Alex Brook Lyn, reporting for Vice Magazine, covers the Detroit conference and does a great job, IMO.
http://www.vice.com/read/the-women-of-the-mens-rights-movement-804
Thanks, Alex! And thanks to Jule, the fantastic woman who did my makeup! Her co-artist Laura did my hair and I am grateful to them both because I suck at making myself all purty.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
I enjoyed that. I think that Alex came there with an open mind and made new friends.
About you “looking purty”, that portion reminded me of an interview with Michael Caine about his early career. He was very blond, right down to his eyelashes, making them invisible to the camera. He had to wear a lot of make up too. So, it’s not just you.
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So far so good, but I had an awesome chuckle at a couple of bits… Paul Elam looking like a fuckwit was like a nice christmas present, but him being compared to another short-term effective, long-term deleterious dickhead (namely Malcom X) was just the bees knees 🙂
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I like your work most of the time but those Jessica Valenti tweets you made where ridiculous. It gives ammunition to slander the MRM, rightfully. Don`t do that type of stuff again.
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If it brings global media attention to that shirt, the ricochet will be more than worth it. Valenti lives in a feminist bubble and wildly underestimates the backlash her shirt will generate. Using Poe’s Law is standard fare on Twitter. #endfathersday was brilliant, IMO
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At least this article mentioned that Pauls notorious article is satire. Failed to link to the none satirical Jezibel article though… oh well.
“Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOWs), who have vowed to stay away from women entirely, often after being sexually traumatized or otherwise abused”
A slight misunderstanding of what MGTOW is. Most of us just don’t feel like dating. I doubt any of us Vowed that we would stay away from women. I interact with them just fine 🙂 Just not on a romantic level. “Vow to stay away” make it sound like women is something we men can’t live without, and that MGTOW is some form of celibacy club.
Lastly I would like to add that I found it ironic that it was hard for the writer to engage with a movement that used “cunt, whore etc” about women. Well if that is the worst the MHRM has to offer we are rather nice. Feminist rhetoric might look nicer, but it’s a lot worse to demonize a whole gender than to call a woman an ugly word for her reproductive organ. (Heck male genitalia like Cock, and Dick are used in such daily terms that no one even bats an eye.)
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Janet, I wanted to respond to something you said in this article. I want to start off by saying that I agree that there’s an unfair slant in our society towards assuming that every male is a sexual predator. Some years back, my husband had a truly frightening experience when we were hanging out at a waterpark and he was suddenly attacked with a bad case of intestinal flu, and ended up having to spend quite a long time in the one and only stall in the men’s bathroom there. I know, yuck! Kind of like anyone’s worst nightmare already.
During that time, a little boy of about seven came in and apparently also needed to use that one stall, and patiently waited for his turn. The boy’s mother kept calling in to ask if he was okay and he kept saying yes, but she must have assumed that her son was the only one in the bathroom, because when my husband came out a bit later and stopped at the water fountain, this woman frantically screamed into the bathroom, “Has anybody been TOUCHING you in there!!?”
Dh looked up to see a huge crowd of people all staring at him, and for a brief instant imagined the child having a very literal mind and shouting “Yes!” — because the child had been in such a hurry to get into the stall that he’d literally squeezed past dh before he could even get out, so there had actually been a degree of physical contact, though it certainly wasn’t initiated by my husband. Dh imagined that if the child had said yes, the crowd would have surrounded him to prevent him from leaving and called the police.
Thankfully, the child seemed to understand what his mom meant by “touching” and said, “No,” but my husband was still quite shaken up. I imagine some people would say he blew the situation all out of proportion in his mind — but actually, he’s not the only man who lives with a nagging fear of being falsely accused or even convicted of child sexual abuse. Some men even feel scared or at least very uncomfortable when they’re at the park helping their children on the playground equipment, and another child asks for the same kind of help. They don’t want to seem mean by refusing to help, but they’re also scared to help.
That said, I don’t see how anyone could think that sex with an unconscious person was consensual. Not only is it not consensual, I can’t even imagine what kind of psycho would even find it enjoyable. I mean, there was Bob Berdella, the mass murderer who killed his victims before having sex with them, because sex with a totally passive object was what he liked best. But I really believe most human beings — male and female — like for sex to be a two-way thing.
So you’re worried about the boys in the Steubenville rape case because you feel the conviction has ruined their lives, while I can’t help wondering what was ruined inside them way before the conviction — what happened to cause them to develop a preference for getting off inside a passive, unconscious girl? Is this really the kind of thing you’re worried might happen to one of your sons — that they’d have sex with someone who was unconscious? Somehow, I think you must’ve raised them better than that!
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And Janet, if one of your sons made a poor decision and drank himself into a stupor at a party, or was too trusting of the wrong person who happened to slip a date-rate drug into his drink, and the next day you discovered YouTube videos of RECOGNIZABLE people clearly raping your unconscious son, would you just say, “Oh, the drunken slut just got what was coming to him? No crime scene here!”
Would you feel that those kids who, even if they weren’t completely sober, were obviously functioning well enough to drag your unconscious son from party to party and rape him, didn’t deserve to have their lives ruined by being held accountable for their actions?
I actually had my first experience of having too much to drink a few weeks ago. Luckily I was at home. I’d say I was less sober than those boys, because I was too off-balance to walk straight and certainly couldn’t have driven anywhere, let alone dragged an unconscious person around — and yet my mind was sober enough to still know that it would have been wrong to rape an unconscious person. So I think someone who’s functioning well enough physically to have sex is also functioning well enough mentally to KNOW that the person they’re with is unconscious — even if they can’t remember it the next day.
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THe steubenville girl was not unconscious. Witnesses pretty much all agree that she was participating the entire time. Blacked out drunk, yes, but not passed out. When you’re in there swinging away, as they say, whether you remember it in the morning or not, you’re an active participant.
She doesn’t realize it. Didn’t realize it the next morning, either. She probably bought into the line that she was passed out. But she wasn’t. Just blacked out.
She got a pass because she did something under the influence, made bad decisions that she can’t remember because of alcohol, and that she regretted, and then called it rape.
The boys did NOT get a pass because they were drunk, though, and were made to account for THEIR actions in front of a court of law, because men don’t get a pass when they’re drunk. Only women do.
By the standards set out in her argument (if I’m so drunk I can’t remember what I did, I couldn’t consent, therefore it was rape) then SHE raped THEM as much as the other way around. Why wasn’t SHE tried?
Because the boys didn’t pres charges. Because, even if they regretted the incident the next morning, they were self-aware enough to understand that they did something stupid while drunk, and that it is no one’s fault but their own.
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But she wasn’t unconscious. Get your facts straight.
She was blacked out drunk, but otherwise was a full participant in the “festivities”
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How on earth do you define “blacked-out drunk?” Several witnesses used the adjective “dead” to describe the girl — so how on earth could she have been “fully participating” and capable of giving consent?
And you consider the way that this girl was treated as “festive?” Thankfully, your attitudes are not typical of those of any man or woman I know. Again, people with a sexual preference for a partner that’s so “blacked-out drunk” and “dead”-seeming are just one step away from Bob Berdella.
