Okay here’s the “sequel” to my other Rape Culture post. For a lead-in I bring you the very brutally honest and true comment by Q Grrl from the ‘Amanda presents some real Anti-Rape Advice’ thread.
Q Grrl Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 11:35 amYou know, I honestly tried to come into this thread on rape with an open mind, hoping that, well, we wouldn’t get the same tired bullshit about prevention, the false equivalency between men in high crime districts and the rape of women, and the otherwise general unwillingness to address rape as rape. But I can’t do it. At least not the open mind part.
Having said that, I fully believe that the ONLY way a woman can control/plan for/avoid/restrict rape is to NOT BE BORN A WOMAN.
Enough said about that. Now my mind is no longer open and you all can deal with my anger at your (general) unwillingness to address rape per se and to make excuses for the men that rape.
Virginia writes:
“Actually, as a health psychology student, I can appreciate your analogy to safety-related behaviors such as looking both ways before crossing the street. “?
And not to pick on Virginia, but I’m using her very succinct summary of the posts above hers as a launching pad.
This “analogy”? of safety-related behavior assumes that all parties involved wish to avoid the same risks. No two drivers at any given time want to hit each other. The risk is fairly equivalent between both parties. No particular driver wants to hit any particular pedestrian, both believing that the risks outweigh the benefit in any particular situation.
Rape is none of the above. Rape carries benefits; for those of you unwilling to look at those benefits, the are:
Male orgasm
Male access to sex performed on women’s bodies
Male restriction of women’s access to public space; to include parks, neighborhoods, public facilities (banks, grocery stores, schools, court houses, etc.), government facilities.
Male restriction of women’s political voices (just go to dKos if you wonder what I mean)
Male restriction on women in combat
Male restriction on responsibility for other men
etc.Furthermore, the sidetracking of rape discussions into issues of how men are also socially hurt is complete horseshit. You cannot place rape in a vacuum. Rape co-exists with prohibitions on women’s access to birth control and abortion. Rape co-exists with the institution of marriage. Rape co-exists with socially condoned dating norms.
Rape is MOST unlike a man getting high off of recreational drugs and walking around in a high crime district.
In fact, rape has nothing to do with that.
But, by all means, we should be socializing girls and women differently. We should socialize them to fight back, to look men straight in the eye, to go for the balls everytime.
WHAT WE SHOULDN’T BE SOCIALIZING THEM FOR IS THAT IF THEY FAIL TO DO THIS, THEY DESERVE THE OUTCOME OF AN ACTION FREELY CHOSEN BY A MALE PERPETRATOR.
How is it that ya’ll are capapble of missing this distinction?
What year is it anyway? 2005?
Lovely and I agree with this :-) So,…. rape culture, gender, women, victim-blaming, men’s responsibility or lack thereof, dating, prevention, marital rape, “boys will be boys,” why do men rape?, patriarchy’s role, acquaintance rape, stranger rape, excusing rape and sexual assault because “guys just can’t help themselves so put all of the burden of prevention on women,” how and why men benefit from rape, how does pornography play into this, shaming of the female victim, men as potential rapists, men and women’s sex drives, relationships, socialization,etc. Have at it!
One more note, Aegis and the disrespectful and rude troll Nephandus are NOT permitted–hence banned–from commenting on this thread, due to their piss-poor and outright disrespectful behavior towards me and others. Any comments of yours’ on this thread will be automatically deleted and seen as further proof of your refusal to show any respect or consideration of others–especially to the moderator.
AndiF, but then we’d all be buggering each other, because in the end it’s the testosterone that causes rape and abuse, boys will be boys, it’s all biology, isn’t it? so if we were all male, the whole world would turn in one giant Guantanamo, and the tabloids wouldn’t even have the consolation of putting a Lynndie England on the cover.
No, I think we’d be better off with changing all men to women, after all, that’s what feminism always wanted to achieve, or so I’m told, by people who hate women.
Of course, if there was only one gender and if humans had no sexual organs and reproduced by parthenogenesis via incubating eggs in their hair and sexuality was limited to the act of sneezing, then and only then sexual abuse would be not just reduced but completely eradicated from society 100%, which would require a complete reassessment of feminism and gender theory, but that’s another episode of the Wacky Wacky World of rape discussion derailment.
Now I’m going to apply to Extreme Makeover to give me a sex change because someone called me a bitch and now I hate myself. Wish me well.
> nothing I had to say was particularly controversial.
To you. Though I find it hard to imagine how anyone could genuinely fail to see that suggesting that getting a sex change might be an option to avoid rape might be a little “controversial”.
“If you don’t like what I write ignore it!”. It doesn’t work that way. It works like this: if you don’t want people to respond to your posts, do not post them. You cannot write something and then passive-aggressive expect to dictate how other people respond to it. Someone will ignore it, someone else will want to reply to it. It’s up to them, not you. This goes for every single person who writes anything on the internet. You write it, it’s up for debate.
Also, your “diversion” was not a failure of re-phrasing everything that had been written on the topic, duh. It was in your outlandish suggestion of sex change surgery as some kind of response to mysoginy.
It might also help if you didn’t go “y’all” and “sing from the songbook” about anyone else that is not you and has the oh insolence to contradict you.
That’s all, very simply. Feel free to ignore it, of course. It’s not up to me how you read mine or other people’s comments. Cheers.
Okay, I was originally going to post about the previous thread on rape culture, and Aegis’ absolutely mind-blowing statement that if women said yes to sex all the time, rape would never happen. Is that a direct link, because I was seven when I was raped, so I’m not sure if some woman somewhere consenting to sex would have prevented my being raped (you know, like saving Tinkerbell in Peter Pan by clapping and saying “I believe in fairies”). Or should I just have given up the pussy, and assumed that really, the teenaged guy in question was simply trying, unsuccessfully, to “induce” me to have sex with him.
I’m not particularly touchy about what happened to me, and it isn’t a difficult thing for me to talk about (thanks, mom and dad!), but I have to say that that particular insinuation about some presumed rape cause and effect had me shaking with anger.
And now I realize that I should have asked mommy and daddy for a sex-change operation instead of an Easy-Bake Oven for that seventh birthday present. Good Lord, but they would have been surprised to see that in a letter to Santa.
Or does the fact that I was seven mean that I didn’t have all of these wonderful “outs” that are apparently available to post-pubescent women, like sex changes, or instructions for correct inducements for pussy access? When you talk about the rape of a minor, does it become any more apparent to these men who want to talk dating tips that what’s really happening is that a female body — any female body — is seen by some men as an appropriate object for sexual attention, regardless of the wishes and intents of the owner of that body?
Because, I assure you, the kid who raped me wasn’t interested in inducing me or in the fine art of seduction. He was horny, he couldn’t find someone his own age and size who was willing, and he wanted to stick his penis in something. I was just there.
Can we make it clearer than that, fellas?
In my proofread, I realize that I didn’t close the tag after women, which was the only word in that paragraph that I intended to emphasize. Also, in hindsight, I find my choice of phrase in saying “I’m not touchy” to be really amusing, but then I have an unconventional sense of humor (oh wait, as a feminist and rape survivor I’m supposed to be humorless by definition — double definition! I’ll note that for the future)
Though I find it hard to imagine how anyone could genuinely fail to see that suggesting that getting a sex change might be an option to avoid rape might be a little “controversial”?.
I didn’t say that.
Robert, unless one is saying that a sex change is an acceptable accomodation to avoid the risk of rape, the availability or ease of sex reassignment does not impact any particular woman’s interaction with the risk of rape. Therefore, while you didn’t explicitly say “that getting a sex change might be an option to avoid rape”, it was the clear implication of the reasoning. See #296 above.
If you’re explicitly disclaiming that sex reassignment is a measure a woman can be expected to take to avoid being raped, now would be a good time to say so. In that case, as I said above, your thought experiment in the future of gender as sex reassignment becomes easier is interesting, but is tangential at best to rape.
If you’re not willing to explicilty disclaim that sex reassignment is a measure a woman can be expected to take to avoid being raped, then your comment is exactly what the more exasperated commenters have said it was.
Dear magic-HTML-tag-fixing person:
Thank you!
[You’re quite welcome! –Amp]
Robert, unless one is saying that a sex change is an acceptable accomodation to avoid the risk of rape, the availability or ease of sex reassignment does not impact any particular woman’s interaction with the risk of rape.
This simply does not follow. My rhetorical stance has no bearing on whether sex reassignment surgery would impact a particular woman’s risk of rape. You assign far too much power to my words. If sex reassignment surgery will or will not impact a particular person’s risk, then it will do regardless of what I say about it. It will also have whatever impact it has (or doesn’t have) regardless of the reasonableness of the action. It is unreasonable to ask a woman to spend her life living in a missile silo, interacting with the outside world solely through telepresence, in order to avoid the possibility of rape. And yet despite that unreasonableness, such a woman would in fact run a much lower risk of rape, among other things.
Causality functions regardless of my opinions, and regardless of whether we agree with the causal mechanisms.
If you’re explicitly disclaiming that sex reassignment is a measure a woman can be expected to take to avoid being raped, now would be a good time to say so.
OK. Sex reassignment surgery is not something that a woman could reasonably expected to undergo in order to avoid the risk of rape.
Duh.
How do you know? Do you remember what happened before your body differentiated?
I had two X chromosomes long before I had a nervous system.
However, the decision to remain somatically female seems to be increasingly discretionary
It isn’t, currently; certainly it’s not something a child or a teenager has access to.
Robert, it’s one thing when you decide to be provocative and bait the liberals; it’s tedious when you backtrack and say you were just speculating and therefore nobody should have taken you seriously.
Yeah, that’s true, children and teenagers don’t have access to it. Did I say that they did?
No. I said that the decision seems to be increasingly discretionary; i.e., it’s easier this year than it was last year. If this is mistaken, please provide something other than a counterargument to a point (children) which I did not make.
I am not backtracking and have not reversed or weakened my original statement. I am disputing the blatant misreading of what was a very clear text. One of the fundamental premises of the argument, that gender is unchosen and unchangeable, is changing due to technological developments. This has interesting implications – none of which have anything to do with sinister patriarchal attempts to blame 7-year olds for their rapes because they didn’t go to the surgeon.
