even sven and monstro, you’re more eloquent than I am. I was just going to say “Have you ever BEEN to the Internet?”
This could just go back and forth I guess so I will stop after this and let you have the last round if you want it.
Just being a study or data is by itself insufficient to qualify as evidence for or against a specific hypothesis: it has to test the hypothesis to be evidence regarding it.
A study or data that does not actually test a specific hypothesis in any meaningful way is not evidence regarding it.
Not sure why that is such a difficult concept.
Demonstrating that men who prey on drunk women go to where alcohol is served and drink with their victims-to-be is not any evidence regarding the question of “whether or not decreasing binge drinking or even drinking completely by males would have any impact on sexual assault frequency.”
The study that demonstrated greater frequency of intimate partner sexual abuse on days of increasing alcohol consumption is evidence that addresses the question. With that study pointed out I ceded that my “bold claim” of “no evidence” was a statement too far. That evidence is not proof but it is indeed evidence as it provides some meaningful test of the hypothesis. My claim of “no evidence” was incorrect.
But if it makes it more easily comprehended by you then feel free to change my phrase to “convincing evidence” or “meaningful evidence” or “evidence that tests the hypothesis of” or some other qualifier. I can live with that.
I absolutely 100% believe you, although I’m not sure I read much about it on the SDMB.
But the quote I’m talking about is:
Which I think is a major overstatement. Certainly it would be ridiculous to say that Bill Cosby was “erased”. If the quote was:
I would not have batten an eyelid.
There’s a strong case to be made for all sorts of rape culture issues. Hyperbolically overstating that case just makes the argument weaker, and plays into the stereotypes the MRA crowd fervently want to believe.
No, it doesn’t. I think you are confusing what is known as “scientific evidence” with the much broader concept of “evidence”. There are contexts in which one could reasonably expect a remark about evidence to be understood as referring to scientific evidence, but in an IMHO discussion that’s really not playing fair.
I find it depressing that this is all you got out of Abbey’s review of the research. I truly have been wasting my time.
Bill Cosby was erased from his rape accusations for at least two decades. The entire media helped to erase him, and the women dismissed as vindictive or “mistaken”, and the whole damn thing covered up like a turd in a litter box. It finally caught up with him last year after more than 20 years of isolated reports which were quickly stifled so as not to smear his good name (or the media gravy train. I’m cynical enough to believe they stopped shielding him because he was no longer a viable long term product investment in his dotage.)
That’s some hard core conspiracy theory level “erasure”!
Last time I checked, Bill Cosby was not sitting in prison. Justice was thwarted because we live in a culture where women are shamed for trying to “ruin a man’s life”.
But where are the studies like this for female binge drinking and rape victimization? I haven’t seen them cited in this thread, and yet you seem to know this evidence exists.
This is why it helps to not conflate proof with evidence. Evidence that shows that perpetrators and victims both tend to imbibe alcohol is not proof of a casual relationship but it is it is evidence for a possible casual relationship. The scientific literature bounds with evidence of this kind; it’s what leads to further investigation.
Ok, so clarification is in order. When women talk about the problem of victim blaming in our discourse on rape, do you think this problem is largely imagined? Or do you think is it a legitimate concern.
I’m inclined to assume you think victim blaming is an imagined problem, precisely because of this comment. Out of your concern to rationalize some other guy’s stupid and rude behavior, you aren’t even addressing what I actually wrote.
My “failing” was not yelling “crime in progress”. The poster faulted me for not screaming angrily at the guy and beating him up. Really, can you not see the craziness here? Why would I escalate a conflict to violence against a man who outweighs me considerable and has already proven himself untrustworthy and possibly dangerous? My arms are literally toothpicks. Fighting would be not a good option for me, and there is no reason that this even needs to be explained. The guy likely targeted me for groping because I was smaller than him.
What happened actually is that he squeezed my thigh, I turned around startled, feebly said “hey” (because I was scared so sue me…human emotion has a way of influencing how we respond to bad things) which then triggered the guy to run off the train like the cowardly fucker that he is. The encounter ended without any broken teeth or ripped clothes and or nasty scenewith me on the floor trying to wail on a bigger person with my Olive Oyl arms.
You’re lacking of understanding comes from you not really trying to understand. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s patently obvious.
Honestly Lamia we both seem to be. You seem to read (or by your own description “skim”) with a filter that only sees that which supports the conclusion you already hold, even within what you include in your quote boxes.
Abbey was pretty clear, including in a section you excerpted, that the male alcohol consumption itself may not be so much the issue as what beliefs the men had before they drank about sex and about alcohol. Most telling there was the section you quoted:
Yes the blinded placebo control study demonstrated the placebo having the same effect as the alcohol. This argues strongly against alcohol per se as the cause of the male behavior since a placebo gave the same result.
Yes she even started out by stating such explicitly:
Her final speculation is that
Okay you found something, “skimmed” it for a couple of bits that you thought supported what you already believed, and presented it. I then made the effort to actually read it and understand it. And you tell me that I wasted your time?
That evidence is a tautology: a woman cannot be a victim of being assaulted by way of being too drunk to resist if she is not drunk.
I think there is legitimate concern; there are some who blame the victim and we have seen that in many threads here. And there is crazy-assed accusing people of victim blaming for statements that are nothing of the sort, statements that seem to say that the sort of things Abbey states are victim blaming. Both are in my mind true.
And this is where I get pissed off at the approach some here take. If I don’t get what you are saying and ask the problem could not possibly be that there is poor communication going on, that maybe you are part of the poor communication. No the fact that someone is not groveling at you giving them received knowledge is offensive to you.
