Preach it, sister!
I know I'm late to the party on this one, but I wanted to point you all to cereta's amazing essay On rape and men. She talks very clearly about some very tough issues, and I'm thankful to her for being the one to put it out there and take all of the flack. I'm still reading through the comments, but behind the cut are some of the gems...
On why protesting "But I wouldn't do that!" every five seconds isn't productive, rosefox says: In a discussion of an epidemic, there is absolutely value to pointing out that some people are immune to the illness or have fought it off, and to studying those people en masse to see what lessons can be learned from them and applied to the general populace; there is less value in lauding each individual for having remained or become healthy, and still less in the healthy individuals insisting that care providers take time away from fighting disease in order to pay attention to the healthy. If you're in the healthy minority, then you should be scrubbing in and going around distributing masks, hand sanitizer, and vaccines, not complaining that everyone's talking about sick people all the time and you feel left out or unappreciated.
...and on how men should react here: I pointed my younger brother at this post. He said it made him feel angry and ashamed of being male for the second time in two days. Apparently the first time was when a male colleague of his made highly inappropriate remarks to a female colleague. My brother approached the woman and said "Look, I don't want to just get in his face because I don't want to act like you need a male protector--you can protect yourself--but I do want you to know that I think what he said is disgusting, and if you want to confront him about this, I'd be glad to back you up".
I told him that was a great way to handle it, but also pointed out that it was totally okay for him to speak up on his own behalf: "It's up to her whether she lets you get away with this, but even if she does, don't do it around me, because I find it repugnant". The idea hadn't even occurred to him. I'm not sure it would have occurred to me either, had it not been for this post and all the discussion of how men can and should talk directly to men about sexist behavior being obnoxious and unacceptable to men.
...and on the power dynamic involved in rape, here: It strikes me that the gift/gratitude thing is one of the clearest things pointing to this being a power dynamic thing. Thanking someone, feeling gratitude toward someone, indicates that they're in a position of power over you in some way; they had a choice to make that could have affected you poorly and they made it in a way that affected you well, but either way they have the power to affect you at all. In this dynamic, men have the power to inflict or withhold rape, and women... get to cope with how the men decide to use that power, basically.
...and on women's dress and the male gaze, here: Because it's all about what men look at and what men see and what men think of what men look at and see. A woman's clothes are never about her, what she wants to see when she looks in the mirror, or even about her friends. When we look in the mirror, we're taught to see ourselves as men see us. When we talk to our friends, we're taught to evaluate ourselves and one another on how well our outfits will attract or deter the attention of men. When a woman is feeling low about how she looks, one of the most common comments is "Well, guys still think you're hot!" (or, from male friends, "Well, I still think you're hot!") like that's all that matters. Like we have no standards for ourselves, no internal standards, only externally imposed notions of how much or little we deviate from some impossible ideal.
On why men being passive is part of the problem, even if they would never actively rape, zeborahnz says: To paraphrase: All it takes for injustice to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Silence tends to be taken as assent. So if one man makes sexist remarks, and five men stand around and let him, then:
a) the women present will feel as if all six men approve of that sexism;
b) the man speaking will believe he has been given tacit approval to keep on speaking;
c) each of the five men will believe that the other four have given tacit approval to those sexist remarks;
d) each of the five men will have reinforced in his own mind that the appropriate thing to do in this situation is to be silent. (This is because, when we make a choice to do X, we reinforce our approval for X. eg If you choose to buy something, you'll like the thing more after you've bought it than before.)
Silence reinforces the problem. Therefore it's a (passive) part of the problem.
On why telling women that their points would be listened to if they used a better tone is ridiculous, derailing, and a copout, jesstherobot says: There was a study by a Professor Heilman ("Penalties for success: reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks", published in the Journal of Applied Psych.) in which four groups of subjects (men and women evenly) were given the description of a fictitious vice-president of an aircraft company and asked to give a job performance rating. The first two groups were given the same description, but the first group was told the VP was a man, the second were told the VP was a woman. In an overwhelming majority, the first group rated the (male) VP "very competent" and "likable". In a similar overwhelming majority, the second group rated the (female) VP "likable" but "not very competent".
The third and fourth groups were given descriptions emphasizing what a superstar performer the VP was, and were told the VP was male or female respectively. The third group again rated the (male) VP "very competent" and "likable" while the fourth group rated the (female) VP "very competent" but "not very likable".
Every aspect of the descriptions were identical. Only the perceived gender changed.
My (very long, sorry) point here is that "presenting" oneself in an all-around positive manner is, for a woman, a much harder proposition than it may originally seem. Keep in mind, the experimental subjects were equally male and female! This study comes to mind often now when I find myself having a knee-jerk reaction to the way a woman is presenting herself -- before crying foul, take a second to see whether your emotional reaction doesn't come infused with some sexism that deserves unpacking as well.
On appropriate reactions, elynne says: I have dated many men. I have slept with many man. I have gotten stupid drunk in the presence of many man, under many circumstances, including with strange men. Maybe it's just something about me, but I have not only never been raped, I have never been unwillingly fondled, manhandled, or groped - or hit in any way. I was once kissed in a way I found upsetting (guy almost pushed me off my feet and kissed me painfully hard); I told my friends, and he was quietly taken aside by the friend who brought him to the party and told that if he ever did anything like that again, to me or to anybody else, his skin would be removed and made into a set of decorative hats.