Yeah, that’s true, children and teenagers don’t have access to it. Did I say that they did?
No, you just failed to take into account that there are female children and teenagers, for whom remaining female is not especially discretionary.
You were responding to my comment that “being female isn’t” (i.e. isn’t discretionary, as swimming in shark-infested waters would be) with a challenge that I have no way of knowing whether I chose to be female. Which is a little odd, unless you know of a scientific basis for showing that a fetus controls the genetic expression of its sex-based chromosomes by some act of will.
Yes, it is interesting to speculate what would happen to our ideas about gender if gender were entirely discretionary. But if you make this response in the context of a discussion about how being female automatically makes one a target for sexual assault, it’s silly of you to get in high dudgeon (again) that people treated your speculation as something other than idle musings.
This fucking rules. I’m totally gonna get a pecker plastered on if that’s what it’s going to take to get justice in the world. Can I still wear a dress, though? What if I get raped anyway, because someone suspects I used to be a woman and wants to put me in my place, like in that movie “Boys Don’t Cry”?
Robert, in 282, you questioned the assertion of another poster that being female is not deliberate (as opposed to going swimming). You wrote that the question of wether we choose our gender is unknowable. And you asked “do you remember before your body differentiated”.
Presumably, because the ‘body’ differentiates in sexual terms at embryonic stage, you were asking if anyone remembers when they were embryos.
It sure is funny if it was meant as a joke.
Then you wrote: It will have interesting ramifications for feminist (and other gender) theories when a reasonable answer to perceptions of misogyny will be “if you don’t like being a woman, stop being one.”?
Now you’re saying you’ve been ‘blatantly’ misread? So presumably you didn’t mean that that was a “reasonable” answer, and you also didn’t mean it made any sense to speak of “deciding” which sex you are, and “remembering” anything about being embryos?
(I’m even not sure I followed the link between rape, “perceptions of mysoginy” and “if you don’t *like* being a woman”, but nevermind that).
One of the fundamental premises of the argument, that gender is unchosen and unchangeable, is changing due to technological developments.
No it’s not, it cannot and will never be able to reduce gender to a simple matter of choice – it isn’t so even now, for people who go through the surgery. It is not like being born in that sex. And even if it should become technically simpler as surgery compared to now, it still is in no way simple and easy process overall, because it’s not just about technology. And the fact that children cannot have access to it is very relevant. If you can “choose your gender” (actually, have gender reassignment surgery – different thing) only after reaching the age when you are legally responsible for yourself, and after required counselling and medical consultation, and going through a whole process that will never be able to be condensed in one day because it’s not limited to surgery, then no, it is not “choosing your gender”. Duh.
Only people who really have a genuine disconnect there choose that gender reassignment option. Not out of bad experiences with the other sex. Out of the fact they don’t see themselves fitting in the biological sex they are born into.
As to “one of the fundamental premises of the argument, that gender is unchosen” – see, when people observed that, unlike going swimming in a sea that may be populated by sharks, being female is not chosen, they’re not saying that to mean “oh, being female sucks, but we’re stuck with it”. They’re saying that in response to people who treat rape like something where it’s the actions of women that are relevant to the outcome of rape occurring, or even just the fact of their being women.
Because you don’t sound stupid, you must know all this very obvious matter-of-fact stuff already, hence, the impression people tend to get is that you’re just baiting, and taking the mickey.
PS to – (I’m even not sure I followed the link between rape, “perceptions of mysoginy”? and “if you don’t *like* being a woman”?, but nevermind that). Actually, my only guess is that the notion at play there is that women who focus on rape and mysoginy (and perceptions of it, which as perceptions might not be true) do so because they are not happy being female, so that the reasonable answer can be “if you don’t *like* being female”. As opposed to women discussing rape as an area of personal and political focus and social interest, without any of this implying they don’t *like* being women.
If I’m black or hispanic or arab, again, something one is born into, I can focus on racism against hispanics/blacks/arabs, without the thought of being your classic Fox-News presenter like white anglo-saxon blonde ever even crossing my mind as a desirable thing. If someone told me “well if you don’t like being …, you can change it” (technically possible and far easier than gender reassignment! bleaching and whitening and plastic surgery, eww), that would mean a) they believe one thing is superior to the other; and b) that being enraged at racism against my ethnic group means I don’t *like* being part of my group.
I don’t believe that I accused you or the patriarchy of raping me, Robert, and I’m offended that you obviously and deliberately used my words to make some sort of hyperbolic point, which was absolutely uncalled for. When women talk about their experiences being made light of by men, this is the kind of thing they mean.
The absolutely non-hyperbolic point that I was trying to make is that we, as a society, like to behave as though rape victims have some sort of role in getting themselves into a situation where someone uses their bodies as objects. The obvious point to me, given my background, is that when we look at the rape of a child, the inanity of most of those accusations becomes glaring.
The teenager who raped me was NOT a pedophile; he thought he’d get away with what he did because he didn’t think that, as children, my friend and I would even register what had happened and that, as females, we would be too embarrassed to tell anyone what he had done. He felt safe because we weren’t people to him, merely opportunities. That, Robert, is rape culture. Pay attention to the fact that it doesn’t only have an impact on dirty, dirty sluts.
I find your willingness to use my experience as a way to somehow back away from your “gender is no longer immutable, so if you don’t like it you’ve got a choice, ha ha just kidding” comment disgusting.
I’m with Thomas on this one – unless we are now moving the discussion into the realm of science fiction, Robert’s comments are simply irrelevant and should be dismissed and ignored.
Although to be honest, anyone who would misuse Erin’s painful personal experience in order to make a rhetorical point deserves a few good smackdowns.
Erin, although I disagree with your characterization of my action, I ought not to have referred to your experience other than respectfully. I apologize.
Ahem……I’m feeling the urge to go not-quite-off-topic again by bringing in another pop culture reference…..
So everyone likes Batman Begins, right? (If you haven’t seen it, go – now – and beware of spoilers below.)
Well, two of the main themes of the story are that (to borrow a line from another story) what is right is not always what is easy, and that often the best way to combat crime does not involve violence. While Batman does choose violence, much of the story is about how far he will not go and learning that his father’s way of fighting crime, creating uncorrupt, healthy institutions, is ideal in the long term.
The point of the movie is not, as one character tries to convince us, that Wayne Sr. should not have placed his family in dangerous a situation, or that it was his responsibility to get out of it. Instead, the story explains how it it society’s responsibility to make sure that people can go about their business unmolested, and it is the responsibility of every citizen to help society become that way.
It’s not so much that Liam Neeson’s character doesn’t have a point, it’s that he misses the larger lesson: the Waynes have indeed been engaging in true crime prevention and the problem is not that he was unable or unwilling to fight his attacker, but that more people weren’t doing as he was.
The same can be said for the people who go on and on about what women should and shouldn’t do. It’s not so much that women shouldn’t be careful, or that we don’t have a responsibility for ourselves but that the people giving this advice (besides often giving bad advice to begin with) are missing the larger lesson: that it is everyone’s responsibility to reduce crime and ensure that people can go about their business unmolested. Simple desire for something is never the only reason people become criminals, and the best crime prevention does not focus on putting up physical barriers between potential criminals and what they desire, but by reducing the other factors that create criminals.
People who talk about women’s responsibilities with regard to rape – but never theirs or society’s – are simply following the bad advice of Liam Neeson’s character, no matter how often or how loud they may talk about how bad rapists are.
Erin – FWIW – I’m so sorry that happened to you.
For Hades’ sake, Robert, can you not see why these “musings” are coming across as completely disrespectful and inappropriate?
I shouldn’t have to change my gender to avoid rape. I shouldn’t change who I am to avoid danger–I should goddamn well be able to live freely without worry of being attacked.
[And seriously, nobody please tell me we don’t live in that kind of world. I know we don’t. Call me Pollyanna for fighting to create that kind of world.]
Sheelzebub, in all fairness, Robert has now explicitly disclaimed that he thinks you should “have to change [your] gender to avoid rape.”
On the other hand, as I’ve said, I think that this concession means his speculation about sex reassignment is of essentially no relevance to this thread.
Well, of course he’s going to back down now. He’s just gotten smacked around for it.
Thomas, got your comment and sent you an e-mail as requested.
BritGirl, I didn’t get it. I tested the link above and it works. t525881@verizon.net. Did you mistype, or is there a server problem?
I don’t mean to play secret agent here — I’m just after travel advice.
Re: #104
Media Girl said:
“I was more stunned by the non-reaction of most everyone there. Here a serial gang rape was happening to a 17 year-old girl whose “yes” consisted of having drunk too much gin.
Suddenly her friend was there, yelling at the guys. She took her friend away. I saw the emotional wreckage on her face. I’ll never forget. I didn’t know her, and I was so shocked I felt the last thing she needed was a stranger trying to help
The party went on. Nobody gave a shit. […] After all, they know what guys are like.
What guys are like. That’s the passive apology for rape culture. […] the lack of suffering, lack of accountability, lack of consideration by men who do this … and men who watch this happen and don’t even blink.”
————————-
Forgive me if it is inappropriate to backtrack to a single point that’s relevant to the topic, though the conversation seems to have passed it, unnoticed. If this is improper, please ignore my question.
Re: #104
Media Girl, it goes without saying that your disgust is well-placed ““ directed at the group of boys who lined up to participate in the sexual assault of an intoxicated girl at a high school party you attended.
I understand why you also blame the boys who failed to intervene to stop the assault from happening, though they did not themselves participate in it directly. If there ever was a pure example of “rape culture” ““ the culture of permissiveness that either promotes, forgives, or looks the other way when it comes to this kind of crime ““ then this must be it. I would use this real-life example to prove it to a skeptic.
But, in the scene you described, could you explain why you singled out the complicity of the *male* bystanders in the crime against this woman– though you yourself did not intervene in what you identified as a gang rape? Am I wrong in reading that you view the male bystanders as being more complicit than you? I’m sure you wouldn’t blame them for behavior which you excuse in yourself, so I must be missing some aspect of the context. Note: I’m not saying “poor boys” ““ you are right to blame them. I’m just asking ““ shouldn’t *everyone* share the shame of what they allowed to happen that night, if they didn’t try to stop it?
