World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[pepharytheworm]

Since we are throwing out statisics, 1 out of 3 women are victims of rape, 1 out of 10 men are rapist. That number should be frightening.

Those numbers are not real, you are misinformed. While rape statistics are high, they are nowhere in the realm of what you are suggesting.

Add victims of rape or attempted rape and rapist or attempted rapist then. The sad thing is the definition of rape differs between countries which makes the statistics to low or to high. For instance plenty of places find that spousal rape is not rape at all.

I am sorry if I offended you with one of my question. I admit I wasn't being tactful. I will rephrase it to the statement of; females go out constantly with the fear of being sexually assaulted or harassed. To many women being harassed is so common they just except it as a way of life. Males on the other hand this is not as much of a concern, not counting males who were already sexually assualted.

I am not saying a male support group for sexual assault victims is something that shouldn't happen, but it doesn't need a men's rights movement, when feminism already covers everything that isn't sexist about men's rights.

[AppleQueso]

Who do you think is raping that 38% of males? Mostly other men.

Actually 46% of male victims reported a female perpetrator and female-on-male rape is underreported compared to male rape in general which is already greatly underreported.

Rape in general is greatly underreported.

Since we are throwing out statisics, 1 out of 3 women are victims of rape, 1 out of 10 men are rapist. That number should be frightening.

Those numbers are not real, you are misinformed. While rape statistics are high, they are nowhere in the realm of what you are suggesting.

It *is* high, yes, and it is much higher for women than for men.

I am a feminist and any man who says they are not are either sexist or ignorant of the definition. Do you believe women deserve equal rights? If you do, then guess what, you are a feminist too.

You are begging the question, a question that is in no way, shape or form related to my post about why men should be able to form an interest group themselves to tackle issues like their own rape without being forced into a certain movement.

Honestly I'm weary of forcing labels onto people who don't want them as well.

Thing is, I don't see Men's Rights groups actually doing anything about male rape. They talk about how feminism doesn't address it adequately, sure, but they don't actually seem to actually do much of anything about it. They don't seem to care.

What would you do anyways? Push for a greater understand of what 'consent' means, and why sex without it is never okay? Feminism already pushes that very strongly. Fight against people who try to blame the victims for their own rapes? Feminism tackles that strongly as well. Teach that rape is a crime that needs to be taken seriously by authorities? Again... yeah. Preventing male rape aligns perfectly well with feminist ideology.

I don't think a full blown 'movement' for 'men's rights' is something that makes sense, and the fact that most attempts at such a movement have turned into little more than reactionary anti-feminist rantings and thinly veiled outright misogyny is telling.

Support groups, advocacy groups, etc that focus on male rape victims? Sure, I can get behind that. No reason a full blown "movement" is necessary at all though. However I feel that this is going to just descend into a back and forth "they should be allowed to make a movement that focuses on their needs" vs "a full blown movement is unnecessary" ad infinitum so eh

[dsheinem]

Preventing male rape aligns perfectly well with feminist ideology.

I don't think a full blown 'movement' for 'men's rights' is something that makes sense, and the fact that most attempts at such a movement have turned into little more than reactionary anti-feminist rantings and thinly veiled outright misogyny is telling.

+1

[Erik_Twice]

Preventing male rape aligns perfectly well with feminist ideology.

But it doesn't align with feminist politics and, in practice, feminism as a movement has done very little to combat male rape and often has contributed to it by perpetuating myths that men can't be raped, that male rape is statistically insignificant, boycotting attempts to build male support centres, lobbying for laws that don't consider male rape to be rape and marginalizing and down-right threating those feminists that have advoced for male rape to be as important as female rape, like Erin Pizzey.

Let's not whitewash history. Feminism has treated and keeps treating male rape victims like crap.

The feminist approach to male rape has always been first to deny it (It doesn't happen), then to diminish it (It's not statistically significant) and then to claim that equality will "trickle-down" and we shouldn't devote any more effort to the issue (It's already covered). And all this buttered in a good dose of "Men shouldn't be feminists". Feminism doesn't exactly open its arms to men and it could be argued it's not supposed to.

I was reading an article on the topic and the comments are exactly about what I'm saying. Watch how a male victim that identifies and works in a feminist organization is treated:
http://the-toast.net/2013/10/17/making- ... t-sense/2/

"This reeks of male entitlement"

"First of all, I am not comfortable with men calling themselves feminists, particularly because men in feminist circles will often want to shift the focus to their issues. Case and point: this post. In fact, I didn't know he wasn't an MRA until I got to the paragraph about MRAs. "

"Feminism should NOT apologize for not serving men (duh, that's sort of the point cause everything else is there to do that already.)"

This kind of comments are the rule, not the exception.

Thing is, I don't see Men's Rights groups actually doing anything about male rape.

I'm not advocating any particular male interest group, I'm arguing against the idea that men should not organize to deal with sexism because Feminism has them covered.