I have a list of anecdotes as long as my arm of men who have not just not taken sexual advantage of women, but who have gone out of their way to make sure that potentially vulnerable women (intoxicated, distressed, young / inexperienced, physically small) have been safe from such behavior, from asking if they would like company walking from one campsite to another, to actively pushing off and shouting at someone making unwanted advances. I can't count the number of men in this category; there are literally scores.
I know those men, many of them. I'm not going to give them cookies because they've behaved like good people. I'm going to continue to keep an eye and ear out for rapist behaviors, and if I find it, I'm going to be merciless, as I have been in the past. But I'm not going to thank the men in my life for not raping me, because that is the behavior I fucking well expect from them. I also don't thank them for not murdering or assaulting me, not torturing small animals, not setting my house or posessions on fire, not pouring bleach on my lawn, and recycling.
On "good" men who still won't stand up, kiezh says: Yeah. I'm pretty sure my brother wouldn't rape or physically assault a woman. I'm dead certain he'd stand aside, silent, while misogynist jokes are told, and a girl who objects to those jokes is called a prude and a bitch by a pack of boys. I know this because that was an on-going part of our shared teenagehood - his asshole friends making nasty cracks about women in my hearing, me calling them on it, and them escalating to calling me names. He didn't join in (at least where I could hear him), but he sure as hell didn't defend me, and his view of each event after the fact was that I had embarrassed him in front of his friends.
That is, in fact, still his view, 10-15 years later. Someone I love and generally want to think of as a good person still thinks that when women are calling men on misogynist speech and behavior, the problem is that the women are making a fuss. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that's how my dad thinks, too. :(
Where the hell are the guys who will stand up and say no to this shit? Because I can't find them.
On how the fear of rape is such a female issue (when perhaps it shouldn't be), ivorychopsticks says: I went to college at a conservative religious university. There had been a couple of sexual assaults off campus, so the university paper published the periodic "here's how to avoid getting raped" guidelines for women (and we've all seen them)-- call a male friend to walk with you if you have to be out after dark, never walk alone in the garden walk parts of campus, travel in groups of three or more, if a man is walking behind you, walk aggressively and cross the street to put a safe distance between you. All that practical advice we have been told over and over.
What was interesting was that the feminist club on campus put together a counter list--"men, here's how not be be mistaken for a rapist." It had such advise as follows: call a woman friend to walk with you after dark to prove you are non-threatening, if you have to walk late at night by yourself, be sure to keep a minimum distance between yourself and any women so that they know you are safe, up to and including crossing the street if you need to pass them, don't go out in large groups late at night. There were others I don't remember, but they all involved the same curtailing of movement and freedom that the women's list had. The club made this list look like an official school publication and plastered it all over campus.
I had a two hour break in between classes on the day it was distributed, so I watched people's responses to reading these flyers. They tended to be either angry ("what! they can't tell me what to do") or confused ("this.... this is a joke, right?").
It was illuminating and funny and very very sad. The ones who assumed the flyer was legitimate didn't talk about the practicality of the advice or take it to heart, or bring it up in their next men's group meeting, they just got angry. The ones who thought it was a joke couldn't believe that this type of advice could be taken seriously by anyone, because the suggestions were in themselves ridiculous.
...and holzman adds: When Golda Meir was prime minister of Israel, there were a string of rapes. The Knesset, the legislative body, started talking about passing a law requiring women to be indoors by a certain time, for their protection. Prime Minister Meir pointed out that it was men who were behaving lawlessly, and suggested that they pass a law requiring men to be indoors by a certain time. The Knesset stopped talking about curfews.
On an example of how a man can be aware, morgan_dhu says, I used to work as a stage manager, which often mean taking the bus home late at night. I lived in a fairly quiet area of Toronto, so usually, when I got off the bus at my stop (I lived about two blocks away on a side street), I was alone.
One night, around 2pm, I got off at my stop and a man I didn't know also got off. I was a little nervous, but before I could make a decision about whether to head home or go off in another, better lighted, direction for a while, he said "I'm headed down X street. If you're going in the same direction, let me start down the street first so you can see where I am, instead of having to worry about me following you."
I never ran into him again, but I've never forgotten this. He did it so matter-of-factly, not as if he were doing me a favour, just doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do.
On a survivor's experience, sheafrotherdon says: I am conditioned by my experiences to suspect that most men are a danger to me - this is not a matter of blithe ideology on my part, but a matter of abject survival. In the present culture in which I live, my body and my mind have been both systematically and casually abused - I risk it happening again no matter what I do (as has been been proven to me, again and again), but I will not increase that risk by extending trust based on someone else's say-so.
When someone raises their voice to say, you should not over-generalize, nor doubt your safety around men in general, I hear - your experiences are less important than the potential for his hurt feelings.
...and here: I suspect that many men have absolutely no idea how many assaults upon their person their female relatives, partners, and friends have experienced - running the range from that discomfiting shouted "compliment" on the street to abject bodily rape. What is marked is that men and women live side by side, and most men don't have to consider how their female relatives, partners, and friends have been shaped by this reality. Most women do.
On the commonplace nature of rape culture, jcgbigler says: To give a little background, I'm a high school teacher. One of my non-negotiable classroom rules that I'm constantly reminding kids of is that "'Stop' means stop."--when kids are teasing each other, either verbally or physically, any communication in any form (verbally or non-verbally) that a behavior is unwelcome means the behavior must stop immediately.
A lot of the kids are surprised when I invoke this rule, because most of them don't think about the idea that "Stop" needs to mean stop everywhere, all the time, not just in a dating situation. There's a pervasive idea, which I see in many teenage interactions (more often in male-on-female interactions than vice-versa) that it's OK to ignore protestations and requests to stop until the person intensifies the request. To me, this is the crux of the problem. It's not just a rape issue--it's a bullying issue that can lead to myriad undesirable outcomes, of which rape is the most extreme.
