#YesAllWomen

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I don't know if what I am about to say is relevant:

I used to have a friend who happened to be a woman and we got along.
But one day she started calling me "sexist". And I am unsure why. She never told me why she thought I was sexist. I think she said I was "mean to her". But, I was not aware I was being mean. I interacted with her how I would interact with everyone else.
Because I was paranoid that perhaps I was a bigot, I asked a different female friend of mine. She was surprised that I was called that.

I don't know if two people's opinions is concrete evidence of if I am sexist or not. But from that, I conclude I was obliviously being rude towards her. I don't think I was being a bigot. I was just unknowingly being an arse?

I just came away from the thing wondering if I had treated her like a delicate china doll I might have not be accused of being sexist. But that's an irony. Perhaps we didn't get along that well?

It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

But for some people it's:

It's hard to light a candle, easy to curse the dark instead

[Duckay]

Yes but the problem is that people talk about some real things and (like you) don't care about the facts. Then you have something that tells women to be afraid because...

With all due respect, though, consider the other perspective. Say you're a man or woman who has experienced some form of sexual violence before (be that rape, or something else). Or maybe you haven't, but your best friend has, or a close family member has. Are you inclined to think "well, but the odds of that happening again are minute"? Probably not.

[Deedles]

The fact is that while not all men are rapists, heck, while the minority of men are rapists, there is still a large chunk of men who are very capable of spouting misogynist shite and threaten women who reject them, or don't show interest, and a woman doesn't know which guy is so serious about what he says that he might actually follow it up because we're not mind-readers.

[iamafish]

I think just using reported rape statistics to say how many 'rapers walk among us' is actually quite an unhelpful way of thinking about it with regards to women (or anyone) feeling threatened.

Rapists are the tip of an iceberg, and that iceberg is a general culture of disrespect for women. Granted that culture is not universal, and there have been huge leaps and bounds made recently to curb this disrespect, but it's important to remember that this culture is something that has existed for millenia. It is written bone-deep in almost every single world culture. It expresses itself in a huge variety of different ways, from media, to entertainment to politics and so on.

Cultures are learned from the very moment that we first start experiencing the world, and as such are something that is very difficult to change. Obviously there are a growing number of people who do not actively disrespect women, and do not see women as inferior, but that is not to say that this culture has been eradicated. It takes generations for such changes to happen, because culture is so ingrained.

So, its not just as issue of rapists on the street. It's a whole culture whereby women are presented as objects, in which it is a mark of prestige to be highly sexuality active among males, in which it is considered ok to check a woman out on the street.

This all contributes to a sense of fear, not just the idea that someone might pull you into a side-street and rape you, but the almost constant low-level harassment experienced by women all the time.

Of course, this is just one part of what is wrong with our culture, but the point is that simply dismissing it as an issue of stupidity or standing haughtily above it doesn't actually help. Cultural changes happen slowly, but they can happen. they only do so be people actively practicing the changes they want to see made general and being vocal in objecting to the cultural assumptions that they want to see changed.

Obviously that's easier said than done, but movements like this are worthwhile. Just dismissing everything as awful and everyone as stupid isn't.

[Metcarfre]

Using statistics in such a discussion, that's all about women being frank about their personal, anecdotal experiences seems disingenuous at best. It's basically the "not all men" arguments that started the whole thing spiced up with numbers.

Deedles, thanks for linking the cab story. I had read it somewhere else and was trying to describe it to my wife but couldn't remember the details. Definitely speaks to me as I've been hit on by gay men before which made me feel very uncomfortable, only now to realize that's something most women have to deal with regularly.

Here, I made my own;

#yesallwomen Because the very first comment on a thread regarding this subject, in a quite reasonable forum, is bemoaning the supposed demonization of all men rather than actually discussing the topic.

[empath]

Throwing one's hands up in the air, proclaiming that everyone sucks and the situation is hopeless is very unproductive.

