Part of my take on this is that I just don\u2019t think Gjoni is credible.<\/p>\n
(Quick summary from Wikipedia <\/a>for those who don’t know or who don’t remember: “In mid-August 2014 Eron Gjoni, Quinn’s former boyfriend, published the “Zoe Post”, a 9,425-word blog post, extensively quoting from personal chat logs, emails and text messages, detailing their relationship. According to Zachary Jason<\/a> of Boston Magazine<\/em>, who had spent three months in discussion with Gjoni, the post was designed to cause “maximum pain and harm” to Quinn.” Gjoni claims that Quinn emotionally abused him during their relationship.)<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if Quinn abused Gjoni, beyond the normal harm any cheating lover does when they lie to cover up their cheating, which I don\u2019t think should be conflated with \u201cabuse.\u201d<\/p>\n Gjoni\u2019s strongest claims about Quinn\u2019s abuse – the \u201clittle emergent two player power \/ head game\u201d he wrote about (which Ozy quotes here<\/a>) – are either weakly supported, or not supported at all, in the chat logs Gjoni reproduced in the Zoepost. And the Zoepost also shows (imo) that Gjoni is deceptive and manipulative (he was pretending to extend the relationship in the hope of getting more material to attack Quinn with), and is more than willing to use misogyny to attack Quinn (in the Zoepost he nicknamed her \u201dBurgers and Fries\u201d because she allegedly had sex with five guys, a misogynistic slut-bashing slur that took off with Gamergaters).<\/p>\n And I suspect some readers by now are thinking that I\u2019d believe Gjoni if he were a woman, feminists are hypocrites, whatever happened to \u201cbelieving the victim,\u201d etc etc.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my take on \u201cbelieving the victim\u201d: If someone tells me \u201cI was abused\u201d or \u201cI was raped,\u201d I\u2019m going to accept their account without question, for the purposes of that conversation. Because I\u2019m aware of enormous harms that are caused to victims of rape and abuse by disbelief, and I don\u2019t want to cause harm. It also matters that in the worse case scenario – if the story is a complete fabrication – I\u2019m not doing any harm by accepting their account uncritically. (It\u2019s not like I\u2019m a courtroom.) From a \u201cavoid harming people\u201d perspective, the equation is easy.<\/p>\n But the Gjoni equation isn\u2019t like that. This is more like walking into a public square, where X is being attacked by a mob, which is throwing eggs and rotten fruit at X and painting anti-Semitic signs to hang around X\u2019s neck. And there, at the back of the mob, is Z, the person who targeted X in the first place, with a huge barrel of eggs and fruit and paint that Z is giving out to the mob. But Z says that deliberately enabling the mob is okay, because X is Z\u2019s abusive ex.<\/p>\n Publicly subjecting the accused to extrajudicial punishment has changed the equation significantly. Uncritically believing Z is no longer a harmless position; failing to ask \u201cis this story even true?\u201d could now be harmful.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if Quinn abused Gjoni, because I have only Gjoni\u2019s word for it. But Gjoni doesn\u2019t seem trustworthy to me – not because Gjoni is male, but because Gjoni is deceitful and manipulative in the logs Gjoni himself reproduced, because Gjoni\u2019s decision to publicly share private relationship conversations shows that he\u2019ll do unethical things to harm Quinn, because he contributes to and uses misogyny in his quest to punish Quinn for her alleged abuse, and because his attitude throughout Gamergate (which he more or less set off with the Zoepost) is one of indifference for the gargantuan collateral damage he\u2019s caused.<\/p>\n In contrast, I do know that Gjoni emotionally abused Quinn, because he did it in public<\/em>. Believing that isn\u2019t a matter of believing or not believing Quinn; it\u2019s a matter of believing my own eyes.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n ETA: Some of what’s in this 2006 post I wrote<\/a> is relevant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Part of my take on this is that I just don\u2019t think Gjoni is credible. (Quick summary from Wikipedia for those who don’t know or who don’t remember: “In mid-August 2014 Eron Gjoni, Quinn’s former boyfriend, published the “Zoe Post”, … Continue reading