On consent, abka says I recently read a book that might be relevant to the discussion. "Yes Means Yes Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape" eds. Friedman and Valenti, 2008. It's a book of collected essays and deals with a lot of the issues discussed here.
One of the ideas that's stuck with me is changing our idea of consent. That consent could change from "not saying no" to enthusiastic consent at all levels. That's something we can teach boys (and men, and girls, and women), if she's not *enthusiastically* consenting then it's not acceptable. Standing or lying their awkwardly not talking or looking at you while you kiss/touch/etc. doesn't cut it. That's not sex, that's assault. And for women that whole train of thinking (I know I've engaged in it) that goes: "well I don't really want to have sex but he really does so maybe if I don't say no and just lie here it'll be over fast and we won't have to have this conflict," that won't be an option because having sex *means* being engaged with your partner and includes your pleasure (or at least pursuit of your own pleasure) as a basic condition.
On men's perception of rape vs. women's, paradox_dragon says: I know that a lot of men I know think of themselves as the good guys, and truly believe they would never rape anyone . . . but their definitions of "rape" are so narrow as to be laughable if they weren't so horrifying. Sex with your drunk girlfriend after she passes out? Not rape. Hell, a lot of them don't even consider sex with a drunk stranger after she passes out to be rape. Coercion is seen as an acceptable means of getting laid, and while most men I know probably wouldn't use physical force against a woman, they will cajole and intimidate and ply with alcohol until the cows come home.
When I was eleven, a friend's father used to behave really inappropriately toward me. He would pull me down to sit on his lap, pet my hair and arms, and talk about sex (in a semi-pornographic, faux-educational "let me tell you the facts of life, young lady" way that slowly turned into something much creepier). I told my dad about it, and he asked me if this man (I'll call him W) had ever touched my breasts or between my legs. And I said no. And Dad asked me what he said, and I was too embarrassed to say any of the really explicit parts, so it just ended up sounding like he was giving me a "birds and the bees" kind of talk that was okay for a family friend who had a daughter in my same grade. So Dad said that he knew W and that I was just misunderstanding things, and that I should stop crying because we didn't want W's wife and daughter, who were downstairs, to ask any questions. Dad also made me promise not to tell my mom, because she would "overreact" and start trouble with W. So I went to my room until I could stop crying, and I didn't tell anyone about it for years. I told my mom after she and Dad divorced, but I didn't tell her the whole story. See, the thing is, a few days after I told my dad and he dismissed it, W raped me. And I couldn't tell anyone. I was too embarrassed, and felt like it was my fault for not standing up to my dad, and I knew Dad would be absolutely heartbroken if he knew what had happened, and I had fears that Dad might kill W and go to prison, and I couldn't stand the thought of accusing the father of one of my best friends of rape. So I've never told my family, though a few other people know.
The thing is, my father isn't a bad man. If he could put a gun to his head and pull the trigger to keep me from being raped, he'd do it. But his understanding of sexual assault and power and intimidation and fear just didn't allow him to recognize that what W was doing was dangerous, and for that reason, I was raped.
Men don't understand that doubting women, blaming us, dismissing our definitions of rape and assault aren't just hurtful, they actually, actively lead to more rape. This huge gap between the way men see themselves and their actions (and those of other men) and the way women experience those actions is, to me, one of the biggest obstacles to getting men to step up and do their part to prevent rape.
...and on another awesome male reaction here: On a more uplifting note, I'd like to share a better story: My best friend and I were were staying at a friend's house (her friend, really; I didn't know the guy) and there was a big group of people over for a party. She was pretty drunk, and I was stone-cold sober (I have, as you can probably understand, issues about being vulnerable in those sorts of situations). She was talking to a guy on the couch and after a while he sort of helped her up and led her off to one of the spare rooms. I tried to follow, but froze up--issues, remember--and so I ran to the host, who I'd only met the day before, and told him that I thought one of his buddies was going to rape my friend. I expected nothing but dismissal. He didn't even know me, and my friend has a bit of a reputation for drinking too much and being promiscuous (which is a bullshit excuse for rape, but one that almost every 20-something guy I know will take advantage of). But instead, all he asked was, "Where?" Not why, not who, not if I was drunk or she was. Just, "Where is she?" And I took him to the room, and he pulled that guy off her before anything had happened (though the would-be rapist had her partially undressed) and he hauled him out into the middle of the living room and asked me to turn off the radio. I was kind of confused, but I turned off the music. And then, when everyone could hear him, he told everyone at that party what the guy had done. Just called him out for trying to rape my friend in front of all their buddies and girlfriends and everyone. I've rarely been so surprised or grateful to anyone in my life.
On the difference between male-on-male rape and male-on-female rape, Anonymous says: I have not raised the point that I have a dear friend who once experienced what he termed "being forced into unwanted sex without his consent", and that I cannot fucking imagine a man who has actually been raped using that fact as a way to shut women up. While he says that he doesn't term the experience rape because it's in that horrible "gray" zone, it's made him very outspoken about the need for positive consent from everybody, for everything, all the time, no matter what the circumstances. He also notes that no one he's told that story to ever asks what he was wearing or if he'd gotten drunk around women on purpose or implied that it was his fault, and therefore yes, it is different.
