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I'd like to post about the Spanish soccer kiss and some developments. Another commenter below posted a take decrying it as a case of classic excessive modern SJW-type media cancel culture crusades gone too far. This is not just a wrong take, it's a flagrantly wrong take and a significant misunderstanding of the "read between the lines" of everyone's statements. Also, the TIMELINE is very crucial to understanding this whole thing. In fact, the opposite is true, this is almost a perfect example of how people in power can't help themselves but to manipulate everyone around them. Below I will explain the exact timeline. (For length I'm making it its own comment, hope that's OK).
Interestingly, our understanding of the facts is very similar. As a background, it's worth noting that Rubiales has VERY extensive list of baggage and accusations from the last five years, including clashes with other officials and organizations, firings, lawsuits, leaked recordings, allegations of everything from sex parties to fraud to assault, and conflict with and within the women's team and their coach too. Regarding the kiss, the Spanish are very physically prone to displays of at times excessive physical affection. This is mostly just cultural, but it's important to note that there IS at least some smaller element of sexism that is baked in. The kiss appears to be one of joy during a massive medal celebration, but of course he's grabbing her whole head and planting it right on the lips, a bit too far. That same night, Hermoso laughs it off but also, critically, says she didn't really like it, "but what can I do?".
People online start to go to war about it, and people within the Spanish soccer community too don't really like the look or the attention. The very next day, which is Monday, a few things happen. According to this article, virtually all 300 people are on the same flight home to Spain, including the team, the coaches, federation people, family, etc. On said flight people obviously notice the growing online criticism. They left that morning, had a two hour layover in Doha, Qatar, and arrived that night in Spain (it's like 22 hours of flight time but going backwards so same calendar day). What happened on that flight?
So they pressure her to defend him but she basically says no. They record a video with Rubiales ONLY in their Doha layover, which goes out later that night, but only after a statement goes out to a news agency (EFE) seemingly quoting her that basically goes "we were all just really happy and it was natural and no hard feelings". This comes out first and the video after (a bit of difficulty pinning down exact timeline but definitely in this order). Of note is that some media outlets are now alleging that the statement may have NOT in fact been a direct quote from her and the federation made it up (this is not certain however).
What's in the video? I speak Spanish pretty decently, thanks to living in Miami a while, so listening and watching it directly is pretty interesting. This is a horrible apology. I'm going to roughly thought for thought translate the whole video because it's worth noting the tone and words used:
Commentary: Note how he focuses on how he's almost forced to apologize, how he created a distraction, and how he minimizes everything that happened. He doesn't even say what he did, he just says "what happened, happened". No big deal, no big deal. It's all about the consequences of his actions and nothing about how it could have made her feel or if he truly made a mistake. No, it's an apology that he "has to" make. This is, IMO, extra clear in the original Spanish and with intact voice inflections, etc. and I've tried to render the overall "vibe" of his comments accurately, though Spain-Spanish isn't my forte.
Tuesday rolls around, it's a big story still, and many people including the prime minister feel that the apology was inadequate.
Wednesday Hermoso releases a statement with her player's union and agency here which basically (and vaguely) says that the federation should take action to prevent bad things and make sure bad things aren't unpunished. It's not very specific but clearly is referring to the kiss, though the whole content is basically just urging better player rights.
Thursday FIFA begins to investigate and step in. Clearly pressure is building to fire him, suspend him, or have him resign.
Earlyish on Friday is a big federation meeting, where Rubiales makes a speech. I haven't been able to iron out exactly who called the meeting and for what exact purpose.
Notable is that a very big portion of the audience is clapping loudly throughout. He the goes on to say that though he can't remember clearly it was Hermoso who lifted him up, they almost fell down and then they hugged. He emphasized it was her that picked him up so close, he told her not to worry about a missed penalty, told him he's great, then he asked "A kiss"? and she said OK. He says it wasn't something of desire nor forced and just like kissing his daughters and everyone gets that, even though they are saying the opposite when talking to the media. He says it's fake feminism and people who are all for his rivals. He calls it character assassination. He says that it suddenly ballooned from "no big deal" and then Hermoso didn't defend him and "a statement that I don't understand". He says that people making a big deal about it are hurting victims of real assault.
This ignites quite the firestorm that same day. (The next day, Satudary, FIFA suspended him. Since then, he's been pulled into at least one other avenue of potential firing/suspension as well). Note that Rubiales is not just adding detail but arguably changing the story. The importance of this is made clear when Hermoso finally and directly breaks her own silence, later on Friday FOLLOWING the speech, which in my opinion adds a TON of context to everything. Much as I want to summarize, this would take out the read-between-the-lines as well.
This statement almost perfectly describes how a normal person would react to the situation. Personally, although it sort of has devolved into in some ways a he said/she said, I find her account by far the most credible. The things that stand out, to me:
Rubiales outright is lying when he's adding the detail about how it was literally consensual because she said yes to a kiss, that he's making the whole exchange up. She basically says this is why she's speaking now because of him doubling down and indeed adding falsehoods.
She was silent because she was genuinely celebrating, didn't want to hurt the celebration, and also needed to process things. Personally, I think we can all relate to this, often our behavior psychologically right after something big doesn't always line up with our true feelings. Fun fact: Once someone threatened to kill me! It wasn't until later that my heartbeat could slow a bit down and despite sort of laughing it off at the time I realized it was actually a bit more serious. This jives with psychological research about how we react to unexpected and even unwanted events, including genuine sexual assault of various kinds. I might add that she might still feel that this isn't a big deal but was more offended by Rubiales' lies and/or general attitude than the actual event.
This kind of bad behavior, rather than being a one-off kind of thing, is actually endemic to how the women's team and players are treated.
