Damn, that was a long article (for someone with my attention span), but generally well written, firmly backed up with statistics and references, and clearly written out of real concern.
I suspect that the people kicking up a stink about it either haven’t read it through or are deliberately reading their own interpretations into it.
The issues of victim-blaming, male accountability, women’s freedom, and feminism are all addressed right there in the article.
Both my boy and girl children got “the talk” for what good it did. Cuz here’s the bottom line: Take out the sex. Take out the alcohol. That clears the thinking a bit.
Who’s going to be the best at taking care of YOU? YOU are. Don’t ever count on society doing it better than you can. And it doesn’t hurt to ask for help when you need it.
Add the sex and alcohol factors back in and people start projecting all kinds of crazy stuff.
I didn’t read the whole thing and I still haven’t. But this bit has got my eyebrow raised:
WTF.
This sentiment is what offends people. Women are not and should not be responsible for “trickling down” morality to men. They should be held accountable for their actions, just as women should be.
Instead of lecturing to sons she doesn’t have, why not write an essay directed at both men and women?
Perhaps I’m biased against rapists, but I tend to think that men who get hammered and rape someone are predisposed to sexual violence whether sober, tipsy, or intoxicated.
Perhaps for a small minority of men but the vast majority of men who have ever gotten drunk have not thought it was ok to rape women while in that inebriated state. That’s a ridiculous statement.
:dubious: It comes up in thread like this all the time, including how if a couple has drinks together and have sex he’s technically “raping” her because she can’t give proper consent.
I can guarantee that if no woman ever got drunk again there would be fewer rapes.
Premise 1: Having sex without consent is rape, by definition
Premise 2: A drunken person cannot consent
Premise 3: The number of women who have been raped due to being unable to consent due to alcohol is non-zero
Premise 4: If no women ever drank alcohol, they would never able to be raped due to lack of consent due to intoxication by alcohol.
Therefore: Women not drinking reduces all rapes of women due to intoxication to zero, and thus lowers the absolute number of rapes!
[sub]While this logic isn’t necessarily wrong, I want it to be known that I’m intentionally being kind of silly[/sub]
Huh? Where did that come from? I was responding to HoneyBadgerDC’s broad generalization that over-indulgence in alcohol made men think rape was ok. As if there was something inherently bad in men that could be brought out if enough alcohol were consumed.
The title of the article is infantilizing and condescending.
If she wanted to give sensible advice, the title should have been: “Sexual predators are much more likely to target intoxicated individuals.” That would have given women enough information to decide for themselves whether they should moderate their drinking.
The article did not give woman a choice. “Stop getting drunk” is the title. Yes getting drunk is incredibly dangerous, but last I checked everyone over 21 is allowed to do it. According to the article it’s a pretty common social activity.
Telling women to stop getting drunk, without giving them a choice to engage in a common but risky activity is infantilizing. It’s also condescending because women know that getting drunk is dangerous.
The article is completely right about drinking and sexual assualt, but it’s wrong about the proposed solution. It’s a simple-minded view on a very complicated topic. There is more to protecting women from sexual assault than telling them to stop drinking, and simply telling women to stop drinking won’t prevent sexual assault.
There is a difference between walking down a dark alley with diamond rings and money sticking out, and getting drunk. One is a common social activity engaged by 40% of all college students according to the article. No one cares about walking down an alley while flashing money.
The problem with most “common sense” advice on how to avoid sexual assault is that it usually involves asking women not to engage in common activities - don’t dress sexy, don’t walk home at night, don’t go out by yourself, etc. These are things that normal people do all the time, and women are told not to do these things unless they want to risk getting sexually assaulted.
Making women aware that some things they like to do are potentially going to put them in harms way is infantilizing and condescending? Is telling male and female adults not to drink and drive infantilizing and condescending because people already know it’s dangerous? Your presumed standard for advice that the only way you can usefully and non-insultingly warn or caution someone is not to repeat obvious information they already know seems like an absurdly high standard.
No…but men are pretty regularly told not to drink too much so that they don’t get into dangerous situations, so that they don’t start picking fights, so that they can take care of themselves when out and about. They are also pretty regularly warned about the effects of “beer googles” - while not exactly the same it does hold similar messages.
Whether we like it or not - the dangers of getting drunk for ladies are more than just violent rape - they also include greater risk of date rape style behaviour, errors of judgement that put you into dangerous positions and rely on the honesty of someone else to keep you safe. (whether it be from rape or something else)
Men are also regularly warned about the dangers of drinking too much - from spending more than you intend, to poor risk assessment to doing something dumb - why should woman NOT be warned about one of the dangers of getting drunk?
I’d be willing to bet, that “most men having consumed enough alcohol” would make a much poorer decision of how “into it” the women was, and would not be as cognizant, nor as considerate of a woman’s feelings as a sober man. In short - being drunk is a two way street in terms of risk
(much as ANY person who is drunk are not paragons of taking note of the feelings of others, reading signals, and having that barrier between brain and actions that we normally have)
This thread is timely as I just got back from a fraternity/sorority alumni happy hour in Manhattan.
So I was talking to some Tri-Delt who was telling me how in college she could “drink men under the table” going shot for shot.
You can’t. It’s basic physiology. Tolerance is a function of body mass and a 115 lb girl cannot drink a 200+ lb man under the table.
This basic fact of physiology has been at the core of Greek social doctrine since the first brother pledged the Alpha class of Alpha chapter at Alpha Alpha Alpha. That is to say, women will get much drunker then men much quicker and then make stupid decisions regarding how they want to spend the rest of the evening and with who.
Even more creepily, there will be plenty of guys who will simply wait for women to get drunk so they can make those decisions for them.
People who meet the suggestion that “women should moderate drinking” with outrage are idiots. First of all, not getting shitfaced a good idea anyway, for anyone, for any number of reasons. And second, as I pointed out, there are usually plenty of guys waiting for you to get wasted so they can take advantage of you.
The guy that quite genuinely doesn’t realize how overbearing or threatening he’s being, or that the lady isn’t into it* or the guy that just says “fuck-it, she doesn’t want to be I don’t care”?
I really don’t buy into the idea of “predisposed” - what other things are you applying it to? And then what of the proof that alcohol lowers inhibitions?
note - I’m not making a judgement of whether he SHOULD realise, rather that he doesn’t