Found via Twitter...

[sabrarosa]

This is an entry from Daily Kos that someone on my Twitter feed posted today and I am glad she did. Too often sexual assaults is presented as a woman's problem. So much of what is out there about rape prevention is aimed at women and is defensive. It's all about us watching our backs, not going certain places alone, how to get away from an

Comments

[candika]

I'm sorry I missed this the other day. I saw your post and meandered across to see what had happened over here when you mentioned that you'd had a derailer here. And you're right. He was a beauty, a fine and active specimen.

I just love how a serious discussion with rightfully angry people raising points left and right is suddenly relegated to a 'tone argument' with your visitor claiming that we'd have so much more success if we were just nicer to men and spared their feelings. We've tried that. We've been trying it since the early C20th and we've found that any advances we make are when we insist on change and stick to our guns. That involves raising issues repeatedly and staying in people's faces. And of course that's going to make some (not all) men defensive.

And then there are the 'nice' guys who don't do any of the overtly nasty things and expect us to lionise them for simply behaving like human beings, reward them for not hurting us and fail to realise how they benefit because we're afraid of them. That fear does make some of us pugnacious but it also makes many of us just shut up and do as we're told. Especially when if we step out of line or 'cause' a problem we're told it's our fault when they punish us. Just because other men will do the dirty work for them doesn't absolve them of responsibility. Rape is a form of terrorism. It keeps us in line. It's a threat that all men benefit from because frightened people are easier to dominate.

We really need to get past this idea that each rape is some kind of isolated incident. It's not and if they genuinely want to be 'nice' guys then they need to point this out and when other men make light of it point out that the 'joke' or disrespectful behaviour in fact, a threat and they need to cut it out. That's quite apart from the more obvious things like intervening in an attempted rape or calling the cops if they see or hear a woman being abused. There's plenty men can do and chances are that abusers will listen to them far more readily than they listen to us.

[candika]

I hope you don't mind my friending you.