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TOPIC: metoo

Society

Poland's Influencer #MeToo: Top YouTubers Face Allegations From Underage Girls

The Polish Prime Minister has launched an investigation into Polish YouTubers suspected of grooming underage girls. Dubbed by some as the “Polish #MeToo”, the scandal (also nicknamed "Pandora Gate") has prompted new questions into the investigation, prevention, and punishment of pedophilia in the country.

Stuart Burton, a Polish YouTuber known online as “Stuu” is being investigated by the Polish government after a creator online revealed inappropriate messages he allegedly exchanged with underage fans, Warsaw-based Gazeta Wyborcza reports.

Beginning his career under the pseudonym “Polish Penguin”, Stuu started uploading videos of himself playing video games, mainly Minecraft, which brought him widespread success with a young audience. He went on to gain nearly 5 million subscribers, and garner hundreds of thousands of views per video.

Eventually, Burton expanded his brand to include lifestyle content, and became one of Poland’s most popular YouTubers. He also founded “Team X”, a group of influencers who were included in his videos.

In spite of his success, Burton suddenly stopped uploading any content onto YouTube after just one year, without any prior warning or indication that he planned to quit his career. Just before disappearing from YouTube, a former partner and fellow influencer, Justyna Suchanek, posted a tearful video, stating that an online personality she knew was harming children.

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Imperfect Victim: What A Chinese Series About Sexual Assault Can And Can't Say

A new melodrama broadcast in China about sexual assault in the workplace is a sign that some difficult questions are being addressed, but that serious taboos remain in Chinese society and public life.

-Analysis-

BEIJING — Seeing the trailer for Imperfect Victim on TV was a harrowing experience: on a screen that is usually used as a backdrop, the face of an overwhelmed girl suddenly appears, along with several keywords, including "power imbalance." The advertisement explains that a drama about sexual assault in the workplace is being broadcast on Beijing Satellite Television and multiple other channels. It looks from the spot like a repeatedly banned subject is diving straight into the drama.

The story begins with a rape case reported anonymously by a third party. The victim, Zhao Xun, is a successful female assistant to the chairman of the board of directors, Cheng Gong. She is questioned by the police, her lawyer and the perpetrator of the crime, who sometimes affirms and sometimes denies the case.

During the course of the investigation, it was also discovered that after working in the company for only three months, she was transferred to a position that other colleagues had not reached despite working for several years, and that she had received luxury items purchased by Cheng Gong on the company's dime, which made her an "imperfect victim."

Cheng, as a perpetrator of sexual violence, was by no means unaware of Zhao’s conflict, or else he would not have covered up for himself by repeatedly bribing people who knew about it. Even he himself admitted that he likes Zhao not only because she is young, but also because he likes to see her "troubled face." However, Cheng still refuses to admit his crime on the grounds that Zhao did not resist.

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Who Is Maïwenn? Meet The Controversial French Director Who Hired Johnny Depp

The French director making waves at the Cannes Film Festival with her new film “Jeanne du Barry” is no stranger to controversy, with unorthodox views for a woman in the movie industry about sexual abuse accusations.

PARIS — The 76th Cannes Film Festival has opened with controversy: the festival’s debut movie “Jeanne du Barry” stars Johnny Depp, in the actor’s first major role since his dueling defamation trial with ex-wife Amber Heard, which included multiple allegations of physical abuse.

But there’s a would-be accomplice to this controversy in the film’s French director and co-star Maïwenn, a much discussed figure in her own right, who hired him to play the lead in her new movie.

Indeed, it may not be surprising that the 47-year-old director didn’t hesitate in working with Depp, having been vocal in her own unorthodox views on the #MeToo movement. The pair’s appearance together at Tuesday night’s red carpet, as well as their complicit whispers during the screening, caught the attention of the French press as much as Depp’s own star power.

Though film buffs know Maïwenn’s work, a wider international public is just getting to know this iconoclast director with a unique biography.

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Germany OKs Tanks For Ukraine, Peru Protests Reignite, 90 Seconds To Armageddon

👋 Yumalundi!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where Germany finally confirms it will be sending combat tanks to Ukraine, North Korea orders a five-day lockdown in Pyongyang over an “unspecified respiratory illness,” and Justin Bieber sells his music rights for a hefty sum. Meanwhile, we look at why the MeToo movement has repeatedly failed to take off in Italy.

[*Ngunnawal, New South Wales and ACT, Australia]

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Society
Ginevra Falciani

Why MeToo In Italy Is Different

A recent wave of testimony from inside the Italian entertainment industry again failed to gain much attention, another example of MeToo failing to take off in the traditionally sexist country. There are multiple explanations, though also quieter signs that something may be changing.

For a few fleeting hours, it seemed the MeToo movement might finally break out of the shadows in Italy: the internet was buzzing after the La Repubblica daily had published the testimonies of several actresses recounting the sexual harassment they’d faced.

A week later, on Jan. 16, the associations Amleta and Differenza Donna held a press conference to report 223 additional testimonies of sexual harassment and violence in show business.

The activists broke the cases down by gender (in all but two cases the abusers were men, and 93% of the victims were women) and by job title (directors made up 41% of the abusers, followed by actors, producers, teachers, casting directors, agents, critics, and even some audience members). But it was also notable that only 12 actresses had brought their cases to court, and that the names of those accused would not be revealed so as not to compromise ongoing legal actions.