If you honestly see the girl in this situation as “fully participating,” and see the situation itself as “festivities,” then I think you’re a bit scary myself. I’m not saying I’d want to do away with innocent till proven guilty and lock you up just for expressing such a twisted view of consensual participation — but still. Get some help, seriously.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/steubenville-rape-trial-texts-from-witnesses-defendant-describe-alleged-victim-as-dead/
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I definitely think that if she’d been videotaped playing with their penises while they were blacked-out drunk, she should have been charged with rape, too. And I think the main reason men don’t press charges if they get taken advantage of, is not that they “blame” themselves for getting drunk, but that patriarchal culture’s indoctrinated men with the idea that they’re supposed to always be “ready to go” and eager to plant their sperm into any willing female. To complain that they were raped would be to not be truly “alpha.”
Yes, patriarchy hurts men, too.
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Not to do overkill here — but I feel like I can’t speak enough about how oppressive and insulting patriarchy is to men, with it’s ideas that if a boy or man has been raped or molested by a woman, the only “manly” response is gratitude for the experience and knowledge. I’m sure that sexual abuse, as well as other kinds of abuse, of males is drastically under-reported because of how supposedly “shameful” it is for a man to ever admit to being victimized, especially by “the weaker sex.”
These attitudes are gradually changing. Some women have indeed received prison sentences for both statutory and forcible rape. Just as the only way to dispel the cloud of shame surrounding female victims is for more and more of them to come forward, so it is for male victims. This is a huge piece of equality, and I can’t imagine any real feminist saying it isn’t.
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That Susan,
Being “blacked out” drunk is being outwardly functional yet unable to retain memory. As your body consumes alcohol, things shut down in stages. If a person can be “blacked out”, it’s a major sign of alcoholism. Normal people pass out.
I’ve heard feminists make claims on behalf of the welfare of women who drink to such excess. If they really were concerned, they would be telling them not to drink at all.
Putting Steubenville aside, there was another incident that happened with nominal adults last year at this time. A woman accused another college student of rape. Fortunately for him, someone took video of it with a cell phone. It happened on sidewalk in the full light of day. Masked by her skirt, he was orally and manually stimulating her. Consent on her part was enthusiastic and obvious.
It got as far as the Grand Jury before it was thrown out.
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So Janet, I’m getting a little obsessive over the whole Steubenville rape case, and I went back and read your original slut registry article. It looks like you’re saying that the treatment the girl received was the appropriate punishment for her attempt to raise her status by latching onto a jock? You feel that prior to the rape trial and conviction, justice had been done, fair and square, because she’d made the boys suffer by attempting to get herself a jock (using their status to further her own), and they’d made her suffer EQUALLY by treating her like a slut and posting naked pictures of her online. Everything was equal, till the legal authorities got involved. If the Steubenville incident, minus the criminal prosecution of the boys, is your idea of an egalitarian society, that’s just sickening.
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Most people have experienced that state of being where you’re still functioning but have no memory of what you did, and can only be made aware of what happened afterwards when people tell you what you did.
That being said, IF I am wrong, and she was, indeed, “passed out” as opposed to “blacked out” then I’m in agreement with you.
My standard for rape is this:
If you are capable of giving consent, then you must resist in some manner, or it is not rape. Sending a man to prison because you didn’t let him know in no uncertain terms that you weren’t into it is wrong – how the hell is he supposed to know?
If you are unable to give consent (ie, you’re comatose) then it is rape.
Pure and simple.
That being said, most of the statements that I’d heard described her as being very, very, very drunk, but still awake and participatory. In that case, the only way it becomes rape is if she resisted, said NO, whatever, and they forced themselves on her.
Being so drunk you do stupid shit willingly is not a good reason to send a person to prison.
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Okay, I’ll reply to each issue individually, so as not to get confused…
As someone who is nominally male and Jewish, I’m equally disgusted by anyone suggesting that I am, implicitly or explicitly, a member of some sort of evil, globe-spanning conspiracy due to accident of birth is sickening. Doubly so when the intellectually dishonest positions the accuser occupies includes disowning anything they disagree with as not really something a real feminist would say. So, I have collective guilt for accident of birth, whereas you aren’t tainted by the words of another under your banner of choice? No. Just no.
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There was plenty of blame to go around. The one thing you haven’t mentioned, that I believe JB covered< is where were the parents while all this was happening?
Another thought, prior to Steubenville, there were two or three high profile suicides of underage girls. Sexual misconduct got the ball rolling but, social ostracism hurt them the most. I don't think it was their male contemporaries that disowned them socially.
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I’m personally more than happy to accept that Janet went full retard there, by playing the Paul Elam “Let’s all sound like fucking idiots to get attention” school of public relations.
You’ll get no argument from me that dumb shit doesn’t get said on this side of the fence. Thing is, that’s why I don’t call myself an MRA. I’m happy to be an individual, with my own thoughts and viewpoints. Some intersect with MRA stuff, a few still intersect with some of the humane leftovers of Feminism.
Now, I’d love to know exactly how you can disown the hundreds of stupid, offensive, hurtful, spiteful, counterproductive, female-supremacist, racist, sexist, homo- and hetero-phobic, rabble-rousing things said under the banner of Feminism every day, on tumblr, youtube, twitter etc, the majority of which is spouted by those educated in Feminist theory and ideology? Me, I won’t put a tainted label to my name, but you? Feel free to keep claiming you get to be the person who chooses what goes out under the “real brand”, but with Jezebel and the Guardian out there, and none of the “real Feminists” actually telling us what “real Feminism” actually is, other than something that is clearly still based on the notion that I’m inherently oppressing you, even now, because penis, well…
So, quick eye-opener for you: Men suffer and die every day, and a lot of that is the direct result of the actions and choices made by women. You have power, merely by having a voice and the ability to walk around. I say that because I’ve impacted the lives of others whilst having little else, and I’ve never understood why anyone thinks that has anything to do with what’s in my pants. If you tell 50% of humanity their actions are hurtful, and the other 50% that they can only be hurt, well… Half of humanity (if they all listened) would be hurting people then yelling at them when they complained, because they’re being hurt by the complaining. So, have a look at what your inviolable brand is saying and doing, at how long it’s taking to get any concession through on fronts like, I dunno, universally regarding child genital mutilation as a bad thing, rather than either arguing over (perceived) degrees of harm, or the idea that 40 fucking percent of domestic violence victims are male, or any number of other facts that don’t fit the Patriarchy religion (sorry, hypothesis at best)…
I’ve been punched by white people for no reason, and I don’t think there’s a white conspiracy against me. I’ve been punched by black people, and I don’t write essays on why black people are inherently more violent. I’ve been physically, sexually, emotionally and socially abused by the bulk of my female partners (and don’t go slut-shaming me when I say that there was a decent sample size to work with, statistically speaking), yet I don’t think there’s an inherent problem with women. However, if I hung out with Black Panthers, or White Supremacists, or the MGTOW crowd, I’d probably find those positions easier to come to. Feminism gives that same position to women who are hurt by, or scared of some few men in their lives.