It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

More like cursing after spending decades helping people through the darkness, then having people steal your matches, piss in your tinder, stomp on your candles and then slap you in the face for 'daring to exploit a chance to help for your own nefarious purposes' - this increased communication and connectivity of the Information Age that pseudonym extolls has merely exposed this feminist of thirty years of experience to people half that age insulting him for his 'false allegiance'.

Sorry, I've been fighting this fight for more than a quarter-century (yes, objecting to sexism since I was a kid too young to be indoctrinated in such bullshit - thank my enlightened parents for keeping that "but that's DUMB" innocence alive in me) and I...I really see no way forward; it's futile, it's trying to empty the ocean with a spoon, and I just give up.


Take Memo's 'every man is a potential rapist' example - the stats seem plausible (and of course, YMMV), but that means women SHOULD recoil in fear from me when I offer help - it's the PRAGMATIC OPTION. And it breaks my fucking heart.

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO LIVE THEIR LIFE IN FEAR. IT INFURIATES ME AND MAKES ME WANT TO FIND EVERY BULLY, RAPIST, MUGGER, AND MURDERER, RIP THEIR SOULS OUT AND SOAK THEM IN ACID FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

That a woman should barricade herself in her broken-down car when a man stops and offers to help IS JUST WRONG, and it's not her fault - it's FUCKING TED BUNDY'S FAULT.

Look, I only had biweekly visitation with my step-daughter, but I (with the support of her parents) instilled in her confidence - the counteraction against this instutionalized "women are weak and meek" tripe that STILL gets unconsciously force-fed to girls. She is now a woman that walks alone in the dark; she is a woman that knows this garbage about 'men are stronger than women' is easily disproven, and she is FULLY CAPABLE of defending herself from an attacker.

Less because of the physical training we had her enrolled in, but more with the MINDSET that that helped encourage and WE REINFORCED:

"I am capable of defending myself. NO ONE has the right or ability to force their will on me."


Great huh? I'm motherfucking proud of her, despite not a single gene between us.


But the town where she lives? It's population is a little over 60,000; I've helped make her be one woman that will NOT let a rapist have his way...

...but what about the other thirty thousand in that small town?

What about the other million-and-a-half in her state?

What about the ALMOST FOUR BILLION women around the world?



I've been fighting this absurd disparity in treatment for longer than many in this discussion have been alive...and it's not getting any better. Women are still being kidnapped, raped and murdered. Thoughtless goons who violate girls are STILL coddled and protected, and the victims STILL get ostracized and further traumatized by the very systems that are SUPPOSED to protect them. We try to educate girls, and anachronistic dinosaurs who don't like that simply gather up their guns, kill the teachers and kidnap the girls and then sell them off into slavery.

And every time I try to speak out in support, I get shit on for being "a false ally" and not doing enough.


"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

...until you get to the point where your burnt fingertips can't hold a match anymore.

And besides, your eyesight can adapt if you'd let it, and let you see further than a candle's range, and you still don't let the darkness control where you go and what you do.

Oh, and you don't hold a bright light next to you, making yourself an easy target.

So yeah, I am a feminist, and I WILL ALWAYS BE A FEMINIST...

...but I'll be damned if I ever again SAY I'm a feminist.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I talked with my Mum regarding "pet names".
Like me, she dislikes people throwing the phrases "love" and "honey" around because they are empty words that mean nothing. We are both people who feel like words are not important, only the meaning behind them are. Words are used as instructions for the receiver to understand what you mean. Perhaps this is why I am able to lie well (though I don't try to lie) or can say anything dead-pan.

But on topic. I mentioned the man in the Woodturners Exhibition and she said she didn't notice. And we both agreed it was a problem I had and not her. And if I said "excuse me. Don't speak to my mum like that", it would have been white knighting. Why should I have gotten offended on her behalf?
-

I think part of the problem is that the correct way of treating women like humans is never said. It's so simple to not be a (why are the majority of rude words to describe people sexual organs). But people mess it up.

Get offended on a woman's behalf even though the person isn't offended, you're a White Knight.
Treat a woman terrible and you're a misogynist.

