There’s been a bit of a fuss recently about seating of children on airplanes in New Zealand. A man who was seated next to a child travelling alone was asked to change his seat, because the airline has a policy against men sitting next to unaccompanied minors. The man objected, the fuss reached the press, the airline claimed that it was only doing what most airlines do on international flights. (Why not domestic flights?) In the fallout, there have been many cogent objections to the policy:
Mr Latta agreed studies of sexual offenders showed somewhere between 70 and 90 percent were male but the airlines’ policy would not help protect children.
“In 15 years of working with thousands of sexual offenders I’ve never treated or heard of a man who sexually offended against a child on a plane.”
New Zealand’s Green Party says the airlines policy banning men from sitting next to unaccompanied children is discriminatory and will take the matter to the Human Rights Commissioner.
Green MP Keith Locke said the policy was an example of moral panic about men posing as potential threats to children.
They’re all quite correct: It is a stupid policy, it won’t help children, it’s discrimination, and it’s moral panic.
It’s also an extremely common and widespread bigotry, although not one usually codified in policy.
Reading about the New Zealand flap, I was reminded of a study by anthropologist Susan Murray that was published in the academic journal Gender and Society. The study’s subject was men who work in child care in the U.S.. From Murray’s article:
In my study, many workers, both men and women, talked about how the men who are child care workers are subject to different unwritten rules regarding their physical access ot children. Specifically, in many centers, men are more restricted in their freedom to touch, cuddle, nap, and change diapers for children. As one worker who I surveyed stated, “I have worked in centers that employ male caregivers. Parents have on occasion been hesitant to accept them. One parent explicitly asked that a male caregiver not rub her daughter’s back at naptime.” […]
…My data clearly showed numerous cases in which parents clearly did not want their children taken care of by a man at all. Sometimes parents requested another caregiver for their children; at other times, parents refused to enroll their children or withdrew them once they discovered a man was working at the center.
The article goes on to recount many other examples of male childcare workers being discriminated against in this exact way – men are not supposed to be in physical contact with children. Murray, in a discussion of the implications of this, suggests that the bigotry against male caregivers is rooted in sexism and in bigotry against gay men (even if the caregiver isn’t gay).
In the case of men in child care, just the act of their caring for children calls into question their heterosexuality. The fact of their sexuality, whether gay or straight, need not ever be confirmed. It is their choice to do child care that arouses suspicion and leaves them vulnerable to homophobic reactions. Men’s actions become suspect because they are choosing to do something that women do and, even worse, because child care is undervalued employment for women. Gay is a sexualized identity. When a man admits to being, is discovered to be, or is suspected of being gay, his gay identity may come to define everything else. He is, then, seen as someone who is guided by sexual practices, thoughts, and feelings in all else he undertakes. Within the child care setting, anything having to do with adult sexuality is strictly off-limits. So, when a person’s identity as a gay person is discovered or even suspected (as may be the case with straight men doing “women’s work”), that person’s competence as a teacher/caregiver gets called into question. To the extent that being gay is viewed as a perversion, it is linked with other perversions, such as child sexual abuse.
Murray also discusses the “glass elevator” effect, in which men in childcare professions are promoted to administrative positions more often and more easily – an advantage to men who want to be administrators, but a disadvantage to ambitious women caregivers who’d like to advance, and to men who’d rather stay in direct childcare positions. The overall effect is to turn many child care centers into places where traditional gender roles are enforced.
[“Jeff,” a male childcare worker Murray interviewed, said:] “You just need to be ultracareful. In San Francisco the men Early Childhood Education teachers can’t have a child on their lap, the women can, but the men can’t. I’m thinking, what kind of a message does this send to the children?”
Murray concludes with the speculation that child care centers may be teaching children traditional gender roles: men as administrators and playmates, women as nurturers. This discrimination is bad for the men being discriminated against, and also bad for the girls and boys who are subjected to gender-discriminatory childcare.
What I find most disturbing about this is that the airline rule of not seating men next to unacompanied children isn’t really likely to be a productive strategy in preventing abuse because it’s based on the false assumption that strange men are more likely to sexually abuse children than any one else, when in reality, it is known men who are the statistically most likely sexual abusers of children by a rather large margin.
This simply goes on to reflect the wider problem of ignoring the rape cutlure that exists in society where the sexual abuse of adult women, men, and children by men is endemic and yet the reality of this situation is ignored or contested while on the other hand the purpotrators of these crimes (individual men) are rarely or never held accountable by men in general. Perhaps this would be less of an issue if other men, who find the prevalence of rape in this society horrifying, did more to combat that rape culture than combating feminists who have the temerity to point out that it exists.
The other issue of men in childcare being descriminated against also flows directly from many assumptions embeded in the culture of patriarchy but I’m sure that most find it much easier to again attack the feminists who point out and attack those assumptions (thus addressing the root of that descrimination) rather than attacking the assumptions themselves.,
After all, the perceptions of men in childcare as wierd stem in large part from patriarchal beliefs about women’s work, and hence women and thus men in those roles as either feminized or predators because no normal man would be assumed to be willing to be feminized culturally by doing women’s work unless they had alterior motives.
Fighting those assumption about the ‘natures’ of men and women and women’s work and the absolute negative in this society for men to be ‘feminized’ by doing women’s work would necessarily address the assumption that men would never engage in childcare without alterior motives. Of course, that might be hard. Far easier to whine about feminists.
What I find most disturbing about this is that the airline rule of not seating men next to unacompanied children isn’t really likely to be a productive strategy in preventing abuse because it’s based on the false assumption that strange men are more likely to sexually abuse children than any one else, when in reality, it is known men who are the statistically most likely sexual abusers of children by a rather large margin.
It’s not based on that assumption.
It’s based on the observed reality that someone will be sitting next to that child for the next 12+ hours. (This is New Zealand Air – looooooong flights.) That someone can be a male not known to the child, or a female not known to the child. The statistics are clear; males not known to the child are far more likely than females not known to the child to sexually abuse.
Uncle Joe may be the most likely suspect ex post facto in a child sexual abuse investigation, but Uncle Joe isn’t on the plane.
I’m seeing an odd dichotomy here.
Some of the more obviously misogynist posters here (and no, I’m not pointing fingers at individuals) seem to be saying 1) (in this thread) that men are basically trustworthy and 2) (in other topics) that rape victims need to be more careful with their actions so as to avoid being raped. Although these aren’t actually ‘technically’ fundamentally opposed propositions, they come pretty close.
The radical feminist view, however, far from being a ‘more coherent’ set of beliefs, seems to be precisely the opposite . . . 1) that men are horrible monsters who can’t be trusted, and 2) that acting with out of trust for men isn’t something we ought to be criticized for. Similarly, these two propositions seem to clash.
For me, I tend to disagree with all of the above, and I think it indicates the basic problem with treating individuals as members of a ‘class’ rather than as individuals. I can’t say either “men are trustworthy” or “men are not trustworthy” and have it approach anything even close to truth. Some men are trustworthy. Some men are not. Some men are trustworthy in some areas and not in others. Some men are trustworthy in some circumstances and not in others. The same is true of women.
When your philosophy teaches you that to treat an individual a certain way based not in who that individual is but on what ‘group’ he belongs to, that’s when, in my opinion, the philosophy becomes morally corrupt. My ex-girlfriend’s grandfather was a virulent racist . . . really, very offensive . . . but her family would justify it, by saying “well, you know, when he was younger, he got attacked and mugged by a group of black men.” That’s no justification. His anger and rage was understandable perhaps, but that didn’t make it right, and it didn’t make it ‘not racist.’
I’ve seem the same sort of thing here from topic to topic, over and over again, whether it’s an MRA posting about how women suck because his ex-wife fucked him over or a woman posting about how she can’t stand men because “male poster #5” posted something she found offensive.
I’m not saying that class-based analyses are a bad thing, just that making judgements on the micro-scale based on macro-scale analysis is generally going to end badly. Macro-scale analysis is good for macro-scale questions.
Where does that leave us? Well, for me, I guess it means to try to work out any anger I have at members of a particular group by dealing with those specific members, rather than painting with a broad brush, and while not castigating myself for that anger, to realize that to direct it at unrelated folks (or to randomly include those folks in my anger because of their genital/melanin/political/religious configurations) is not just unfair, but actually counterproductive to my personal causes and goals.
I’d guess that I disagree with Robert (for example) on probably 85% of the political issues in the world, but there’s always that 15% chance that we won’t, so why alienate a possible ally?
—Myca
OK, just to help clear some thing sup here…
http://www.rasac.org/education/statistics.html#01 there are some statistics we see on the topic.
Now when talking about rape, I see there is a lack of answers to the questions. Just by claiming rape, then should that be enough to jail someone with no supporting evidence? What about those who have a history of making the claim under suspicious circumstances like the Bryant case? Lack I checked, if a woman has been violently raped like she claims, you don’t BRAG about it at parties for a few days and have sex with several others right after and then make the claim after a few days. Don’t you think that there might just be some cases where it is an attempt to get attention, money or other things and that supporting women that abuse the laws in this manner is hurting your case? After all, if men are being accused of rape constantly because she said stop after she orgasmed and he hadn’t but took 20 seconds more to finish, then your are really trying to broaden the definition of rape. At the same time if a man claims rape under the same definitions and it is done by a woman, then shouldn’t she be punished?
