Who has said it can’t be both? The problem is that there is a gross imbalance. An imbalance that results in women constricting their live out of fear and men who constantly blame their lack of accountability on hormones or female inscrutability.
There is a limit to how much risk a person can mitigate before the costs start outweighing the gains. Perhaps if society could become sensitive to all the things women are compelled to give up just to be safe (and not just safe from criminal harm but safe from victim blaming), we could see that the real problem is bigger than rape. It includes all of our hangups about sex, gender, and power.
“Encouraging women to be safe” is not really a solution to anything because it’s not addressing the problem at all. What it implies is that victimizations occur because there are hordes of women out there have are acting unduely “unsafely”. But according to what standard? Girls are programmed from a young age to be afraid of everything from spiders to dark alleys, so why should anyone think the problem has anything to do with women needing more encouragement to be wary of their world? This lazy thinking goes right to what I was saying about us chipping away at the ole girls. It doesn’t matter that women are already taught to fear men. We have to fear them even more! Yippee!
But the fear should be proportional, however it’s impossible to do so. For example, in the thread about pepper spray, we were told how absolutely absurd it was to be afraid of a guy you don’t know in an elevator because you were statistically extremely unlikely to be attacked by a stranger. And in this thread, we get people literally trying to redefine the word “stranger” to include not only people you don’t know, but people you don’t know very well, for the purpose of saying retroactively that you shouldn’t have let them in your house, don’t you know strangers are dangerous? It’s fucking impossible to keep up with.
I’ve been following this thread over the last couple of days, and my god is it depressing. I feel the need to chime in because I’m unhappy with the proportion of male voices on the right side of the argument.
Ambivald, I completely understand where you’re coming from. It can be so tempting to give that sort of well meaning advice. I’ve done it myself without realising the effect it has on the discussion. “Keep yourself safe”. And yet, in this context, it’s extremely unhelpful. Society is saturated with messages about how women should stay safe. What they should do, where they should go, how they should act. There is no way any of the women here have missed that information. What there is a lack of is people telling men that this behaviour is not okay, that it is 100% their responsibility how they act and that there are no excuses.
I know you agree with me. I read your posts. The problem is that the balance of the discussion as I read it is not 95% “men, this is wrong” with a dash of “here are some self defence tips”, as, IMO, it should be. It’s 45% “women are liars, mixed signals, I’m a mind reader”, 45% women (and for the most part, only women, wth??) asking that we focus on the source of the problem - misogynist attitudes - in an attempt to (rightfully) redefine the issue so that it reflects the blame accurately. This is in the belief that if society truly hold the men 100% accountable, they’ll start to get the message. Then there are the people like you, focusing on how women as individuals can protect themselves. But it’s not new information, it’s unhelpful in fighting this (especially compared to pepper spray, I’d venture) and its presence in the thread undermines the “men are to blame” message, throwing the responsibility back onto the women (I know you don’t mean that but that’s the effect what you’re saying has).
Yes, I agree that the root of the problem isn’t what women are or aren’t doing-it’s the way men are behaving. I also agree that changing that behavior is ultimately what needs to be done. But how? That’s all I am after. Women have it in their hands to be safe and they are the rational players here. The men who are behaving in this unacceptable way AREN’T the rational players and won’t be swayed to change their behavior based on a good “dressing down” from anonymous people online. I’m just being utilitarian here. Or we at least don’t count on them being swayed to change their behavior and advise the women to be safe anyway. I guess I went with the “stay safe” route because I didn’t know any response to give as far as what to do to change the behavior of the men. That’s too hard a question for me to answer.
I agree that in the short term it’s easier, but I feel that the social dialogue - not just OL but in in every aspect of society - needs to shift for progress to be made. Women are adults. They have risk assessment skills. The balance in how we look at this as a society is way off.
I absolutely agree with this. Everything I’ve been saying has been in grudging recognition of the fact that we’re not there yet. If I’ve failed to give enough recognition to the role that men play in this situation, it’s only because I’ve been focusing on the here and now and what can be done today.
Hm…I feel we’re talking at cross purposes. As I view it, the focus in your posts here is adding weight to the misogynist side, in that it’s more noise misogynists will take as saying “women who do x are kooking to get fucked”. Being, you know, misogynists. What it’s not doing is helping women, who have heard it all before, usually in blaming tones.
Whether you agree or disagree, do you understand this point of view?
Do you expect me to believe that in your circle of friends, you’re the guy who takes the quasi-date-rape boasty bros aside and explains to them calmly why ignoring “No” isn’t the right thing to do?
Do you expect me to believe that none of your friends ever talk that way to you about women?
I don’t believe either of those things. And yes, it’s disgusting. It’s disgusting because you are a disgusting human being.
Yes, but I voiced my opinion with no blaming tones.
I am sorry for unwittingly offending so many women with my honest-to-goodness sincere advice. I sincerely apologize for my remarks coming across as victim blaming or patronizing. It wasn’t my intent.
No, he isn’t. I agree with JohnnyMac.
I also think you need to back away from both these threads and make sure the posters you’re blasting double-barrel at aren’t getting lumped in with others.
I really really like you, and I understand being exasperated at assholes, but I don’t think this is fair. It’s not ok to invent things he’s done and then be angry at him for them. It just isn’t.
And, as someone who reads Ambivalid’s posts and has spoken with him a bit, I actually do believe he is the kind of guy who talks to his friends about respecting consent. If he isn’t that guy, he should become that guy. (Hear me, Ambivalid?) But calling him a disgusting human being isn’t helping further the dialogue that it takes to show him why this is such an important act.
I really do like you, colander, but I think you’re getting angry at a potential ally, and alienating people. This subject is incredibly frustrating, I know. It’s hard to be civil when you feel like someone is denying you basic human rights. But I think it’s worth it.
This is so absurd it’s funny. Who are you so angry at? It isn’t me, I’ll tell you that right now. I really have nothing to say to you.
ETA: None of my friends would need to be pulled aside and have the meaning of a woman’s “no” explained to them because I don’t hang out with men like that.
OK, so men like that are the exception, rather than the rule, to such an extent that you can simply avoid men “like that.”
So why is the situation so hopeless that you’ve resigned yourself to telling women how they should act, because we live in a bad and unreasonable world, instead of taking those exceptions to task?
What is your method? Give me some tips. In the story that sparked all this BS, I had access to the woman (MOL), so I gave her my opinion. I had no access to the man of the story, so I couldn’t take him to task. In the bigger picture, how am I supposed to know when I am in the presence of such a man? How do I know when to take these men to task? Because the only time I hear of them is on a secondhand basis from stories of women who have had bad encounters with them. It’s not that I actively avoid such men, it’s just that my lifestyle doesn’t put me in contact with any.
In the world of internet message board grabby-date rehashing, just refraining from saying “You should have known better…” makes you a goddam superhero.
I just want to agree with this. Some posters have come down way too harshly on guys just for trying to figure this shit out. I mean, how do you confront rape culture without exposing your perhaps more controversial ideas to the light of day? Reminds me of a recent thread on racism where I talked about a racist thought I had. It was uncomfortable for me to admit to it. Thankfully people were much kinder in setting me straight here than many have been in these threads. If the reaction had been, ''OMG you must be a member of the KKK!" it would only have alienated people and shut down productive discussion.
You’re right. A lot of that was rage runover from the other thread. You haven’t said anything anywhere near terrible enough to warrant my last couple posts at you and I apologize.
Quick, Ambivalid, make your move! She showed something other than complete disgust for you, so I think we can all agree that is definitely a green light.