Encouraging and engendering hatred, as well as giving it an accident-of-birth derived face, well, you damn well know where that ends up, and no amount of “We’re doing it for the greater good” will ever get the grandson of a concentration camp survivor to see you as anything better than woefully misguided.
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Can’t say much about MGTOWs, but as to Cunt…
Come to Australia sometime, where cunt is still an okay word. It has no more gender connotations than does dickhead.
Observe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-SUhJT3g1c
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“I agree that there’s an unfair slant in our society towards assuming that every male is a sexual predator.”
It’s just “unfair” it’s wrong, hypocritical, unconstitutional, and just plain evil. Life isn’t “fair” (never has been, never will be), I can live with that. But when someone starts criminalizing me or anyone else just because they’re male then I know that’s wrong and evil. Or someone making it LEGAL to steal my income, physically assault me, and so on. How is that any different than Jim Crow in the old south?
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“I agree that there’s an unfair slant in our society towards assuming that every male is a sexual predator.”
It’s not only “unfair” it’s wrong, hypocritical, unconstitutional, and just plain evil. Life isn’t “fair” (never has been, never will be), I can live with that. But when someone starts criminalizing me or anyone else just because they’re male then I know that’s wrong and evil. Or someone making it LEGAL to steal my income, physically assault me, and so on. How is that any different than Jim Crow in the old south?
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I can’t imagine any real feminist saying that female-on-male rape is acceptable. That doesn’t mean I’m claiming that no other WOMEN think it’s okay. Some women have done some horrendous things, as have some men. But I don’t think all women, or all men, are tainted by the wrong done by a few.
When you come right down to it, I think it’d be more accurate if I said that condoning female-to-make rape goes against FEMINISM. There may be some individual feminists who are real jerks towards men, but they’re not practicing feminism.
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Right. Most “slut-shaming” is done to women by women. Just because the abuse is inflicted by a woman, that doesn’t make it okay.
And yeah, it’s definitely bad that there was no parental supervision. But it makes no sense to me that the general consensus of the perpetrators and most of the observers, was that what was being done to that “dead” girl (“dead” was the adjective that several chose to describe her with) was just hilarious. 16-year-olds need a PARENT to tell them that that’s not funny?
It reminds me of my senior year of high school, when I ended up in an English class with mostly jocks, and one day I was the only girl in the room and the teacher stepped out, and suddenly one of the boys said, “Hey, let’s rape her,” and some of the other boys joined in and started describing various ways they could do it.
And I just sat there stunned, not comprehending how any of them could even see this joke as funny. I knew they’d never have treated the other girls in the class that way, they were more popular. And a part of me got really scared that if I yelled at them or tried to get up and leave, the rape would really happen.
Not very realistic, I know. But this was the first time I’d been made aware that this could be ANYONE’s idea of a joke.
It went on for several minutes before the bell finally rang, and as I got up and hurried out, I noticed sympathetic looks on the faces of a couple of the boys who hadn’t joined in but had probably been too scared to speak up to the jocks.
It’s memories like this that make me realize that there is such a thing as a rape culture. Otherwise, why would that have even happened? Why would anyone have laughed about scaring a girl like that?
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I agree that it’s not a case of “women are good and men are bad.” Both women and men can abuse, and both women and men can be victims. Equality is about realizing we’re all human, so maybe humanism is a better word to use to describe egalitarianism. After all, it includes all the positive aspects of feminism.
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I’m going by the way that one of the perpetrators plus several bystanders referred to her as “dead.” One of the perpetrators said she was like a dead body.
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Yes, it’s wrong. The truth is that most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone already known to the child, so it’s crazy the way some people are so focused on “stranger danger.”
http://www.childmolestationprevention.org/
It’s really not dangerous for kids to talk or interact casually with strangers, so long as a parent or other trustworthy adult is supervising. The most important way to protect kids is by not leaving them alone with anyone that we AND THE CHILD don’t feel completely comfortable with. That means we can be friendly with EVERYONE, stranger or not, and not treat anyone like a criminal, but just keep our kids close rather than being in such a hurry to find a sitter.
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That Susan,
I had to give your story some thought before responding. No doubt that you were stunned. There is a lot going on with this at many levels but, glad to hear that it was confined to words.
Yes, the jocks were jerks.
Now, I am going to relate some truth to you and you may not be able to consider your self a feminist if you choose to take it to heart.
What men want from women through the medium of sex is acceptance.
Given that, men are disinclined to rape because it would be the opposite of what is desired.
Rape culture is a feminist construct.
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Well they are practicing feminism. I’d say women who think female to male rape is wrong, are the ones not practicing feminism. Feminists have redefined rape to purposely prevent women from being labeled rapists by stating that rapists must penetrate, so drugging some guy, and riding his cock, is considered a sexual crime, but not rape.
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I’ve known completely sober girls whom I would describe as “like a dead body” in bed. Needless to say, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic to hook up with them again. Did I rape them? Actually I probably did because I don’t think any of them ever gave verbal consent.
I’ve also seen a girl “pass out” from being drunk after she vomited everywhere. According to my doctor friend, who was there and checked her out, she was faking it (her eyes were fully responsive to light etc..). Probably because she didn’t want to have to clean up her own vomit. Unsurprisingly, it was two of the minority of men present (including myself) who cleaned up said vomit – I don’t think any of the females present wanted to go anywhere near the icky vomit.
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Hi That_Susan,
May I ask you a question:
Why do you say that it is “Patriarchy” that does these nasty things to men (and women for that matter)? The things you are describing sound to me like things that people do to other people.
Why do you blame the actions of people on this malevolent force you call “Patriarchy”?
No other social/political/civil rights movement, for good or for ill, does this. They tend to just accept that people used to think one way, and they would like to persuade people of another way of thinking, without trying to convince people that they are in fact under the influence of some malevolent force.
It’s the thing I find most difficult to accept about feminist theory, that I am to believe that my actions are not from my own choices, but instead I am being influenced by this poorly defined (and hence non-falsifiable) “Patriarchy” entity.
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No, there is no need for “rape culture” to understand why 16yo boys can be mean and enjoy watching people suffer… They’re 16yo boys. The fact that they weren’t like that to you most days shows you live a privileged life.
Me, I’m male, had a serious undiagnosed mental illness, and was regularly intimidated, assaulted and verbally abused all through high school. How the fuck does one day of mean words at you qualify as “rape culture”? Why the hell would one single disturbing incident that stands out against all the years of not randomly being punched, kicked or having shit thrown at your head qualify as anything at all, from a statistical standpoint?
Yeah, trauma sucks, but guess what? Most of the guys who did that to me, they grew up, learned, got past being fuckheads and became okay people. But I guess 5 minutes of poorly thought-out humor from a bunch of 16yo males qualifies as an evil culture among men, eh?
Seriously, check your privilege…
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As opposed to the part that screams down and votes down funding for men, while calling those who advocate for it misogynists? Pick up your phone book and look for where to get help if you’re male and have been domestically assaulted. Then look for where you should call if you’re male and have been raped, by a man, let alone by a woman.
