Women's liberation is now complete?

http://www.broadstreetreview.com/index.php...female_naivete/

This was linked on another board. It is not some fringe nutter who wrote this: it is an established journalist. I would like to be able to say that his views are not common: but I am afraid that is not my impression nor the impression of a lot of other women, as evidenced by the widespread support for the "slut marches"

So far, so unsurprising. But once again I am led to wonder: why do men put up with this? Many are quick to jump on the bandwagon and point to instances of sexual discrimination against men (and that is a diffferent discussion in some ways) where it is in employment etc. Stuff like this is more usually attacked by women for the implications it has for them: and rightly so. But the insult to men is profound and I certainly would be angry if I was portrayed like that.

Women have been dismissed as not worth hearing if they insult men like this, on the "all men are rapists" line: but that is what this man is saying (he makes a few exceptions but his message is that all women should act on the assumption that men are rapists). If male journalists and judges tell us this is true then how come it is only an insult when we say it?

When are men going to stand up and fight for some respect ?

Does such a portrayal of men not anger you, Vninect? What puzzles me is the absence of an outcry with a lot of men writing letters and giving interviews pointing out that this man is a nasty idiot and does not speak for them. Why does this not happen?

I agree that there are costs to taking this up. The stereotyping of gender is just that: it is not solely the stereotyping of women. If what you are saying is that challenging that stereotype will attract censure, you are perfectly correct. The denigration of feminism is hardly news: and if men join in to challenge it too, they will get the same sort of backlash. Social change is not easy and it does not come without a price. But are you not really just arguing for cowardice? "They" will say you are lying (which is not readily distinguishable from being "politically correct") or that you are out of touch with reality? This bothers you why? Actually you are naive: they will say you are only taking your position to get laid: and they will say that it is because you are gay (which is interesting in itself since they assume that is an insult too): they will say you are "pussy-whipped" and they will say you are a traitor. Not one of those characterisations has any merit whatsoever. But it seems you are more afraid of those names than you are of the label rapist. That speaks volumes about the values we hold, to my way of thinking.

I do not agree that there are no benefits. At its simplest, being described as a rapist is horrible. Apparently it is only truly and challengeably horrible when women do it, though. A lesser mortal might conclude that the problem is not with the label but rather with the leaking of the secret.

But the problem for men goes far beyond that; as I read your paragraph you appear to be saying that your freedom to express your opinion is censored by this pervasive perception of gender relations: and your freedom to behave in ways which might appeal to you is too. That is exactly the problem women face too. There is more violence attached, you say: but that is not true if you are a gay man, for example, or a transvestite. In the end I wonder if it is true for any man at all. What is the consequence of speaking out which you fear? They would call you names? You can't expect me to believe that would deter you: I put it to you that there is an underlying threat of violence aimed at anyone who challenges this. It is not widely carried through because you all keep your mouths shut. But I think it is there. Or maybe comfortable acceptance into the group is enough? Well there would be no social change at all if that informed our actions entirely.

Without wishing to be rude, as I understand your posiiton it is self serving in the extreme. What you seem to me to be saying is that you know that there are costs; and you know that you are privileged under current arrangements; and you will happily take those benefits until the climate changes: meantime you can make private sympathetic noises which get you a white hat for no cost at all. You do not seem to be alone. But accepting profound insult for such reasons is not very admirable: and in another part of the forest it does not fit the stereotype of the male. That male does not accept profound insult without a response. And so this line of thinking fails. It follows that you do not see it for the insult that it is: and that is, I would argue, because you accept the proposition put at some level. That is not a personal criticism, nor yet one based wholly on gender: it is also true of women because of the culture we all grow up in: but even if our analysis is not perfectly aligned with our background assumptions (and there is often a mismatch) that is not a justification for supine silence; not even an excuse for it.

The original article insults men far more than it insults women: that is obvious and it is not "my" problem. It is yours.


Fucking pathetic!