Re-reading what you wrote, perhaps you are not blaming the boys’ failure to intervene, but rather you are angry that- in your speculation – the male bystanders may have not “considered” what happened, after the fact, as you have done. If this is the case, how did you endeavor to find out what the male bystanders thought? When you asked them, are you confident they would have shared their feelings with you?
But now I’m just speculating as I struggle to understand, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth. What did you mean?
Thomas
I cut and pasted your e-mail so I’m not sure what the problem is. Try to e-mail me at the address I use for my blog, I don’t mind posting that one.
http://www.cassandrasays@yahoo.com
Or I could be a non-dunce and post that without the www, like in the form of an actual e-mail address. Ack, I’m sleepy.
cassandrasays@yahoo.com
Robin,
The way I read it: the girl’s friend showed up before media girl had a chance to do anything – and then mediagirl felt like she would be getting in the way more than helping. (mediagirl: am I right?)
What is the best thing to do in a situation like this though? A part of me wonders if, by myself, I’d manage to stop a bunch of guys who are stronger than me, or if I’d just get hurt myself. I’d like to think that I’d at least try, but I also know that I tend to freeze up in situations like this – not the best trait to have. :(
It seems the least one can do, though, is call the police (anonomously) to bust up the party.
Britgirl told of a couple other instances where she intervened while men muttered resentfully in the background but didn’t do anything else. It’s odd but interesting. It’s like they know what they’re doing is wrong, and as long as nobody calls it for what it is they feel comfortable doing it and getting away with it. The minute a w oman intervenes, though, while they resent it, they seem to back off.
They know what they’re doing to drunken girls in wrong. I bet if a woman tried to intervene without displaying visible anger, though, they’d try and intimidate her.
You put the cart before the horse ginmar. Any woman in that situation would realize there is no intervention without visible anger. The intimidation started long before the particular instance of intervention.
“Jenny K Wrote:
The way I read it: the girl’s friend showed up before media girl had a chance to do anything.”
—-
I didn’t get the idea that “it happened so fast I didn’t have time to react” from anything in that description in #104. She had time enough to be fully cognizant of the situation, and to be critical of other bystanders as well.
The way I read it (and I may well be wrong), Media Girl excused her lack of intervention in a gang rape because she was shocked (“I was so shocked”), and also because the girl was a stranger (I didn’t know her […] the last thing she needed was a stranger trying to help”). Perhaps she was concerned that her intervention might not have been appreciated.
Like you, I can sympathize with being afraid to confront a roomful of presumably drunken guys to take away what they regard as their prize. But would a single boy (a bystander) fare any better, or suffer less paralyzing fear than a single girl, in the same situation? I’m apt to think a man would be more likely to be attacked physically by the other men than a woman in the same situation, regardless of how “wrong” the rapists felt. Indeed, the girl who did intervene was not attacked.
Regardless, none of that differentiates Media Girl’s own apparent lack of response from that of any of the other male bystanders whom she accuses of being complicit in rape culture, or female bystanders, for that matter ““ (though all females bystanders appear to have been excused from Media Girl’s criticism as well). I might not have focused on this so much had she not gone out of her way to hold male *bystanders* to account while excusing herself and other female bystanders, except for the one that intervened.
Ginmar, I agree with you. It’s likely all the rapists in that room knew they were participating in something that was wrong, and it was wrong. But this discussion appears to be about the wider culture or behavior that permits or permissions *other* people to commit rape. Can we take as a given that rape is a crime, and that it is wrong? Our prescription seems to be to STAND UP, get involved, get vocal, get angry, and let people know that it’s not OK to sit this one out when something like that is happening or developing, because we are all responsible if we passively watch. We are all responsible when we let others think it’s ok. Haven’t we all thought that?
And yet, when actually faced with a situation about as real as it gets, a woman who was quick to blame others appeared to do nothing herself.
And in a discussion about rape culture, where the blame expands to those who knowingly permit rape to happen, some 222 comments passed before someone noticed this. And even after it is pointed out, the response is further excuses for the inaction of a female bystander who knew what was happening in that room, when no such sympathy existed for male bystanders who did no less than she did to stop it?
Are there situations where it is ok to sit one out? If we are going to defend inaction, what aspect of this scenario makes it defensible for female bystanders, but not male bystanders? That’s what I’m asking.
You know, Robin, you kind of missed the point I was making. If Media Girl didn’t want to confront a crowd of rapists, it might very well be self-preservation. They’re predators and if she displayed fear, she turned into prey.
Men who know what other men are doing is wrong are more likely to be listened to by other men. Men interupt women, talk down to them, are arrogant and condescending. Lots of women find that in and of itself frightening.
Finally, your purpose appears to be bitching at Media Girl rather than at the men. You go on and on about her, while the men disappear into the background. Maybe Media Girl had to c hoose between stopping the rape of another girl and being raped herself. If you’re comfortable bitching at her for that, for choosing self-preservation, well, I’m not. It’d be nice if everyone was a hero. But before you demadn that standard of other people, you’d better live up to it yourself, and ignoring the collusion of men in rape while criticizing a woman for not stopping it does not fit that demand at all.
Robin, I was struck by what you said, and I went back and re-read #104 (which was written while I was away, and which I skimmed past when I returned).
On reading it, it is not at all clear that the timing game Media Girl an opportunity to do anything:
We don’t know the timing of the interval between the second and third paragraph I’ve excerpted, and without knowing that, we can’t comment on Media Gilr’s actions. Was it fifteen seconds, or fifteen minutes? Then, the victim’s friend successfully extricated her.
It was apparently only after the rape was over that she decided the woman probably didn’t want the attention of a stranger, which is a call I think I agree with.
Presumably, the men in line knew what they were in line for before she heard the announcement. Either they knew for sure that the woman was not consenting to have intercourse with a whole line of guys, in which case they’re all attempted rapists just for standing in line, or they have very little concern with whether she consented or not.
On the larger point of whether men or women face more risk of violence for intervening, it varies too much by situation to generalize. On the one hand, some men are more averse to using violence against women, but on the other hand, lots of men are more likely to use violence against women, especially smaller, weaker ones. I think Ginmar’s right that men who would rape will more readily discount a woman’s protest than a man’s, though the result of taking a man’s accusation of rape is not necessarily shame and repentance. It might be attack.
However, the danger of physical attack isn’t the only variable in most situations. Someone who really wants to break up a rape in a house party without being beaten could call the police and report the rape, or just report a noisy party for that matter, depending on the area. Or find the host, or some sympathetic bystanders. Or pull a fire alarm. It’s not at all clear from Media Girl’s comment that she had the time to do any of these things before it was all over.
Please excuse the obvious typographical errors in my comment above.
About Media Girl’s situation, I also read it as her realising what was happening immediately prior to the friend intervening. If that’s right, I don’t think she really had an opportunity to intervene. But even if she did, I think that a group of guys lining up to commit a gang rape would be unlikely to be swayed by a woman saying “hey, you shouldn’t do that”. Intervening in that situation strikes me as more likely to make Media Girl herself a rape target in retaliation than to actually solve the problem. If it had been me, I would have probably either called the police OR gone and found the host/hostess and told them that either they intervene and stop the rape or I call the police and make it very clear to them that host/hostess knew what was happening and chose not to intervene, thus making them an accomplice. I’m actually all for calling in the police once a rape is actually in progress since there would be abundant witnesses (in this case Media Girl for one), and even if convictions proved impossible to obtain calling in the police might scare the bejeebus out of the rapists and those waiting in line and make them think twice about pulling the same stunt again.
What amazes me is that it has taken even us this long to discuss (more than just in passing) what one ought to do in a situation like this. If society spent even a quarter of the time it spends talking about how women can “prevent rape” on stuff like how to be a decent human being and not an accomplice in instances like this, we’d be much better off.
Looking back, I’m shocked the self-defense class I took in college never covered this. We were warned to look out for each other when we went out, and given specific instructions on how to handle specific types of attacks, but never given advice on how to handle a situation like the one mediagirl describes.
This is the kind of morality our schools ought to teach and our institutions ought to uphold, not the morals of any particular religion or just the morals of individual accountability.
The elementary school my mother teaches at uses this great program called Peacebuilders to do just this. Although their commitment to it varies from teacher to teacher and year to year, it’s a great program. It’s taught by both the regular teacher and a resource teacher the way that art, music, PE, and computers are. Essentially, the kids’ are taught to be good citizens; not just to mind what they do and say, but deal with bullying and name-calling, to stand up for each other, and to tell the difference between tattling and going to an adult for help when the situation is too much for them to handle by themselves*.
While the program hardly performs miracles, it certainly helps. It gives the adults and students a common language and a common set of reasonable expectations for both groups, and it gives the students and teachers tools for dealing with difficult situations. These are all lessons we could all use.
*You’d think this would be especially confusing for the kids since it can be a fine distiction to make, but since they are quite aware of their reasons for going to the teacher it doesn’t really cause all that much confusion in the end. The hardest part is actually trying to get them to deal with minor situations themselves rather than simply deciding between going to the teacher or not going to the teacher.
Robert: Thank you.
Jenny K: For all of the “do x, y, and z but for the love of God DON’T do a, b, c, or x+3 when the moon is full on a Tuesday night” advice I’ve received in my career as a girl and woman about keeping myself rape-free, I don’t recall ever, ever getting any explicit message about sticking up for other women if they were in trouble. There is, of course, the understanding that my feminist mama and papa would always expect me to stand up for another girl or woman, but I mean a societal message that that is what should be done. Hmmm…
Wow, I’m a little breathless from finally getting to the end of this excellent thread.
A couple of the thoughts caroming around in my skull:
1) I wonder if any rape victim in court has actually ever gotten up on the stand and made the arguments Antigone made in post #95. (It gave me a great daydream about shouting down a defense lawyer.) The whole implied consent thing is totally stupid: if the assailant had put his fist in her mouth (punched her) it would be assault, and the defense of “she let me buy her a drink” wouldn’t fly, so why should a penis get a special exemption?
