Now I’m curious as to how rare an animal you think I am. What percentage of males out there do you think have heard(and gotten) the message already? When people posting on #YesAllWomen talk about the Neanderthalic mentality of men, what percentage of men as a whole are being referred to, do you think?
I don’t understand why this is concept is so hard to grasp.
You are claiming that “men need to be taught not to rape” should not be offensive to men.
“Jews need to be taught not to embezzle” - is that offensive to Jews?
“Asians need to be taught to drive better” - is that offensive to Asians?
“Blacks need to be taught not to steal” - is that offensive to blacks?
The suggestion that men have an inherent propensity for rape, or sexual assault, or violence against women, that must be actively and specifically suppressed by society’s teaching, is offensive. Just like the suggestion that blacks have an inherent tendency towards crime. This is not particularly complicated. Yes, some men are rapists, some Jews are dishonest, some Asians are bad drivers, and some blacks are criminals. But it is obviously unjust to generalize to the entire population in the latter three cases, so why do you accept it in the first?
How about the statement “Women need to quit being so emotional about this issue”? Is that offensive towards women? Surely not, by your argument. The statement obviously only refers to those women who are being excessively emotional, of which there are surely some. The others need not be offended.
Be aware of your own behavior and be willing to learn what’s going on and get involved. We’re talking about attitudes that are pervasive and this isn’t a simple issue, it’s also one that’s improved a lot over the years.
We know. You have adequately advertised that you don’t understand some stuff.
I don’t identify with men who assault women. When I hear about a sexual assault, I think “lock the asshole up and throw away the key.”
But when a woman is talking not about a specific man, but using the term “men” in general, I get defensive because…I’m a man. And not all men, myself included, assault women. This is not rocket science.
I wish one of you would explain why it is understandable for a Jew to get offended by blanket negative statements about “Jews”, but not for a man to get offended by blanket negative statements about “men”.
Do you agree with the statement “Every man is a potential rapist”, posted on a sign outside a campus women’s center? How about “All black men are potential murderers” posted in a police station locker room?
Too much like flailing in the dark to suit me. Anything more specific I can focus my efforts on? Specific laws that need to be overturned or specific lawmakers that need to be schooled? Specific businesses that need a letter writing campaign shoved in their faces?
I bet you’re already aware of what’s happening in this country with access to abortion, for example.
For that matter there are any number of issues that affect women’s health or their ability to feed their families whether above or below the poverty line, or single or not. How wide do you want to make the scope here? You’re not unaware of those issues.
I am asking for the other’s opinions on where best I can focus my efforts. I realize that there are thousand different directions I could go, so doesn’t it make sense to ask for advice from others who may know more than I as to which path will bring the most bang for the buck?
I have no idea how many people still hold sexist or misogynistic views. All I know is that there are still people out there that hold these views, and therefore we still need to work towards changing their minds about what they are doing. It doesn’t matter how many assholes there are or aren’t - it keeps happening, so we need to keep working at it. The best way to keep working at it is to stop the problem when we see it and keep a basic level of awareness up until it goes away.
Why do you need anything specific to focus on, by the way? This is a monolithic sort of movement since we’re trying to change the world, not one school district or one business office. If you think that’s the way to go about it though, go ahead. That sounds good to me too. I’m not going to hold your hand about it though. Go out and find a business office you think is treating its female employees badly and write to the CEO. Nobody’s stopping you. I think that would be great. Personally boycott them and take your business elsewhere, that’s cool too. I don’t see why I need to lead you though, you already have the idea. You make it sound like you don’t know what else to do while you list some of the very things you can be doing.
I’m a person same as you. I don’t necessarily know anything extra about who specifically needs to have social pressure applied.
That’s a fair question. Maybe I’m a little jaded from the way the first couple of pages of this thread have gone.
…I’m a male, and for the life of me I couldn’t imagine #YesAllWomen to be either controversial or offensive.
Let me elaborate.
Generally I try and present the lazy-man’s activist approach. You hear your buddy make a shitty rape joke, you tell them that isn’t funny and they should stop it. After 10 of their other friends say the same thing, they’ll start getting the idea. It’s an effective way to change minds from the ground up. If it doesn’t change minds, at least it creates a social stigma to keep mum about sexist ideas so the children aren’t taught it, and the cycle of life can handle the rest. Most people are too lazy to go scope out businesses, go on awareness walks, or anything else. So to get the masses involved I like to point towards the easy approach.
I think asking for approaches and avenues that seem to get the job done efficiently, as opposed to the ones that are dead ends or inefficient, is the first step I should take if I plan to go farther than I already have.
If you believe in the general “Think global, act local” approach, then what they’ve said elsewhere and before in this thread is one approach. Speak up when others behave in ways that promote inappropriate behavior.
If you already do that and want to do more… Check out the issues that involve your area (neighborhood, city, state). And be involved in something local (that you’re also interested). Perhaps there is a shelter needing help, or a mentoring program for youth that you could focus on (so as to help the next generation).
