There’s a classic picture, “Teach your daughters to shoot. Because a restraining order is just a piece of paper.” But if you were to reverse it - “Teach your sons to shoot…” - that would be called creepy, misogynist, and dangerous, right? But really, women can break restraining orders just as easily as men, so doesn’t it still make sense? So the picture reveals the sexist attitude of society.
Are there any other examples?
While I never taught my daughters to shoot, I don’t buy into the claim that this is an example of “sexism.”
It is undeniably wrong for either a man or a woman to violate a restraining order, yet the fact remains, I’m sure, that many more women are hurt by men then the other way around. There may be “a sexist attitude of society,” but men aren’t (generally) the victims of it.
Certainly, such double standards exist, but you picked a poor example. Statistically, the vast majority of homicides within relationships are committed by men against women. I’m talking over 99% according to the FBI (at least for the state of Michigan, those are the stats I know best as I deal with these issues locally.) Reversing the message would make no sense within the context of our current society. The meme example is particularly horrible because the chances of a woman being murdered by a partner skyrocket if she has a gun in the house, so the message purporting guns = more safety in the case of domestic violence is verifiably false.
I’m generally against any messages of the ‘real men do this’ and ‘real women’ do that variety, or that try to pigeonhole manhood or womanhood as any specific behavior. These memes are dumb no matter what gender they’re targeted at. I’ll go a step further and say that 99% of all memes about anything, especially the ones that think they are proving some kind of clever point, are facile, anti-intellectual garbage.
From what I’ve seen, the men who beat women are also the men who ignore things like restraining orders.
The restraining order just adds to your justification defense when you have to shoot the SOB.
I agree it’s an extremely terrible example. The original message is creepy and disturbing on its face whether it’s about shooting men or women. It certainly isn’t any more or less creepy based on which sex it is directed at.
In some abstract sense, maybe, they can. In the real world, they don’t. In the real world, it’s men who are violating restraining orders by the thousands on a daily basis.
The reverse picture would make just as much logical sense, but it would be addressing a much less common scenario.
I’d prefer something like, ‘‘Teach your daughters (or sons) to recognize the warning signs of a violent relationship,’’ personally. If you’re getting to the point you feel you have to shoot in self-defense, you are way past the point of prevention and it’s going to take some massive work to get out of such a dangerous situation.
Not a picture, but as I was watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics a few days ago, one of the commentators mentioned that the U.S. team had more women than men.[sup]*[/sup] This was accompanied by an enthusiastic “you go, girls!” I don’t think that message would have been as well received if the genders were reversed.
Where did you get that from? I believe it’s more like 60/40.
It reveals a grasp of the typical realities of the kind of relationships that lead to restraining orders. So, no.
Because, duh, the reverse would not represent an achievement or progress. Again, reality; context.
I believe there is a photo meme of the quote attributed to Marilyn Monroe: “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”
Now, if I’m not mistaken, this saying is *not *something Monroe actually said, and it has been mis-quoted - but, it is a message that is shared and posted or forwarded on the Internet, usually by women - and I can only imagine the response by society if a ** man were to say, “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”
Please explain what, exactly, it is about the concept of self-defense that you find creepy.
Without much time to research, here’s data from 2009 that supports your estimate more than mine.
Source: Bureau of justice statistics. (Link to PDF.)
I might have been thinking of this:
The disproportionality there is striking.
I’ll get back to you with the 2013 data from Michigan.
[QUOTE=Velocity]
Now, if I’m not mistaken, this saying is not something Monroe actually said, and it has been mis-quoted - but, it is a message that is shared and posted or forwarded on the Internet, usually by women - and I can only imagine the response by society if a man were to say, “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”
[/QUOTE]
THIS is a good example of the double standard in question.
My favorite take on that meme was, ''If you can’t handle me at my worst…
…I don’t blame you, that shit is ridiculous.‘’ 
I don’t know if Marilyn Monroe said that but her shit was probably ridiculous.
From what sources are your beliefs based on?
It’s not 99%, but it’s higher than that.
The best study I know of says it’s about 80-90% female victims, with only some very small percentage of those women having been killed by women.
But the disproportionality there has a much different basis than might appear at first glance.
What that’s saying is that although women are only somewhat more likely to be killed by intimate partners than men are, they are much less likely to be killed by non-intimate partners as compared to men, such that of the total number of women killed the percentage killed by intimate partners is much higher. But that has no bearing on the issue of men killing female partners versus the reverse.
The only valid comparison is men killing their female partners versus females killing their male partners. The fact that on top of the likelihood of men being killed by female intimate partners they also have a vastly increased risk of being killed by others has no bearing on the risk of the former.
On looking a little further, I’m guessing that the 60/40 ratio I’m remembering applies to husbands/wives specifically, while the broader “intimate relationships” category follows the 70/30 ratio that SW linked to.
What if his best is super? After all, behind every great woman is an even greater man.
Where do you get ‘‘only somewhat more likely’’ out of those statistics?
45% of women who are murdered are murdered by an intimate partner.
Only 5% of men are.
That is directly relevant to the shitty meme in question. It makes way more sense framed as women shooting male partners in self-defense than the reverse.
For the meme to be equivalent in its message it would have to be something like, ‘‘Teach your sons to shoot. You never know what random sonofabitch is going to try to kill them.’’
Or something.
I understand the context. And I congratulate the athletes for qualifying for the Games and for all the progress they’ve made. But this wasn’t a statement in favor of equality or parity, it was about women outnumbering men. Reverse the genders and it’s very different.
There were also some clearly inappropriate comments when the Tongan flag bearer came in shirtless.
I have a friend on Facebook who posts things like that on occasion. One that I remember was “'when you comment on someone’s appearance, it says more about you than it does about them.” She also posts pictures of shirtless firefighters and David Beckham’s ass.