On how rape doesn't just happen in the "wrong" situations, thecolorclear says: Some of us are with our so-called friends, and some of us aren't at parties where alcohol is flowing freely. Most of us don't cajole or intimidate men (what the fuck?) into having sex. Some of us do everything we can to avoid your disgusting stereotype of women-who-are-raped. So please, you tell me, where are the 'right' places that you seem to hang out in? I'd like to know- I'm sure all my girlfriends would like to know too. Because I've seen restaurants and libraries and small-gatherings and sports events and train rides and dorm rooms and cars and everywhere else suddenly become the 'wrong' place. Time and time and time again. This isn't a matter of looking in the 'wrong' places- it's a matter of the 'wrong' men being in all the 'right' ones.
On the male entitlement and how it affects culture, tellitslant says: This culture of acceptance of male entitlement, I can't tell you how much it pisses me off. My latest personal example (by no means my only experience): on a late train out of London, mostly empty, a guy decided to hit on me. His opening gambit was to use his body to cage me into my seat, lay his hand on my leg to shake me out of my earphones-in doze, ask where I was getting off, invite me back to his bed for a bit of "rompy-romp," and when I declined ask if he could come back to mine.
He asked where I was from. He tried to introduce himself and was very put out that I wouldn't give my name. He asked the middle-aged woman across the aisle how to better woo me (and got advice). He tried to give me a foot massage. He was, quite frankly, such a perfect stereotype of the 'polite' harasser - the one who just wants to be nice, god, you don't have to be such a bitch, sorry if I bothered you, won't you accept my apology? - that it was actually amusing, to see how many times he would poke me or yell when I put my earbuds back in and closed my eyes.
It got less funny when he started taking pictures, although I was quite amused that he gave me his phone - making it possible for me to delete the pictures - because I told him that I wanted to put my number in it. Because after saying no fifty times, clearly him taking pictures of me sleeping was what was going to endear him to me. The logic escapes me.
I could have moved, but I am stubborn, plus given the fact that he had co-opted the other passengers (male and female) into his little 'game,' I had no reason to think he wouldn't follow me. I am also perfectly willing to make a scene if called for, something I know many women today are bred not to do, and I never felt as if I was in over my head, but I know many, many people who would have been terrified.
The fact that not only did no one on that train interfere, but that they willingly collaborated with a man who was continuing to hit on my despite my explicitly stating, numerous times, quite loudly, that I was not interested and wanted him to leave me alone? That gets me even more angry than what the guy was doing in the first place.
On the rape culture's effect on women's self-esteem, july_july_july says: I think, personally, the worst thing about rape culture in the developed world is the way that it teaches women to be afraid of their bodies. Not only are we not thin enough, not white enough, not tan enough, not smooth enough, not chesty enough, we also have the power to MAKE men RAPE us. So keep your skirts long, ladies, and your necklines high. Because anything more and we deserve what's coming.
On teaching children, nlanza says: I've been reading the comments in this post for a couple of hours, and I caught myself thinking about the kid I'll be having in the next few days/weeks, and how crappy a situation our society has created for her if she's a girl and how I should deal with that.
Then I stopped and realized that it's not just an issue if we have a girl. It's an issue if we have a boy, because then I need to teach him not to perpetrate that part of our society. I need to teach him how to respect everyone regardless of gender and call out his friends when they don't live up to that standard, even though it'll be tough and they'll make fun of him for it.
Even in the midst of reading all these comments, even after spending years trying to make sure I'm more sensitive to and understanding of women's issues, I can still catch myself thinking of rape as a women's problem, something that I'll only have to worry about if I have a daughter.
This crap is pervasive.
On the different views of rape between men and women, elarielf says: In my first year of Medical School, before we even got into diseases and treatments, we were taught about the social impact on health care. This unit talked a lot about women's issues and very little about men's issues. At the fifth or so class focusing on women (a Women's Sexual Health class), some of the guys were complaining that this was unfair. Some of the girls (myself included) actually agreed, and asked why there wasn't more emphasis on men's issues.
The instructor just turned to the class and asked the guys what their worst fears of a blind date were. They answered everything from embarrassment to rejection to exes showing up. Then he asked the girls.
In one voice, we all said "Rape."
The guys couldn't believe it. That we - all smart, strong, independant women - were all afraid of being raped. We of course, couldn't understand the confusion. It was natural to us.
Some guys were hurt that we would see them, automatically, as potential rapists. But couldn't come up with an alternative that would keep us safe.
In the end, the instructor said that's why women's issues were more emphasised.
On the effects of privelege and being the dominant party, lizkayl says: He was the first guy I met at college orientation. I saw his dragon shirt and thought, oooh! Cool. He bowed when he met me, and kissed my hand. And he thought he was being archaic. But failed. And wouldn't take a hint.
A friend of mine now, had a restraining order against him for stalking her. She volunteered to come to our meetings so he wouldn't be allowed to attend. He later Grabbed Her Ass at a Candlelight Vigil for Sexual Assault Victims.
A girl in the freshmen all girls dorm woke to find him watching her sleep. He'd tail-gated someone entering the locked building. This was reported in the college paper.
I met his roommate once, while waiting in line at the cafeteria. And I told his roommate what I knew of him. After his roommate complained, a man complained, he was kicked out.
On how simple it can be for one man to speak up, foreverdirt says: Don't tell my mother, but once I was walking home through a park at around midnight, and I passed two men on a bench.
"Hey sweetie," one of them called out. "How's it going?"
I walked on, annoyed but not bothered or surprised, only to hear the other guy mutter something angrily to his friend, clearly not aimed at me.