She's been subject to a very significant pressure campaign to generate good PR even if it means lying. This pressure campaign has targeted a lot of people around her, too, which also seems to cross a line.
Ladies and gentlemen, this statement demonstrates almost exactly what feminists have been saying for years.
My take is that the kiss itself, not really that bad, but also something that does reflect on power dynamics, both men/women but also boss/employee. It deserved a real apology which was not given, instead the apology was not only extremely insincere, but also a result of behind the scenes pressure to sweep it under the rug and downplay. Rubiales doubling down was awful and it is kind of dystopian to see so much applause. He's the one playing a victimhood narrative, not Hermoso. Which is crazy! She didn't even talk about victimhood AT ALL until AFTER Rubiales basically lied about the kiss. I might add that Rubiales' version of events is in my opinion not supported by the video of the kiss, where they don't seem to have much of a conversation at all.
This is the key point behind why I bothered digging in to the whole timeline of things and making a whole effortpost. If you look at it all as the same big story, sure you might be inclined to say, yes this is just the media deciding to pillory someone with no due process and demanding blood for a minor infraction. But no, looking at her statement and the timeline, with the background of things not being very sunny within the Spanish federation and the players, it actually and fairly becomes a case of people in power trying to remain in power, especially in the world of soccer, which is well known to be an old boys club as well as infested with corruption on many levels, including FIFA. Far from victimhood being asserted by Hermoso, disproportionate to the actual harm or intent, it's Rubiales first trying to be a victim of persecution, as well as self-aggrandizing (note how many times he gives credit and glory to the federation and organization, rather than the players). Instead, Hermoso is only a reluctant participant in the whole debate who might have though it also wasn't a big deal and wanted to move on herself, until pressure and slander essentially forced her hand.
To add to this, the Spanish women's team was already very unhappy with the Spanish federation.
They were in open protest before the world cup, and won by ignoring their coach's instructions and with half the 1st team 'exiled' from the squad.
They won despite Rubiales (who put his weight behind the coach). He was the villain in the story even before the kiss. (Yes, the team was that absurdly strong. Sort of like a USA NBA team)
The previous post annoyed me. It was written by someone who went looking for a culture war angle, and came out with the least charitable interpretation of the whole thing, just so it looked like SJWs had gone too far.
Some men deserve to cancelled. (or at least fired for gross incompetence)
This post and OP annoy me since they accuse others of looking for a culture war angle when they are doing the same thing.
I mean, I don't actually care about the Spanish womens national team. Like, at all. Never spared them a thought or wondered if their bureaucracy is efficient. It might as well not exist. But I am sure that if it were a mens team being retarded by some women in positions of power that I could muster up some ingroup bias to care. At least enough to add it as another mark against an outgroup. Hell, my carefree disposition of indifference towards this is all a product of my biases.
Point here being that I'm not here pretending that I'm not on a side even if this thing isn't emotionally animating. And I think it would do a lot of 'rational' minded people a lot of good to recognize how their indifference is not indifference at all.
If Rubiales was incompetent he should be removed on those grounds. But that's not what's going on. Instead the public incident is being used as a weapon to oust him. On that front, how can you say, from a culture war neutral perspective, that Rubiales isn't just playing an optimal power game? If his detractors wanted him gone, why not go after the actual substantive stuff? Instead they hand him this publicity stunt to play around with. Now they can't remove him without perceptions being that it's because of a kiss.
Removing people on purely substantive grounds is difficult even when you're right. Ousting power requires some level of opportunism.
Unilateral disarmament would be a noble if naive goal, but if you can excuse Rubiales' blatant lies you can just as well excuse an opportunistic ousting. Otherwise it's pure who-whom, and no point discussing further.
I'm not advocating for disarmament or lamenting the actions of Rubiales or the people who want him gone. I am lamenting the posturing of people here who are acting like they are just on the side of reason and common sense as opposed to the people 'waging a culture war' when in reality they are just waging a culture war from a different angle.
You can't call out the actions of Rubiales as being nefarious or less sympathetic, like was done by OP, because he is transparently playing out some power game when you then admit that the whole thing is a power play to begin with designed to get the guy fired.
You also can't point to some mild opportunism and say it delegitimizes all other complaints. That leads to pure who-whom, which sucks.
Your protest is like asking why the USG went after Al Capone for tax evasion instead of his actual crimes. The answer is obvious and it doesn't make him innocent.
That's not what is being done. You can be a SJW or an anti-corruption advocate or whatever thing it is in the culture war that animates you, just say that's what you are. Don't pretend to be one to pursue the other or some variation thereof.
It's not but whatever. If we know the witch floats why bother throwing her in the water? Maybe, if you can't oust a corrupt president or prosecute a guilty criminal for his actual crimes, the issue is broader than those specific individuals and throwing them to the dogs won't do much to solve it. In either case I am not impressed by people who insinuate they are acting better than others when they are transparently not.
This is disarmament. So you are advocating unilateral disarmament then? Unless your demand is only for your enemies, in which case yes they will of course ignore it.
They should just get off without any charges? If your commitment to due process and the impartial hand of justice is that great, you can't turn around later and defend Rubiales' because he's on your team.
I'm not advocating for lawless vigilantism or witch burning. I'm pointing out that one party engaging in power politics doesn't necessarily disqualify their legitimate complaints.
You need to explain what you mean by "disarmament". I don't understand what you mean.
That's the opposite of what I am saying. My point is that if your legal framework can't work itself around an obvious criminal then the problem might be with the legal framework.
And I'm saying there are two parties engaging in power politics and that makes it a fair game for both. I don't understand what you want here. I am very sure Rubiales thinks he has legitimate complaints as well.
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