Sorry to so blunt but you are being a complete jerk.
I wonder what the hell is screaming going to do in a public groping situation? Does it magically turn back time so that the groping never happened?
Does flailing her arms at a public groper cause the victim to be suddenly seen in a sympathetic light? Or does it make it easier for the accused to portray himself as a victim of an violent maniac. Especially if he’s dressed in a business suit and she’s dressed like she’s about to go out to the club (heaven forbid an “urban” club).
Earlier this year, I had a coworker abruptly barge into my office and grope me inappropriately. In response I let out a forceful “Don’t touch me.” I received mixed feedback from the Straight Dope community when I recounted this story. I was blamed for not having told the guy previously that I didn’t want to be touched. I was told that I overreacted by saying “Don’t touch me” (instead of I suppose “Beg your pardon, but I prefer not to be touched in that exact manner, my good gentleman.”) I was told that I wasn’t really groped and that I should be more considerate of the guy’s social awkwardness. I was told that I should explain to the guy why I reacted the way I did, as if I were the one who had done something wrong.
All I did was say “Don’t touch me.” I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t curse. But according to the Blaming Masses, I still overreacted.
Women simply cannot win.
I dunno, I mean, that happens in real life too so I’m not entirely discounting this as a general women’s issue. But I’d like to offer the perspective that we’re also on an internet forum, and offering any observation or reaction to a real life situation sets a few people off on some lecture or another. On this board in particular it feels like sharing real life stories almost never goes well for anyone unless it’s like “my cat died”. I only rarely open any threads like that now because it just turns into a rousing game of Dopers Nitpick Some Poor Sod’s Thoroughly Benign Life Choices.
FWIW, if someone stole my wallet out of my pocket, it would seriously piss me off if someone demanded to know why I didn’t scream and/or fight off the attacker.
It is pretty insensitive to ask a person to explain why their visceral-level response wasn’t consistent with how you imagine yourself responding under the same scenario. Such is a question from an insensitive robot who doesn’t understand that 1) no one knows why they react the way do under stress and 2) you don’t know that you wouldn’t have responded the exact same way. Whether or not you intend it, that kind of questioning comes across as blaming the victim since it puts the victim on the defense.
But she could have drink spiked instead. Or she could be forcibly raped.
It’s curious that you think sobriety won’t stop your average rapist, but somehow his drive and perseverance is no match for a sober woman. As if he won’t think of ways to get around that barrier.
Very true. Internet denizens tend not to be very unsympathetic. I blame the absence of eye contact. It’s harder to be stone-hearted when you can see the pain in someone’s eyes.
But I do think it’s important that people share their stories so that others can learn from them. Not only can they learn from the stories themselves, but from the responses those stories get. I honestly feel that if it weren’t for the threads that we could point to around here, lots of folks would continue to think “victim blaming” is a figment of women’s imaginations. I’m sure there are folks in that thread I just linked to who would never peg themselves to be “victim-blamers”. And yet there they are, doing exactly that.
Well, you seem to be only one “confused” in this thread right now, so Im betting against that. You don’t “get” what I’m saying? Maybe the subject matter is too tough for you contribute value to this conversation then.
So funny thing is, the guy who groped me was dressed in a suit. He looked like a typical office worker. I was wearing workout shorts and a t-shirt.
It is not assured that me yelling and hitting him would have done anything except get me kicked off the train and possibly arrested.
Right. The culture 30 or 40 years ago fits the book’s description quite well. But things have changed in 30 or 40 years. Are they perfect? Have they been fixed? Of course not.
But is the main arc of a rape accusation in 2015 basically the same as it was then? In 1980 would we have had Nancy Grace (a wealthy white woman) publicly castrating the accused Duke rapists to huge ratings? Would we have had Hannibal Buress (a man, and of the same race as Bill Cosby) publicly attacking a beloved cultural icon? We certainly wouldn’t have had that attack going viral all over social media, because of course social media didn’t exist then (which is at least partly a response to WhyNot’s cynicism that suddenly the powers that be don’t care about protecting Bill Cosby… social media takes a lot of that power away).
My point is not “hey, society is totally cool about rape now”. My point is that the descriptions I read in that review (I have not read the book itself) seem quite outdated. As I’ve said repeatedly in this thread, maybe I’m wrong. But I definitely feel like prominent rape accusations in the past couple of years have NOT fit the old-school “rape culture” pattern that the book describes.
What happened to make the Bill Cosby thing blow up now? It’s partly the existence of social media, of course, but does a changing culture which is no longer willing to chuckle and look the other way have nothing to do with it?
“Demanded”?
How does someone “demand” that you tell them? “You MUST tell me now why you did not scream!”
This is the shit I see happening here, this distortion of reality, and you I have have parted ways here before to where my once upon time respect of you turned into complete disdain.
No, asking why is not a “demand” and seeing the world through a bug up your ass lens that interprets it as such is way fucked up.
Yes, if someone shared on a message board that someone grabbed their wallet from their pocket and they quietly let it happen I would ask why they just quietly let it happen.
If someone is too sensitive to have that question asked of them after they shared that they stayed quiet and passive while someone stole their wallet, if being asked that would piss them off, then they should stay in a nice protective bubble.
If I do not understand something I ask about it.
You share things on a message board and then bemoan that people offered their opinions that are not all about supporting you? Not getting 100% affirmation is that women cannot win? Wow.
you with the face’s comments have veered into theater of the absurd and do not even merit response.