To hell with fear

[grenacia]

I've seen been seeing various links turn up in my social media feeds to essays written (generally) by men, trying to explain #YesAllWomen to other men. I've been noticing a theme to some of them, which I would boil down to this concept

Comments

[mle292]

I think your arguing against a strawman here, but maybe I haven't seen the post that you're paraphrasing. Do you have a link?

[grenacia]

It's not one specific post, but a general impression from a few different posts I've seen in the past week (though I've also read many posts on the same subject written by both genders that didn't focus on the fear thing). I'm afraid I did not collect links or leave tabs open, as I didn't intend to write about them at the time - the reaction just kind of popped into my head tonight.

[eyelid]

To me it is less about fear than trust. I'm not afraid of men, generally, but I definitely am WARY. I do self-protective things that guys would not think of doing. In part because the reality is that if I am sexually assaulted, I am the one who will be blamed for being too trusting and giving an opportunity and maybe I am making it all up anyway, etc.

#yesallwomen as I understand it is more like yes all women have been harassed or assaulted or something along those lines, but I could be wrong on that.

[grenacia]

Trust is a good point - I'm not afraid of men with suspect behavior, but I certainly don't trust them. Distrust is a much better general term than fear on this issue.

I see #YesAllWomen as saying that all women have, at least at some point in their lives, been harassed and treated in a dehumanized manner by men, sometimes going as far as assault. And I don't think there's much argument on that, except in the minor details or by guys who are part of the problem.

I've just seen so much discussion focusing on the idea of women fearing men, and while that's obviously a part of the issue, the focus bugs me.