"Don't do that! She's walking alone through [the park] in the middle of the night -- she does not need that shit."
Whew! That might be one of the longest entries I ever post, even if it's not my words. Go, read, discuss.
On why protesting "But I wouldn't do that!" every five seconds isn't productive, rosefox says: In a discussion of an epidemic, there is absolutely value to pointing out that some people are immune to the illness or have fought it off, and to studying those people en masse to see what lessons can be learned from them and applied to the general populace; there is less value in lauding each individual for having remained or become healthy, and still less in the healthy individuals insisting that care providers take time away from fighting disease in order to pay attention to the healthy. If you're in the healthy minority, then you should be scrubbing in and going around distributing masks, hand sanitizer, and vaccines, not complaining that everyone's talking about sick people all the time and you feel left out or unappreciated.
...and on how men should react here: I pointed my younger brother at this post. He said it made him feel angry and ashamed of being male for the second time in two days. Apparently the first time was when a male colleague of his made highly inappropriate remarks to a female colleague. My brother approached the woman and said "Look, I don't want to just get in his face because I don't want to act like you need a male protector--you can protect yourself--but I do want you to know that I think what he said is disgusting, and if you want to confront him about this, I'd be glad to back you up".
I told him that was a great way to handle it, but also pointed out that it was totally okay for him to speak up on his own behalf: "It's up to her whether she lets you get away with this, but even if she does, don't do it around me, because I find it repugnant". The idea hadn't even occurred to him. I'm not sure it would have occurred to me either, had it not been for this post and all the discussion of how men can and should talk directly to men about sexist behavior being obnoxious and unacceptable to men.
...and on the power dynamic involved in rape, here: It strikes me that the gift/gratitude thing is one of the clearest things pointing to this being a power dynamic thing. Thanking someone, feeling gratitude toward someone, indicates that they're in a position of power over you in some way; they had a choice to make that could have affected you poorly and they made it in a way that affected you well, but either way they have the power to affect you at all. In this dynamic, men have the power to inflict or withhold rape, and women... get to cope with how the men decide to use that power, basically.
...and on women's dress and the male gaze, here: Because it's all about what men look at and what men see and what men think of what men look at and see. A woman's clothes are never about her, what she wants to see when she looks in the mirror, or even about her friends. When we look in the mirror, we're taught to see ourselves as men see us. When we talk to our friends, we're taught to evaluate ourselves and one another on how well our outfits will attract or deter the attention of men. When a woman is feeling low about how she looks, one of the most common comments is "Well, guys still think you're hot!" (or, from male friends, "Well, I still think you're hot!") like that's all that matters. Like we have no standards for ourselves, no internal standards, only externally imposed notions of how much or little we deviate from some impossible ideal.
On why men being passive is part of the problem, even if they would never actively rape, zeborahnz says: To paraphrase: All it takes for injustice to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Silence tends to be taken as assent. So if one man makes sexist remarks, and five men stand around and let him, then:
a) the women present will feel as if all six men approve of that sexism;
b) the man speaking will believe he has been given tacit approval to keep on speaking;
c) each of the five men will believe that the other four have given tacit approval to those sexist remarks;
d) each of the five men will have reinforced in his own mind that the appropriate thing to do in this situation is to be silent. (This is because, when we make a choice to do X, we reinforce our approval for X. eg If you choose to buy something, you'll like the thing more after you've bought it than before.)
Silence reinforces the problem. Therefore it's a (passive) part of the problem.
On why telling women that their points would be listened to if they used a better tone is ridiculous, derailing, and a copout, jesstherobot says: There was a study by a Professor Heilman ("Penalties for success: reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks", published in the Journal of Applied Psych.) in which four groups of subjects (men and women evenly) were given the description of a fictitious vice-president of an aircraft company and asked to give a job performance rating. The first two groups were given the same description, but the first group was told the VP was a man, the second were told the VP was a woman. In an overwhelming majority, the first group rated the (male) VP "very competent" and "likable". In a similar overwhelming majority, the second group rated the (female) VP "likable" but "not very competent".
The third and fourth groups were given descriptions emphasizing what a superstar performer the VP was, and were told the VP was male or female respectively. The third group again rated the (male) VP "very competent" and "likable" while the fourth group rated the (female) VP "very competent" but "not very likable".
Every aspect of the descriptions were identical. Only the perceived gender changed.
My (very long, sorry) point here is that "presenting" oneself in an all-around positive manner is, for a woman, a much harder proposition than it may originally seem. Keep in mind, the experimental subjects were equally male and female! This study comes to mind often now when I find myself having a knee-jerk reaction to the way a woman is presenting herself -- before crying foul, take a second to see whether your emotional reaction doesn't come infused with some sexism that deserves unpacking as well.
On appropriate reactions, elynne says: I have dated many men. I have slept with many man. I have gotten stupid drunk in the presence of many man, under many circumstances, including with strange men. Maybe it's just something about me, but I have not only never been raped, I have never been unwillingly fondled, manhandled, or groped - or hit in any way. I was once kissed in a way I found upsetting (guy almost pushed me off my feet and kissed me painfully hard); I told my friends, and he was quietly taken aside by the friend who brought him to the party and told that if he ever did anything like that again, to me or to anybody else, his skin would be removed and made into a set of decorative hats.
I have a list of anecdotes as long as my arm of men who have not just not taken sexual advantage of women, but who have gone out of their way to make sure that potentially vulnerable women (intoxicated, distressed, young / inexperienced, physically small) have been safe from such behavior, from asking if they would like company walking from one campsite to another, to actively pushing off and shouting at someone making unwanted advances. I can't count the number of men in this category; there are literally scores.