2) I lived for several years in Dallas, TX and worked most of that time at a heavily “Greek” campus, and thus got to know more than I ever wanted to about so-called “frat boy” behavior. What was even more aggravating, though, was the proliferation of huge “gentleman’s clubs” and even a swell country club out near Athens TX formerly called the Koon Kreek Klub (charming on so many levels) in which all the members were white and all the servants were black…what struck me at the time was the realization that clubs like these, and a good portion of the porn industry as well, are largely about creating the illusion that there still exists a warm fuzzy world where there is some entire class of people who exists solely for the entertainment and general exploitation of other. Better yet, in these alternate worlds, said class of people actually WANTS to be the playthings of the clients. I can’t imagine being a black person and wanting to work at the Klub any more than I, as a female, can imagine wanting to work at a strip joint — for any amount of money.
3) Hi BritGirlSF, I love hockey too and the fighting doesn’t bother me either. It’s the crowd reaction that annoys me. And I completely agree about the whole female fans=potential dates thing. I watch (men’s and women’s) hockey, in person or on TV, because the sport is amazing, powerful, and exciting, not because I want to get a date or have my rack displayed on the JumboTron.
Thanks again to all who shared their thoughts and feelings on this thread…even Susan and Neal, who reminded me what a struggle this is.
Roving Thundercloud
Hey, another female hockey fan who’s not a puck bunny! I feel so much less alone…
The assumption that female fans are there to get laid annoys me to no end. All I can say is this – at the game where one of the players passed me a note (isn’t that a little junior high, BTW), earlier on another player handed me a stick as a souvenir (I was wearing his team’s hat and cheering against the home team). All I can say is, note passing guy is damn lucky I wasn’t close enough to hit him with the stick because I was mighty pissed.
Also, the “Koon Kreek Klub”? Thanks for reminding me of why I hate Dallas so much. I feel like I need to take a shower just reading that.
Exactly the point I was making.
A woman should pay mind her own behavior before pointing out cowardice or complicity in others.
“Self preservation” does not distinguish one girl’s inaction from that of any of the other people she expected to intervene. Anyone who intended to stop that gang rape from happening would need to confront a crowd of rapists ““ and that’s what one brave individual at the party did. I could forgive someone else for being afraid, but apparently she could not.
The speculated “short timing interval” (where is this coming from?) does not excuse inaction since the same interval would likely also have applied to the male bystanders she accused, and the other girls too. As described, one guy “announced” at the party what was going on ““ did no other women do anything when it was announced? And she also said the party carried on afterwards without pause ““ boys and girls. So again, I see little reason to make a distinction along gender lines here, and it makes me wonder why someone else would.
It is apparent from the description, and from the outcome, that either they were seeking easy prey, or that in their own poor judgment, at least one of them mistook drunken compliance for cognizant and enthusiastic participation. This sexual assault was based on the drunk girl’s incapacitation, which made her a compliant, easy target. There is no indication in the description ““ whatsoever – that the encounter was coerced through physical intimidation, or that physical intimidation would be used on any female present. The “announcement” made by one of the men in that disgusting line suggests that he felt this girl was a willing participant (if he felt shamed, or that he might be apprehended in a crime, wouldn’t he have tried to hide it instead of announcing it to the whole party?) Indeed, what were the OTHER female bystanders doing?
Another girl ended that escapade, not a boy.
I’ve seen nice men jump in to intervene to stop lesser “offences” (in bar fights ““ especially when defending their mouthy girlfriends against intimidation ““anyone else work in a bar and see this?), and I’ve seen them get the crap pounded out of them for their efforts. Again though, assuming it is true, why single out the male bystanders? I’m not talking about the rapists in line. I’m talking about other people present at the party who “permitted” this to happen.
I’m confused about your intention. Are you saying that to intervene to pull a drunken high school girl out of an incognizant gang bang, you might have to endure bad manners, and that this is too much of a burden? If a man shouts at me for stealing away his prize, shall I seek a fainting chaise where I may wilt softly? Or should my role be to seek a man to do his duty and intervene on this woman’s behalf at my request, so that my own delicate sensibilities are not offended? What does a rapist’s sense of civility and manners have to do with the basic requirement to intervene ““ immediately ““ in a situation like this?
Call the police and wait? (and in doing so remove that girl’s choice as to how to deal with the aftermath?)
Involve the host so as to make her an accomplice?
These suggestions ultimately are ultimately a deferment of one’s own responsibility as a human being.
This was a highschool party with underage drinkers, poor judgment, presumably people who might all know each other and who might be coaxed to at least listen to reason. There is a direct method of dealing with the situation immediately, a minimum human duty ““ if one perceives the situation as a sexual assault. You do exactly the thing Media Girl felt the boys should do. You go in and you get that girl out of there, immediately, like that victim’s friend eventually did.
And if you don’t, for whatever reason, then maybe you had your reasons. But if that is the case, where does one acquire the moral foundation to point a finger at anyone else?
Umm…was this thread supposed to be about bitching at “the men?” I thought it was about rapists, and those who let them rape. I didn’t get from that scenario that all or even most men at the party were standing in that grotesque line. No, their crime was the same as other female bystanders ““ doing nothing ““ and therefore, they should share the same moral judgment. Admit the hypocrisy in defending that double standard (which reinforces every stereotype about women and men that we have fought against for the last 40 years), or point out a viable, tangible difference that accounts for it.
The only one sneaking into the background is the one with the finger pointed at everyone else. She is the one who made the distinction between male bystanders and the other bystanders. She was hoist by her *own* petard.
I’m comfortable in taking as a given what she wrote ““ that a girl was being gang raped because in Media Girl’s judgment, she was *obviously* not a cognizant participant in a group sexual activity, and that some or most of the men knew it. If I accept part of her description at face value, then I can will do the same with her *entire* description. I will not edit it selectively.
She outlined her reasons succinctly, down to the fine grains of proper civility when witnessing a gang rape. If she’d felt threatened, I’m sure it would have been listed more prominently than the etiquette. Also, another girl intervened ““ rescued the victim, yelled at the rapists, and walked off unharmed. So, this was not a case of self-preservation ““ perceived or real. Even if it was, nobody has provided a compelling explanation for why the speculated threat to her would be different than the same perceived threat to anyone else.
I pointed out that she was right to blame the male bystanders if she felt that this girl was incognizant. I just questioned why she didn’t shoulder her own share of that blame, but chose instead to serve her share to the men. I’m also curious now, why so many people would go to lengths and speculation to defend that (in)action among only some people present.
If not trying to stop a rape from happening *right in front of your eyes* amounts to collusion with the rapists, then Media Girl and the other male and female bystanders have all colluded with rape, and she has not lived up to the standard she demanded of male bystanders at the party. By not reacting with appropriate outrage, and immediate action and condemnation, and by presumably remaining at the party long enough to see that everyone else wasn’t letting a rape become a buzzkill, they have *all* cooperated in placing a gang rape within the context of a normal social activity. What, other than a “high-5″ afterwards, could possibly be a more clear example of “rape culture” than this?
.
I do not think it benefits our position to attack “rape culture” in men while excusing the same behavior among our own. It looks weak.
Our willingness to selectively accuse could mean several things:
Perhaps we have lost our perspective. Where we notice then, we note only where they fail to perform to our expectation, and we demand higher standards from them than we do from ourselves.
Or, like the wilting violets of old, we feels a sense of entitlement to the benefits of men taking risks to intervene on our behalf, never realizing our own potential for courage, and also not recognizing that the flipside of that implicit contract, is that some men may feel entitled to the “spoils” of the courage performed on our behalf, and some women may feel indebted.
As you said…
Talk is cheap, even on a bbs.
The male bystanders (those not in that disgusting “line”) were charged with being complicit in rape culture because they did not stop a gang rape.
On the other hand, the one who made the accusation also did nothing, and neither did the majority of female bystanders who either witnessed the situation developing, or who witnessed the actual act.
Some people defend this inaction of the female bystanders, invoking speculation on “missing information” to do so, yet nobody does the same to defend the inaction of the male bystanders.
How do you think this looks when we circle the wagons to defend cowardice or indifference, when we point out those same traits in others? Do we flinch so easily from criticism and responsibility that in our haste to defend our politic, we feel we must defend those who betray it? It seems to me that’s more about taking sides than it is about addressing any real, tangible issue, where real people are getting hurt. It shows me that we are ALL complicit in rape culture (as we’ve defined it), and so our shucking of guilt (or, ginmar, even the discussion of it) is evidence of further complicity, to protect the politic. And it also indicates a lack of confidence in the politic, that we are so afraid to assign credit or blame where it is due.
I thought we were made of tougher stuff than this.
Since I was involved in the New Rape thread, I was curious about the “old rape thread”. I was surprised by some of what I found there. Go see it
Nephandus said:
While his focus was corralled into talking about activities victims do that increase their own risk (and I think that specificity seemed to be a result of increasing attempts to clarify a specific point that some people responded to unfairly), that same statement also applies to points I brought up in this particular thread ““ which is that women have a role to play in this dialog, and in dealing with rape. It isn’t useful to point a finger at “men” and expect any more from them than we do from our own.
It seems more clear than ever after this thread that we have gotten far too comfortable with the idea that our role is that of a passive bystander ““ so much that we make any excuse we can to forgive someone from bystanding while a gang rape occurred before her eyes, apparently because she was a woman. Apparently, despite all platitudes about stopping “rape culture”, there are several women posting here who are also content to look the other way when it happens flagrantly in front of their faces, even if it bothers them.
Women have a role to play in stopping rape, and in allowing it to perpetuate, and that role is more significant than simply pointing fingers at men and laying blame.
If I’m banned also, for saying the same thing, then so be it ““ but it seemed to be a weak and vindictive response to a reasonable point when it was done in the other thread. Sorry, calling it like I see it.
# Kai Jones Writes:
June 28th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
One thing that would actually be effective that women could do to prevent rape is to…SHOOT TO KILL, ALL MEN, ON SIGHT.
===
That would prevent all heterosexual rape.
Is that all you want to prevent?
One thing I find confusing…
Rape is none of the above. Rape carries benefits; for those of you unwilling to look at those benefits, the are:
Male orgasm
Male access to sex performed on women’s bodies
Male restriction of women’s access to public space; to include parks, neighborhoods, public facilities (banks, grocery stores, schools, court houses, etc.), government facilities.
Male restriction of women’s political voices (just go to dKos if you wonder what I mean)
Male restriction on women in combat
Male restriction on responsibility for other men
etc.