Then look for a single group therapy option if you’re male and suffer from PTSD, or were abused as a child, and see how many places there are. Then see how many all male juvenile or adult homeless shelters there are, and how well funded they are, then look at the girls and womens options…
Who did this? Who got all the funding in the first place, and claimed it all for themselves, and who fights tooth and nail against any of this being recognised?
Sure, your “Patriarchy” hurts men too, but we’ve still got to wait till you’ve dismantled it before we get any help, right? Because it’d send the wrong message to show men as vulnerable, and women as potential perpetrators…
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You’re right that choices are made by individuals, but I also believe that different social forces can greatly sway whole groups of people in different situations. For example, I woke up this morning thinking about how the boys at that party in Steubenville seemed to be operating under a similar force to the men of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible.
Having grown up in conservative Christianity, I’d always heard that the “sin of Sodom” was homosexuality — then I learned that it was really unconcern for the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:49-50), even to the point of being eager to harm any seemingly vulnerable strangers who were “dumb” enough to seek refuge within the walls of their city.
As Daniel A Helminiak points out in his book “What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality,” the condemnation of men “lying” with men as with women was likely addressed to a common battle practice of that time — when one tribe defeated another, the victors often liked asserting their dominance over the losers by raping them and basically treating them like lowly women. It wasn’t about men being attracted to men — homosexuality — but about people totally humiliating and subjugating other people simply because they had the upper hand and felt like they could.
In her previous article on this topic (Steubenville), Janet seemed to be saying that since the girl was “dumb” enough to go alone into a situation where she was the stranger (kind of like the angels who visited Lot), and get totally drunk and put herself into a situation where she could get taken advantage of, she got what was coming to her — total humiliation.
The only problem was that, just as the angels ended up having the power to destroy the city, the boys inadvertently, through one of the very means they used to totally humiliate her — posting scenes of her total humiliation at their hands on YouTube — gave her more power than she would have otherwise had to seek justice.
But at least they haven’t been turned into pillars of salt. They are still alive, albeit with very different prospects than they had before. I’ve actually heard of rare cases of criminal records being expunged because the people totally turned their lives around and did so much good for humanity that they were considered deserving of a fresh start. If one or both of these boys decides to use this time for self-examination and personal growth, their lives don’t have to be completely ruined.
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“but I also believe that different social forces can greatly sway whole groups of people”
What social forces? What is a “social force”, what does it do? How can one tell the difference between a person acting because of a “social force” and a person acting out of their own choices that they are free to make?
Is a social force just when a person would act differently in front of others than they would by themselves? So my not swearing in front of children is a social force acting upon me?
Is a social force having ones mind changed by others? If I have an idea, and my friends convince me it’s a bad idea, have I been moved by a social force? Or have I simply changed my mind upon being presented with a different point of view?
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What do you think? Was it a social force that caused those boys to do what they did, or was it just a bunch of individuals making personal decisions? I kind of see it as an interaction between society and the individual. We’re not just helpless victims of social forces — but it seems likely that at least some of those boys would have acted differently if one of them had happened to find a girl passed out on the ground when he was on his own. Even if he was a little tipsy himself, maybe he would have been more inclined to just get some help for her rather than thinking “Ooh, she’s just like a ‘dead body!” (one of the Steubenville perpetrator’s descriptions of the victim). How thrilling! Now I can play around with her limp body and send photos to my friends! This is my lucky day!”
But maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part. Maybe each boy would have acted the same on his own as he did with his jock buddies.
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I agree with JShaft. The fact that you see that incidence, where you emerged completely unscathed let us not forget, as some kind of special occurrence, is your “female privilege” showing (to hijack a stupid feminist phrase).
For us males, we don’t call that rape culture, we call it every fucking day.
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I agree that there are a lot of ways in which men are more vulnerable than women today. For example, a few years back, I got to know a woman whose whole family (she was married with three children) was suffering because her husband had been convicted of statutory rape several years previously, when he was eighteen and engaged in a sexual relationship with a girl who’d told him she was sixteen but was really fourteen.
Because of this, he still had to register as a sex offender, and the vandals who check those lists made their lives a living hell. They’d get up in the morning to go to work and find that all the tires on both their cars had been slashed. They’d pay to replace all the tires, only to have stuff like that happen over and over again.
They felt like they had no choice but to keep moving and trying to start over every several months or so. He’d hold off on registering for as long as he could to give them a little breathing space, but eventually the abuse would start up again and become unbearable, and they’d have to move again.
In their case, a seemingly disastrous incident actually ended up literally saving their lives and their sanity. The wife had some mental health issues, which were severely exacerbated by the stresses of living with someone on a sex offender registry, and one day she had a total mental breakdown in a public place, and was initially arrested but later hospitalized.
She’d had her kids with her, and her husband was initially allowed to pick them up and take them home, but then a background check was done and it was discovered that he was a registered sex offender, and Child Protective Services decided to place the children in foster care (they were soon moved from the foster home to a family member’s home) while they did a thorough investigation of the family.
This was a really grueling experience for them, but there was at least one positive result. The husband’s criminal case was reevaluated by a judge, who determined that he was no longer a threat to society, and he was released from the requirement to register. So they were finally able to settle down in one place and build a more stable life for themselves and their kids.
But it’s really awful that they had to go through such extreme circumstances to get their lives back. I honestly don’t see what purpose if serves to have a sex offender registry.
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I’m not claiming that I’ve suffered the absolute worst of the rape culture — but I don’t see where you get the idea that situations like the one I described leave a person completely unscathed. I’d definitely say that the harm I suffered was minor in comparison to the big picture, and I’m 50 now and certainly don’t see myself as a victim whom people should feel sorry for.
At the same time, it seems kind of counterproductive to act like anyone who hasn’t suffered the worst of the worst is being petty for describing a less severe experience they’ve had of abuse or discrimination. It’s all wrong.
But my point in sharing this wasn’t to gain sympathy over how I’d been “victimized” — it was to point out that there IS a bizarre undercurrent in our culture. I mean, I can understand that some simpler people don’t get certain jokes because they can’t comprehend the subtle innuendoes or plays on words or whatever — but the fact that this particular joke was so funny to these boys was something I still can’t wrap my mind around, and I don’t think it’s because I’m too dumb to catch all the “subtleties,” either.
And if this kind of weird subculture is what men call “every fucking day” of their lives, then there is a serious problem in our culture. Maybe it doesn’t need to be called “patriarchy” — but then, what would you call it — men having pissing contests? I know there are some college guys who think it’s funny to pee on girls from their balconies, and indeed there was some mention of the girl in Steubenville getting peed on at least once.
Would you say that it’s the extremes of feminism that are driving some men to regress to a place where they emphasize the ugliest aspects of the idea that “It’s a man’s world” (James Brown) — minus the chivalry? Well, I’d honestly rather do without the chivalry if it entails anyone being “slut-shamed” and being treated as less than human. I think having everyone be respected as a human being is better than having a few women be on pedestals.
And I agree that this also means respecting men and protecting their human rights. I think this is what most people in our society want — the right for both men and women to be free to pursue happiness. So since social change, thanks to the Internet, is happening mindbogglingly faster than it ever did in the past, I think we should see things getting better sooner rather than later.