[dsheinem]

General Norris you are still painting "feminism" with a totalizing brush "feminists say..." or "feminists do..." --- not sure how you can do that or make claims about the exception/rule in an era of third-wave or later feminism.

Anonymous web comments don't make a compelling case study for how "feminism" thinks about rape. Not to get up on my high horse, but I have a doctoral degree with coursework in activism, feminist criticism, etc., have published peer reviewed scholarship on issues of sex and gender and have long taught a well received upper level undergraduate course on gender. Your perspective on feminism, its ideologies, and its history is just not borne out by research about the movement, by its major figures, or its successes. You can find vocal fringe extremists associated with any idea or politics...but making them stand in for the whole is absurd.

[Ack]

I think this is one of the more interesting conversations we have had on this forum. If nothing else, I will add that many of the women I know personally I would also describe as feminist, though they feel at odds with what they consider "mainstream feminism" or "current generational feminism" because of their views on sex positivity (several are burlesque dancers), attitudes toward men, and because they feel there are definite differences between men and women. What they perceive as the current norm of feminism is a sex negative, anti-male movement that denies differences between genders and also seems to offer little help to women in third world countries, which I believe is also the view General_Norris has advanced. Regardless of whether it is an accurate interpretation of feminism, this is the current interpretation that many people hold.

Also, as a male victim of domestic violence committed by a female, I do wish I could have had some kind of outlet or support group. I didn't, and instead I stayed in a toxic relationship for far too long until she eventually dumped me to go fuck someone else. Several years later, I get more furious than anything else when I think about it, particularly because I thought it was normal at the time and now just feel humiliated by it. I also dislike the generalizations I see, such as the #NotAllMen hash tag, because I feel those completely erase or whitewash my own suffering in a blatant attempt to vilify men.

[AppleQueso]

The particular brand of feminism I see most often and am most involved with tends to be intersectional, sex worker positive, and trans inclusive.

The gender differences thing can open up a huge can of worms, especially with regard to my own identity, so i'm reluctant to touch on it even though I have a ton I could say.

I will say that I find the most hateful and radical brands of feminism tend to be the ones who most adamantly subscribe to essentialist ideas of gender. The ones who claim that men are inherently predisposed to rape or be violent, for example.

[Erik_Twice]

It's a generalization but one simply cannot talk about the subject without it. Feminism, as a movement, has issues, like any other movement. This is not an uncharitable claim.

Claiming that any issues with the movement are also the work of extremists also comes across as whitewashing, as if the only real feminists were those morally impolute. There are poisonous ideas even in the most well-intended movements and I think it's a good thing to point them out.

It would be awful of me to claim that the only real feminists are those who support sex workers while claiming Sweden feminism is a fringe group despite holding significantly more power and influence.


The whole issue is a semantic one, like the #NotAllMen hashtag that created this whole debate. Yes, #NotAllFeminists have a poor track record with male rape, in the same way that not all LGTB activists treat bisexuals like confused traitors or the same way not all Unions threaten to beat up people who don't support a strike. But it's a wide, deep-seated problem with the movement and we cannot ignore that anymore than we can ignore transphobia or racism within the feminist movement.

Every single movement has skeletons in their cupboards. I don't think it's unfair to claim that feminism has some too.

[Ack]

I will say that I find the most hateful and radical brands of feminism tend to be the ones who most adamantly subscribe to essentialist ideas of gender. The ones who claim that men are inherently predisposed to rape or be violent, for example.

Right. And unfortunately since the fringe tends to be the loudest, it also tends to appear representative of the whole to outsiders. Most massive groups have this same issue(look at politics. Oh boy, it gets ridiculous there). As a result, most responses are reactionary to the fringe but aimed at the whole. Do I think all feminists hate men? No, not at all. But I have had experiences with other feminists who do not uphold the fringe ideals and are also troubled by them. And the fringe really does piss me off, as it tends to take extremism to the point it annihilates the purpose of the movement and instead helps to further fuel its criticism.

[pepharytheworm]

Can people not see how #Notallmen was undermining the issue that even though not all men are misogynistic #Yesallwomen have to deal with misogyny everyday.

If you are a good guy then you are a good guy, why be defensive and dismissive of other's distresses that is a worldwide problem. Be a good guy by making a hash tag condemning these misogynistic behaviors first. Notallmen is a reflective statement not a productive one. Tell the black slave not all white people when they discusses how they feel about their treatment by white society.

Again can anyone name a matriarchal or egalitarian society? This all really comes down to patriarchy ruling the world. And with this predominance in charge it makes everything lopsided towards male favor. Domestic abuse period is terrible and shouldn't be tolerated but because of the patriarchy it makes it much easier for males to escape. More money, not being a stay at home dad is a predominate average. Much harder to leave with less money and even harder with no job taking care of kids. I was abused and I just took it, still have scars on my back as proof, but when it was too much I was able to leave even though it was hard for mental reasons more than financial.