You seem to use the word “Male” (in the general sense) when you are talking about rapists.
Are the two the same to you?
“That would prevent all heterosexual rape.
Is that all you want to prevent?”
It would prevent both all heterosexual rape and all male-on-male rape, not to mention virtually all rapes on children. These categories comprise nearly all rapes committed.
Quit playing the game of trying to make out that women rape (either men, children or other women) with anything remotely approaching the frequency that men rape (women, children and other men). Face it, when it comes to culpability for rapes, men really do have nearly all but the tiniest slivers of the pie.
I don’t know about Q Grrl, but:
Rapist restriction of women’s access to public space; to include parks, neighborhoods, public facilities (banks, grocery stores, schools, court houses, etc.), government facilities.
Rapist restriction of women’s political voices (just go to dKos if you wonder what I mean)
Rapist restriction on women in combat
Hmm, just doesn’t sound right…
A hint, btw. Try reading the comments before you come come blazing in with your infinitely wise observations. That was sarcasm.
“That would prevent all heterosexual rape.
->Is that all you want to prevent?”
It would prevent both all heterosexual rape and all male-on-male rape, not to mention virtually all rapes on children.
Well, all the male children would be dead, not a problem for you I know.
These categories comprise nearly all rapes committed.
But your inability to differentiate between “men” and “rapist” remains, as does you willingness to punish (or kill) men who don’t rape. Innocence does not seem as much of a defense as it should be.
Quit playing the game of trying to make out that women rape (either men, children or other women) with anything remotely approaching the frequency that men rape (women, children and other men). Face it, when it comes to culpability for rapes, men really do have nearly all but the tiniest slivers of the pie.
====
So you don’t see any difference between “men” and “rapist” either?
And those women who do rape, you have no problems with them?
You know, I never thought numbers had anything to do with anything. If rape is wrong, it’s equally wrong when done by women, regardless of the numbers, seems to me.
But it seems that as horrible as you think rape is, you still see nothing wrong with rape when committed by women. In fact, you defend these rapes, on statistical grounds no less.
When women murder their babies, is that wrong? Or do the numbers say not?
Rich,
Please go back and read all the comments in this thread and the associated thread. You will find that everything that you are now saying has already been said & responded to.
Rich, deal with it. Men rape. Men rape women. I’m a woman. I have made the conscious choice to equate “rapist” with “men”.
Probably much in the way that when you hear “rape victim” announced on the daily news, your first reaction is “rape victim” equals “woman.”
I know, you’ll try to bullshit out of that and say I can’t possibly know what your reactions are, that women rape too, blah, blah, blah.
If you feel I am in error, then go out into the world and convince men to stop raping; don’t just barge into a thread and tell me I’m lacking in my judgement.
Q Grrl Writes:
August 15th, 2005 at 1:47 pm
Rich, deal with it. Men rape. Men rape women. I’m a woman. I have made the conscious choice to equate “rapist” with “men”.
[…]
If you feel I am in error, then go out into the world and convince men to stop raping;
Interesting.
Are you sure you don’t equate “men” with “rapist”? That’s what I understand from your post. There is a big difference which you may not be seeing.
As for the latter, you seem to be holding all men (most of whom have raped noone) responsible for rape.
Which things that you have not done are you responsible for?
God, you are slow.
Yes. I hold all men responsible for rape. All rapes. All men.
And yes, for the second time, I equate “men” with “rapists.”
You are the ones who have, time after time, convinced me to think this way. You don’t like your reputation? Confront that asshole men who have given it to you. Until you do that, tough. I’m sorry your fee fee got hurt, but I’m not responsible for that.
Rich,
See comment # 52 and all of Neal Feldman’s comments. Are you going to say anything different than what he already wrote 300 comments ago? Or do you just need to hear yourself say the same things that have been hashed over in this very thread? Also, please read the related thread for a discussions regarding men’s responsibility for rape.
Robin, women are already doing something about ending rape. It’s called feminism. Men have not held up their end of the deal. All that bullshit going on and on to say the same old shit: But women have responsibilities!
Bullshit. You’re trying to find fault with feminist women, not with anti-feminist women who—I suspect this includes you—are far more comfortable not dealing with reality.
I do not think it benefits our position to attack “rape culture” in men while excusing the same behavior among our own. It looks weak.
Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break. I take it back: I was too goddamned polite to you. Go fuck yourself.
ginmar Writes:
August 15th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Robin, women are already doing something about ending rape. It’s called feminism.
===
So how well has blaming all men for rape worked?
I’m still not clear why innocense is not a defense here.
Rich, have you read all the comments yet on this and the other thread? IF not, you, too, can go fuck yourself. You’re saying shit we’ve heard a zillion times before.
Men commit the majority of rapes. Guys like you are far more bothered when somebody has the courage to say this baldly than they are by all those rapes. In fact, you’re getting all hot and bothered because we’re not tapdancing around so you don’t have to deal with the unpleasant fact that your gender either rapes or whines and minimizes rape. Rapists wouldn’t be the huge problem if there weren’t so fucking many guys willing to bitch at feminists for their bluntness and to whine about every fucking tactless thing.
Well, you know what? I don’t have time for tact. We’ve said this shit over and over again and here you are, not so much as trying to correct your ignorance. You’re not upset about rape. You’re upset that rape affects you. You don’t care that if affects women.
# ginmar Writes:
August 15th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
[…]
Well, you know what? I don’t have time for tact. We’ve said this shit over and over again and here you are, not so much as trying to correct your ignorance. You’re not upset about rape. You’re upset that rape affects you. You don’t care that if affects women.
====
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see how castigating men who don’t rape will do anything but get them justifyably defensive. What I see you doing is alienating men who’ve done nothing to you or any woman, then patting yourself on the back as a champion of justice. Somehow this kind of thing has never worked.
But it seems that you are as willing to blame the innocent as is Q Grrl. Blaming the innocent is not about rape, it’s not about preventing rape, it’s not about anything you mention, it’s just pointless misplaced sexist blame.
“Guys like you are far more bothered when somebody has the courage to say this baldly than they are by all those rapes.”
And THAT is exactly the fucking point! Rich is far, far, far more worried about possible “rudeness” to few men than he is to the pain, anguish or even death of vast numbers of women.
Stick it up your arse, Rich: the day there are more than a tiny handful of women who commit rapes, I’ll worry about them (and this is not even getting into the fact that it is macho fuckwit rape culture that encourages even that tiny number of female rapists in the first place).
You seem to have made it your crusade to minimise and/or excuse male rapists. By doing this, you are actively contributing to the culture that turns a blind eye to rape, encourages rape, and treats rape victims with contempt. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, then, you are morally no different from any rapist, whether you have committed a “literal” rape or not. You are sure as fuck doing your damndest to support the system that keeps rape going.
Crys T Writes:
August 15th, 2005 at 4:58 pm
“Guys like you are far more bothered when somebody has the courage to say this baldly than they are by all those rapes.”
And THAT is exactly the fucking point! Rich is far, far, far more worried about possible “rudeness” to few men…
A few men? You see calling all men rapists and blaming them all as being rude to a “few men”?
It’s clear that you don’t see those who rape (of either sex) as the problem, but men, whether they rape or not.
You seem to have made it your crusade to minimise and/or excuse male rapists.
Odd, where have I done this?
Robin, meet Rich. Rich, meet Robin. Happy trails.
Ah, true love! Isn’t that sweet?
Although with Rich’s views on rape….
Alsis: I actually read your “happy trails” as “happy TROLLS”.
Close enough for jazz or temp employment, Crys. You think you’ve got problems ? Now I’m picturing ginmar as a wedding singer. :/
Alsis, LOL. BTW, have you bought your wedding togs yet? I think a cerise sari would say it all. :->
This is a thread about rape culture – the behavior and politics surrounding rape, which lead to its tolerance. If you accept that other men are to blame other than the ones doing the raping, then you accept the premise of rape culture.
The test of whether or not your stance can be dismissed as simple irrational bigotry is determined in your reaction to women exhibiting the same behavior in the same scenario.
So, in the example cited by MediaGirl, a woman is being GANGRAPED right in front of your eyes at a party…and it bothers you…and you have the power to stop it without any undue risk…AND YOU DON’T… you are just going to claim that it isn’t your responsibility because you are a woman, and because men rape women more than women do.
You’d rather stand there, pointing at men (raping and bystanders), rather than offering the most basic human comfort or intervention in that scenario to the victim (“not MY problem”) while using this attack to support your own hateful agenda.
You call THAT feminism?
I call it cowardice – weak, craven, hateful cowardice. And toss in “hypocritical” too, since you’ll easily expect more of the men, who are doing no less than you to stop it, and who are no more to blame for its occurrence.
Based on what I’m reading, it seems to me that you don’t really care about women or victims at all (male or female). In a nasty piece of moral entrepreneurship, you seem to regard it only as fuel to support your stance against all men. The victimization of women serves your ability to speak about men. At least in this regard, anti-feminist men and feminist women are right to criticize people like you, because it would seem that you are indeed exactly their worst-case stereotype of what a feminist is.
Wow. Robin: I fully encourage you to read all of the rape threads here at Alas. You’re coming across as a rape apologist and I don’t think you intend to do that. The women here post in the utmost good faith, and your implication that they are piggybacking on other women’s rapes is beyond harsh.
“So, in the example cited by MediaGirl, a woman is being GANGRAPED right in front of your eyes at a party…and it bothers you…and you have the power to stop it without any undue risk…AND YOU DON’T… you are just going to claim that it isn’t your responsibility because you are a woman, and because men rape women more than women do.”
What you are missing is that MediaGirl doesn’t help because her risk is equal to the woman’s who is already being raped. Being a woman and seeing a gang rape in progress, I would think it quite natural to assume that these same men will view you as another target, rather than the voice of rationality. Therefore, it is men’s responsibility. All men. They’re the one’s physically raping; and those that aren’t are the ones who also happen to be at the least risk for being raped by other men.
Men use women; men objectify women; men rape women. How is it not all men’s responsibility to end rape?