I also have not seen any MRA places saying rape laws should be eliminated or any of the many claims you keep making about MRS and FRA. Care to cite a few of them since I have yet to see any backing those claims you are making?
Oh, have any even bothered to check the links I gave as were requseted? I find it interesting that they were requested and suddenly those items were dropped. Then again I have been attacked pretty heavily just because I actually believe in equality between men and women.
Myca,
I think your post (#101) fairly states my own personal philosophy. But, there are macro-level questions when discussing issues like racism and sexism, etc.
And in the area of sexism, I am not sure what broad social actions can be taken to change things. Again, I am drawn to the idea of individuals working in their own spheres of influence to make those changes. I am doing it in the way I’m raising my children, and by not actively promoting the actions of sexism.
I’m very skeptical about instituting legislative action to alleviate individual attitudes. If anyone has any thoughts as to how to make the changes necessary I’m interested in hearing them.
I just noticed this from Elinor and wanted to address it some…
Now men get to fear that they have sex that was consensual and then are accused of rape. I’ve had this happen to men and know others. She had consensual sex and then later didn’t like what happened for one reason or another. To get out of having people ask her why she slept with an ugly guy or several all at once what ever reason, she then says she was raped. Another one I see a fair amount of is how she was drunk so COULDN’T have consensual sex due to her being drunk and is not responsible for her decisions then. Now a drunk man that has what he THOUGHT was consensual sex but may have been a reluctant partner who really didn’t but gave in to pressure IS responsible for his behavior thought he was equally drunk as the female in the first case.
Another common case is in divorce where suddenly what was consensual sex is claimed to have been rape then and he is now an abuser who should be punished. It is nothing more in this case than a tactic in a divorce case and well known by her friends that is the truth but they don’t stand up and say so. Instead they go along to help her and he is hammered based entirely on a lie with no real evidence. It happens in divorce with claims of molesting too. You talk about how men have to stand up and not defend abusers and I don’t personally know anyone that actually does stand up for abusing women but at the same time I know men who have stood up and stopped an abusive man from hitting a woman only to have her attack him for doing so and also known plenty of cases where a woman attacked a man by sucker punching him and when he hit her back he was jailed and she went to a shelter for being abused.
If you want to make progress for equality and demand men stand up to stop these kinds of problems you talk about, then women must ALSO stand up, demand those women they know who abuse the laws be punished for doing so and also not try to apply a double standard unless you wish one applied against you as well. Correct?
Quentin:
I have. I just haven’t had time to compose any responses.
The MRA call for decriminalization of rape is point 37 on this list.
I realise all MRA manifestos are not the same, but the fact that this exists (alongside a number of propositions more common to MRAs), and the fact that MRAs from other groups tend to argue that most rape accusations are false, supports my statements.
Myca, I don’t believe radical feminists believe that men are inherently monstrous; however, radical feminists do generally believe that our society gives men permission to be monstrous. It’s very well to talk about relating to people as individuals, but essentially what you seem to be doing is demanding trust without much recourse if that trust turns out to be misplaced. Changing a culture is not a simple matter of chastising women for actually being as careful as, in other circumstances, we are ordered to be.
Frequently it appears to me that women are just supposed to know, automatically, which men are good and which men are bad. That isn’t realistic.
Now men get to fear that they have sex that was consensual and then are accused of rape. I’ve had this happen to men and know others. She had consensual sex and then later didn’t like what happened for one reason or another. To get out of having people ask her why she slept with an ugly guy or several all at once what ever reason, she then says she was raped.
See, there you go: defending rapists. Women are all liars, women are untrustworthy and hurt innocent men with false accusations. Rape isn’t real; perhaps it’s not rape unless it involved a weapon, a total stranger, and several witnesses…
It happens in divorce with claims of molesting too.
This is tedious. Go read Trish Wilson’s blog.
You talk about how men have to stand up and not defend abusers and I don’t personally know anyone that actually does stand up for abusing women
No, not unless the women claim they’ve been abused, and then you’re all about hurling vitriol at them.
Elinor:
How do we begin to change the culture of the United States? I’m wondering if it is best done through legislative measure (as in the ERA) or should it be handled through education and raising awareness?
Yes, our culture does seem to give men a pass for monstrous behavior. How do we change the attitudes that underpin this particular part of our culture? I don’t think that deconstructing gender is the only approach, as I favor complete equality of everyone regardless of an descriptor.
As far as a woman having to know whom is dangerous and who isn’t, society does send this mixed message. But then, children are taught the same thing — that they should know which adults are dangerous and which aren’t. And to me, that is victim-blaming in a nut shell.
Quentin0352, let me say first that I’m terribly sorry for your loss. There’s no bigger tragedy than the loss of a child; it happened to relatives of mine, and they were absolutely devastated. There’s no way I can relate to or understand the heartbreak you must feel, but you have my sympathy.
Nonetheless, you seem eager for debate. So I’m going to go ahead and debate your points, since that’s what you want. Please don’t take my debating you to mean that I’m not symathetic for your loss.
* * *
And as a moderator, despite my sympathy for your loss, I feel obliged to ask you to try and treat other people here with respect (which is more than just being polite on the surface).
* * *
Regarding the Florida survey, keep in mind being “physically hurt,” in this survey, could include anything from being brutally beaten up to being playfully faux-slapped. The questions for both dating violence and for rape are so brief and unspecific as to be useless, in my opinion.
Here is the COMPLETE section on dating violence and forced sex, from this survey:
There’s pretty much a consensus among social scientists who work in this area that multiple, specific questions lead to much more accurate results. I’ve almost never seen a worse survey instrument than this one.
The link shows that mothers kill their children twice as often as fathers (not counting cases where both parents acted together). But it doesn’t in any way take time spent with children into account, so it doesn’t support the claim you made above. Since nealry 80% of the children killed were three years old or under, and since a significant portion of American families are (and a disproportionate number of infanticides happen in) single-mother families, I think you’re dismissing the importance of the time-spent factor unjustifiably.
No, of course not.
Too many people have these weird narratives in their heads, entitled “what rape victims act like.” You say “last you checked”; where did you “check,” exactly?
The truth is, there are as many different ways of reacting to tramau as there are tramautized people. Plus, even if there were a “typical” way rape victims react, that still doesn’t tell us much about any individual case because atypical people can be raped, too.
No one should be found guilty of rape without evidence of rape. But by the same taken, no one should be found guilty (in a court or in the court of public opinion) of having made a fake rape charge without real evidence either. And sliming someone’s behavior in the press, and baseless claims that “last I checked, rape victims don’t act like X,” aren’t reasonable evidence.
If someone refuses to stop after a reasonable amount of time of their lover saying “stop! Get off! Stop!” then yeah, I think that’s rape. Regardless of what sex each person is. The truth is, people do this all the time – when your lover says “ow, that hurts, stop,” anyone who isn’t a total asshole stops. (When you’re having sex, if your lover’s hair gets caught or something and she says “Ow! Stop stop!,” do you keep going?)
However, you’re saying that men are constantly being accused of rape in this situation. By “accused,” what do you mean? Do you mean brought up on charges by the police, for example? And what evidence do you have to support your claim?
* * *
And yes, there are some female teachers who have committed statuatory rape. They get a lot of press because this is a “man bites dog” story. I don’t excuse what they did at all, but nor am I going to pretend that they represent a normal kind of rape in our society. Typically, regardless of the victim’s sex, rapists in our society are male.
* * *
Finally, I think you need to realize that things “you heard,” or anecdotes you relate, don’t really prove anything.
[Edited to remove a bit that was accidently pasted in here from a different post.]
You know, Amp, telling me I hvae a choice to be rude or not is kind of amusing. I don’t choose it; it’s the way I am when I’m confronted by male trolls who get to spout really offensive crap as long as they’re not overtly rude. They just go on and on and on, and if they’re civil, it’s acceptable. I think they should get a taste of their own medicine.
You call it airing other viewpoints. What it is, though, is just letting the MRAs talk shit about women. I don’t see how that’s civil at all.
No. I won’t accept this. There are posters here saying that men benefit from rape and support it. This is not true.
Gee, I guess that means that it’s not true. Some guy’s never seen it in existance, so that means it doesn’t exist. Just ignore those women.
Elinor:
No more so, than the fact that the SCUM Manifesto exists proves that feminists want to murder men.
The guy is a nutjob. If MRAs generally make everyone else look good, guys like him make MRAs generally look good.
No it isn’t, and I don’t think there’s any objection to women (or men) being wary of men (or women) they don’t know (or do know). The objection is to the blame being cast onto an entire gender.
Should that read “I’ve had this happen to me? If so, could you clarify because it’s rather a significant typo if indeed that is what it was.
I’ve wanted to avoid bringing in my personal assault experience, but it is applicable in the vein of “there is no typical reaction to rape or sexual assault”.
I was raped by a friend’s brother when I was sixteen. The only person that I confided in was my Mother who pushed me to go to the cops. I told her that the hassle and the bruhaha that would ensue wasn’t worth the two or three years probation he would likely get. I did get counseling and avoided that particular guy and his friends like that bubonic plague, but I didn’t attempt suicide, become depressed, cry, or other “normative” indicators for traumatic assault. Simply put, I went into deep denial.