Thinking also politically, look up what are the views of your local politicians regarding equality (in terms of joint custody, salary, education, health access), and vote for those in favor of programs that would help the current situation and do not vote for those working against (don’t work for those who want to get rid of Planned Parenthood, who make awful comments regarding rape, who think women shouldn’t earn as much as men, etc.)
Like it’s been said, things like this are not monolithic, and there is no one way to go around improving things. Multiple things work, and they probably work best when done in concert.
I’m trying to decide if #yesallwomen IS about Absolute. You see, I don’t follow twitter, so my first exposure to it was in a Bad Astronomy blog article. It seemed like first there had been a discussion on the recent killings and misogyny. And you have to admit that misogynistic language had definitely been involved.
And women were using the language as a springboard to considering their own experiences (which included more experience with misogyny than mental illness), and talking about their feelings and, it being the internet and all, probably overgeneralizing here and there. And then someone got pissed about hearing “Not All Men” one too many times and started #yesallwomen as a complaint, not about the killings or about misogyny, but about that reaction in particular.
Yeah, that reaction. That exactly. Aimed straight at Absolute. Because when you start generalizing it’s not just one man. It isn’t all men, but until you know a man really well, you just don’t know.
When I follow the link to the hashtag now, the coversation there seems to be flailing around like a dropped fire hose. But between the article and the words in the hashtag, I think I’m safe in concluding that it was originally intended to be a side discussion complaining about how unhelpful “Not All Men” is.
This was the earliest one quoted in the blog.
Does anyone know if that was the actual start of #YAW? It sounds like it could be.
Or if the tag was started before the killings and then the men’s reactions to the women’s comments about what the killings made them think of produced so many NAMs that #YAW had to comment?
Anyway, I’m not the first person, here, to interpret the hash as anti-NAM, but the idea doesn’t seem to have gotten much play.
It’s ironic that the guys who have to say “Not All Men” when they hear women talking about their problems have started a counter-hashtag of #noallmen, without realizing that they’ve brought it full circle, making the complaint that #YAW was complaining about. There won’t be a counter-counter-hashtag, because the original works. Or it would if Twitter were moderated like the SDMB.
Yeah. It’s not about misogyny directly, although it assumes misogyny as an underlying and obvious fact. It’s about Absolute and anyone else that has to NAM, NAM, NAM. I don’t blame him for taking it personally. It must be unsettling to be singled out like that.
Oh, and because it’s been brought up more than once, the equivalent racial hashtag would be something like #yesallblackmen, where black men complain that when they talk about the racism they’ve experienced, some clueless middle class white person has to take them to task for upsetting them because Not All White People do that! As if that meant they should stop talking because the danger of upsetting a white person’s feelings is more important than anything that they might have experienced, or any benefit that they might get from sharing their experiences.
That’s the actual analogy.
Not sure about this one. Whoever posted it could have meant that any individual man is capable of rape if under the right circumstances, which is insulting. Or they could have been making a provocative statement that could then be academically hairsplit into something like the M&M statement above. As in, yes, it’s a small percentage, but when you can’t tell them apart by sight, what can you do? What should you do?
As the beginning of a discussion, it could even go on to "if you know that a certain percentage of men will take advantage and you go to a party with a hundred people you’ve never met before . . . " shrug Impossible to know. However, if you want to interpret it as Any Man Will (and if it’s being posted in a hallway, why wouldn’t you?) the reply isn’t NAM so much as that’s a filthy lie.
That’s a good one. Well said.
Yllaria, I appreciate the thoughtful post, but wouldn’t you acknowledge that a racist could use the same logic to not hire a black man?
“Well, I understand that it isn’t all black men who are criminals, but until you know one really well, you just can’t tell. So we’re just going to play it safe and not hire any black dudes. See, it’s like a bowl with poisoned M&M’s…can we really take the chance?”
“Not all black men are violent, but we have to navigate a world where those who are look the same as those who aren’t.”
I understand the point of #YesAllWomen, which, I take it, is that all women have to worry about the potential for sexual assault or just physical abuse, whereas men mostly don’t. And I think it’s really shitty that so many guys are assholes and that sexual assault and violence against women are such big problems, and I fully agree that they are problems and I’m not trying to downplay them in any way.
But…statements that imply these problems are somehow the fault of men, collectively, and not simply individual assholes who happen to be men, are always going to engender (hah!) this kind of response.
I don’t think that not wanting to be called a potential rapist counts as academic hairsplitting. I guess I can see what they were getting at; encouraging women to be vigilant for their own safety without being accused of victim blaming.[sup]*[/sup] There’s got to be a better way to do it, though. Things like that want me to take #NotAllMen on a case-by-case basis, and not to dismiss, or backlash against it, in toto.
How about a word like “mansplaining”. I was accused of that the other day. It seems to me to be all the things that women object to when directed at them; it sidetracks the conversation, attacks the person instead of the idea, and when I said I found it insulting my experience was summarily dismissed.
- I was in college in the '80s, and I don’t recall “victim blaming” being the hot button it has since become.
You weren’t called a potential rapist.
All of the “splaining” things can be overused, but I can understand a woman objecting if a man tries to tell position himself as an authority on her experiences.