Last week Natalie Portman gave a speech at the Variety's Power of Women event. Natalie Portman’s Variety’s speechNatalie Portman has some choice words for men who have a habit of calling women “crazy” or “difficult.” Stop the rhetoric that a woman is crazy or difficult,” said Portman. “If a man says to you that a woman is crazy or difficult, ask him, ‘What bad thing did you do to her?’” What do you think, what is your opinion about it?
Yes I agree with her.
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What do you think of Natalie Portman’s speech at Variety's Power of Women event?
The problem with that comment, is that it's entirely one-sided.
Turn it around, and it becomes "If a man is an asshole, ask yourself what you did to him.". The logical conclusion to that becomes, if a man beats his wife, then she must have deserved it.
Now, obviously, that's a load of bull. I'm just using it as a counter-argument. Change the genders, and it sounds completely unreasonable. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, period. If you're crazy, abusive, violent, etc, then that's your fault, and nobody else's.
Some people suck, but nobody can make you act a certain way. Only you can control the way you act, and what you say, so that's your responsibility. If a woman is crazy, then she's crazy. If a man is crazy, then he's crazy.
Blaming it on someone else is childish, and that's exactly what her quote is advocating doing; saying it's someone else's fault.
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Pretty lady but. . . I was married to a woman who had a similar philosophy. Everything that I did that met her disapproval was my fault. Everything that she did that met my disapproval was something that she did as a response to some bad behavior on my part, so her actions were my fault, too.
Essentially, everything was my fault. It is impossible to have a successful relationship when one partner takes no responsibility for their behavior. This is an example of "feminist" thinking taken to an extreme.
So I'm guessing that if a woman straight up abuses her husband and/or child, is an alcoholic, or is neglectful, and when the guy tries to talk about just how abusive she is, throwing in the "She's crazy man...", we should just dismiss his opinion because it was obviously his fault. Way to blame the victim here. I am so sick of hearing misandristic attitude, thinking that all women should be absolved of sin and that males are all satan. Just think about what would happen if the genders were swapped, the guy would get in jail instantly, but now that its a woman she's innocent. Of course everything should be judged on a case by case basis, but Natalie is obviously trying to generalize all of these cases into one.
Uh, no. Not all, but some women are just bat-shit crazy or have difficult personalities. Nobody is perfect in this world, so I think it's silly to assume every woman is a perfect angel.
She is generalizing but I know what she means. My friend dated this guy and he said that all his exes were crazy and then she realized that he was a manipulative, egotistical toxic piece of garbage who is now off telling his new girlfriend that his previous girlfriend was crazy.
My ex was garbage too, here's a close to word for word conversation. ME : "We need to talk." HIM: "yeah what" "I take issue with how you spoke to me in front of my mum" "HA like I care about what your mother thinks*continues playing xbox*" "... SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" " 0.0 *baffled and confused look* (seemed to be thinking: woahhhh woahhhh woahhh what? what the hell just happened? that reaction came out of nowhere)"
However, The guy I'm seeing now, who has never done anything for me to react like that ^^ described his ex as having serious issues. It was his birthday and he wanted to go down the road to visit his mum, dad and sister and she said "I FUCKEN HATE THOSE CUNTS. YOUR SISTER IS CUNT NUMBER 1, YOUR MUM IS CUNT NUMBER 2 AND YOUR DAD IS CUNT NUMBER 3. IF YOU GO AND SEE THEM THEN YOU ARE CHOOSING THEM OVER ME". he left and returned home to confront her on what she said and she just said "yeah I know, let me make it up to you" and tried to perform oral on him which was the last thing he wanted. They broke up and she went to his work place to hit on his boss in front of him, as a result he went to sort out a restraining order on her just to find out she had already sorted out one against him for allegedly beating and raping her. He passed on to her a verbal list via her friend of all the things she can be charged with for taking him to court over a false allegation (wasting the courts resources, defamation of character, emotional damage etc) and then in court she sure was quick to settle it with no further legal pursuit of him. I'm a big supporter of the meetoo movement but surely, if he actually did it, the same thing would have happened to me by now (and hasn't). these things are a pattern of behavior
If people wanna be upset with how non-gender neutral and general it is, I get it. Some people just have serious issues but for those who are reasonable, they do not deserve to be written off as difficult or crazy if they express on opinion or react to something shitty you did.