Fast forward four or so years to my fist marriage. My husband sexually assaulted me in the guise of BDSM experimentation. When I called him on it, he said “But we were experimenting”. Our safe word was ardvark. How likely is it that someone would be screaming ardvark during intercourse?
Still my reaction was denial, and I showed no outward sign. Once again I went to counseling. I do not hate men as a gender. I wasn’t raised to fear rape by strangers or by my intimates. Maybe I should have been, but traumatic and horrible as those events were — I did nothing wrong. Those two men chose to ignore my protestations. In the first instance I did physically fight back, and managed to black both of his eyes and leave a bite impression on his chest.
Everyone deals with physical and emotional trauma in different ways. I am not an overtly emotional person, and so I didn’t show those “typical” emotional responses to my attacks. But, I was still a victim and I am a survivor none the less.
anashi writes:
if you have access to cable news, you would find that the vast majoirty of coverage is of women. even in the papers this holds true, so i am not entirely sure what news you are looking at. most of the time the person’s being discussed are blonde white females. you practically have to pull teeth to get the media to cover a kidnapped/murdered black child.
I’m talking specifically about rape not how many blonds are on tv. I agree that there needs to be better coverage of black people’s issues on tv and more black people in control of the news, and they need to stop focusing on murdered women. I think they cover these women all the time, because they want to instill fear into us. Its the same thing I was talking about with rape. Men want us scared out of our minds, so does the news. Besides these stories of murdered women when does the news ever seriously talk about women’s issues at all. We all know what’s behind the speeches where Bush talks about 9/11, why does he bring it up all the time. To scare us. Same thing with all these murders.
Elinor writes:
This logic works both ways. It is equally unacceptable to blame men for women’s bad behavior towards them and towards their children. However, the logic is flawed because as it automatically assumes women/men are a threat. Change men to any minority and retest your statement. If it would be considered biased, then the logic itself is biased.
That is the reason the man was asked to move on the plane. It is also the reason men are restricted from physical contact with children when they work as teachers and care providers.
No, I do not trust strange women, or men, because I do not know them. I would hope that most parents would take the time to know the people they leave their children with. It is not only that a person my hurt the child, but also that something may happen (an accident, an emergency, anything) and that person would be responsible for the child. Trusting random people without knowing them is most unwise.
Yes, I have. Unfortunately, the variables do not work in your favor. Your reasoning is that men commit most sexual abuse therefore they are not to be trusted. Since women are responsible for the majority of all other forms of abuse and shoddy, abusive screw-ups in the system they are not to be trusted. No matter what variables you consider for women, the same system would have to be applied to men. And since there is no excuse for abusing or allowing a child to be abused, the results would end up entirely the same: neither group can be trusted.
Mendy, I am sorry to hear about your abuse.
Elinor, thank you for the link. I appreciate your responsiveness. What a dick.
Ginmar:
…telling me I hvae a choice to be rude or not is kind of amusing. I don’t choose it; it’s the way I am…
This is the same argument that anti-suffragists and their ilk used against women’s rights advocates in the very early days. Women are controlled by emotions; they can’t modulate their reactions to conform to their conscious choice; anybody who knows which buttons to push can cause a woman to have any desired reaction, because women are unthinking, illogical creatures – soft machines, really.
I have to think that, surely, you don’t really mean that. So, in accordance with your most recent instructions to people who don’t understand or can’t quite come to grips with something you’ve said, could you clarify? Are you really stating that you do not have the capacity to control your behavior? Or am I just misunderstanding something?
It’s not the same argument, because when she says “I don’t choose it; it’s the way I am…” she’s talking about herself, not about womankind as a whole. As I understand it.
OK. Conceptually the same argument; saying, through the lens of time, to William McKinley, “I don’t know about the other gals, but you got me pegged.”
Jake:
Mendy, I am sorry to hear about your abuse.
Thank you. I really am fine with it now. I was using it to illustrate how there is not one “typical” reaction for sexual assault victims. By the logic used in the case quoted in the other thread, I would likely have been arrested and charged for filing a false report as well.
The law needs to be clarified as to what constitutes rape, and the idea that a victim is responsible for the attack needs to be removed from the equation altoghether.
How do we begin to change the culture of the United States? I’m wondering if it is best done through legislative measure (as in the ERA) or should it be handled through education and raising awareness?
I don’t know. I’m Canadian, myself, but the Tisdale rape case I referred to earlier indicates that we have these problems as well (although racism was a major factor in that judgment as well).
If it were me, I’m pretty sure I would trust my own child to a man at a daycare centre. I guess what frosts me about this discussion is the way women and feminists specifically are being slammed as “bigots” when we exercise the caution that we are so often told we must exercise if we are not to be blamed for our own victimization. We can’t win.
I think a lot of it is not legal; it’s cultural, and it requires that a lot of common notions about men, women, and sexuality be constantly challenged, ideally by men with other men.
jaketk:
the logic is flawed because as it automatically assumes women/men are a threat. Change men to any minority and retest your statement. If it would be considered biased, then the logic itself is biased.
I’m having a lot of trouble understanding your logic here. “Most rapists are men” is not the same statement as “most men are rapists.”
Daran, it does seem extreme to call for the decriminalization of rape, and yet in this very thread we have Quentino352 arguing that women routinely have fully consensual sexual relations with men and then charge them with rape. He may not be outright arguing that forced sex should not be legally considered rape unless demonstrable physical harm occurred, but he’s skating near that edge in my opinion.
I guess what frosts me about this discussion is the way women and feminists specifically are being slammed as “bigots” when we exercise the caution that we are so often told we must exercise if we are not to be blamed for our own victimization.
I think this is a very fair point, and it is one area where I do see women getting hit for whatever they do. I come down on the “everyone should be paranoid and suspicious of everyone, all the time” side of things, but I hope that I am consistent about it.
Now excuse me, I hear someone coming down the stairs. It’s PROBABLY just the 3-year old with pretend cake for me, but I’d better have one hand on the grenade launcher just to be sure.
Elinor said on post # 106:
No, no, I think perhaps you misread my post, or I may have been unclear. I’m not demanding trust from anyone, nor am I chastising women for being careful. I’m just explaining how and why I try to combat my own tendencies towards group-based judgements.
To go back to my real-life example, I wouldn’t have found it unreasonable for my ex-girlfriends grandfather to (for example) avoid being alone with black people, or to cross to the other side of the street at night or something, but that’s different from either 1) saying that black people are inherently violent criminal savages or 2) justifying active discrimination against black people.
What I feel like I’ve been reading here, in regards to men, is a little of the first and a heaping helping of the second. It’s possible that my perception is wrong about the first, and I may just be oversensitive, but I’m pretty sure that the second is cut and dried.
This really upsets me for a few reasons. First, I consider myself a feminist, and it’s something I’ve put into action both through direct action and donations of time and money through the years. One of my very first memories is of my participation, at age 3 or 4, in a feminists for nuclear disarmament march in San Francisco. I’m not trying to wave around my feminist credentials, I’m just saying that it’s been a big part of my life, one I take seriously, and one I am emotionally attached to as part of my identity. I believe in feminism because full equality is the only morally right option, and injustice is unacceptable to me.
I also believe that the patriarchy hurts men too, but I’m also not one of those guys who invades a thread about rape survivors with a post on how men get raped too!!11!!1! Still, I do believe that ending the patriarchy will lead to a better, healthier world for everyone, men and women both. As a man, I don’t think the benefits are worth the cost . . . or, at least, I don’t think the benefits to be are worth the cost to me. I want to be free to choose who I am, not have it thrust upon me.
I believe that there’s a better world waiting on the other side.
Thus, when I read this thread, concerning what I think is one of the few legitimate cases of actual discrimination against men, something that has affected me personally, and, in fact, a good example of one of the ways in which the patriarchy does hurt men, and I see so many posters saying more or less, “yeah, well fuck those guys. I don’t care. They had it coming because they’re men.” Well . . . you can see how it would be pretty discouraging.
I agree that Men are the only ones who can end rape, and I agree that men who do not rape can derive serious benefits from rape and women’s fear of rape. But, my question is, why should men even try to end rape? If the attitude from the other side is what I’ve been reading, if there’s no moral injunction against justifying injustice, if it’s okay to say “they had it coming because they’re men,” if it’s every person for him(or her)self, if it’s just “take what you can,” if there’s no better world waiting, why give up the benefits?
God, please remember that that’s not something I believe. I absolutely do believe that equality is a moral imperative, and luckily I know that the vast majority of feminists don’t have that “they had it coming” point of view, but I hope this explains why I’m so offended by those who do.
—Myca
Why is that everytime a case where a women has sex with a schoolboy that’s splashed across the news, but if they reported every rape that happened to women they’d have to cover it 24/7, guess it just isn’t sensational enough to hold our attention. anashi
Don’t do this. These are different crimes you are equating here.
Men benefit from rape because they get to control women’s behavior with it. anashi
To what end? I’m sorry but I’ve never had any interest in controlling anybody’s behaviour – male or female.
