothers is to force men to take equal parental leave

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what losing weight does to your body and brain

#Tech Insider #Arab #Entrepreneurship #sillicon alley insider

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alanafsmith · 6 years

Text

Sexual harassment isn't an industry, workplace, or company issue — in fact, it affects nearly everyone

Sexual harassment doesn't just affect the Hollywood elite or major tech companies.

Allegations of sexual harassment have impacted most industries.

A new poll from MSN shows just how far-reaching the issue is.

Sexual harassment in the workplace isn't an industry issue. Nor is it a toxic workplace issue. It's an issue that affects literally everyone.

When pretty much every industry out there is involved, it's naive to simply point the finger at these institutions and damn them for perpetuating a systemic issue.

To be sure, toxic workplace cultures are partially to blame — companies with these values are far more susceptible to sexual harassment.

But don't let these characterizations lull you into a false sense of security. Sexual harassment is a problem that affects everyone — not just those in high-profile positions or industries.

Sexual harassment is more rampant than you want to think

Overall, about one in three people (31%) in the US admit to having been sexually harassed at work, according to a poll from Business Insider's partner, MSN.

MSN polls its readers and then uses machine learning to model how a representative sample of the US would have responded, using big data, such as the Census. It's nearly as accurate as a traditional, scientific survey.