A number of points arise from that:

1. When women shorthand a complex argument into "all men are rapists" they are reported in that simplistic way and they are pilloried. The actual argument which was the basis for that shorthand was had long ago (I believe it was well articulated in The Female Eunuch" which was written in the 1970's I think). The actual proposition touches directly on what you say, because what Greer was arguing was that there are a minority of men who are bestial rapists, and the rest of the male population benefits from their behaviour directly. The problem for women is that we do not know which ones they are. Since men do not join with us in truly condemnng the consequences of the fear, and the restrictions on our behaviour which these men impose, we have to behave as if all men are rapists. And this is exactly what Dan Rottenberg endorses


But he goes much further


He does not make the caveat that this is a minority explicit any more than feminists do when talking to each other in shorthand. He is not condemned for that as women are: perhaps because you infer the shorthand when a man speaks but not when a woman does? If that is the reason we need to communicate better for this is a double standard par excellence. And in fact he talks of "most men": which is much more extreme than most women will go. Perhaps every one of you thinks you are in the smaller group: but that is not what he says.

The second thing I wish to say about that is that he trades on the assumption that women are not violent: and for the most part the statistics appear to prove him right. Most violence is perpetrated by men, sadly. But look at what that entails because it has a number of implications: the first is why I started this thread. He has no thought that he is insulting most men. If he did he would at least fear that this might attract a response and that response might be violent. I have been told many times that the label rapist is as bad as it gets for men: ok so he does not make it personal; he does not say you, Vninect, are a rapist. So you can wriggle out of the honour thing that way I suppose. I put it to you, though, that he does not expect you to take it as statement about your behaviour or your "nature", because if he did then he might take his own advice and treat "crime" as a
and he would SHUT THE FUCK UP.

His second piece is pathetic for precisely this reason. I doubt Mr Smug Rottenberg would see that as reasonable advice if it so happened that a minority of men (or women) reacted to his half witted (and apparently new to him) ideas by going round to his house and panning his windows in. I suspect he would shout "freedom of speech" and would not see it as reasonable to suggest he brought it on himself .

So that is what you think we should do, then? We should engineer a situation where such hate speech actually produces the hate which it deserves. and we should all level down and live in fear of each other for ever after? Well it is some kind of equity, I suppose. I like to think we can do better than that: but if you argue that we make little progress unless argument is ultimately backed by force, I have to say that I find little to put up against the analysis.....

I suppose that what puzzles me is the fact that this man did not take steps to allow that distancing. I touched on this before and I will quote it here:


When I wrote that I believed it: but the article linked in the OP does not do that: the author does nothing at all to allow you to put yourself in a different box: he allows of one very small different box but he skips over it. I think that is the most insulting thing in the piece: he closes the avenue I presumed was there and which you also rely on in your explanation. I am therefore stumped as to why this piece at least does not enrage you or any man

The phenomenon of "corrective rape" in South Africa has been widely reported in the media here. It caught my attention, not because it is horrific ( though it is) but because of the sheer transparency of the excuse.

Rape in South Africa seems to be a bigger problem than it is in the rest of the world: and that is really saying something. For example, in 2009 the country's Medical Research Council conducted a survey in which 1 in 4 men said they had raped someone, and nearly half of them said they had committed more than one rape. Even if we accept that these men may exaggerate through some distorted notion of what makes them men, this level of "normalisation" seeems to me to be self-fulfilling. If there is kudos to saying you did it, it is a shorter step to actually doing it. Thus language and values affect what we do and this is the reason that it is important to recognise that speech is in fact an action. Or so I think.

Another finding of the same survey was that 1 in 10 men said they had been raped by other men. So any presumption that this is only a problem for women is apparently misguided.

It is in this context that we find the notion of "corrective" rape. It is claimed that lesbians are raped and gang raped in order to change their sexual orientation. One cannot even attempt to believe that this is a motivation: it is a very curious instance of "the tribute vice pays to virtue".

This is the latest report from the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13908662

One has to wonder how these women are "cured" when they seem to wind up dead, quite often. Though I suppose that is a final solution of sorts..

I do not know why this description is even entertained, and for me it is another instance of trying to find some kind of justification for rape: a theme we come across again and again. Doesn't seem to matter how stupid or nasty or downright laughable the excuse is: just so long as there is one. I think that the media is in fact culpable in reporting this in this way. To hell with balance: there is no middle ground between good and evil and if that is what balanced reporting means, I am against it. Every time we hear the argument in the OP; or read this sorry excuse for grievous bodily harm and murder, it is a little legitimised. That is not a trivial effect and I am not persuaded that "free speech" is always trumps. Our background values are not fixed: they move and they move in part through what we perceive to be mainstream opinion: because we are social animals and we are apt to accept the views of our peers.