I get emails sent to me telling me how to avoid rape, when men don’t get any emails telling them not to rape. anashi
You get those emails because you asked to get them. I DON’T get emails telling me how to rape either!
Read any thread on rape and you’ll see men constantly blaming the victim, saying she should have done something to prevent it. anashi
As do many women. Your point?
Its their problem not ours.
Why don’t they condemn the raper and talk about ways men can stop rape? Because I believe they sympathize with him.
This is what happens when you start from a premise that ALL men are responsible for ALL rape. If I could stop rape I’d do it in a flash. I really wish I could magically appear and whip off a culprit’s tonkers before he could do any damage. But I can’t. I can’t control the behavior of women, nor do I wish to. Likewise, as much as I would like to, I can’t control the behaviour of those few men who do rape.
Just for a moment try to consider the position for men here. We are conditioned to help and protect women. When non rapist men(the vast majority) hear this sort of stuff it’s simply frustrating. As much as they’d like to they can’t stop rape any more than women can.
My university sends those emails out, I’m not subscribing to some list that sends them to me. That’s my university’s oh so helpful way of telling me that I’m suppose to take all the responsibility on myself to stop rape from happening to me, nevermind that it should be men’s responsibility to not rape in the first place. But because they do I have to modify my behavior. If men suddenly couldn’t walk the street at night or if they weren’t able to drink however much they wanted, there’d be an outcry. You’re pretty much admitting defeat with your postm saying there is nothing you can do, but your not helpless you could come out against men who do rape, instead your wasting your time responding to me. I feel for you really, I feel helpless too sometimes, but there’s always something you can do. Volunteer at centers for battered and abused women, things like that. If more individual men came out against rapers instead of arguing that the problem isn’t disease in are culture, maybe I’d feel like there was hope for the species.
OK I’ll start here..
Not exactly a big group of MRAs there that I saw and not exactly saying all rape laws should be repealed like you claimed. Care to try again with some calling for the repeal of *all* rape laws as you claimed?
Daran, you are correct on the typo, it sh0ould have read “me” not “men.” My ex accused me of raping her, molesting the children and everything else under the sun, all fully investigated and I had the fun of having been hauled away in cuffs, yelled at and threatened by police and the rest while the exact same abuse shelters that had refused to help me for months before and continued to refuse to investigate complaints of her abusing the kids provide her all the help they could with lawyers, shelter, money and all the rest. Considering I am a disabled Marine that was forced out of the service after a botched vasectomy causing nerve damage and sex is very painful for me so i avoid it, it isn’t very likely that I would be raping ANYONE. The only times I had sex were when SHE demanded it and even after I told her to seek other men for it since it is extremely painful for me, I STILL was put through it plenty of times. Of course my attempting to charge HER with rape gets laughed at and ignored. Meanwhile I had to spend a fortune to defend against her false accusations I raped her. Same with the children even though there were witnesses of her own family, friends and more willing to demonstrate she had attempted to coach our daughter in to the claims, I had other witnesses showing I was never alone in the situation claimed to have molested my daughter and even several psychologists and social workers saying it was obvious it never happened. My 8 year old daughter was TOLD by the local shelter that had refused me because I am male that I HAD molested her and she needed to protect herself from me.
Now it is obvious several here would applaud it happening to men saying it is deserved because some other other man is a horrible person. Yet if ANYONE going through that who is innocent is deserving because of their sex, then it must be realized that it can be reversed on them too.
Mendy, I think your case is a good example of what I have tried to explain here. Notice that we have had similar experiences yet I have been attacked for pointing out that men being attacked is excused but I don’t see ANYONE saying it is excusable to have you attacked like that. I have been saying NEITHER case if right and that BOTH should be prosecuted and also that those who make FALSE accusations should be prosecuted too.
Elinor, I avoid Trish Wilson’s blog since she defends a child abuser and a hit piece of lies that was on TV based purely on the gender of those involved. If you think she is great, maybe you should do some research on the show “Breaking the Silence” and what the investigations by the CPB found and what the legal papers found her guilty of doing to her children. The strange part is how she claims the father alienated the daughter from her while the exact same piece falsely claimed the American Psychological Association had found PAS was “junk science.” Bit of a contradiction in that.
Amp, I can bring plenty of studies showing women are just as likely to be abusive in a relationship as men with physical violence. We know that hitting your partner is anger is wrong but it works out as hitting a female partner is wrong but a male partner should just suck it up and take it “like a man” or he will be laughed at by the police and everyone else in most cases. This is changing some but on average it is still true in the US. It is one reason you see the statistics so skewed where 95% of domestic violence is done by men and etc, those are the conviction rates not report rates or even real rates. Now yes men are more likely to cause serious physical damage but if we use physical harm as the basis then we would need to release an awful lot of men in jail for battering their spouses because there was no serious physical harm, correct? Otherwise we are treating it with a double standard based on factors saying that gender is a determining factor in who we arrest instead of what the actual crime is.
I also note my earlier example of drinking, where a woman can drink too much, decide to have sex and then claim rape while a man who drank equally is told that drinking is not an excuse for his behavior and he is held liable for his actions. I am not claiming that anything close to all cases are like this but there are enough that happen to make society pause and wonder about it anymore and also if men are told we must be part of the solutions to stop this, then women must step up and help prosecute those women who abuse the laws for personal gain.
Now I understand all the publicity on women molesting children now seems to be upsetting many and they should keep things equal on that but then again for years when it was found women had molested a boy he was treated as being “lucky” and how she was just emotionally unstable in need of help instead of punishment. Just like when it comes to spousal abuse, if a hit is abuse, then when was the last time you saw a shelter that even allowed men or a poster showing an abusive spouse that was a woman? If we are for equality then we can’t have two standards on these things, a hit being ok for a woman and not a man, her raping a child being an emotional problem she needs help with but him raping a child meaning he is a danger to be condemnation on the rest of men and her drinking meaning she can’t consent to sex but his being responsible for it and liable for any child support in a child he will never be allowed to see and has no choices in being the father of or not being the father of.
Another interesting source though….
http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/factoid/factoid.html
Argh, sorry for all the typos.
What the christ. Here’s a little lesson, y’all.
Quentin0352: “Hint, most men DON’T rape and MOST men are not out to oppress women.”
Most men don’t kidnap strange women off the street and put their penises in orifices of her body without her permission. Mary
This is true.
Many, MANY men continue to have sex with their girlfriends or wives after she has indicated that she has lost interest in the sexual encounter and doesn’t want to continue. That is rape, but they don’t know it is. Mary
Many? I wonder, Mary, what you would call it when a woman “gets her rocks off” and then wants to stop. I’ve experienced this with every woman I’ve been with. Personally I wouldn’t call it rape even if it’s a bit selfish. However if you wish to make rape an issue of consent rather than force then I’m here to tell you that NO woman ever sought my consent. Does this mean that I’ve been raped EVERY time I’ve had sex?
Most men don’t sit in conference rooms cackling and holding cigars and plotting the downfall of uppity women everywhere.
So why treat us as though we do?
Many, MANY men spend hours of every day refusing to acknowledge their privilege”“the privilege they get from being the default gender, from having the name that is taken, from being the ones benefitted by the rape culture, from owning their sexuality, from owning the conversation, the business, the house”“and that is the oppression of women, but they don’t know it is.
THEY DON’T KNOW IT IS.
You don’t have to be a CONSCIOUS sexist to be a rank, vile sexist. Mary
Straight out of the “all men are bastards” handbook. You have yet to show any instance where men are allowed to do something which women are not.
Anashi:
If your university is sending the offending emails, then I suggest a movement or letter writing campaign by the Women’s Studies department to put an end to the practice.
I don’t think the university is intending to further the rape culture, but to limit their legal liability in the rapes that do occur. But, I do think that action should be taken if you and other women find the emails offensive.
I’ve gotten them from my university along with emails about binge drinking, hazing, and other abhorrent behaviors. I delete the mails unread now.
Quentino wrote:
She claimed that they called “for the decriminalization of simple rape.” So your claim that she said “all rape” is not true.
“Simple rape” is a term that some people use to refer to rape in which the victim knows her rapist and no gun or other weapon was used; this is in contrast to rapes committed by strangers. (See the way this college lecture outline uses the term, for example). The person she linked to was, in effect, calling for simple rape to be made legal – just as she claimed.
Please name the “several” people here who have said that men deserve to be raped, falsely accused of rape, and false accused of molesting children? Who are they, and what exact direct quotes can you give from their posts to support your accusation?
And while we’re on the subject, who here has said that being attacked the way Mendy was attacked – that is, being raped – is excusible as long as the victim is male? Again, support your accusation with direct quotes.
I can tell you come from MRA forums where making up vicious lies about feminists is acceptable. Most MRA forums treat feminists as if we weren’t even humans. Newsflash: This isn’t one of those forums. You can’t get away with making up vicious lies here the way you’re used to.
You have a choice now: You can either support your above claims with direct quotes that convince me that all your above accusations are fully justified; or you can apologize to all of us for telling such vicious lies; or you can be banned from this blog. Your choice.
(Please be aware that I will not allow you to post again on “Alas” until you’ve responded to this post.)