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You kind of missed his point and reinforced it at the same time.
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Could have been an example of mob mentality. A minimum number of participants is needed for this dynamic, along with an instigator. I don’t know if what happened in your classroom is comparable to what happens when riots occur. Mob mentality allows participants to behave in ways they normally wouldn’t. I have read that identifying instigators is an important part of crowd control. Arrest those acting to incite a crowd, before the situation escalates.
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“For us males, we don’t call that rape culture, we call it every fucking day.”
This.^^
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So you’re saying that the verbal abuse that I’d assumed was only normal or funny for a very small segment of the male population, is an “every fucking day” thing for ALL males? Rape culture is just male culture?
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If you’ll bear with me, something you mentioned here bears further examination. Men and women tend to behave differently, yeah? You can call it gendered culture if you wish, but it tends to happen. Women tend to pack less trucks, and men tend to knit less, to pull up some silly stereotypes.
So, if humans have a tendency towards being mean and belittling towards others, in order to give themselves a feeling of personal importance, then it would follow that boys and girls may exhibit this behavior differently, such as frat jocks peeing on people off balconies (I say people because I cannot envision a world in which they don’t pee on guys, they would, yet the girls part is all Feminists ever notice. If the cops were equally brutal and unjust to white people, it’d disprove them being racist, wouldn’t it?), and Sorority girls spreading vicious rumors about Becky being a slut, or worse, having their advances rebuffed, and leveling the score by accusing someone of rape.
Humans do this. Women don’t do it because of Patriarchy. Men don’t either. Chimps don’t do it because Patriarchy either. We do it because evolution happened, and that’s something we picked up along the way, for good or ill, like confirmation bias.
But, we have this thing called growing up, and this thing called culture. Culture dictates we don’t pee on people, or call them names, or rape, or accuse people falsely. Growing up means becoming inculcated with this culture of adulthood, and giving up on so many unhelpful behaviors we’re generally born with. Some people never grow up, and some can’t.
The one front we grow up the slowest and least on: Confirmation bias. That evil, Patriarchal invention, the scientific method, is the only means anyone has ever come up with that appears to minimise this cognitive flaw. Feminism fails to be within shouting distance of it, and whenever it is brought close, it falls down.
Particle physics recently proved the existence of the Higgs Boson, one of the big missing keystones to all the wierd underpinnings of our reality that had yet to be proven, but was predicted by our current model. When is Feminism going to find this Patriarchy? Me, I’m sick of having a bad back, missing teeth, a shitty income and being more likely than you to die from violence, possibly while homeless (again). If one of the evil, globe-spanning conspiracies I’m a member of could do something for me, that’d be really fucking swell. Shit, even the KKK had a charity arm…
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What we’re saying is assholes are assholes, and this “Rape culture” is fucking bullshit. Calling anything that isn’t rape “rape” is fucking sick, and as someone who has been raped more than anyone needs to fucking hear about, I’d really appreciate it if you and yours would quit equating the odd funny look, shitty joke or act of otherwise empty intimidation with rape. As Jules says: “It aint even the same ballpark, hell, it aint even the same fucking game!”
Some men are shitheads. Check. We get that. We had to grow up with it being okay for them to hold us face down in toilets, to gang up and kick us, on the ground, till we couldn’t fucking walk. To have them cycle through every insult they know, just to find the one that gets to you. To steal out money and our dignity, all in the name of a brief feeling of power over another human being. So, two things: Stop making this about you and your skinned knees, we’ve got arterial bleeding here, and also: That’s just how boys bully.
These bullies need to be called bullies, not boys or men, or somehow called my culture. I’ve hated this type since I met them, and have had 0% impact on them changing my entire life. So, what kind of fucked-up mass victim-blaming is “rape culture” really, if it yells at me to fix them because we both have the same genitals?
Seriously, pull off the Feminism lens, or at least look through the humanist part of your bifocals, and see that this dogma is not only inherently false, wrong and victim-blaming, but also sexist, immature, convoluted and willfully ignores every fact that doesn’t fit the “theory”
Yet still, I sit here and don’t call you names, when you use a phrase that blames me for my own flashbacks and implies I’m a sex-criminal by default, all because the same mean boys who drove me to repeated suicide attempts scared you with mean words once.
Seriously, if you want to look for a culture that worships the dehumanisation of an entire gender, maybe a mirror would serve you better?
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Seconded. Great line.
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No, you missed my point. Feminism does not equal equality. The person is pretending like feminism was once some force of justice and good in the world. It wasn’t. It didn’t get taken over by the radical feminists, the radical feminists started feminism. They are feminism. You have to be ignorant of history to not know that.
If you want to advocate for women’s rights, call yourself a women’s rights advocate or something. Calling yourself a feminist and trying to talk about what “true” feminism is, is a joke. We know what true feminism is, and it’s not the dictionary definition true feminists hide behind.
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“These bullies need to be called bullies”
Exactly. It’s not any sort of culture, it’s that some people get off from making other people feel bad.
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*nods* and I’m sure you know not all bullies are male…
Master, do you think it’s be okay if we satirically invented “Whiny skank culture” wherein we make all women responsible for the odd uneducated, white trash screetchmonkey in uggboots smoking out front of Wal-Mart while texting and screaming at her kids? Seriously, they’re about the same percentage, and just as loveable as dudebros pissing off balconies.
Me, I’m waiting for the day feminists actually call rape on a boy putting a frog down the back of a girls uniform…
*shakes head* I give up… I try talking to them, but it’s like punching smoke whilst nailing Jello to a ceiling… I think I’ll go back to yelling at Fundamentalist religious types, at least they don’t have any laws they can abuse to get at me…
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Mob mentality it is. Look at humans and Chimps, and you see we have really small tribe sizes. We organise around a primary leader (mostly male, but not exclusively.) and we do what’s being done, or risk being left behind. This is why political parties and movements form “factions”, with their own leaders and social climbers, sycophants and rebels. When the numbers in the group get large enough, schisms form. It’s the same dynamic that makes Feminists denounce Feminists as not Feminist… That same dynamic leads to one instigator leading many people to do mean things, while convincing them it’s okay.
Look at Stanley Milgram’s research on authority, where some retardedly almost universal percentage of humans will, when presented with the order to electrocute someone they can’t see to their possible death, will do so, so long as the man in the white coat nods. He’s a scientist, so he must be looking after it.
Same goes for any evil group, from the Manson Family to Feminism. So long as the Tallest says it’s for the common good, cutting people up or denying them rights you yourself demand in the name of equality is fine.
The trick is, to accept this as true of one’s self. Like confirmation bias and other psychological flaws, we need to accept they affect us before we have any hope of counteracting them. Me, I’m still learning, but practicing… First rule is to always ask: Honestly, what is the worst thing this current action could possibly lead to, and do I want to be remembered for that action for all of human history. If the answer is anything other than a resounding yes, it’s time to step back and rethink.
It’s why I don’t join groups, or have a banner, or use anything but, at most, a contraction of my real name online. It keeps me as the only authority in my life, so it’s at least a lot harder to end up looking back on my life and shaking my head (well, anymore than ages 3-30ish already do :p).