I intervened in an attempted gang-rape –along with my best friend– at the age of sixteen. We weren’t heroic because the guys backed off and went away. We were just fortunate. It could just as easily have ended very badly, and frankly, if I’d stopped to think about the danger we were in, I don’t think I would have intervened at all. The potential rape target escaped a nasty situation –at least that particular night– because I had no clue in general and would never have gone against what my friend wanted to do. She was agressive and started kicking and punching these stupid drunken jocks, telling them to back off, and I copied her.
Robin, learn some humility. Learn the true meaning of the phrase that begins with “There but for the grace of God (or secular substitute)…” Your continued badgering of MG is just tasteless and cruel. Knock it off already.
I have not written a word that apologizes or excuses the actions of those boys (not men ““ we are talking about Media Girl’s specific scenario here) who were involved in raping a girl.
This thread is not about questioning whether or not rape actually occurred in this scenario; it’s about examining the culture and behaviour AROUND rape, the culture that permits or tolerates it. I’ve read plenty here blasting others for this culture, including the person who offered the scenario in the first place. And yet she, and others here ““ who are quick to point the finger at others (at men), and who are more than capable of dealing with the situation (or at least as capable as the men) are defending the idea of doing absolutely NOTHING.
This is, by definition, a culture of indifference, that seems to be apologized for. It’s a culture that permits rape and encourages it, rather than getting angry or getting smart and actually DOING something about it when the situation is actually happening in full colour, right before your eyes.
The initial complaint was that the boys who did nothing were tantamount to rape apologists, and some would argue they were as bad as the rapists themselves. If so, then so were the women, and so were the women here who, even still, defend their apathy or cowardice.
No, I haven’t missed it. I addressed this point higher in the thread, here:
And here:
And here:
And here:
Now, you may feel that I missed Media Girl’s point (a point which she never made, btw), but if you think the notion that someone might be afraid to intervene in that situation has escaped me, it clearly hasn’t. If you want to excuse her inaction, then kindly rebut my points, rather than simply painting me as clueless or dismissive. I’ve given it consideration, and I’ve posted it.
And even if she WAS too afraid to intervene, why does she blame the MALE bystanders? Wouldn’t they be afraid as well? Why is her fear justifiable, while the male bystanders’ supposed fear is inexcusable? I’m not talking about the ones standing in line waiting for “their turn”. I’m talking about the other ones at the party.
And they are the ones MOST at risk for having the crap beaten out of them for intervening. It’s obvious (from the big “announcement” made by one of the boys) that the boys raping this girl thought the activity was within the realm of normal social activity at a party, and that they had mistaken this her drunken compliance (and the lack of outrage or action of bystanders) for consent and permission. But there is no evidence that if the scenario had turned violent and forcible, that it would have been viewed that way by ANYONE at the party. There is no way physical intimidation could be viewed as OK within that scenario, and if it came to that, most people would likely intervene.
Well, some boys at the party did that, but not all of them.
The issue isn’t whether or not men are responsible for not raping, and for ensuring they do not participate in a culture that allows it. Women may not rape at the same rate, but they certainly do participate in a culture that led some men to think they were involved in a social, consensual activity ““ when in fact they were raping someone. I don’t really have a problem with women blaming the boys at that party for not intervening. I do have a problem with excusing the women from intervening (except for the one who finally did). What this double standard says to me, is that this is about attacking men, and to hell with the women and the victims.
Robin: I think the problems I have with your post is that you completely ignore the rapists and are focusing on a really small segment of the population: women who witness rapes and do not intervene. You can pick this one situation apart until it bleeds, but what you seem to still miss is that we are talking about men as a class, particularly the class that actively rapes women (as a class and individually). You are willing to attack a woman’s inaction, while giving lip service to the idea of a rape culture. Yet you don’t apply the dynamics of a rape culture to the women’s inaction. You want to set her off in a vaccuum that insists that her social choices of action or inaction are across the board equal to the social choices of men who are not in the class that gets raped and therefore have an entirely different social perspective regarding action/inaction. You seem to want to blame her for her social conditioning at the hands of men/boys like the ones at the party who did nothing themselves. Why is that? You are creating a false level playing field and then calling “Foul!” when women are either incapable of action or choose (for their own safety — either physical or mental) to not act. You want to excuse the men for their inaction BECAUSE the woman did not act. That is insane. The woman didn’t act because of the presence of the men… how can you so neatly reverse that to say that, because she didn’t act, the men don’t have to?
Holding all men responsible for rape is not “attacking” them. The reality that you are dodging is that RAPE is ATTACKING women. Get it? What I want, and some other posters here also want, is accountability. Men have created the myth and structure of our rape culture. It is an act of sheer insanity to hold women’s actions within rape culture on the same par as men’s. To do so, one would have to deny the very dynamics of a rape culture, thereby nullifying the very reality of rape culture.
Would you so easily hold the slave accountable for slavery? Because some slave are too afraid to run away from their masters, those slaves are equally complicit in slavery as the master?
For the 50th time, we aren’t talking about rapists here ““ nor, in fact, are we talking about the specific victims or targets.
We are talking about “rape culture” – behaviour that is NOT rape, per se, but which leads to scenarios in which rape is tolerated or encouraged.
Do you understand the difference?
And while you may think it’s a small segment of the population, I’m reading women here, you especially, who will go to any length to excuse women for not intervening in that situation, even as you continue to blame men who do no less.
No we aren’t. We are talking about a specific scenario that was offered by a poster here as a criticism of men who contributed to a rape by doing nothing to stop it, and by failing to react afterwards. And I’m saying, “what about YOU?” to everyone who failed to raise an eyebrow at this, and especially, everyone who continues to excuse it.
Men do not rape “as a class”. WTF does that mean? If one man rapes, they all do ““ my son as well? Fine, what if one man rescues a woman from a burning building ““ what then? What if he gives his life in defense of another? I read stories like that all the time. Heroism is an individual achievements, but depravity is shared in equal measures? Men and women are both capable of a full range of behaviours, from the utterly depraved, to the peaks of heroism and selflessness. The moment you begin to selectively filter out the goodness of a group, and define them by negative traits, is the moment you begin to see people as less than human ““ the root of all bigotry. You cannot tear down the master’s house, using the master’s tools.
I should point out that Media Girl is hoist by her *own* petard. She is the one who attacked inaction, while exhibiting the same. I simply held up a mirror to the standard by which she, and you, judged others. Naturally, some people are not comfortable with what they see. They shouldn’t be.
So now she didn’t act because of her “social conditioning”? This is really beginning to sound like a desperate excuse. You could just as easily turn around and say the rapists themselves are to be excused for their crime, because it was the result of social conditioning. Why is it so important for you to defend her inaction and hypocricy?
It’s also a straw man.
I’ve never excused anyone’s inaction, male or female. I’ve just pointed out the double standard. Go ahead and look.
It is, if not all men are responsible for raping ““ which they aren’t.
If you say someone raped someone, or that someone is responsible for raping someone, simply because they have a penis, and not because they committed any crime, or exhibited any untoward behavior, then yes, that is indeed attacking them. And I would expect them to defend themselves from the accusation.
It’s counter-productive to the efforts of rape victim advocacy to continually spend so much effort trying to pin rape, rape culture, and rape apologist accusations upon innocent people who haven’t done anything, instead of focusing on the individuals who do. It is stupid to think those people won’t snipe back, while the real rapists would never even come to a site like this to engage in dialog. It turns valuable allies into enemies, and distracts everyone from what it’s all about.
To get it, you have to exhibit it first. It’s hard to get behind someone who blames societal apathy towards rape, when they exhibit the same behavior themselves when push comes to shove, and who will blame their own cowardice on their “conditioning”.
Stand up sister. Take your place. This whole “I’m such a victim” brand of feminism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. There’s nothing remarkable about holding men and women to the same standard of behaviour. Standing idly beside a gang rape is tantamount to giving permission for it to continue ““ it is at that very moment ““ framing a gang rape as a normal social activity that is “OK” to do, even in front of other women. That’s rape culture.
If your definition holds that women can’t contribute to it, then you need to amend your definition, because it wilted under the reality of this scenario.
Here we go again. Q Grrl, I wish you well in attempting to explain the difference between individual & class yet again – especially wrt men, women & rape culture. I admire your patience.
Robin wrote:
I’ve never excused anyone’s inaction, male or female. I’ve just pointed out the double standard. Go ahead and look.
Yes, the double standard exists in the vacuum of a world in which rape culture doesn’t exist. Q Grrl actually explained that pretty clearly in comment # 368.
>>There’s nothing remarkable about holding men and women to the same standard of behaviour. >>
Certainly not remarkable–men have been taken as the default for a long time. But it is unreasonable to do so when women and men suffer different consequences for that behavior. Are you familiar with the “reasonable woman” standard in rape legislation? Media girl had good reason to fear that intervening would cause her to get raped herself. A man in her situation would not have good reason to fear rape. She was not creating a situation in which raping women was a normal, acceptable thing; she was responding to a situation in which raping women was a normal, acceptable thing. To that extent, any social conditioning that told her that she was less protected and of lesser worth was absolutely correct: to these men, she was.
Men as a class are to be held accountable for rape not because they are all equally responsible for rape, but because they have greater power to stop rape. Rapists–men so misogynistic that they consider a man’s right to get off more important than a woman’s right to bodily sovreignity–respect men. They listen to men. They fear men. That means that men are able to hold them accountable for their behavior in ways they pay attention to, whereas women frequently are not.
Piny, the fact that many rapists are hypermasculine doesn’t mean that they’re more likely to listen to men; it means that they’re more likely to beat up men, especially if the rapists are in a group, and so can’t risk backing down without losing face in front of their peers.
I’m not saying that men shouldn’t, in a situation like Media Girl described, intervene. They should; because something carries physical risk doesn’t mean that it’s not the right thing to do. But your implication that doing so would be perfectly safe for men, and that rapists all listen to all men automatically, is silly. You might as well claim that men are never victims of male violence.
Men are murdered by men far more often than women are murdered by men; the idea that “men have nothing to fear from hypermasculine men in groups” ignores reality, just as surely as a claim that “women have nothing to fear from hypermasculine men in groups” ignores reality.