Many? I wonder, Mary, what you would call it when a woman “gets her rocks off” and then wants to stop. I’ve experienced this with every woman I’ve been with. Personally I wouldn’t call it rape even if it’s a bit selfish.
Where are you even getting the connection to rape here?
My university sends those emails out, I’m not subscribing to some list that sends them to me. That’s my university’s oh so helpful way of telling me that I’m suppose to take all the responsibility on myself to stop rape from happening to me, nevermind that it should be men’s responsibility to not rape in the first place.
OK but you need to realise it’s often other women putting the frighteners on you regarding rape. And you can provide men with as much info as you like about rape but it doesn’t enhance their ability to do anything about it. Fact is you’re mostly preaching to the converted. There is nothing I can do about rape that you can’t do. Just like you I can’t recognise potential rapists.
But because they do I have to modify my behavior.
And that’s a real shame. I don’t want women to be afraid of me. I gain nothing from that. But I am not responsible for it either.
If men suddenly couldn’t walk the street at night or if they weren’t able to drink however much they wanted, there’d be an outcry.
Actually there are many places I won’t go and many behaviours I won’t indulge in for the very reason of my own safety. This is not exclusive to women. What I haven’t done is demand that innocent people change their behaviour to accommodate me.
You’re pretty much admitting defeat with your postm saying there is nothing you can do, but your not helpless you could come out against men who do rape, instead your wasting your time responding to me. I feel for you really, I feel helpless too sometimes, but there’s always something you can do. Volunteer at centers for battered and abused women, things like that.
I’ve tried this. I was rather aggressively informed that my help was neither needed nor welcome.
If more individual men came out against rapers instead of arguing that the problem isn’t disease in are culture, maybe I’d feel like there was hope for the species.
There we have it. It’s a disease. All men are complicit. Therefore all men are diseased. QED
Listen I’m sorry if I sound a bit harsh and defeatist. I’m no MRA. The only time I’ve ever been active in gender politics was in the seventies when I was actively(front row in the marches,public speaking, you name it. By MRA standards a dead set “mangina”) involved with the womens libbers. I’m not looking for any kind of hobby badge here. There were discrimination and double standards and it offended my sense of fairness. That same sense of fairness is offended by my being held responsible for the actions of others.
And the other poster is naïve?
I’ve read this before. Believe it or not, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve never heard anyone say “gee, rape is great, I’m going to go out and rape somebody right now.”
Listen more carefully. Read a few verdicts. Do some research on the law and how it’s changed within your lifetime. Read some more of Menweb for crying out loud. Elinor
Yes, I’ve done all that. I stand by my statement.
gwallan, I’m not interested in going back to square one with you. anashi is right about the tendency to blame the victim (she shouldn’t have done this, she shouldn’t have done that) and to regard rapists as good boys who made a mistake, got caught with a lying bitch, etc. Elinor
I’m sorry but blaming the victim is not what we’re discussing here. The “blame” we are talking about is that which as attached to ALL men – most of whom have done NOTHING wrong. Stop trying to divert from the issue at hand.
My ex-girlfriend’s grandfather was a virulent racist . . . really, very offensive . . . but her family would justify it, by saying “well, you know, when he was younger, he got attacked and mugged by a group of black men.” That’s no justification. His anger and rage was understandable perhaps, but that didn’t make it right, and it didn’t make it ‘not racist.’ Myca
This is a brilliant observation, and so true. My parents are both obscenely hateful towards the Japanese even though neither have so much as met any of them. The common denominator is that they both grew up during the second world war.
Many? I wonder, Mary, what you would call it when a woman “gets her rocks off” and then wants to stop. I’ve experienced this with every woman I’ve been with. Personally I wouldn’t call it rape even if it’s a bit selfish.
Where are you even getting the connection to rape here? Elinor
I’m not. You are. I said it wasn’t! I was just posing a question.
If a woman achieves satisfaction and immediately denies me the same what is this?
Alternatively if I’ve finished but she continues to her own satisfaction have I been raped?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall any black muggers of white people being given lighter sentences and/or excused for their behaviour because their victims should have known better than to be in their neighbourhood, or because the victim had freely given away money in the past, or because the judge believed the mugging was actually an act of philanthropy on the part of the victim and white people are just generally vindictive and can’t be trusted to tell the truth about that kind of thing, or because the muggers had plenty of money and didn’t need to mug anybody so they must not really have done it, or because being mugged is really not that big a deal and can make you feel pretty good if you relax and enjoy it, or because before we called this mugging, we called it fun.
You’re darn right that these perceptions of men are sexist. They absolutely are. But that sexism comes from several sources and it is not fair to expect women to change it all on their own.
I’m sorry but blaming the victim is not what we’re discussing here. The “blame” we are talking about is that which as attached to ALL men – most of whom have done NOTHING wrong. Stop trying to divert from the issue at hand.
The fact that women are socially and sometimes legally punished for not acting on these sexist assumptions is absolutely relevant to the issue at hand.
If a woman achieves satisfaction and immediately denies me the same what is this?
That has absolutely nothing to do with rape; why are you bringing it up at all?
Alternatively if I’ve finished but she continues to her own satisfaction have I been raped?
If you tell her to stop touching you and she doesn’t stop, then yes, it’s sexual assault.
Not very satisfying for you, I’d imagine.
It depends on whether she kept on going and refused to stop despite you telling her to stop. In other words, if she fucked you even though you told her you didn’t consent, then yes, that’s rape.
[Sorry, cross-posted with Elinor]
The fact that women are socially and sometimes legally punished for not acting on these sexist assumptions is absolutely relevant to the issue at hand. Elinor
Just once!! Please just this once can we have a discussion about discrimination against men without it being turned into how all women are victimised.
I have cried four times in my adult life. The most recent was when I first heard about this airline seat debacle. I had my first sexual encounter with a woman when I was eight. I’m in counselling for this now. Just imagine for a moment how I feel being told that I can’t be trusted to sit next to a child in front of hundreds of witnesses.
Quentin:
I’m going to assume you meant “I’ve had this happen to me”. I apologise if that isn’t what you meant.
Is this the person who falsely accused you?
This is a sadly all-to-common piece of MRA nonsense. The man, in your scenario is committing an offense against the woman if he has sex with her without her valid consent, and is therefore responsible for his actions, no matter how drunk he is. If she’s too drunk to consent, but yields anyway, then she’s not committing an offence against anyone.
However much you would like to portray this situation as symetrical, it isn’t. One person is the doer. The other is done to. That’s the difference.
I’m finding it very difficult to make sense of what you are saying here. One moment you appear to be talking in generalities, the next you seem to be speaking about a specific case you are familiar with. Can you be a bit clearer.
Something similar has happened to me, (he was grabbing rather than hitting her, and the ‘attack’ she made on me for trying to intervene was verbal.)
I’ve never heard of anyone being sucker-punched by a woman although I’ve been sucker-punched myself by a man. I do know one man who had a tooth punched out by his girlfriend (she admitted this), but I don’t know if it was a sucker-punch.
Did you witness these attacks? If not, has the woman admitted to you that she struck first?
I agree with everything in this paragraph except the last line. The idea that we should be equally shitty to each other is a really bad idea that both feminism and anti-feminism share. Double standards are bad. Two people applying double standards is doubly-bad. It’s better to set a good example and encourage others to follow.
With that in mind, how do you ‘know’ that it really is the women in the cases you mention – the ones you have personal experience of (but excluding your own false accusation) – who are the abusers? You’ve said nothing to indicated that you witnessed the alleged incidents. Are you just ‘believing the men’? If so, then how does this differ from ‘believing the women’?
That has absolutely nothing to do with rape; why are you bringing it up at all? Elinor
Oh come on. I’ve already stated that I didn’t consider it rape. How many times do I need to repeat this? I think what I’m trying to get at here is that women can, and do, use men for sexual gratification without giving any consideration to their partner. And, yes, maybe sometimes this should be considered rape.
As long as you refuse to acknowledge that men have feelings, as long as you deny men a voice, as long as you hold innocent people responsible for the acts of others then you are just as sexist as any man has ever been.
However much you would like to portray this situation as symetrical, it isn’t. One person is the doer. The other is done to. That’s the difference. Daran
I love this. Sex is something that men “do” to women. It’s no wonder that male consent is meaningless.
gwallan:
Is this irony, or are you serious?
Gwallan, in the specific example of a man raping a woman who has drunk so much that she’s unable to resist or consent, rape is something a man does to a woman. It doesn’t follow, however, that all sex is done by men to women.
It would be easy enough to give an example in which sex is done by a woman to a man – for instance, a woman raping a man. Sex is something two people do to each other; rape is something done by one person (usually always male) to another.
I can see that. However, it’s worth considering that only a small number of feminist posters (at most two) have expressed that view; many more seem to agree that the daycare discrimination the post describes is objectionable.
To some extent, I think the fault is in my original post, because I conflated two issues (airline policy and daycare discrimination) that should have been kept separate. As Robert (non-feminist) and Bean (very feminist) have both pointed out, the airline policy may be justified. However, no one has argued that the daycare policy is justified.
Me:
gwallan:
Not only is that a complete misrepresentation of what I said, it removes necessary context. I was talking about “this situation”. Let me remind you what “this situation” was.