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“And if this kind of weird subculture is what men call “every fucking day” of their lives, then there is a serious problem in our culture. ”
It’s not culture, it’s human nature. You seem to think that everyone is born a super nice person, and then culture corrupts them into being a bully/rapist/big meanie or whatever.
When it would be far more accurate to say that we are born with a violent and selfish nature, and that culture plays a role in turning us away from this.
I know I was a selfish, thoughtless little prat when I was kid.
Those boys who threatened to rape you? You shouldn’t be blaming any sort of culture for that, you should be thankful for living in a culture where those sort of things don’t happen more often.
And of course it would be nicer if we could live in a Utopia where no one is ever mean to anyone else ever. It’s a work in progress, and we have made excellent progress over the last several thousand years make no mistake.
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So acting differently in the presence of others than one would on ones lonesome is what defines a social force? So my holding in my farts around women is a social force. My not swearing around children is a social force etc….
I would call these: a conscious decision on my part to change my behavior around others so as to avoid upsetting them or causing them any kind of discomfort. Being nice you could say.
As for the StupidVille football players: Human males will punish other human males for any weakness. This is because human males rely heavily on one an other, and a group is only as strong as it’s weakest member. I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but the Stupidville case happens all the time. It happens to young men who can’t handle their drink in front of their male peers. The male peers will do things to the passed out male’s limp body. I’ve done it. It’s normally limited to drawing dicks on their face then taking pictures of them, but it can go as far as undressing them, drawing dicks on their whole body, shaving a dick into their hair etc… I think it’s pretty much the exact same thing going on with StupidVille.
Of course, when a too-drunk-to-resist man is stripped naked, wrapped in sellotape, tied to lamppost, and left there over night, nobody goes to jail. (Yes that has happened. It’s actually pretty standard for Stag Dos). I would say that is worse than having your genitals touched.
It just comes down to the same thing. If that was a male and not a female victim in StupidVille, no one would care. That is how men/boys treat each other all the time, for good or for ill, (humiliating one another basically). But when it happens to a female, holy shit storm. They didn’t even draw any dicks on her as far as I’m aware, amateurs.
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First off, I never said that all men were responsible for the behavior of a few (and I honestly think the percentage of men or boys who would commit a rape, or even joke about doing so, is extremely low) — but I think this misunderstanding may be based on my misunderstanding of someone’s comment that the rape jokes I’d experienced on one occasion were an “every fucking day” thing for them. I see now that this person meant that he was continually bullied by guys like that — NOT that he hung out with guys who were in the habit of making rape jokes.
I’d actually be okay about redefining the rape jokes as simple bullying if it weren’t that so many people here seem sympathetic to the Steubenville bullies, who felt so sure of their place as the town’s darlings that they felt safe enough to shame their victim even further by posting the images of what they were doing to her online. And I don’t get the idea that she did them equal harm by trying to nab herself a jock and raise her status.
I do want to make it clear, again, that I oppose the law that requires everyone who’s served their time for a sex crime to spend their life on a registry. Having a permanent criminal record is enough of a burden to carry. And I also want to emphasize the fact that I believe any female bullies who decide to take advantage of a drunk male in a similar way should be convicted of rape, too.
There are indeed some women who’ve served time for rape, and maybe as our society becomes more egalitarian, more boys and men will have the courage and support to come forward and report incidences of sexual abuse, as well as other kinds of abuse, that have been perpetrated against them by women.
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Am I mistaken in thinking that JB herself has said, on at least one occasion, that feminism was originally a good and necessary thing?
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While it’s just as wrong to gang up on a man like that as on a woman, do you think people criticize the man as viciously if his “shaming” gets posted online?
In the Stupidville case, doesn’t it seem possible that the girl felt tremendous pressure to do whatever it took to clear herself? I have the feeling that she was getting shamed a lot more by her friends than a boy would be in a similar situation.
But again, maybe we don’t have to call it rape culture — maybe it’s just an inegalitarian culture that’s slanted towards dehumanizing both females and males in different situations. As we become more human, maybe everyone will have more strength and support to live down a mistake without feeling like their lives have been ruined.
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I guess I see human nature as basically good, or at least neutral — with potential for both good and evil, but not as inherently evil. The desire to belong with a group is actually a good thing — the problem is when the price of belonging with a particular group is being robbed of your soul.
My experience of staying at or near the bottom of the social pecking order all through my school years was actually my worst experience of human nature. People told me it was the “real world,” but I honestly found the adult world to be a lot kinder and more willing to make room for different people, so I felt like I’d be giving my own kids a great start in life by just keeping them out of school
Then my older daughter expressed a strong desire for the school experience, so she started the 8th grade (which was my absolute worst year) last fall after homeschooling for the first thirteen years of her life — and guess what? She loves it. She’s not a bully, she doesn’t get bullied, and she doesn’t tolerate bullying of others. She has a small group of friends, and of course it’s not perfect, but the system has changed tremendously from what it was like when I was her age.
Schools don’t tolerate bullying anymore. I’m not claiming it never happens — but teachers no longer have a policy of just staying out of every conflict and expecting the bullied kids to either become fighters themselves, or get used to being abused.
I think that in the past, the negative view of human nature led adults to conclude that kids just had to find their place in the abusive pecking order and learn to either bully, go along with the bullies, or be the doormat the bullies wiped their feet on. But we’re slowly realizing that not all cultures are made up of bullies, victims, and bystanders, and that human nature (especially in children) really does have the capacity to accept all kinds of people.
So our task now is to speak up in any situation where we see abuse, whether the victim is male or female, black or white, whatever.
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This is all very nice, but life for men in the U.S. isn’t getting any better for men anytime soon. In fact it just keeps getting worse everyday. The laws just keep getting worse and worse making it extremely dangerous to even just talk to women at all or be anywhere near them.
And women in the U.S. are becoming more horrible everyday to the point you just want to completely avoid 98% of them anyway and yes, they all pretty much act the same, passive aggressive, spiteful, full of hate and just an all around attitude that says, “fuck you,” with everything they say and do every single second of the day.
They never just take a break and act like human beings for even 3 seconds- nope, every single word, every single act has to say, “I’m better than you and fuck you because, well, I have a vagina,” and every interaction has to be a conflict – a fight and an argument and it’s always extremely stupid, spiteful, catty, petty and just a complete waste of life. I know about 8 women who I like, but other than that, if I never had to speak to another U.S. female for the rest of my life, it would be Heaven.
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I don’t know where you live in the U.S., but here in Missouri where I live, I do see a lot of things becoming more egalitarian. For example, it’s no longer all that unusual here for a divorced dad to be awarded primary custody of the children — and not because the mother’s an addict or an abusive person, but because, whenever both parents want custody, the courts here look long and hard to determine what arrangement is best for the children. Our state sees child custody as being about children’s rights — not men’s or women’s rights.
In the past, just as it was fairly easy for a man to abandon his family and avoid making child support payments if he wanted to (I’m not saying the majority of men did this, but some did), it was also fairly easy for a woman to just cut her ex-husband out of his children’s lives. Nowadays, both of these evil behaviors are becoming increasingly hard to perpetuate, because of the growing realization that most children do best when they can bond with, and be supported by, both parents.