I believe this is something that happens to mostly women or at least we are just known for being/typically expected to be on the receiving end of this dismissive attitude Portman is talking about
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Now apply that to every woman who claims men are assholes. Natalie Portman is a sexist hypocrite so her words are rather hollow. Men call women crazy because women tend to function emotionally rather then logically (its just what it is) and it confuses them as they generally (but obviously not always) don't. But again, if she is so up in arms about this, whats her stance on how men are constantly portrayed as monsters and bad people? I mean a guy joking that women are crazy because he can't understand how she operates is rather tame in comparison to say, acting as if domestic violence is exclusively perpetrated by men when it in fact is more likely to be commited by women. Its pretty tame in comparison when you have women screaming how ALL men are sexist misogynists, rapists and assholes to the point where grade school boys in places are being taught how to "not be rapists". So just curios where the line is drawn with her, because I've never seen her address the other side, the side she is standing on. So yeah, I'll take her words seriously when we stop living in a society that cannot stop bashing and belittling and emasculating boys and men at every god damn turn.
Sounds like my mother. "If a woman stabs her husband 50 times in the chest, it's because the husband did something to make her do it" Direct quote.
That kind of thinking is actually really undermining to women, because it presumes that women have no real decision making capability on their own. This is a very common perception in society.
Society views women as "objects"--but not in a dehumanizing sense. And society views men as "agents". Objects are acted upon--they do not act. Agents act; they are not acted upon. That's basically the statement that Natalie Portman is making, it seems to me. If she was making a joke, okay, meh. But if it was serious, I think that is a very insulting thing to say about women.
Another thing is women as a whole do tend to have a lot of cognitive dissonance and really are just confusing, do they not? Dichotomous, maintaining two different beliefs or thoughts at the same time. It's *very* common. That's just female nature, in my opinion. A lot of women *are* crazy and difficult.
But, let's say that's not the case. Presuming that a woman is instantly free of all responsibility for her actions, and that the only way she can commit an action is if a man influences her to do so: this is quite insulting to women, would you not agree? I don't think Natalie Portman realizes exactly what her statement implies.
She's trying to say "women are perfect, so long as men don't fuck it up." But at the same time, she's also saying that women have no free will.
Depends on what crazy is. And what it does. And what caused it.
I'm slow to just categorize a woman as crazy - even exes, as much as they did some nutty crap, or as much as they did some mean spirited, nasty, stuff, I've never been like "she was a crazy psycho b*tch." I just... don't bother with them.
Both we broke up because of issues they had, partly from other stupid morons ruining what they could have been (cheating multiple times, etc)... nothing they deserved... but I was the guy to get revenge on, or I was the guy they thought was going to do that (so preemptively sabotage a good thing). Nothing was related to anything I did to them.
To me, It's kind of like "blaming a victim" of abuse. Imagine that it was a story of an abusive guy beating on his girl (because it's never possible for a man to be abused, right?) and someone could say "What did YOU do to make him beat you to a pulp? You must have done SOMETHING..." Come on. Some people are just unbalanced. Some snap. Doesn't automatically make it your fault. Sometimes yes. But not always.
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Anonymous
(30-35)
+1 y
Feminists always paint women as victims. They view everything through this lens of men = bad, women = good.
This is why if a woman is being accused of being crazy, someone like Natalie would ask what the guy has done to make her act crazy. She can't possibly just be a crazy bitch.
One example: a friend of mine had a girlfriend who constantly accused him of cheating, despite him having done nothing wrong. Every time I saw him he had a new phone because she smashed his last one. One day he was gone too long according to her when he went to the shop, so she gave him a black eye.
Another example: a friend of mine has a girlfriend who, while I was there, had a meltdown, started shouting and throwing things all over the place because he left some change on the worktop. When it was his Mum's birthday and they had a family gathering - again, I was there at the same bar - she started to argue with him because she didn't want him to go. Unless he was at work she would always have a tantrum if he went out of the house, even just to see friends or again even just his Mother. In these tantrums she'd get violent and throw things at him. One time she had a meltdown, smashed everything in the place, wrote "GAY" on the walls and accused him of having an affair with another man.
Men can be insecure, crazy and abusive, everybody knows this, but so can women. The women I just described were obviously crazy, and their outbursts were completely unprovoked.
But when you look at these things through a men = bad women = good lens, if a man does it to a woman it's because he's an abusive asshole, but if she does it to him he MUST have done something to provoke it. Women are always the victim to these people, no matter what.
This is the dumb shit that turns people away from feminism.
Sounds sexist and bitter. Reverse it around. Stop the rhetoric that a MAN is crazy or difficult,”. “If a WOMAN says to you that a MAN is crazy or difficult, ask HER, ‘What bad thing did you do to HIM?’” Anyway are you going to listen to a woman who supports a man who drugged, plied with drink, raped and sodomized a young girl. Now that's she's past her best Hollywood years she's getting more vocal on politics but honestly people are tired of liberal Hollywood hypocrites.
Eh, partially agree. Yeah women tend to overreact to anything a dude does and pinning it all on the dude isn't fair. Also, yeah not all women are crazy irrational. I'm the most mellowest thing ever. I ain't going to fly off the handle about any big or little thing. I guess because it's mainly that I don't care what bad things others do? It's not a reflection on me, it's completely on them. I've had a boyfriend cheat on me and I was just like, whatever, good, the trash took itself out. Yeah I was a bit sad but I wasn't going to mope around about it. Apparently he was trash and bothering myself with him at all was a waste of my time.