Quentin:
Emphasis changed from the original.
I’m not saying that sex is something men do to women. I’m saying that rape is something that one person does to another person.
In Quentin’s hypothetical, the woman is explicitly described as being unconsenting. That makes the man a rapist in that scenario. Had the genders been reversed, the woman would have been the rapist.
You have a point that society in general doesn’t take male consent seriously enough, but don’t try to pin that charge on my by misrepresenting and contextomising my words.
Correction: Having reread Quentin’s hypothetical, I see the sex of the unconsenting person isn’t stated explicitely. My point still stands.
Is this irony, or are you serious? Daran
Yes I am serious. Your point?
Mendy:
I defiantly agree that the fear of getting raped is not a universal experience for women, such as in your case, Mendy (if anyone knows some information in this area I would be interested in learning/knowing). I am curious, assuming your okay to answer, if not fear, what about rape or rape culture, which I admit I do not have a good understanding of, do you find particularly concerned about e.g. maybe indifference in attitudes toward rape, just the nature of the crime, etc?
I defiantly agree that Jim Crowe laws are an example of privileged. I would classify this as an explicit/tangible privilege. I also think believe in hidden/intangible privilege for example a sale person bending or break rules for customers based upon race or let say a professor adding an average of three percent extra to white students in a class. In contrast, I would regard a teacher marking students lower based upon race as discrimination. Finally, I believe that your last sentence about laws is in regard to western cultures.
JohnQ:
I am very concerned in the indifference some people show towards rape, and how that attitude is furthered by both the media and accepted comments. Victim blaming and the lack of convictions for sexual assualts and rapes bother me. And the nature of the crime, in and of itself, is enough to make my skin crawl. (Please forgive me if that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve hosted a slumber party this evening and haven’t have much sleep.)
I was speaking specifically of the United States, because that is the country I am most intimately familiar with. In other parts of the world, the middle east for example, laws are written that do overtly privilige men at the expense of women. The same thing exists in Latin America and South America, as well as parts of Africa.
A serious question. Is there case law on this? Is in implicit in the legal definition of rape? If you consent and then change your mind does the previous consent not count so far as the law is concerned?
So, Amp, I just want to be clear on this. Robert will never get banned. Ever. Or to use your word, “Never.”
Quentino, by bashing Trish Wilson the way you did you’ve pretty clearly outed yourself as one of the very people she’s writing about, or at the very leat in sympathy with them. Good job.
gwallan:
My point was that I couldn’t tell whether you were being ironic or serious, and I thought it better to ask than guess.
gwallan: “Straight out of the ‘all men are bastards’ handbook. You have yet to show any instance where men are allowed to do something which women are not.”
Are you serious? OK, are you now, or have you ever been a woman? Have you ever been kept in at night when your brother was allowed to go out, because “well, he’s a boy, and you might get in trouble”? Ever been passed up for a job in favor of a less-qualified man? Ever been mercilessly talked over in every conversation involving members of the opposite sex? Been groped in a bar? Been told that your law school professors only call on you “because you have tits”? Been broken up with because you kept wanting your SO to understand where you were coming from as a feminist, but secretly you were just “angry all the time”? Been in a conversation where men judge a rape victim’s clothing or behavior but not the man’s decision to shove his penis in her vagina against her will? Because all those things have happened to the women posting here. Hell, most of those things have happened to me alone.
Don’t make the mistake of confusing “legal” equality with REAL equality. As long as men are allowed/encouraged by their peers to treat in the manner described above, they’ll be “allowed” to do a fuckton of things women aren’t.
Just once!! Please just this once can we have a discussion about discrimination against men without it being turned into how all women are victimised.
Not in this circumstance we can’t. Sorry.
Oh come on. I’ve already stated that I didn’t consider it rape. How many times do I need to repeat this?
You brought it up. You must have had a reason for bringing it up.
I think what I’m trying to get at here is that women can, and do, use men for sexual gratification without giving any consideration to their partner. And, yes, maybe sometimes this should be considered rape.
There’s a difference between being a bad lay and being a rapist. Nobody owes anybody else an orgasm, ever. I’m sorry if you’ve had partners who wouldn’t get you off, but refusing to perform sex acts is not a crime and if you think it should be then I’m really at a loss for words.
As long as you refuse to acknowledge that men have feelings, as long as you deny men a voice, as long as you hold innocent people responsible for the acts of others then you are just as sexist as any man has ever been.
Behold the Holy Trinity of straw men!
Elinor (Comment 106):
Ampersand:
I’d like to see Elinor support her claims with quotes, (which, in the “defending rapists” part would appear to require her to prove that men he is defending are rapists), or otherwise apologise for her vicious lies.
I appreciate that you can’t be everywhere or respond to everything, but you seem to be very quick to jump on MRAs. Quentin certainly needs to raise his game, to argue his case more cogently and less offensively, but that’s generally (if not universally) true on both sides. But we’re not going to achieve that by summarily banning people.
Yes, I know it’s your blog and your choice.
I agree with this statement, and I find the last sentence particulary interesting. And my question becomes, how do we as a society tackle the idea of stereotype? I don’t believe that it can be achieved through legislative mandate, or that it is necessarily best handled in that way. And since the law isn’t the best venue for correcting these deep seated assumptions about gender roles, how do we begin to change them?
I am curious, because from what I’ve seen and heard in my personal life are individual sexist attitudes held by vary people. And those attitudes are often enforced by members of both genders. Other than simply calling someone out over every statement uttered, how do we as feminists work to enact changes to bring about equality for women?
Daran:
I’m not Elinor, but the part “vicious lies” compels me to point out several things:
It was comment 107, and it was in response to Quentino352, when he claimed that men have consensual sex and then are accused of rape. I agree that Elinor jumped to conclusions there, and certainly false accusations do exist, but when Quentin claims that he knows many cases of consensual sex where woman cried rape later on, I wondered, like Elinor, how can he know when he wasn’t there (certainly he was there in his own case). Both Quentin and Elinor are making statements of belief, not reason, when talking about cases where they were not involved themselves (when claiming to know whether sex was consensual or not).
I’m still thinking about a response to the original post about bigotry in child-care (which was IMHO very fair-minded), it seems that the discussion has turned weird, and off-topic (“men vs. women”).
I believe there is in the case where a man continues after a woman has withdrawn consent. I couldn’t cite it though, nor can I recall which jurisdiction it applies to, no whether it was applicable given a different combination of genders.
107, yes. My mistake.
I wonder that too, unlike Elinor who has decided that they are rapists.
Both Quentin are Elinor are showing their biases, but given that these anecdotes come from Quentin’s life and not Elinor’s, it is he, not she, who is best positioned to make a judgement, his bias notwithstanding.
We should also bear in mind that Quentin is not able to defend himself at this time.
Indeed. If this had been a thread about some injustice or offence against women, we non-feminist men would be being accused of derailing it.
felt like more, and those two posters have been quite vocal, and, even in the post you reference, I said “luckily I know that the vast majority of feminists don’t have that “they had it coming” point of view.” Anyhow, yeah, you’re right, it’s only two.
My main point, anyway, was that if you believe that only men can end rape, and if you believe that both rapist and non-rapist men derive benefits from the practice of rape, then saying shilt like that is actually counterproductive and (imo) anti-feminist.
—Myca
Guh. I forgot to close the blockquote tag on my last post. I suck, sorry. Here’s the correct post.
Having read back over the posts, I agree completely. In my somehat sheepish defense then, it certainly felt like more, and those two posters have been quite vocal, and, even in the post you reference, I said “luckily I know that the vast majority of feminists don’t have that “they had it coming” point of view.” Anyhow, yeah, you’re right, it’s only two.
My main point, anyway, was that if you believe that only men can end rape, and if you believe that both rapist and non-rapist men derive benefits from the practice of rape, then saying shit like that is actually counterproductive and (imo) anti-feminist.
—Myca
I actually think that the bias against men as caregiver needs to be addressed, to change the gender culture of the US. One of the important reasons for this, is that it might change the attitudes of the boys. They might learn that the sterotypical manhood ideal is not something that everyone should strive for, and that women and men can work on equal footing.
Also, it might teach both the boys and the girls that men are not slaves to their lusts, and that there is no excuse for behaving like they are. This can perhaps change the culture of blaming the victims.
Of course, this is not the only measures needed to change the US gender culture, but it is a start. And put together with other measures, it might actually succeed, though probably not for decades. Changing such things are unfortunately long term proposals.
A few points regarding moderation:
1) Quentin has now been banned from posting on “Alas,” so probably people should stop replying to his posts. Sorry for any difficulties this creates.
2) Elinor, Daran has a good point. It was over-the-top and unfair of you to accuse Quentin of defending rapists. I’m not banning you or anything, but please try not to make such extreme and horrible accusations unless they’re really, really well backed up by evidence.
3) Yes, I have a double standard in moderation; feminists get more slack than non-feminists.
4) At the same time, I’ve several times refused to ban polite non-feminists despite a few “Alas” readers urging me to do so. So although I have a double-standard, it’s nonetheless true that a non- or anti- feminist who is civil and whose posts don’t drip with passive-aggressive contempt for feminists, will not be banned.