I know those men, many of them. I'm not going to give them cookies because they've behaved like good people. I'm going to continue to keep an eye and ear out for rapist behaviors, and if I find it, I'm going to be merciless, as I have been in the past. But I'm not going to thank the men in my life for not raping me, because that is the behavior I fucking well expect from them. I also don't thank them for not murdering or assaulting me, not torturing small animals, not setting my house or posessions on fire, not pouring bleach on my lawn, and recycling.
On "good" men who still won't stand up, kiezh says: Yeah. I'm pretty sure my brother wouldn't rape or physically assault a woman. I'm dead certain he'd stand aside, silent, while misogynist jokes are told, and a girl who objects to those jokes is called a prude and a bitch by a pack of boys. I know this because that was an on-going part of our shared teenagehood - his asshole friends making nasty cracks about women in my hearing, me calling them on it, and them escalating to calling me names. He didn't join in (at least where I could hear him), but he sure as hell didn't defend me, and his view of each event after the fact was that I had embarrassed him in front of his friends.
That is, in fact, still his view, 10-15 years later. Someone I love and generally want to think of as a good person still thinks that when women are calling men on misogynist speech and behavior, the problem is that the women are making a fuss. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that's how my dad thinks, too. :(
Where the hell are the guys who will stand up and say no to this shit? Because I can't find them.
On how the fear of rape is such a female issue (when perhaps it shouldn't be), ivorychopsticks says: I went to college at a conservative religious university. There had been a couple of sexual assaults off campus, so the university paper published the periodic "here's how to avoid getting raped" guidelines for women (and we've all seen them)-- call a male friend to walk with you if you have to be out after dark, never walk alone in the garden walk parts of campus, travel in groups of three or more, if a man is walking behind you, walk aggressively and cross the street to put a safe distance between you. All that practical advice we have been told over and over.
What was interesting was that the feminist club on campus put together a counter list--"men, here's how not be be mistaken for a rapist." It had such advise as follows: call a woman friend to walk with you after dark to prove you are non-threatening, if you have to walk late at night by yourself, be sure to keep a minimum distance between yourself and any women so that they know you are safe, up to and including crossing the street if you need to pass them, don't go out in large groups late at night. There were others I don't remember, but they all involved the same curtailing of movement and freedom that the women's list had. The club made this list look like an official school publication and plastered it all over campus.
I had a two hour break in between classes on the day it was distributed, so I watched people's responses to reading these flyers. They tended to be either angry ("what! they can't tell me what to do") or confused ("this.... this is a joke, right?").
It was illuminating and funny and very very sad. The ones who assumed the flyer was legitimate didn't talk about the practicality of the advice or take it to heart, or bring it up in their next men's group meeting, they just got angry. The ones who thought it was a joke couldn't believe that this type of advice could be taken seriously by anyone, because the suggestions were in themselves ridiculous.
...and holzman adds: When Golda Meir was prime minister of Israel, there were a string of rapes. The Knesset, the legislative body, started talking about passing a law requiring women to be indoors by a certain time, for their protection. Prime Minister Meir pointed out that it was men who were behaving lawlessly, and suggested that they pass a law requiring men to be indoors by a certain time. The Knesset stopped talking about curfews.
On an example of how a man can be aware, morgan_dhu says, I used to work as a stage manager, which often mean taking the bus home late at night. I lived in a fairly quiet area of Toronto, so usually, when I got off the bus at my stop (I lived about two blocks away on a side street), I was alone.
One night, around 2pm, I got off at my stop and a man I didn't know also got off. I was a little nervous, but before I could make a decision about whether to head home or go off in another, better lighted, direction for a while, he said "I'm headed down X street. If you're going in the same direction, let me start down the street first so you can see where I am, instead of having to worry about me following you."
I never ran into him again, but I've never forgotten this. He did it so matter-of-factly, not as if he were doing me a favour, just doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do.
On a survivor's experience, sheafrotherdon says: I am conditioned by my experiences to suspect that most men are a danger to me - this is not a matter of blithe ideology on my part, but a matter of abject survival. In the present culture in which I live, my body and my mind have been both systematically and casually abused - I risk it happening again no matter what I do (as has been been proven to me, again and again), but I will not increase that risk by extending trust based on someone else's say-so.
When someone raises their voice to say, you should not over-generalize, nor doubt your safety around men in general, I hear - your experiences are less important than the potential for his hurt feelings.
...and here: I suspect that many men have absolutely no idea how many assaults upon their person their female relatives, partners, and friends have experienced - running the range from that discomfiting shouted "compliment" on the street to abject bodily rape. What is marked is that men and women live side by side, and most men don't have to consider how their female relatives, partners, and friends have been shaped by this reality. Most women do.
On the commonplace nature of rape culture, jcgbigler says: To give a little background, I'm a high school teacher. One of my non-negotiable classroom rules that I'm constantly reminding kids of is that "'Stop' means stop."--when kids are teasing each other, either verbally or physically, any communication in any form (verbally or non-verbally) that a behavior is unwelcome means the behavior must stop immediately.
A lot of the kids are surprised when I invoke this rule, because most of them don't think about the idea that "Stop" needs to mean stop everywhere, all the time, not just in a dating situation. There's a pervasive idea, which I see in many teenage interactions (more often in male-on-female interactions than vice-versa) that it's OK to ignore protestations and requests to stop until the person intensifies the request. To me, this is the crux of the problem. It's not just a rape issue--it's a bullying issue that can lead to myriad undesirable outcomes, of which rape is the most extreme.