I'm trying to think how to word what I mean. I feel like some people have a pendulum mentality. They go from extremes and each time they're yelled at. They get confused by the apparent contradictions and get angry and vicious.

Another thought. I thought about this when I was vacuum cleaning. I think my brain was thinking about gender roles in housework. I think one reason why some men get really angry when gender politics gets brought up is "mother issues".
In the past, it was "traditional" for Dad to go out all day to work and mum would stay at home. Therefore when children at home, it was Mum who was around to tell children off if children misbehaved. Even if it was Dad who did the punishment, it would have been Mum who "convicts" the child of being naughty. So I have a feeling, that some men project their own mothers onto any person who happens to be female who "challenges" their behaviour. This pissed them off. Combine with the rich dictionary of various misogynistic terminology and the man feeling they are stronger than the woman, you have abuse.
Thinking about projecting people's Dads into male people who are telling you off then comes back to:
#YesAllWomen Men seem to respect other men rather than women

Because men seem to get less backlash from discussing gender politics regarding female inequality.



I am not saying this is the only or even the majority of the reason why misogynistic people are the way they are. But they are one or two factors out of many others that could be considered.

[AdmiralMemo]

More like cursing after spending decades helping people through the darkness, then having people steal your matches, piss in your tinder, stomp on your candles and then slap you in the face for 'daring to exploit a chance to help for your own nefarious purposes' - this increased communication and connectivity of the Information Age that pseudonym extolls has merely exposed this feminist of thirty years of experience to people half that age insulting him for his 'false allegiance'.

Sorry, I've been fighting this fight for more than a quarter-century (yes, objecting to sexism since I was a kid too young to be indoctrinated in such bullshit - thank my enlightened parents for keeping that "but that's DUMB" innocence alive in me) and I...I really see no way forward; it's futile, it's trying to empty the ocean with a spoon, and I just give up.

Take Memo's 'every man is a potential rapist' example - the stats seem plausible (and of course, YMMV), but that means women SHOULD recoil in fear from me when I offer help - it's the PRAGMATIC OPTION. And it breaks my fucking heart.

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO LIVE THEIR LIFE IN FEAR. IT INFURIATES ME AND MAKES ME WANT TO FIND EVERY BULLY, RAPIST, MUGGER, AND MURDERER, RIP THEIR SOULS OUT AND SOAK THEM IN ACID FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.

That a woman should barricade herself in her broken-down car when a man stops and offers to help IS JUST WRONG, and it's not her fault - it's FUCKING TED BUNDY'S FAULT.

Look, I only had biweekly visitation with my step-daughter, but I (with the support of her parents) instilled in her confidence - the counteraction against this instutionalized "women are weak and meek" tripe that STILL gets unconsciously force-fed to girls. She is now a woman that walks alone in the dark; she is a woman that knows this garbage about 'men are stronger than women' is easily disproven, and she is FULLY CAPABLE of defending herself from an attacker.

Less because of the physical training we had her enrolled in, but more with the MINDSET that that helped encourage and WE REINFORCED:

"I am capable of defending myself. NO ONE has the right or ability to force their will on me."

Great huh? I'm motherfucking proud of her, despite not a single gene between us.

But the town where she lives? It's population is a little over 60,000; I've helped make her be one woman that will NOT let a rapist have his way...

...but what about the other thirty thousand in that small town?

What about the other million-and-a-half in her state?

What about the ALMOST FOUR BILLION women around the world?

I've been fighting this absurd disparity in treatment for longer than many in this discussion have been alive...and it's not getting any better. Women are still being kidnapped, raped and murdered. Thoughtless goons who violate girls are STILL coddled and protected, and the victims STILL get ostracized and further traumatized by the very systems that are SUPPOSED to protect them. We try to educate girls, and anachronistic dinosaurs who don't like that simply gather up their guns, kill the teachers and kidnap the girls and then sell them off into slavery.

And every time I try to speak out in support, I get shit on for being "a false ally" and not doing enough.

"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

...until you get to the point where your burnt fingertips can't hold a match anymore.