On the face of it the linked article is factual: it reports what is happening and it appears to give "both sides" a platform. The only trouble is that there is no civilised universe in which those who commit such crimes have a "side" worthy of a hearing. By all means report it: but there are ways and ways of doing that. I do not think that

is sticking to the facts: and I do not think that the implications are neutral at all: it seems to suggest that it would have been a lot less serious if she had only been raped: and that the other assaults were evidence that this got out of hand in some way: well that is not how I see it. The attack was a grievous assault and that is all it was. There is no "escalation": the other injuries are part and parcel of it. This subtly undermines the severity of the rape itself: and that is not impartial, nor is it acceptable journalism.

I do understand that it is difficult to be even handed in reporting: but it is not so difficult as all that.

There are a number of things in play here. It is a shame we do not have the other video, because from the short bits included in this one it is not clear that the situations are truly comparable.

I am aware that some of what I have to say will be seen as "special pleading" by those who concur with the view expressed in the comments that "women don't care about equality, unless it benefits them... Women are the biggest fucking hypocrites. " This "bandwaggoning" does have a kernel of important truth, insofar as it points to a double standard: and we should have a think about what that is and what it means. But it betrays the agenda of the writer as well, because in fact, from what we see here, the only people who did intervene were women. The writer appears to miss that, and he or she confirms his own underlying bias in doing so. This touches on something I have mentioned before: the problem belongs to us all and we all need to think about the implications. For the person who wrote that comment, even in this situation only women are held to account. I think that is interesting in itself.

As the interviewee says, each person faced with such a situation has to make a judgement about what is going on. So that is the first thing to consider. As I said, it is unfortunate we do not have the other film. From what we do see, in the first one the man has definitely got her attention. That is not true in this clip: at several poiints we see him apparently reading the paper. As part of the "calculus" the interviewee refers to, that might be significant. Most people who are being genuinely assaulted (from their own perspective) do not sit there and read the paper. It is kind of at odds with the "fight or flight or freeze" response.

That is a complicated issue in itself. The clip makes reference to cinematic portrayals of female violence, but it decontextualises them. When the early feminists referred to the legimisation of male violence, cinematic portrayals were part of that analysis and the context was the important point. Here it is missing altogether. So from the point of view of an analysis it is not very helpful.

In the part of the other film which we see, the victim says "that really hurts": we do not see any such statement from the man in this clip (though he may say it elsewhere). From the point of view of the calculus of intervention the statement is important because it strengthens the seriousness of what is happening: the policeman in the clip said "it didn't look too serious" and of course he said he would intervene in exactly the same situation if the roles were reversed. Perhaps that is exactly right. Similarly in the footage from the other clip we see him physically prevent her from leaving: he lifts her off her feet and puts her on the bench. That does not happen in this clip either, and indeed in the early part he pushes first: at 1:38 she appears to be shoving her hair out of her eyes and he reaches out to grab her arms. That is a small part of what is clearly a long and at some points nasty assault: but for the guy with the dog passing at 1:38 it is not so clear cut as to who is escalating the violence, perhaps. What that shows is that in order to make a convincing scenario the actual portrayal is a bit different. Or at least so I think. It is inevitable, and it is informed by the context as well as by the stereotypes which are undoubtedly in play. The "calculus" is more complicated than the film implies, I suggest

None of that takes away from the fact that we are still in a society where physical violence is accepted as a part of normal life: and that is wrong no matter which way it goes. Gender stereotypes damage everyone: and demonstrations of the double standard which exists are nothing new: again the early feminists used exactly that to raise awareness and to effect some change. So I am not dissing this at all: but it is regrettable that there is no attempt in this presentation to explain the wider cultural background, because "it is not fair" is not enough: there needs to be some attempt to show what and why that is more acceptable than male on female violence. I would argue that it is because of the analysis presented by feminists and that the answer to that is for men to undertake the same exercise on their own behalf.

As an example: I said above that his response did not fit with my own view of assault because at some point he was reading the paper and ignoring her. But when I said that is unusual if the person is truly threatened I may well be wrong. It is entirely possible that ignoring the situation is a common response from men: how would I know? This is where men need to articulate what is going on for them as women did in the past. If they are culturally predisposed to that reaction that needs to be made plain, because a misinterpretation of the significance of that will lead to conclusions which may be well off the mark.

I hope that this video may be part of some deeper analysis of what is going on and will not be just more bandwaggonry: because that is not helpful to any of us.