Bleh, and yeah, I'm embarrassed by all these females screaming, Yeah! Woman power! Empowering! Women's rights this, women's rights that! Gender pay gap!
I get lumped in with all these crazy broads just because I too have a vagina 😒
I love how people with collectivist ideologies all want to agree with each other... but sweeping generalizations from the actions of a few men being held as true... would then mean the sweeping generalizations that all women are difficult or crazy based on the actions of a few women is true based on that reasoning.
No... I'm an individualist. You may be a female, but I'm only going to call you difficult or crazy if you are acting like it... as an individual, only your individual actions matter.
Collectivists have a very 'us and them' mentality... it's why the definition of an NPC fits them quite literally.
I am not going to lie I have heard that statement very few times I can barely count how many. But I know every time that has been said the woman has been an actual psychopath and the guy had a right to call her crazy. It is not a man`s fault a woman becomes crazy. Usually when a woman is considered "crazy", she has serious possessive traits. "Ask a guy what bad thing he did to her"... What if he just talked to another girl and she became jealous as hell? Sorry. I like Natalie, she is educated and well-informed, but she is a modern feminist, and I can`t take them seriously anymore.
I half agree and half disagree. So many times men like to silence us and brush us off with comments like we're crazy or hysterical just for explaining our side or getting upset. On the other hand I know tons of women who are in fact fucking insane.
I don't really know any man who says all women are crazy or difficult. Guys have a tendency to call thing as they see them, so if a guy calls a girl crazy she probably is. If a guy is acting crazy other guys will call him crazy. The sex doesn't matter only the actions matter.
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Well since the majority of people have a mental health problem at some point in there life and may have one now and it been hard to see.
That means that women was probably difficult or crazy. But i do agree if your that sort of guy to go around saying that girl is crazy and been insenstive then he probably did something wrong.
Plus two sides to every story so instead of assuming that he did something wrong why not get both sides, before you judge cause if you here one thing and then just think one thing like he did something wrong. Then your probably not smart and aren't capable with logic.
That's what i say to this women. And tbh who ever agrees with this women is short sighted since everything depends on the type of person and both sides of the story.
I can agree with her if she would've worded it a bit better. The root of the issue lies with WHY someone is calling a woman that, and if there exists a double standard that changes based on gender.
The way she worded it makes it sound like a board, general statement that applies to anyone who calls a woman crazy.
There exists crazy/difficult women, just as there exists crazy/difficult men. They should be categorized for the same behavior, and if you're being harsher on a woman for the same behavior that would make you praise a man, you need to get that shit in check.
It goes both ways, there's crazy people of both genders. To say women can't be crazy would just be as absurd as saying men can't be crazy.
I dated a narcissist/sociopath who gaslighted me into thinking i was guilty for her fucked up behavior. That being said, it's a case by case scenario and abuse is abuse, regardless of gender.
That's a load of horse-shit. Everyone is crazy and difficult to a point, and if someone doesn't understand your mindset, they're gonna call you crazy or difficult. It doesn't just apply to women, and accusing a man of abuse for saying that is just straight up slander
Women have no agency and cannot be held responsible for her own actions EVERYTHING she does, is as a result of a man. *two hours later*
"We don't need men."
Is what that bullshit means.
A man who blames women for everything is called an incel, or a misogynist. Men, YOU are responsible for everything that goes wrong in your life. When something goes right, its because A. Male privilege or B. there was a woman somewhere that made that happen. "behind every great man *snark snark snark* Women, a MAN is responsible for everything that goes wrong in your life. When something goes right, YOU did that girl! Slaaaaaaaayyyyy! Genuine propaganda.
I think you should just see it case by case. Some guys call all their exes crazy or bitches or difficult etc... and then if its a habitual thing and it happens all the time, either the guy just falls for the wrong women all the time or he's the problem. Either way, something wrong with the guy.
And some women are actually batshit crazy, and some women are difficult. I've been with one in my entire dating life. I have never called an ex crazy or difficult except for the one who actually was lol. It happens.
While yes there are cases where this is true I don't really appreciate the rhetoric that a woman in a relationship's behavior is always the fault of the man Sometimes it is the man who is a jerk Sometimes it is woman who is a jerk Sometimes it is both...
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Anonymous
(30-35)
+1 y
Sounds like an excuse for women to get away with shitty behavior. Calling a woman out for acting shitty does not mean the guy did anything bad to her. This is just more putting all responsibility in the entire universe on men and giving women a free pass to say and do anything they want without any reprecussions.
I'm all for the metoo movement but natalie portman is a massive grand standing individual. She's a straight white person that really hasn't faced half the struggles of the people she claims to represent.
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