All sadly true, Suezeekay. But most of those examples of abuse involve men using women for their sexual desires (or just generally exercising power over them)…not, as the OP has it, blaming them for it.
Not that there aren’t good examples…burkas in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere being a great one. But I’m still not convinced it’s some eternal feature of the male pysche so much as a toxic mixture of cultural sexual guilt and too much power.
(An “eternal feature of the male pysche” being what seems to be implied by the OP)
I think everyone is conveniently forgetting the whole issue of honor killings and related events in the Muslim world. I can’t find a link right this minute, but I think it was last week’s 60 Minutes that had a story about the fate of Muslim women in France. Numerous Muslim young women have been raped by Muslim men, and all the blame and shame falls on the woman. This story was not the only one…there was a Muslim girl murdered in our area, and her brothers were blamed. This fits in with the OP’s contention that certain religions place the blame for sexual misconduct sqaurely on the woman’s shoulders, even if she is the object of stranger rape. You never hear about honor killings of boys whose family found out they were having sex out of wedlock.
To look at the issue from a purely biological and “selfish gene” viewpoint… Male humans have no other way of ensuring that the offspring produced by the female is theirs except by jealously guarding them from others. Otherwise they may end up committing to the upbringing of another man’s genes. Females, on the other hand, always know that the offspring is 50% theirs. So all they have to worry about is obtaining the best ‘donor’ for the other 50%. And that may involve deceiving their chosen mate.
So men are just being slaves to their instincts here. Equally we could say women who ‘cheat’ are being slaves to theirs. Naturally that doesn’t excuse all actions, and we like to think that we’re more than just selfish instincts. But it does explain the existance of the more oppressive and unpalatable measures.
As Jared Diamond says, this basic conflict of interests lies at the root of a whole mass of human behaviour and grief. But for better or worse, it’s what makes us what we are.
Hey there seems to be a misunderstanding here, I have absolutely nothing against practitioners of BDSM, and am all for alternative expressions of sexuality.
When I use the word “pervert” I don’t mean to intone condemnation of any acts or practices in any way. And I certainly don’t want to tar bondage enthusiasts with the same brush as Calvinists. Just to be clear on that point.
I’m just saying that the transferring of responsibility for sexual desires (however divergent from the “norm”) from men onto women has been written into our society for thousands of years. Whether its in the dungeon, or in church, its essentially the same process - absolution.
Oh and BDSM, SDMB… definitely more than coincidence
Sorry for my confusion. The “perverts who need a domina to force them to do depraved sexual acts” thing threw me off your point.
Yes, humans have historically considered beauty and sexuality to be in the realm of women. I doubt that we’re hardwired to do this, but it does seem to be a common attitude across cultures. All considered, I’d say it’s predictable that irresponsible men would blame the women who allegedly manage their sexuality for the bad things as well as the good.
Sure, women have been persecuted over sexual matters, but I don’t think it’s simply that “men blame women for their depraved desires” as much as it is that men, like women, can be irresponsible and a lot of people think that women are the sexual side of the human race. I don’t think that the solution lies in prudely pointing the finger at men as much as it lies in valuing responsibility. Accepting that everyone has a sexuality might help a little too.
Don’t be - Calvinism runs in the family and I tend to find that it colours my outlook sometimes. I should have maybe been more thoughtful before posting.
Having just skimmed over the thread, I’m not sure if anyone mentioned it yet.
Magdalene Laundries.
In Ireland, right up until the 1960s and 70s, unmarried mothers were placed in these institutions, often for life, where they washed linen in order to atone for their sins. They also faced physical, psychological and sometimes sexual abuse, and were cut off from friends and family, including, of course, their babies.
The fathers of these babies, if they were ever identified, faced at worst, a few Hail Marys and a Novena.
Men were not expected to be able to control themselves, and women were expected to stop them.
In fact, sometimes girls who had been raised in orphanages were felt by the nuns to be too pretty and to have them walking about unsupervised would be a threat to the morals of any man in the vicinity. Guess where they ended up when they turned 18?
You should do what I did. Take a classified ad out that says, “After May 23, 2004, Smeghead is no longer responsible for his depraved desires,” and change your locks. Then no matter what they do you can point to the ad and the locks and tell the cops that it’s no longer your problem.
Other than that I fear
tells me that there may be more behind this question than meets the eye. I realize Great Debates is no place for such a discussion, though, and Meta-Gumble might benefit from discussing it in MPSIMS. Not that the topic as discussed here isn’t interesting or out of place, of course.
It’s been common enough for women to shirk responsibility for their own sexual desires by simply denying that they have any. I’m not talking about cases of women who falsely claim rape after the fact; I think these are quite rare. However, society has long encouraged women to pretend that they only tolerate sex because they want to make babies or please their man. Even in modern America I’ve heard of sexually active young women who avoid going on birth control because that would be an admission that they’re planning to have sex (something “nice girls” don’t do) instead of just happening to get swept away in a romantic moment.
Though I haven’t seen it, a documentary on the laundries was shown in theaters recently. I considered bringing them up myself. The laundries are run by nuns-women. The laundries also provide an extremely cheap source of labor. If men are responsible for the laundries, why are they run by women? Could it be that sex is just the explanation offered to hide the fact that the laundries exist for financial reasons?
I haven’t seen it either, but I don’t believe it was a documentary. Magdalene Sisters (IMDB link). I had never even heard about this movie until a friend mentioned it to me just last week. He says it was most disturbing. (I almost picked it up at Blockbuster over the weekend, but chose The Last Samuri instead.)
Here is some additional information on the Magdalene laundries.
In my opinion, this sad story is a consequence of a judgemental Church rather than of male dominance (though I suppose the two are difficult to separate).
Suzeekay, are you perchance related to Dennis Miller?
No, Christianity did not teach that from the beginning (Jesus & the Apostles
never said any such thing & only a tortured reading of Paul would yield anything
like that. Also, you seem to be mixing up Islam & Christianity, including the use of
chastity belts (as far as I know a product of “C’tian” Europe, alas, not Islamic
Arabia, which however did come up with the “Virgin Sex-partners in Heaven”
doctrine.)
That is taken out of context and is only a summary of the point I was trying to make. In full:
A) Official church doctrine places the burden of sin on women
B) This is a male doctrine
C) This frequently (always?) involves a transfer of fault from the male sinner to a female
D) This doctrine has been very influential on our society
E) Other, similar transfers of guilt are probably related to the above
If you disagree and want to criticize my argument, please treat it is a whole - it makes sense that way.
“And [God] said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” (Genesis 3:11-13, KJV)
From the beginning of time, folks. From the beginning of time.
The two parts I have bolded are broad-brush statements about men in general and their attitudes. You are generalizing about approximately half of the world’s population. I see nothing in the context of your post that mitigates either statement in any way. In fact, you even went out of your way to say that you believe it to be “representative of a whole male attitude”.