5) Ginmar writes: So, Amp, I just want to be clear on this. Robert will never get banned. Ever. Or to use your word, “Never.”
Assuming that Robert continues posting in more-or-less the typical way he’s been posting so far, I will never ban him. Ever. That is correct.
6) I don’t want to divert this thread further, so my plan is to write up some tentative moderation guidelines sometime in the next few days, and make them a separate post. So please, if you want to comment on this stuff, do me a favor and hold off a couple of days. Thanks.
The previous consent definitely doesn’t count in California (based on a court ruling) or in Illinois (where they passed a law based on the California case).
Previous posts on “Alas” regarding the California case and Illinois law can be read here, here, here and here. :-)
My point was that I couldn’t tell whether you were being ironic or serious, and I thought it better to ask than guess. Daran
OK sorry. I’m too used to being disbelieved, or worse, told what a lucky little boy I must have been.
Well, given that Quentin, Jaketk, and Wookie are all SYG trolls it’s nice to see one of them go.
What it comes down to me is this, and it’s really simple: ultil men stop being the vast majority of child molesters and until men actually ostracize the rapists and child molesters, it’s premature to say the least to complain about discrimination. I mean, if you really want to protect kids, you won’t go looking for gay guys: You’ll go looking for somebody in the family and they’ll identify as straight. Men need to be fighting this battle instead of whining about those evil feminists—whom they never quote correctly, probably because they don’t listen. The fact that the SYG losers spend so much time trolling indicates that they’re not doing anything about child molesting and wife beating or anything but whatever it is toy they didn’t get.
“whose posts don’t drip with passive-aggressive contempt for feminists”
I think your drip detector might need some recalibration.
Ginmar:
How do I urge my husband to begin to fight misogyny? I believe that men need to take an active role in reversing these beliefs, stereotypes, and societal norms. My question is how do they do this in their daily lives? How do I as a woman do this in my daily life?
I already call people on their sexist remarks (this goes for all forms of discrimination). I work with my university’s volunteer counseling center (peer counseling), and I donate both time and money to my local battered women’s and children’s shelter.
I can’t begin to understand how to change the pervasive stereotypes in mainstream media, beyond my own choice to not purchase or veiw these things.
bean writes:
(discrimination)
i think rosa parks would probably have disagreed.
Shit, a whole 175 posts before MRAs made inappropriate to civil rights leaders; someone’s slipping.
It’s discrimination if it’s done on the basis of race or sex.
Nor on a bus, but everyone would recognise a “blacks sit at the back” policy as discrimination.
The difference, of course, is that it is a corporate policy, rather than a personal decision. But I agree that no accusation is implied. If I insist on using a condom with a new sexual partner (a personal decision) that doesn’t mean I think they’re diseased. If I thought that, I would have sex with them at all. Nor does requiring everyone to pass through security checks (a governmental policy) imply that everyone is being accused of being a security threat.
And if the passengers complain about having to sit near a black person?
But we’re not talking about the general likelihood of a man or a woman sexually abusing a child. We’re talking about the likelihood of their doing so on a plane. That risk would appear to be vanishingly small, and has to be set against the corrosive effect of profiling on society.
But only 107 posts before feminists assumed that men were rapists the basis of a bare allegation with no supporting evidence; someone isn’t.
What does “SYG” stand for?
You must be joking!
Nobody in our society is more vilified that someone who has the label “child molester” attached to them. Even adult murderers don’t get as much shit. Rapists come in at a close third.
I’m actually one of very few people who won’t ostracise these people, for three reasons. I believe in the inherent worth of people, regardless of what they have done. Also I believe that by engaging them, you reduce the risk of recidivism in particular and their level of general harmfulness. The last part I base on my own experience. When I was at the lowest ebb in my life, I was so inward looking that I was oblivious to the distress that I was causing others. I was never overtly abusive; I was just a crap person to be around.
Finally, I believe that the only way to understand the causes of abuse is to speak frankly with abusers.
“Engaging these people” doesn’t mean condoning, denying or trivialising what they have done.
I have no idea what proportion of abusers identify as gay. According to the statistics, between one in ten and one in three abusers is female. If the latter figure is close to the mark, then a majority are men, but not a “vast majority”.
However, “the majority of abusers are men” is different from “men are the majority of abusers”. Most men are not abusers, and mounting a witchhunt against men is not going to protect children from abuse. Rather it will make half of them victims of a witchhunt when they grow up.
The way to protect children is not to go looking for straight men. It’s to go looking for abusive people, and the put into place structures and systems that make it hard to abuse and easy to detect.
Never? That’s a strong claim, and one you’ll find hard to justify. Yes, feminists are often misquoted or quoted out of context in such a way as to make them look bad. That’s dishonest and objectionable. A particularly disreputable technique is to misattribute the words of a critic of a particular feminist to the feminist in question.
But feminists are hardly guilt-free themselves when it comes to quoting.
Now you have a choice. You can reply to the substance of this comment, then we could perhaps have a worthwhile conversation. Alternatively you could ignore it and not respond. Finally you could respond with your usual insults, or otherwise in a way which indicates you’ve paid no attention to what I’ve said. In that case I will cheerfully ignore you.
Uhmmm… No it’s not. What you presumably mean to say is that it is different from “the majority of men are abusers”, which is something no one claims. Some claims that all men benifits from the abuse carried out by other men, which is a claim I find problematic – I would agree that all men benifits from the descrimination carried out by some men, but that is not the same, in my opinion.
I shared a house with a male childcare worker for several years and, frankly, watching him at work was a privilege. He was just astonishing in his skill and the level of care and attention he lavished on his charges. But I also know that he was hedged around with rules and safeguards so that there was never any opportunity for him to be accused of child abuse. The rules were often ridiculous but as much for his protection as that of the kids. There was always talk of child abuse around him, not for anything that he did but simply because he was a man and people assumed that
because he was doing ‘women’s work’ that he must be in it for access to the children. After all, why else would he do that unless he was a paedophile?
It annoys me to hear that kind of thing but it’s really not surprising. While ever women are seen as being complicit in their own rapes and blamed for them men will be able to argue that they can’t control their own sexual urges and aren’t responsible for them. If women aren’t safe from marauding, sex-crazed men then children (who can’t defend themselves in any way) are even more vulnerable. Ironically, it’s feminists who claim that men are responsible and can control their sexual whims and therefore it’s discriminatory to exclude them from childcaring.
If the conservatives are right then men should never be allowed anywhere around children, it would be child abuse waiting to happen.
They cannot have their cake and eat it too.
I am not “you people”. I am a singular person.
The only comparison I was making was that in both cases “you are not guaranteed a particular seat”. I say that this is irrelevant to the question of whether the practice is discrimination or not. What say you?
I didn’t say it was. I introduced the comparison for the sole purpose of refuting the “you are not guaranteed a particular seat” argument.
If you wish to invent strawmen arguments to laugh at, instead of addressing the points I actually made, then that is up to you.
Daran wrote:
Nope, both of those statements are correct, and actually mean the same thing.
I think what you meant was to say that “the majority of abusers are men” is different from “the majority of men are abusers.” Which is true, and I agree.
—Myca
Me:
Kristjan Wager:
Myca:
I meant what I wrote. The verb “to be” is not the same as “equals”. In the language of mathematics, it is not an equivalence relation. In particular, it is not symmetric. “Cats are animals” is universally true. “Animals are cats” is false in general.
In English, when a plural, such as “men” without any quantifier, (such as “some”, “many”, “the majority of”, etc.), appears as the subject of a verb, it tends to mean either “all men” or “men in general”. Thus the sentence
A majority of abusers are men.
attributes the property of being “men” to “a majority of abusers”, which is correct. On the other hand:
Men are a majority of abusers.
attributes the property of being “a majority of abusers” to “all men” or “men in general” which is incorrect under both interpretations.
It’s not my intent here to be a linguistic pedant. My objection is to prejudicial language. Feminists sometimes object with good cause to passive voice constructions such as “Women are raped.”, as being prejudicial even though there can be no grammatical objection to the formulation.
Given the flood of passive-aggressive (and agresssive-agressive) contempt expressed by some feminists against MRAs, I think that feminists should be content with Ampersand giving them “more slack”.
Not addressed to me, but I’ll take it on anyway.
Mary:
No, but had my grades been slightly less than they were, I would have been passed up for a university place in favour of a less-qualified woman.
Every conversation?
It happens to me, but not every conversation.
Yes.
I don’t believe being broken up is is a violation of your rights.
Yes, also in conversations where women have judged rape victims clothing etc.
It would not be hard to come up with a list of things that typically happen to men, or which only happen to men.
Very interesting. Another example of why, while gender balance in politics, engineering, top levels of business etc is very acheivable, it will never, ever, ever be possible to get gender balance in the some of the “caring” careers that are traditionally female.
Maybe I missed this observation somewhere, but I have also seen studies that say that many pedophiles are attracted to the “helping” professions, so that makes extra precautions and vigilance necessary. I know that even working in an agency with a Head Start program, even though I do paperwork in a different part of the building, I had to have my record checked for past child abuse violations, and I’m a boring middle-aged mom. I can see how innocent men get tired of being hassled, just because they honestly enjoy working with children for the most honorable of reasons. But honestly, despite all the precautions we take, you still hear of scandals and abuses at schools, etc. Vanity Fair has a recent article on sex abuse at some hoity toity prep school, St. Paul’s. So I don’t have a lot of sympathy for folks who get their egos bent out of shape because of common sense precautions. If having two people in the room means a child is not molested, then good. Your discomfort and annoyance are a small price to pay.