In a situation like the one Media Girl described, the correct – and heroic – thing for either men or women to do is to intervene in some way; by walking in and pulling the victim out, as a woman M.G. saw actually did; or by remaining outside but screaming “Rape! rape!” at the top of one’s lungs; or by trying to persuade a few people to go and intervene as a group (safety in numbers and all), or by calling 911 and then screaming “I’ve called 911! The police are coming!” There are a lot of options.
To act like that requires some courage and some clear thinking, and I can understand anyone, female or male, lacking courage or clear thinking. I have no idea what I’d do in that situation – I hope I’d intervene, but maybe I’d just freeze up shamefully. (The couple of times in my life analogous situations have come up, I had friends backing me up). But it would be a better world if we all thought it was our duty to interfere in situations like the one Media Girl describes.
>>Piny, the fact that many rapists are hypermasculine doesn’t mean that they’re more likely to listen to men; it means that they’re more likely to beat up men, especially if the rapists are in a group, and so can’t risk backing down without losing face in front of their peers.>>
But not less likely to otherwise physically assault a woman than a man; remember that a woman would have equally good reason to fear physical assault apart from rape. Robin was arguing as though women don’t have any valid reason to experience different levels of fear. I was countering that.
>>But your implication that doing so would be perfectly safe for men, and that rapists all listen to all men automatically, is silly. You might as well claim that men are never victims of male violence.>>
Damn right it’s silly. That’s one reason I didn’t say it. I never implied that it would be “perfectly safe” for men to intervene–and for someone who complains so frequently about strawman summaries of his arguments, you’re doing a great job with torching one of mine. “Automatically”? Drop the sterno and step away from the scarecrow, Amp.
It’s not that rapists automatically listen to men, but that men, rapists included, in a rape culture–a misogynistic culture–are _more likely_ to listen to men than to women, because they are _more likely_ to respect men than women. Men have a greater ability to teach against misogyny and rape because sexism gives their voices greater value. This point is in response to her arguments against _general_ male responsibility. Again, this is not to say that a man stepping into a situation like MG’s would have nothing to fear, but that men in general can take a very valuable role as teachers and mentors to men too bigoted to listen to women.
“Stand up sister. Take your place. This whole “I’m such a victim” brand of feminism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. ”
Perhaps you should read some feminist theory before making such tired-out proclamations.
You miss my point. You miss the point of this thread.
I have been, and always will, talk about the rapists.
That you can’t do so is telling.
And that you think I’m calling your son a rapist is just completely missing the boat.
“We are talking about “rape culture” – behaviour that is NOT rape, per se, but which leads to scenarios in which rape is tolerated or encouraged.
Do you understand the difference?”
How can you talk about rape culture and leave the rapist out of the picture? Part of rape being “tolerated” by women is their own fear of being raped.
Again, I find it mind blowing that you can focus so adamantly on a woman’s inaction, while simultaneously wailing at our audacity to hold men (yes, as a class) responsible for rape, and get snippy with me when I demand that we talk about the rapist(s).
Then you call me a victim. Huh?
Brava! Piny.
Well said.
i hope you don’t mind me going a little off current-topic. i’ve been thinking about how to think about empowering women without seeming like it’s blaming the victim. it seems like there are 2 classes of action a women can take to not be raped (according to ‘conventional wisdom’). she can take negative action (NOT going out alone, NOT wearing ‘provocative’ clothing, NOT having a vagina, etc) and positive action (yell at the guy, be assertive, take a self-defense class, shoot the guy). the first set- negative action- should never have to be employed, and i’d like to dismiss it now. the second set can/ should be employed.
however, i think the trick is to think about the second set of actions not as something a woman should do to prevent herself from being raped at a specific time, but something that everyone should encourage all girls and women to do in general, all the time. maybe an individual woman will still be raped, but in general, if everyone expects women to be assertive and strong, there won’t be as much rape because men won’t feel like they can get away with it, and they won’t necessarily be socialized into thinking they’re entitled to women’s bodies. so assertion is good for women as class, not (just) individually (because then an individual would take the blame for being raped).
i don’t know… can people then say that women as a group deserve it because in general they aren’t as aggressive as they should be? i’m just trying to take the onus off individual women who have been/ are afraid of being raped, and putting it on the culture. which i guess includes women, but shouldn’t blame the victim. am i just playing word games?
No, the only way women can prevent rape is to not be born female. Until men change how they socialize each other, their sons, their brothers, their peers, etc., nothing will change and merely having a female body warrents a damn good chance you’ll be raped.
Some might read that and say I’m a whining victim. If I stand up and say men are responsible, I’m then a castrating bitch. If I straddle the middle, nothing gets done because the status quo *is* about the rape culture and maintaining the false belief that it is individual choice on the part of women that leads to them being raped.
See, even I can neatly dissect the rapist from the rape culture.
Thanks for restoring some of my respect for this group Amp.
While I understand what you are trying to say, I do halfheartedly object to your use of the word of “hypermasculine” to define qualities that could apply to anyone. It’s no wonder there appears to be so many people hell bent on manbashing rather than getting to the the root of the problems when we *define* masculinity by negative traits such as “aggressiveness”, using them synonymously.
I would underline that there did not appear to be an undue physical risk in this situation for either men or women, because the event was placed within the context of a normal social activity (violence, even at a party, is considered an interruption of good social activity). I base this on the fact that the party carried on as normal after, and that one of the active participants announced it to everyone. If he felt he was doing something wrong, he wouldn’t have announced it.
And, as it turned out – all it took was a confrontation with a girl – to reframe the activity as an activity that was unnacceptable. When this happened, the rape stopped. There is no reason to think that it would be any more acceptable to start a violent confrontation with anyone.
Now, if there was a perceived physical threat, there are other options, but under certain circumstances, maybe some of people could forgive someone for not intervening. But to then go one step farther and blame other male and only male bystanders, just seems hypocritical to me.
Piny: I’ve worked as a waitress and seen my share of barfights. There is no truth to your notion that rapists will be more likely to listen to other men, that that they will respect other men more. They aren’t doing this for other men, they are doing it for their own gratification. Men are more likely to attack other men than women. I’ve seen women verbally or violently attack men, and those same men respond by assaulting that woman’s *boyfriend*, rather than physically hitting a woman.
The fact is, even if there WAS a risk of violence, no man is going to fare any better than a woman at brawling a roomfull of men, and his intervention is more likely to provoke a violent response than if a woman intervened.
Jane: why should women have to step up to men’s expectations of aggression? You’re basing aggression as the level playing field. I think we could justifiably argue that it is men’s compassion that needs to be increased and not whether women react correctly to men’s abuse of the bodily integrity.
Hey Amp and Robin: I would like both of you to tell me how you correlate male on male violence with the class socialization of women and girls in a rape culture. Does male on male violence keep men (as a class) at home at night? Does it influence their clothes choice? Hair length? Employment? Housing? Anything really? other than a desire not to be physically assaulted?
Oh for pity’s sake:
“It’s no wonder there appears to be so many people hell bent on manbashing rather than getting to the the root of the problems when we *define* masculinity by negative traits such as “aggressiveness”, using them synonymously. ”
Your going to imply this is my fault — and yet you claim to know what the rape culture is about.
Christ on a fucking cracker.
Heaven FORBID that women get angry at men. What a crime. Horrors!
>>Piny: I’ve worked as a waitress and seen my share of barfights. There is no truth to your notion that rapists will be more likely to listen to other men, that that they will respect other men more. They aren’t doing this for other men, they are doing it for their own gratification. Men are more likely to attack other men than women. I’ve seen women verbally or violently attack men, and those same men respond by assaulting that woman’s *boyfriend*, rather than physically hitting a woman.>>
“Men are more likely to attack other men than women?”
Even rapists?
With all due respect for your anecdotal evidence, I’ve seen–and felt–a great deal to indicate that this is bullshit. Women get beaten up, and hassled, and shoved around, and physically threatened by men all the time. A man who has no problem raping a woman probably won’t have a problem hitting another woman. A woman in that situation would have as much reason to fear physical assault as sexual assault.
Read my comment more carefully. I did not say that a man would have better luck at convincing those men in that situation to back off. I said that sexist men listen to men more than they listen to women, because they have more respect for men than they have for women. Ergo, men have greater power to teach men in a misogynistic culture not to rape.
Great point, piny.
I mean, Robin, let’s look at the evidence presented: There is a party. A woman is passed out. A group of men decide that it is okay to use that passed out woman as a masturbatory tool, this indicates a strong disrespect of women and women’s bodily autonomy and a right to not be harmed (of course men’s similar right should be respected too). All the men not participating in the rape, some who probably know the rapists have chosen to be apathetic to the woman’s plight (I suspect they fear being labeled as “wussies” or “spoilsports” more than they fear violence in many cases, or they respect their buddies right to “have fun” more than their own morality which might be objecting to the practice), so there is no reason to believe that the apathetic guys could be stirred in to action against the rapists. All the other women in the party are similarly afraid and probably don’t want to single themselves out (the rapist jerks would probably pull the “she’s hysteric” card at first and might ignore her).
All in all, MediaGirl had no reason to believe she would get any backup in the case the rapists turn against her, and every reason to believe that they were not the type of people to respect women as human beings. However, the (non-rapist) men in the example had no evidence that the rapists would be willing to get in to a fight with a man, especially if they could convincingly bluff an assertion of, sort of, ownership (What are you doing to my cousin?… Oh sorry, man, we didn’t now she was your cousin…). But still, the passive men in the example aren’t the guilty ones, but certainly they were in a better position to take matters in to hand.
And it bugs me that you Robin seem to think that the case was sort of “boys being boys without knowing better”. I think the guys knew exactly what they were doing, and there is a very real
Bottom line, since a rape is (usually) a crime of man harming a woman in an especially cruel way (probably the rapist doesn’t see women as “people” in the sense he seems himself, or other men) it is absolutely ridiculous think that a woman can be safe due to rules of “never hit a woman” or other chivalrous stuff.
oops, messed the post:
. I think the guys knew exactly what they were doing, and there is a very real
(should follow) possibility that they wouldn’t have a problem doing the same thing to a second woman, as they had already crossed the threshold of raping a woman. Why not a second woman, then?