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Heh, I’m simultaneously morally outraged at what you just said, yet entirely aware of having absolutely no rational disagreement. Well played, sir.
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Well, I suggest you say all these thing in your own name, publicly, whilst telling everyone you’re a Feminist. That should clear things right up then.
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98% eh? You must know a lot of women for that anally-derived statistic to be valid. Oh, and not only that, but you must know them really, really well, too. So you can tell the difference between them on a bad day, and them at their best.
Or…
And I’m just spitballing here… Maybe if 98% of women are really mean and spiteful to you, and just nasty and mean, maybe, just maybe… Look, I’ll ask as nicely as I can: Have you completely eliminated the possibility that you might be a cunt?
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You sound like a nice, reasonable, caring person, so why are you walking around in public with your underpants on your head, wearing nothing but the skin of another human being? Or, to quit being all colourful: Why are you insisting on calling yourself a member of a supremacist movement? Did the constant PR catchcry of “Feminism = Equality” get to you that badly that you’ve just allowed confirmation bias to ignore every truly abhorrent thing done under that banner, and the horribly small number of things it ever really achieved in the first place?
See, here’s the thing with modern feminist logic. My understanding of it goes a little like this: If there is a circumstance in which I would like to be involved, but in which the people make me feel uncomfortable, then the solution is to yell at those people and criminalise their behavior, rather than this being an opportunity for me to either reevaluate my hopes and dreams, or to possibly, I dunno, adapt…
So, when I have the problem that all the guys who train at the same martial arts gym as me remind me of the people who used to violently bully me, and still talk like the same people, and I feel, every day, like there’s an implied threat, or that I feel that someone took longer to notice me tapping, that’s all on them. My personal perceptions being called into question are victim-blaming, and I should most definitely feel valid in my belief that these mean, aggressive men hate me for my (relative) femininity. That this is a sick culture, and the only way to fix it is for charges to be laid, for these men to have their privilege checked, taken away, for their behavior to be deemed shameful, because the way sports-loving, fitness obsessed men behave while working out, or in the locker room, is a “hostile environment” to people like me.
Or, you know, I could accept that my perceptions are not the objective truth, that emotions and confirmation bias can lead us to unhelpfully inaccurate places, and either accept that this environment is already occupied by those who are already comfortable, and accept that they too have a right to comfort. So, I can either adapt or accept that this isn’t for me. I’m still struggling with that, but in a good way. I’m making progress, growing as a person, learning to tolerate and understand different modes of communication, and also exorcising demons of my past, by still being myself around those who used to invalidate my existence, yet now notice when I haven’t been to training for a while, and ask me about my back.
Feminism would have me “burn down the joint”. I choose instead to adapt. My opinion is further reinforced by my mental illness and recovery, in which complaining about what everyone did to break me, or ruminating on those aspects of society and reality I cannot change, did and does nothing to fix my problems.
The moment I see a Feminist actually stand up and stay up (through the barrage of death-threats and gendered insults) while publicly denouncing everything done under the banner of Feminism that is counter to their egalitarian view of the movement… That’ll be the moment I think anyone saying “That’s not Feminism” is even vaguely valid. Shit, I’m not even an “MRA” and I spend half my time giving the wingnuts on this side a good earbashing, but you guys just agree to disagree, while occasionally threatening to kill one another…
*shakes head*
Okay, now I’m gonna grasp at one final straw: What would it take for you to see Feminism as counterproductive, harmful and wrong? No ideology or person is immune to falling from grace, so I’m curious if you can even come up with some sort of hypothetical circumstance in which Feminism = Equality was inherently disproven? I’m sure there’s lines a political party could cross that’d stop you voting for them, or things a friend could do that’d stop you talking to them, so what would it take for you to begin to look askance at Feminism?
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I’m not JB. And I wouldn’t take her word for it.
The idea that feminism was good or necessary, is just unfounded. It’s just an example of feminism taking credit for things they had nothing to do with.
Technological progress is what has advanced society, not feminism. Women worked before feminism, owned property before feminism, even got an education before feminism. The difference was barely anyone got an education, especially beyond high school in the 40s and 50s. And the work available now is significantly better than the work around the early 1900s and before.
Society would have advanced for men and women in spite of feminism. Feminism is just taking credit for shit it didn’t have a part in.
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Yup. Look at the industrial revolution, loads of women worked right alongside men, as well as children, in horrible, dangerous, poorly paid positions. If feminism achieved anything, it was making sure women didn’t have to work in those sorts of jobs anymore. Except for the fact that they didn’t have anything to do with that either :p
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“do you think people criticize the man as viciously if his “shaming” gets posted online”
Probably not. But likely only because people care more about women than men. I am much more critical of stupid, dangerous behavior of a person I care about than I am of a person I don’t. I imagine the girls parents were probably (hopefully) the ones who criticized her behavior the most. If I saw a man doing something self-endangering, I would probably leave them to it. If I saw a child doing something self-endangering I would give them a jolly good telling off.
“While it’s just as wrong to gang up on a man like that as on a woman”
I don’t think it’s wrong at all. I think it’s a kind of love/caring. Their stupid behavior is being punished in a harmless way. What if you passed out drunk and there was a fire? You’d be endangering not just your life but everyone else’s too. A (good) parent would ground you for passing out drunk, a good friend can’t ground you, so instead they would draw a dick on your face to teach you a lesson. Having said that, the guys in the StupidVille probably crossed the line, probably partially owing to their inebriated state, but they didn’t cross it that much. I agree with them that someone who passes out drunk deserves to be pissed on. But I would certainly draw the line at the sexual assault, especially on a 16 year old.
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I wan’t saying human nature is inherently evil, just that we have the capacity for violence/selfishness as well as kindness and compassion etc…. Some people more on than the other.
Our culture does a pretty darn good job of weeding out the bad and encouraging the good. Not perfect, but certainly a very good job. And we’ve got to that point on the back of centuries of “social progress” or whatever you want to call it.
The capacity for rape is natural to humans, just look at human history or what happens in war-zones, where the restraints of culture are no longer present. That doesn’t mean rape still doesn’t happen, and by all means we should continue to try and reduce the prevalence of rape even further. But the only “rape culture” that exists is the one that means you are less likely to raped today than at any other point in the time in the history of human civilization.
And one final thing: There do exist certain subcultures, where rape is less unacceptable than it is in wider society as a whole. But these subcultures are always ones where violence on the whole is more acceptable i.e. competitive, violent sports like football, and the military. The reason for this is obvious: Violent sports, for example, will attract violent people to them. Hence the participants will have a higher than normal quantity of people who are violent (rape falls under the bracket of violence here).
I remember when I first played Rugby (I’m British), I was really good at it because I am generally sporty and in particular a very fast runner, but I just couldn’t get into it because it’s such a violent sport and I hated that. Others, however, seemed to enjoy stamping on peoples faces when they were on the flaw etc..
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So technological progress is what got women the vote?
