in the minority of the decent
After McLaughlin Group this morning was a show running a story about U.S. soldiers in the military raping other U.S. soldiers. After some initial statistics that were woefully unsurprising and some first-hand accounts, came a particular story of a soldier assaulted by a man she had probably called a friend. After all, they played sports together
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I actually didn't say anything about anyone's husband, and drawing that hyper-defensive parallel wasn't really needed. But I think comparing a the level of trust in a marraige and the level of trust in a casual aquaintance is sort of a wee bit on the spurious side.
I'm not blaming her, I'm just saying that when you feel uncomfortable belonging to a gender that is so ready to rape an innocent (you'll note I referred to her as innocent) woman, I feel uncomfortable belonging to a gender that is surprised when it happens, or trusts the person when they shouldn't. I didn't say anything about child marraige so I'm not sure where you got that from. It's exactly that fanatical, accusatory rhetoric that makes me annoyed with feminists for the most part.
I have a friend who's in the army. I'm not sure what the training area is referred to, but he said he'd never let me go out there. Why? Because of the guys.
How sexist!
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And the hell you aren't blaming her. Telling someone who's been victimized "You should have been more careful" is blaming the victim. If she had just been smarter (read: psychic) it would not have happened. Not a word about the fucking rapist; the victim's supposed stupidity is somehow more relevant to the crime than the rapist's conscious decision to commit it. It's her fault for not being careful enough; for not acquiescing to be a second-class citizen and voluntarily sacrificing - without any rational necessity - enough of her right to the pursuit of happiness as she defines it; which should include the ability to trust people who in every way possible seem trustworthy not to rape her. ...Actually, no, I take that back. It should include the ability to trust complete strangers not to rape her. Since when did rape become such a casual crime that we can expect it of anybody ( ... )
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It's silencing an unacceptably harmful opinion. It's suppressing an infectious disease. You are speaking to everyone who ever hears or reads your words, wherever spoken or written. Some of those people may have been victims, and some may become victims in the future, and some may interact with victims, or interact with someone who will interact with a victim. However many carriers it passes through, the virus eventually reaches a victim, and there it causes nothing but hurt. Months later, years later, decades later, they're still hearing, "It's your fault." So they blame themselves. They hate themselves. Some, doubtlessly, even kill themselves.
But there are the few who supposedly avoid being victims by taking this hateful "should have known better" rhetoric to heart in time to restrict themselves from going to certain places, interacting with certain people, doing certain things, etc., etc., before it gets them in trouble. Meanwhile, they must watch as their male friends do all these same things with ( ... )
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Victim-blaming helps perpetuate rape. It is a virus that persists in spite of reason, clung to by one chowderhead after another even as their last argument has been expended, and no amount of ( ... )
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Money should rain out of the sky, but that doesn't mean it's reasonable to behave as if it does. I also think it's pretty unreasonable that you - male, and unable to actually understand what it's really like to be female - are telling me how I should be feeling about women's issues. How many times have you felt you're at risk? Because I can tell you that even most dumb, niave, and trusting as hell women have still felt scared or nervous about the prospect at least once.
Don't begrudge me for having a concern for my own safety.
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Your money example isn't such a good one, actually, since a vital part of the whole system of currency is that it require more effort to obtain than placing a bucket outside whenever the weather reports indicate a high chance of financial gain. But ignoring that... If somehow money raining from the sky could be predicted with absolute certainty to be a good thing, then yeah, it should happen; impossible though it may be. The bigger if, though: if it also weren't impossible, and there was something (non-harmful) we could do to make money rain from the sky, then we should do it ( ... )
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