A big way in which he was wrong

Let's revisit President Nelson's talk in the Saturday evening session.

Between him and President Oaks, there was a message that social media might be a source of stress and unhappiness, and that can be a good reason to take a break.

That is fine. There are good points to it. I wrote about that:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2018/10/using-social-media.html

Here is what I think that they missed: one reason many women were having bad feelings right around then were the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, where women were being painfully reminded of how much gets done to us by men, and how little it matters to men.

Much like the Clarence Thomas hearings, there were multiple accusers, but only one got to speak. It got her publicly ridiculed, though in this case they were trying to be kinder, so many people were suggesting that she was just mistaken about who did it, rather than saying that she was lying and crazy. However, there were still a lot of people calling her crazy and lying and evil. Many people were sympathetic to the disruption in his life, easily forgetting that weeks later she had still not been able to return home or to her job.

Of course different women reacted differently. Some women even participated in the attacks on Christine Blasey Ford. They have their own price to pay for that. However, more women were angry. Women who had experienced their own sexual assaults - including rape - were plagued by their own memories. Specific things that she said in her own testimony were felt physically. That especially included the memory of the laughter, and the memory of the fear that she would be killed, even accidentally, because of the disregard.

Even for women with the "easier" backgrounds of never having been physically assaulted but "only" being harassed at work or held back - things where the problem can only be your sensitivity or some problem with you, and not the problem of men just mattering more and being allowed to get away with more - it brings a lot back.

Even the comparisons with Clarence Thomas and all the focus of #metoo made it worse, because there is still so little progress. There were so many good reasons to not confirm Kavanaugh, and he still ended up confirmed for life. Dr. Ford's worst fear was that she would do this and go through it and turn her life upside down and it wouldn't matter; that's pretty much how it went down. It was a completely reasonable fear, and still one that gets no sympathy, only blame for not coming forward.

(Pro tip: the people who blame you for coming forward late really didn't want you to come forward at all. They are mad, but they are being disingenuous in their reasons.)

So here's the thing: while taking a break from social media AND news coverage might lessen the acute stress of those hearings, it doesn't do anything to alleviate the stress of being treated as less, even by the people who claim to honor and love and admire you.

Even very good men do not seem to be ready to understand that.