On consent, abka says I recently read a book that might be relevant to the discussion. "Yes Means Yes Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape" eds. Friedman and Valenti, 2008. It's a book of collected essays and deals with a lot of the issues discussed here.
One of the ideas that's stuck with me is changing our idea of consent. That consent could change from "not saying no" to enthusiastic consent at all levels. That's something we can teach boys (and men, and girls, and women), if she's not *enthusiastically* consenting then it's not acceptable. Standing or lying their awkwardly not talking or looking at you while you kiss/touch/etc. doesn't cut it. That's not sex, that's assault. And for women that whole train of thinking (I know I've engaged in it) that goes: "well I don't really want to have sex but he really does so maybe if I don't say no and just lie here it'll be over fast and we won't have to have this conflict," that won't be an option because having sex *means* being engaged with your partner and includes your pleasure (or at least pursuit of your own pleasure) as a basic condition.
On men's perception of rape vs. women's, paradox_dragon says: I know that a lot of men I know think of themselves as the good guys, and truly believe they would never rape anyone . . . but their definitions of "rape" are so narrow as to be laughable if they weren't so horrifying. Sex with your drunk girlfriend after she passes out? Not rape. Hell, a lot of them don't even consider sex with a drunk stranger after she passes out to be rape. Coercion is seen as an acceptable means of getting laid, and while most men I know probably wouldn't use physical force against a woman, they will cajole and intimidate and ply with alcohol until the cows come home.
When I was eleven, a friend's father used to behave really inappropriately toward me. He would pull me down to sit on his lap, pet my hair and arms, and talk about sex (in a semi-pornographic, faux-educational "let me tell you the facts of life, young lady" way that slowly turned into something much creepier). I told my dad about it, and he asked me if this man (I'll call him W) had ever touched my breasts or between my legs. And I said no. And Dad asked me what he said, and I was too embarrassed to say any of the really explicit parts, so it just ended up sounding like he was giving me a "birds and the bees" kind of talk that was okay for a family friend who had a daughter in my same grade. So Dad said that he knew W and that I was just misunderstanding things, and that I should stop crying because we didn't want W's wife and daughter, who were downstairs, to ask any questions. Dad also made me promise not to tell my mom, because she would "overreact" and start trouble with W. So I went to my room until I could stop crying, and I didn't tell anyone about it for years. I told my mom after she and Dad divorced, but I didn't tell her the whole story. See, the thing is, a few days after I told my dad and he dismissed it, W raped me. And I couldn't tell anyone. I was too embarrassed, and felt like it was my fault for not standing up to my dad, and I knew Dad would be absolutely heartbroken if he knew what had happened, and I had fears that Dad might kill W and go to prison, and I couldn't stand the thought of accusing the father of one of my best friends of rape. So I've never told my family, though a few other people know.
The thing is, my father isn't a bad man. If he could put a gun to his head and pull the trigger to keep me from being raped, he'd do it. But his understanding of sexual assault and power and intimidation and fear just didn't allow him to recognize that what W was doing was dangerous, and for that reason, I was raped.
Men don't understand that doubting women, blaming us, dismissing our definitions of rape and assault aren't just hurtful, they actually, actively lead to more rape. This huge gap between the way men see themselves and their actions (and those of other men) and the way women experience those actions is, to me, one of the biggest obstacles to getting men to step up and do their part to prevent rape.
...and on another awesome male reaction here: On a more uplifting note, I'd like to share a better story: My best friend and I were were staying at a friend's house (her friend, really; I didn't know the guy) and there was a big group of people over for a party. She was pretty drunk, and I was stone-cold sober (I have, as you can probably understand, issues about being vulnerable in those sorts of situations). She was talking to a guy on the couch and after a while he sort of helped her up and led her off to one of the spare rooms. I tried to follow, but froze up--issues, remember--and so I ran to the host, who I'd only met the day before, and told him that I thought one of his buddies was going to rape my friend. I expected nothing but dismissal. He didn't even know me, and my friend has a bit of a reputation for drinking too much and being promiscuous (which is a bullshit excuse for rape, but one that almost every 20-something guy I know will take advantage of). But instead, all he asked was, "Where?" Not why, not who, not if I was drunk or she was. Just, "Where is she?" And I took him to the room, and he pulled that guy off her before anything had happened (though the would-be rapist had her partially undressed) and he hauled him out into the middle of the living room and asked me to turn off the radio. I was kind of confused, but I turned off the music. And then, when everyone could hear him, he told everyone at that party what the guy had done. Just called him out for trying to rape my friend in front of all their buddies and girlfriends and everyone. I've rarely been so surprised or grateful to anyone in my life.
On the difference between male-on-male rape and male-on-female rape, Anonymous says: I have not raised the point that I have a dear friend who once experienced what he termed "being forced into unwanted sex without his consent", and that I cannot fucking imagine a man who has actually been raped using that fact as a way to shut women up. While he says that he doesn't term the experience rape because it's in that horrible "gray" zone, it's made him very outspoken about the need for positive consent from everybody, for everything, all the time, no matter what the circumstances. He also notes that no one he's told that story to ever asks what he was wearing or if he'd gotten drunk around women on purpose or implied that it was his fault, and therefore yes, it is different.