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I think it’s great that you’re working to overcome stuff that limited you in the past, and I agree that it’s countrerproductive to try to pass laws about everything.
I feel like I’ve learned some helpful things here, and from JB — but I just can’t get on-board with what seems like a strong hatred towards any woman who at some point in her life just didn’t have her shit together. For example, I have some good friends who were single moms when they got married, and who went on to have happy marriages and stay married. But if she had her way, apparently no decent man would have looked twice at them.
I’m really for human rights, and I’m not for demonizing either group.
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That makes sense. I’d hated generalizing about athletes, because I know there are some athletes who are very good people, but it seemed like my own observations, as well as the news, made me perceive any group of highly competitive and privileged males — such as jocks and fraternity guys — as not all that safe to be around.
I’d never have felt safe attending a fraternity party in college, even supposing I’d been invited to one — but I’m not saying I was any smarter than the girls who went, because I think that, being at the bottom of the social ladder, I saw a seamier side of those guys’ personalities than they’d show to a girl whose opinion they cared about.
But speaking of jocks, I’m just assuming that the Steubenville boys’ defense lawyers did their best to make sure the juries were made up of the closest thing to peers that they could find — the men most likely to identify with these boys’ feelings and understand why things developed the way they did. And of course they actually saw the videos, which I don’t imagine any of us did. So for men from that same jock background to say the girl was incapable of giving consent seems like a pretty clear indication that she wasn’t.
And it also gives me more hope for humanity, to realize that even a jury of former jocks and “alphas” can eventually mature to a place of being able to see injustice for what it is.
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“I don’t think it’s wrong at all. I think it’s a kind of love/caring. Their stupid behavior is being punished in a harmless way.” So would you say that “slut-shaming” — such as the brand that drove 15-year-old Felicia Garcia to commit suicide — is just a way of showing love? And yes, it was other girls who did the shaming! Women can be just as cruel, if not more cruel, to each other than men can.
If my children do something dangerous, I sit them down and explain what could have happened. I don’t call them cruel names or draw dicks on their faces. As a parent, I’ve found education to be a million times more effective than punishment. My parenting journey is actually what led me out of fundamentalist Christianity, with it’s very negative view of human nature, and into a worldview that sees humans, and human society, as having great potential for good.
People who feel loved and happy most of the time actually do want to live and don’t want to self-destruct, so straightforward education works pretty well for them. And for people who haven’t had their needs met and are in a very bad place, I’m not saying education always works, but shaming literally has the power to drive them over the edge.
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Lol, did you miss her screen name? Yeah, look, 70%+ of the stuff she says to get attention is kind of horrible, and it’s doubly silly when she’s being overdramatic while calling some group of women “attention whores”…
However, for someone raised to hate misogyny, to loathe inequality and to generally root for the underdog, I prefer her to any single voice in modern feminism. Why? Because Feminism says worse things about men every damn day, and gets a free pass because we’re the oppressors and rapists, dontcherknow. How do you think it feels to be a regular victim of female and male unprovoked assault, homelessness, and gender bias that lead to me not getting the correct psych diagnosis while in regular contact with psych professionals for 20+ years? How great would that be? Would it be even nicer if there was a voice out there pledging equality while blaming you for having this life? I’m a man, so I must fix the patriarchy for you, from down here. But first I need to fix the pay gap, because priorities…
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Male, British, Rugby Fan and non-violent! Plus, you don’t support rape. Stereotypes are made to be broken I guess :p
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Sorry, but that’s about as “helpful” a behavior as the beating to teach someone a lesson. Sure, both help some people, but lets face it, we have better ways of communicating than blunt force trauma and peeing on people.
Though I’ll never, never argue that drawing dicks on passed out people isn’t majestic…
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Hey, as a parent I’d never be accepting of drawing dicks on kids. That’s creepy and wrong. However, once they’re old enough to draw dicks themselves…
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I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve never assumed that all athletes and athletic fans were violent or rapists. And I’d like to assume that most jock and frat parties end up with nothing like Steubenville going on. Maybe it is just a stereotype that it seems more likely to happen at one of those parties than at a chess club party.
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Oh, sorry, I’d missed seeing the period and thought you were telling me “…you don’t support rape stereotypes are made to be broken…” 🙂
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I wasn’t replying to you (MC), but to That Susan.
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To a large degree yes, not entirely mind you but it did play a role. Technology from the industrial revolution encouraged the development of, if not democracy, than representative governments where previously wealthy aristocrats including women were the only one with a “vote”. Specifically in the US it was technology that made “large scale” migration to the intermountian west possible, and gave the states and territories forming there the impetus to expand suffrage to women to encourage their migration, and it was technology that allowed coastal feminists to show that women voting in the west didn’t cause any harm. One final thing, why are modern feminists still so obsessed with suffrage, you do know that the last American citizen legally denied the vote even once because of their sex alone died in November 2002? What good things has feminism accomplished in the last 96 years? If you have to resort to brandishing the spectre of a “wrong” which was resolved before 98.6% of all living people were born and never effected any of the 1.4% who preceded the resolution, perhaps you need to find better more contemporary reasons to justify your movements existence.
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P.S. Do you know when the property requirement for voting was rescinded, giving men the vote? I’ll give you a hint, it took a constitutional amendment, and it wasn’t done by any of the Jefferson era amendments, which means it was after the civil war.
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The majority of men didn’t have the vote either throughout history. They got it within 10-50 years of each other. The difference was that men were expected to die for their country at the request of their government, so they thought, only in recent history, to extend the vote to men.
Women got the vote, soon after, without the sacrifice.
But you seem to think voting is actually a right. Nobody has the right to vote. Voting was a privilege granted by government. America was not founded as a democracy, though they have unfortunately turned it into one.
Justifying the feminist movement on voting, of all things, is all the more reason to oppose feminism. Voting means that as long as 51% of people want something, even if it is unconstitutional, the other 49% are shit out of luck.
I do not know of a single good use of voting in the past 100 years. The country would be far better off if everyone stopped voting.
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Most feminists have actually worked hard to make the draft requirement equal for men and women, whether by doing away with it entirely, or making women register, too. The Equal Rights Amendment was an attempt to remove all laws that made distinctions between the sexes — but it was actually a woman, Phyllis Schlafly, who was pretty instrumental in defeating it.
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Yes, early feminists recognized that the draft was very much tied to the vote, and so they campaigned for the draft to be extended to women. Which is pretty fucking evil if you ask me.
The draft is the government saying you don’t have a right to your own life and body, but must die for them if need be. It is military slavery.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. And extending such a thing to women, would not be a win for freedom or equality. Phyllis Schlafly was right to oppose it.
The feminists might have no problem sending women to their deaths, against their will, for their ideology, but I don’t think if men are worse off, we should bring women down to that level.
That would be like supporting girls getting circumcised because boys are circumcised in our society.
I would gladly give up my voting rights to not sign up for the draft. But again, I don’t give a shit about voting “rights.”
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I agree that we’d be better off doing away with the draft altogether.
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I agree that our society’s been much harsher to men — so maybe it does make a few people stop and think when someone comes down hard on women in a similar way. But many people never get past seeing the total meanness of certain comments.
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