Q, brava for post, especially this bit: “I think the problems I have with your post is that you completely ignore the rapists and are focusing on a really small segment of the population: women who witness rapes and do not intervene. You can pick this one situation apart until it bleeds, but what you seem to still miss is that we are talking about men as a class, particularly the class that actively rapes women (as a class and individually). You are willing to attack a woman’s inaction, while giving lip service to the idea of a rape culture. Yet you don’t apply the dynamics of a rape culture to the women’s inaction. ”
Which is pretty much the entire fucking point. Yeah, I guess to Robin, rape culture and sexism and misogyny all exist, but damn it, if you as a woman show any signs of being constrained by them, then YOU are the evil, bad, wrong one.
I’m sick of the blaming the victims bullshit, whether we’re talking about the rape victim in the case being discussed, or the other women who have been educated to believe they don’t have the power to intervene in these situations. And I’m really sick of people with the attitude that merely acknowledging that oppression occurs, we are “playing victim” or whatever other tired pack of lies.
And, ooh, guess what: by forcing the topic onto these lines, Robin has managed to get the topic (yet again) off men who rape and onto women who “ought to be responsible for stopping rape”. Now isn’t THAT a fucking coincidence?
Piny wrote:
I agree, but that’s not what you were saying before, Piny. Here’s what you wrote that I was responding to:
In your original post, you didn’t include any qualifications at all – nothing about “more likely” – you just said they’d respect men, they’d listen to men, they fear men, full stop. I think my response to that was appropriate.
Robin writes:
Regardless of your intention, this comes off as a way of using me to diss the other posters here. I wish you wouldn’t do that. I understand that you agree with me more than you agree with the other posters here; however, I’d hope that the fact that you don’t agree with the other posters here wouldn’t be a barrier to you respecting them.
Masculinity as our (and most) cultures understand it is the root of the problem.
A lot of studies have found that men who are rapists are “hypermasculine”; that is, they’re more likely to believe in the importance of conventional gender roles, not just for women but also for men. They’re more worried about being masculine and maintaining masculinity. Tendencies towards over-emphasizing masculinity also tend to come out when young men are in groups together. I’d be very surprised if a group of young, male gang-rapists didn’t include a few hypermasculine members; that’s all I meant.
That’s easy to argue in the calm of 20/20 hindsight. I could easily imagine it not being so clearly safe to someone who was actually in the situation.
I don’t blame male and only male bystanders; I primarily blame the men who committed rape and who egged the rapists on, if all we’re talking about is the one narrow situation described in MG’s story.
But in the wider society, I put a lot of the blame on conventional gender roles and the belief system they’re wrapped up in. Over the past 40 years, women (especially feminists) have done a lot to change femininity, and to reduce the pressure on women to align to conventional gender roles. Men, unfortunately, haven’t made parallel changes to conventional ideas about masculinity. Until men as a class do that, there will not be any huge reductions in rape prevalence.
I’m not a manbasher. But we need to be able to talk about men as a class, and the ways men as a class need to change, if we’re going to talk about reducing rape in a more than band-aid fashion. If that’s manbashing, then I’ll man-bash; but I don’t think it is.
Point taken. That was clumsy wording. But it’s still not the same as this, is it? I never said that it would be safe, let alone “perfectly safe,” or that all rapists listen to (all) men automatically.
>>But your implication that doing so would be perfectly safe for men, and that rapists all listen to all men automatically, is silly.>>
Piny, I didn’t say you “said” it; I said you implied it. And I do think that a post that goes on at length about the (correct) reasons that a women might legitimately fear interfering in a gang rape, and then goes on to suggest that rapists listen to, respect and fear men, is implying that men have nothing to fear when intervening.
Clearly, however, that’s not what you meant to imply. Sorry for misunderstanding you.
Also, it wasn’t “They listen to men,” etc., in terms of, “They listen to _all men_.” The implication was, “The people they listen to are male.” The disparity isn’t between total respect and lesser respect, but between likelier respect and nonexistent respect. I don’t think any given man would have been listened to, but I’d bet that any given man would have a better chance than any given women.
Okay. Point well taken.
>>Piny, I didn’t say you “said” it; I said you implied it. And I do think that a post that goes on at length about the (correct) reasons that a women might legitimately fear interfering in a gang rape, and then goes on to suggest that rapists listen to, respect and fear men, is implying that men have nothing to fear when intervening. >>
I should have been more specific in quoting the parts of the comment I was responding to; the two paragraphs weren’t meant to be tied together so closely. The first one was a response to the that a woman in that situation had no valid reason to feel greater fear. The second was a response to the idea that men have no greater responsibility in rape culture to speak out against rape. I didn’t bring up the possibility of physical violence against men partly because I concede its validity and partly in an effort–futile, as later posts prove–to pre-emptively shut down the “Hypermasculine men don’t hit girls” meme. Because it is bullshit and it makes me ill.
Anyway. I understand why you interpreted my post the way you did, and I’m sorry the wording was ambiguous.
Man, no wonder ginmar hates this civility stuff so much. How much intraweb ink have we wasted just now?
(Kidding.)
Does male on male violence keep men (as a class) at home at night? Does it influence their clothes choice? Hair length? Employment? Housing? Anything really? other than a desire not to be physically assaulted?
I think that this brings up an interesting, if unintended, point. Male on male violence definitely does influence at least the clothing choice & hair length of men. It’s rare to see a man wearing a skirt in the day-to-day world. If you’ve ever known a man who has, you know why. Having long hair as a man definitely puts you at a heightened risk of being assaulted in many places. Why is this the case? Because skirts and long hair are considered feminine. If you’re a man and you wear either one you are debasing your masculinity and this must be very, very threatening to an awful lot of men.
So, for me, we come right back ’round to gender roles being a big, huge reason for the existence of rape culture & to the existence of misogyny.
It is simplistic, and understandably so, to say that men need to fix the problem of men raping. I think, more specifically, that it is up to men to dismantle the cult of masculinity,(as well as those of femininity and gender roles)*. Once that happens I think that we are a significant distance down the road of ending rape as a commonplace event.
(* It is up to men, primarily, because men are the ones who wield the power in our society.)
QGrrl- you’re right about men needing to bring up their levels of compassion, true. i slipped in the last sentence and wrote ‘aggressive’ when i meant ‘assertive,’ which is the term i used twice in the previous paragraphs, and which i feel is a positive attribute. based on my personal experience and that of my female friends, assertiveness is something women don’t learn, or learn early enough. boys learn to be assertive, but girls are not supposed to have opinions, or not voice them. and when they do, they’re dismissed. but i think assertiveness is good; it works. and i just cannot live my life believing that the only people who can change society’s fucked up sexual ideas are men. what about wendy shalit (mentioned on pandagon’s site)? she could be using her position (whatever that is; a writer i guess) to do good- but instead she cheers girls who feel like sluts because they wear swimsuits in front of guys. that only encourages rape culture, as far as i’m concerned. as someone who has TA’d in classes of undergrads for 3 years, i think there’s a lot a woman can do to help people change, by challenging people’s fucked up ideas. spending 7 hours a week, with 4.5 hours of informal close contact, can give you a pretty good opportunity to challenge behaviors and ideas- about assertiveness _and_ compassion. i even talked about my abortion with some of my students. if i only affect one person, well, it’s something. my ex is a sociology professor, who believes in this power so much that he has devoted his life to it (although he’s a guy… but the mentor that pushed him that way was a very strong woman). plus i have 2 little brothers, and i’d like to think i had some effect on their relationships with women, and maybe some of their friends. it’s one of the reasons that i have a close relationship with my friend’s little boy (who has a sexist dad and doesn’t read). i already feel hopeless often enough, about lots of things (i’m in the environmental and social justice field), and i’d kill myself if i didn’t believe i could do something worthwhile with my life. maybe the only thing an individual woman can do to stop her own rape is to not have a vagina, but she can work to help change rape culture. i guess i just don’t want to give all that power to men. i don’t want to feel helpless just because i have a vagina. men rape. but those men were little boys once, who learned it was ok to force themselves on women. isn’t there something between taking the blame, and laying down and giving up? am i really that naive?
“I think that this brings up an interesting, if unintended, point. Male on male violence definitely does influence at least the clothing choice & hair length of men. It’s rare to see a man wearing a skirt in the day-to-day world. If you’ve ever known a man who has, you know why. Having long hair as a man definitely puts you at a heightened risk of being assaulted in many places. Why is this the case? Because skirts and long hair are considered feminine. If you’re a man and you wear either one you are debasing your masculinity and this must be very, very threatening to an awful lot of men.”
Jake: the interesting twist in this is that men get beat up for transgression. Women tend to get assaulted and raped when they are conforming *most* to their gendered expectations. Heterosexual men want feminine, petite women with long hair and a wardrobe that consists of high heels and short skirts/revealing shirts. Yet when a woman does exactly this she is at her most vulnerable (which is something that does not escape the notice of heterosexual men).
Women tend to get assaulted and raped when they are conforming *most* to their gendered expectations.
Yeah, that’s true.
Perhaps this will be the only post I submit.
Forgive me if I have just briefly reviewed the many strong words and opinions left upon this page; it is a difficult thread to read, given the topic, so i apologize for any misinterpretations.
The discussion about responsibility in this situation…it is everyone’s responsibility. A friend, a stranger, none of it matters. It doesn’t matter who acts, just so long as someone acts. If the risk is to suffer blows or worse, do it regardless; there is risk in all things. The devastation felt will not be limited in its scope. It will tear people apart from themselves and their others as well. There’s never only one victim. Being in the situation, however you got there, it doesn’t matter if its doubtful or not, can you afford not to act? Forget heroism or any of that. There are no excuses for anyone in this. Even the thought of this is enough to tear a soul. How can you not act? How can you not deal with this?
Both men and women should be cognizent. I’ve heard that some people put themselves in positions to get hurt; but putting yourself in a position to be potentially hurt and actually being hurt are completely different. Often, people position themselves unwisely because they don’t believe they will be hurt. They trust, for whatever reason, that they won’t be. After this, that trust is irreplacably gone. Whether someone is drunk or otherwise unable to take initiative, that is not a free ticket. To those of you whom feel otherwise, I have some ungracious words for you. Honour is marked by doing the best you can by others in all circumstances. All circumstances. Beyond it all, the situation is not an issue of male or female sexuality. I can’t say more on this, but I hope that these words are considered.