In terms of the airline scenario, the man the child would be sitting to would be a fairly random member of the population, except for being somewhat higher income on average. I would think the risk would be lower, as you wouldn’t have potential or actual pedophiles who are actively pursuing the chance to sit next to a child on an airplane. Still, if I had a child that had to fly unaccompanied for some reason, I would much rather that he or she sit up front where he or she could be properly supervised. For the same reason, some airlines have separate waiting areas for children waiting for a connecting flight, and are escorted to the next plane. Seems sensible to me. Again, if I, as a woman, were told that an unaccompanied child assigned to the seat next to me needed to be moved for security reasons, I would hardily applaud the fact that the airlines were taking a proactive approach to child security, and not waiting for a disaster to happen.
What’s being objected to by me isn’t particular precautions, but that (as the article I quoted from makes clear) the precautions are applied in a discriminatory way, against male care providers in particular.
Right, Ampersand. Exactly right.
I am 100% in favor of (with no reservations at all) extensive background checks on each and every child care worker in the known universe. Safety is good.
I am also very much in favor of (with only slight reservations) the two-person rule. I can see how in practice, it would be a hassle, but I think that the safety benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
I just think that background checks/2-person rule for men and automatic trust for women is bad for men, bad for women, bad for feminism, and bad for the world, in that it tends to reinforce exactly the same stereotypes we want to explode.
—Myca
i have to take a contrarian viewpoint here. as documented above, 70 to 90 percent of sex offenders are men; male pedophiles often take jobs that will place them in daily physical contact with children; i, too, would be suspicious, at least at first, of a man working at a daycare center. there may never have been a documented case of child sex abuse on a plane, but there surely have been in daycare centers, after-school programs, etc.
for the record, if i had a son / daughter, i would also be wary, at least at first, of their boy / girl scout leader, little league coach, camp counselors, etc. it’s got nothing to do with bigotry against gay men, and everything to do with bigotry against pedophiles, as well as the information i have regarding where they often show up.
Beth, I think the point that I and others have been making here is that the number of child molesters and pedophiles among the general male populations is extremely small, and that although security precautions are good, there’s nothing to be lost from applying those security precautions across the board regardless of gender, while there’s quite a lot to be lost from applying security precautions in such a way that we tell all men that they can’t be trusted around children.
—Myca
Although it’s probably true that the large majority of child molesters are male, I don’t think this should make a difference in practice, because the overwhelming majority of men are not child molesters.
Look, let’s suppose (I’m pulling these numbers out of thin air, just for the sake of argument) that 99.9991% of men and 99.9999% of women are not child molesters. The logical inference to take from that is not “I should treat men and women differently.” When dealing with an individual child care worker, the odds of them being a molester are for practical purposes the same regardless of their sex.
This is the second time that someone has mentioned that it’s documented that pedophiles take jobs that bring them into contact with children. You also mention that there are documented cases of pedophiles using childcare positions to abuse chlidren. Could you provide links or citations to some of this documentation, please?
Elinor said:
And Amp reiterated:
Citations please, and preferably, ones that elucidate what context the assault occurred in. Similarly to your analysis of DV, we need to know, e.g., whether the assault occurred when the woman/man was alone with the child or in the company of others, (their partners, et a.). Also, if you or anyone else could provide us with stats of male/female rates for sexual assault on airplanes, in classrooms, daycare centers, etc., that would be very helpful with determining whether or not men indeed are more prone than women to assault in those contexts.
However, IMO the “time-spent” factor sounds like excuse-making for domestic violence/child homicide by women. Amp, what is your motivation for raising this issue?
Elinor also wrote:
I know what you’re getting at here, i.e, that judges routinely do this to female plaintiffs in rape cases, but I don’t believe that this is common or even occurs at all (statistically speaking) any more. Citations to reliable, legitimate, preferably peer-reviewed sources please.
Elinor also wrote:
Same request as above: Please, citations to legitimate, reliable sources that demonstrate that this is a real, significant problem currently.
Amp wrote:
It happens Amp ““ in fact, it happened to me. A female instructor of mine in school got me drunk as hell and then took me home and we had sex. I felt really bad about it the next day, regretted it tremendously, etc. It has all the characteristics of “date rape:” Imbalance of power, alcohol leading to inability to give meaningful consent, etc., yet I’ve never had one single feminist (or woman for that matter) ever acknowledge that I was raped. The typical response is either “you really wanted it, even if you don’t admit it now” or “you just got lucky.” In fact, I did not consider myself lucky then, nor do I now, but I also don’t feel that I was raped. What really happened was that I screwed up, got too drunk and made some bad decisions. Just like most of these cases of so-called “date rape” that I hear of. End of story.
Mary wrote:
No. Have you ever been a man?
No.
Yes, many times. It’s called “affirmative action,” or derisively the “glass elevator” when it’s applied to men.
Yes. So what?
Yup, by both women and men. And from my experience, the (gay) men were a lot more considerate when I made it clear that I wasn’t interested.
No, my tits are too small. However, I have been told many times that I’m only successful because of “male privilege.” I’ve also known women who got wildly inflated grades for screwing their instructors.
I’ve been broken up with because my SO didn’t understand me, so I guess I can say “yes” to this one.
No, however, right here on this blog one can witness the steadfast resistance of some to acknowledging men’s very real and comparable human experiences.
Mendy writes:
Mendy, you start out fine but then fall right back into it: Why “bring about equality for women” only? You admit there’s sexism against men ““ and by extension, some inequalities that men endure – so why should we only be concerned about equality for women? Your statement taken in its entirety sounds, well, sexist to me.
Bean wrote:
Bean, I believe the comment was regarding the policy of the airlines (e.g., Quantas, NZ Air, etc.), not the individual case that brought those policies to light. Therefore, the comment addresses a policy that targets a whole group of people based not on any personal behavior, but rather, on a characteristic for which they are not responsible (e.g., race, sex, etc.). So IMO, the comparison is arugably valid.
Daran, “SYG” is a reference to StandYourGround.com, a men’s rights blog where I am a member. But the characterizations of our membership that you read here are not at all accurate, at least not for most. Just like folks such as ginmar seem to not be characteristic of many here.
Finally, I couldn’t agree more with Amp and Myca: Sensible precautions are good. However, profiling of people based on the behavior of a microscopically small subset of that population is something that we all should see as bad for feminism, MRAs, and society at large. I believe it was MLK who said “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and I believe that he was correct on that score (and many others).
so there is no issue with being asked to move, regardless of the reason, right?
interesting strawman. now you’ve got me laughing. you said asking a person to move is not discrimination. do you wish to retract your statement now?
go back and read the article. it was made clear that the policy is only applied to males, and it has nothing to do with a person’s “guaranteed” seat, but rather the perception that all males are potential sex offenders. that is blatant discrimination, whether you find someone calling issue to it humorous or not.
Here’s one link I found on the occupations of pedophiles: , which also has a few things to say about incest and rape. I remember the workbook and the instructor in my child abuse prevention training class also said that pedophiles sought out occupations or volunteer positions, but I don’t have e-copies of my notes or of the workbook. I’ll see if there’s a bibliography (but probably not soon – the end-of-year crunch is on).
as would most men if they were not the only ones subjected to being moved. if it is a matter of security, then it should be applied across the board to both women and men.
Lee – Am I missing something in that link? Here’s the most relevant bit I found there:
That’s not really evidence of anything; it’s just speculation.
And as far as speculation goes, I’m not sure that childcare worker really would be that attractive a job for pedophiles, because child care workers 1) are constantly under suspicion and 2) are rarely alone in a room with just one child for an extended period of time. Constrast that with being a priest, which (until recently) put one beyond suspicion and provided a lot of chances to be alone with a sole child.
Of course, that too is speculation.
Mr Big, you asked me to support this statement: “…nealry 80% of the children killed were three years old or under.” Here’s the support for that. And to support my statement that there are disproportionate number of single mothers among families in which an infant is murdered by a parent. This study from the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology supports that statement.
Actually, Quenton brought the issue up, not me.
Regarding female rape of men, it does indeed happen – I wouldn’t have brought the example up if I didn’t think it happened. However, I’m not sure that what you describe is really the same as “date rape” as I use the term. You write “Imbalance of power, alcohol leading to inability to give meaningful consent, etc…. What really happened was that I screwed up, got too drunk and made some bad decisions.”
But for purposes of what is legally rape, drunken consent is still consent, as long as the person consenting isn’t a minor having sex with an adult. A woman who gets drunk and makes a bad decision to have sex with someone she wouldn’t have sex with sober hasn’t been raped. Do you mean that you didn’t consent at all, or that you consented but don’t consider it real consent because you were drunk? If the former, then I for one would consider it rape. But from the way you phrased it, it sounds like the latter.
Ack! I meant, they seek out occupations or volunteer positions where they have frequent and easy access to children.