A few newspapers reported the news. Then, nothing more.

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Society
Emma Albright

Free Speech v. Sexual Deviance: French Cartoonist Accused Of Promoting Pedophilia And Incest

The prestigious Angoulême International Comics Festival has cancelled the participation of Bastien Vivès, a leading French cartoonist, after a petition accused both drawings and comments that seem to justify pedophilia and incest. The festival cited risks of violence after threats were made online against Vivès.

This story has been updated Dec. 14, 8 p.m. local time

From Charlie Hebdo to Xavier Gorce to R. Crumb, cartoonists in France have a history of provocation and courting controversy—and generally receive French public support in return. But the latest provocateur, Bastien Vivès, may have crossed the line on the limits of free speech and artistic expression.

The 38-year-old comic book artist from Paris is facing a sudden backlash to work from four years ago that has resurfaced, as well as more recent comments, that critics charge excuse, or even promote, incest and pedophilia.

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Society
Tenzin Tsagong*

The German Monk Driving The #MeToo Reckoning In Buddhism

On his blog, Tenzin Peljor, a Berlin-born Buddhist monk investigates complex issues linked to his religion, including physical and sexual abuse in Buddhist communities.

FRANKFURT — When I first met Tenzin Peljor over Zoom in March of last year, the 54-year-old German-Buddhist monk had been living in a dorm-sized room at Frankfurt’s Tibet House for over a year. Speaking into a microphone screened by a filter, a bespectacled Peljor, dressed in his maroon robes, looked like a professional podcaster.

Behind him hung a Tibetan tapestry on a white wall, near his twin-sized bed blanketed in red and a white bookshelf lined with Buddhist texts. The place had become a refuge for Peljor since his exile from his former Buddhist institution, the Foundation of the Preservation of Mahayana Teachings in 2019.

Peljor runs a popular Buddhist blog, Difficult Issues — Controversies Within Tibetan Buddhism, to address complicated issues in the religion, especially regarding abusive spiritual teachers. In May 2019, Peljor published on his website a petition created by a group of senior nuns. The nuns demanded that FPMT investigate allegations of sexual assault against one of its senior teachers, Dagri Rinpoche.

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In The News

Le Weekend ➡️ Trial By Social Media: Trying (And Failing) To Scroll Past Depp v. Heard

June 4-5

  • The Balkans, next on Putin’s list?
  • Double standard for a trans soldier in Germany
  • La crème de la Mona Lisa
  • … and much more.
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Ideas
Catalina Ruiz-Navarro*

Yes, Her Too: A Feminist Reading Of The Depp Vs. Heard Case

The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation suit has become a Hollywood media (sh*t) storm, but there are troubling real consequences in the way domestic violence is being portrayed, when the victim is less-than-perfect.

First the background: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard met in 2012. They started a relationship when Depp was still with Vanessa Paradis, and eventually married in 2015. Fifteen months later, Heard filed for divorce, accusing Depp of domestic violence and asking for a restraining order.

In the lawsuit, Heard said, ”I endured excessive emotional, verbal and physical abuse from Johnny, which has included angry, hostile, humiliating and threatening assaults to me whenever I questioned his authority or disagreed with him.” They then made a million-dollar settlement, and soon after, Heard asked for the restraining order to be dropped.

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China
Yan Bennett and John Garrick

Peng Shuai, A Reckoning China's Communist Party Can't Afford To Face

The mysterious disappearance – and brief reappearance – of the Chinese tennis star after her #metoo accusation against a party leader shows Beijing is prepared to do whatever is necessary to quash any challenge from its absolute rule.

Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai's apparent disappearance may have ended with a smattering of public events, which were carefully curated by state-run media and circulated in online clips. But many questions remain about the three weeks in which she was missing, and concerns linger over her well-being.

Peng, a former Wimbledon and French Open doubles champion, had been out of the public eye since Nov. 2. 2021 when she penned a since-deleted social media post accusing former Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual misconduct.

In the U.S. and Europe, such moments of courage from high-profile women have built momentum to out perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault and give a voice to those wronged. But in the political context of today's People's Republic of China (PRC) – a country that tightly controls political narratives within and outside its borders – something else happened. Peng was seemingly silenced; her #MeToo allegation was censored almost as soon as it was made.

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In The News
✍️ Newsletter by Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, Anne-Sophie Goninet & Jane Herbelin

Quitting Coal, China’s #MeToo, World’s Best Cheese

👋 Goeie!*

Welcome to Thursday, where world leaders pledge to quit coal, #MeToo accusations hit China's highest levels of power and the world's new best cheese has been elected. Our Bogota-based journalist Laura Valentina Cortés Sierra also shines a light on the violence against LGBTQ+ in some Latin American countries, following the murder of a trans activist in Honduras.

[*Frisian]

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Society
Daniel Murillo and Caroline Watillon

His Pill? We're Long Overdue For Male Contraceptive Alternatives

Male contraception, both pharmaceuticals and procedures, is gaining increasing interest. Yet to date, there is no male contraceptive drug authorized on the market.

If contraception has been a woman's business since the 1960s, it was in the 1990s that international bodies began to take an interest in the idea of sharing the burden of contraception. After the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995), calls emerged for sharing the responsibility for birth control with men.

By affirming gender equality in all spheres of life — societal, familial, sexual and reproductive — men are challenged to take personal and social responsibility for their sexual behavior and fertility.

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