On how rape doesn't just happen in the "wrong" situations, thecolorclear says: Some of us are with our so-called friends, and some of us aren't at parties where alcohol is flowing freely. Most of us don't cajole or intimidate men (what the fuck?) into having sex. Some of us do everything we can to avoid your disgusting stereotype of women-who-are-raped. So please, you tell me, where are the 'right' places that you seem to hang out in? I'd like to know- I'm sure all my girlfriends would like to know too. Because I've seen restaurants and libraries and small-gatherings and sports events and train rides and dorm rooms and cars and everywhere else suddenly become the 'wrong' place. Time and time and time again. This isn't a matter of looking in the 'wrong' places- it's a matter of the 'wrong' men being in all the 'right' ones.
On the male entitlement and how it affects culture, tellitslant says: This culture of acceptance of male entitlement, I can't tell you how much it pisses me off. My latest personal example (by no means my only experience): on a late train out of London, mostly empty, a guy decided to hit on me. His opening gambit was to use his body to cage me into my seat, lay his hand on my leg to shake me out of my earphones-in doze, ask where I was getting off, invite me back to his bed for a bit of "rompy-romp," and when I declined ask if he could come back to mine.
He asked where I was from. He tried to introduce himself and was very put out that I wouldn't give my name. He asked the middle-aged woman across the aisle how to better woo me (and got advice). He tried to give me a foot massage. He was, quite frankly, such a perfect stereotype of the 'polite' harasser - the one who just wants to be nice, god, you don't have to be such a bitch, sorry if I bothered you, won't you accept my apology? - that it was actually amusing, to see how many times he would poke me or yell when I put my earbuds back in and closed my eyes.
It got less funny when he started taking pictures, although I was quite amused that he gave me his phone - making it possible for me to delete the pictures - because I told him that I wanted to put my number in it. Because after saying no fifty times, clearly him taking pictures of me sleeping was what was going to endear him to me. The logic escapes me.
I could have moved, but I am stubborn, plus given the fact that he had co-opted the other passengers (male and female) into his little 'game,' I had no reason to think he wouldn't follow me. I am also perfectly willing to make a scene if called for, something I know many women today are bred not to do, and I never felt as if I was in over my head, but I know many, many people who would have been terrified.
The fact that not only did no one on that train interfere, but that they willingly collaborated with a man who was continuing to hit on my despite my explicitly stating, numerous times, quite loudly, that I was not interested and wanted him to leave me alone? That gets me even more angry than what the guy was doing in the first place.
On the rape culture's effect on women's self-esteem, july_july_july says: I think, personally, the worst thing about rape culture in the developed world is the way that it teaches women to be afraid of their bodies. Not only are we not thin enough, not white enough, not tan enough, not smooth enough, not chesty enough, we also have the power to MAKE men RAPE us. So keep your skirts long, ladies, and your necklines high. Because anything more and we deserve what's coming.
On teaching children, nlanza says: I've been reading the comments in this post for a couple of hours, and I caught myself thinking about the kid I'll be having in the next few days/weeks, and how crappy a situation our society has created for her if she's a girl and how I should deal with that.
Then I stopped and realized that it's not just an issue if we have a girl. It's an issue if we have a boy, because then I need to teach him not to perpetrate that part of our society. I need to teach him how to respect everyone regardless of gender and call out his friends when they don't live up to that standard, even though it'll be tough and they'll make fun of him for it.
Even in the midst of reading all these comments, even after spending years trying to make sure I'm more sensitive to and understanding of women's issues, I can still catch myself thinking of rape as a women's problem, something that I'll only have to worry about if I have a daughter.
This crap is pervasive.
On the different views of rape between men and women, elarielf says: In my first year of Medical School, before we even got into diseases and treatments, we were taught about the social impact on health care. This unit talked a lot about women's issues and very little about men's issues. At the fifth or so class focusing on women (a Women's Sexual Health class), some of the guys were complaining that this was unfair. Some of the girls (myself included) actually agreed, and asked why there wasn't more emphasis on men's issues.
The instructor just turned to the class and asked the guys what their worst fears of a blind date were. They answered everything from embarrassment to rejection to exes showing up. Then he asked the girls.
In one voice, we all said "Rape."
The guys couldn't believe it. That we - all smart, strong, independant women - were all afraid of being raped. We of course, couldn't understand the confusion. It was natural to us.
Some guys were hurt that we would see them, automatically, as potential rapists. But couldn't come up with an alternative that would keep us safe.
In the end, the instructor said that's why women's issues were more emphasised.
On the effects of privelege and being the dominant party, lizkayl says: He was the first guy I met at college orientation. I saw his dragon shirt and thought, oooh! Cool. He bowed when he met me, and kissed my hand. And he thought he was being archaic. But failed. And wouldn't take a hint.
A friend of mine now, had a restraining order against him for stalking her. She volunteered to come to our meetings so he wouldn't be allowed to attend. He later Grabbed Her Ass at a Candlelight Vigil for Sexual Assault Victims.
A girl in the freshmen all girls dorm woke to find him watching her sleep. He'd tail-gated someone entering the locked building. This was reported in the college paper.
I met his roommate once, while waiting in line at the cafeteria. And I told his roommate what I knew of him. After his roommate complained, a man complained, he was kicked out.
On how simple it can be for one man to speak up, foreverdirt says: Don't tell my mother, but once I was walking home through a park at around midnight, and I passed two men on a bench.
"Hey sweetie," one of them called out. "How's it going?"
I walked on, annoyed but not bothered or surprised, only to hear the other guy mutter something angrily to his friend, clearly not aimed at me.
"Don't do that! She's walking alone through [the park] in the middle of the night -- she does not need that shit."
Whew! That might be one of the longest entries I ever post, even if it's not my words. Go, read, discuss.