And besides, your eyesight can adapt if you'd let it, and let you see further than a candle's range, and you still don't let the darkness control where you go and what you do.

Oh, and you don't hold a bright light next to you, making yourself an easy target.

So yeah, I am a feminist, and I WILL ALWAYS BE A FEMINIST...

...but I'll be damned if I ever again SAY I'm a feminist.

[Deedles]

A very interesting and inspirational post, Empath. You've obviously done all you can, now it's just to try to get others to do the same.

I say 'just to try', I know it's easier said than done, but it still has to be attempted.

[AdmiralMemo]

That a woman should barricade herself in her broken-down car when a man stops and offers to help IS JUST WRONG, and it's not her fault - it's FUCKING TED BUNDY'S FAULT.

My mind keeps coming back to this statement, and it just keeps itching.

It tends to be that each thing we ward against can be traced back to a single person or a single group of people. Women barricade themselves in their cars due to Ted Bundy. We have heightened, but still somewhat useless, airport security due to the 19 dinguses on 9/11. We have to take our shoes off due to one dingus who thought a bomb in a shoe would be able to bring down an airplane. We're on heightened alert at funerals because we fear that the WBC dinguses might come and protest.

Is this simply a product of the Age of Information? Some dingus does this bad thing, and then everyone is on alert for that specific thing? Is it just feeding off of the "You could be next!" scare tactic?

[JustAName]

I'd also like to add the fact that rape isn't just an unknown guy waiting in an ally.

Rape is I guy I know and used to call a friend, who had a friend over, pressured her for sex, and when she didn't want to, used her hand while she was asleep to jerk himself off. She woke up partway through and didn't do anything because she didn't know what to do. She went to the authorities on her campus, and he was expelled for it, but knowing that I've had interactions with this person, some sexual in nature, taint every memory of him.

Rape is a former friend who, whenever we were making out (and this is in high school, mind you), tried to pressure me for sex. Using the "blue balls" argument. Saying, "There are some condoms in my car, you know. I could go get them." Saying, "I'm just going to put this riiiight here. And let you do what you want with it." (And yes, that "this" did refer to a part of his anatomy.) Knowing that he was hanging out with a close friend of mine, who insisted emphatically that she didn't want anything sexual to happen that night. Knowing that the minute she got drunk, he took advantage anyway.

Rape is it taking years to get it into my closest male friends' heads that, yes, it's "not all men," but it's enough. And around my roommates, who know the people I've talked about, I still have to refer to the second guy as a "quasi-rapist" or they'll go, "ehhh" and start equivocating.

Rape is knowing that more friends of mine have done things I would be horrified to know about, and that maybe someday I'll learn of them, and be sick.

But more than all these?

Rape is that every. Single. One. of my close female friends have been sexually assaulted. And sometimes I feel guilty that it hasn't happened to me yet.

[AdmiralMemo]

*hugs Fayili* That's awful. But don't beat yourself up over it. It's got a touch of "survivor's guilt" at the end of your story, and that's not a healthy way to think.

[ArchieO]

I've been trying very hard to articulate this, I am probably doing this badly but here goes:

Trying to be as generic as possible, someone very close to be was harassed, abused and sexually assaulted when she was just starting to feel her way into the world, her trust was abused and it changed her. She repressed it for years, told no one, why BECAUSE SHE WAS FUCKING ASHAMED. For me that is almost the worst part, despite the awful thing that was done to her SHE WAS ASHAMED and that REALLY REALLY makes me angry. Because of this she had trouble at school, found it hard to make friends and developed an eating disorder. She still got good grades from school because despite everything she is far braver than i could ever be. After she left school her depression got worse and worse, eventually it got so bad that she couldn't leave the house.

Recently she took a massive step, and was courageous enough to tell us about what has happened to her, I can't imagine the effort of will it must of taken her to tell us but I am so glad she did. She is now getting better and better, the difference that letting that out has made is enormous and I saw her smile for the first time in as long as i can remember recently. So I say to the culture that made her ashamed of what happened to her FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU for what you did to her and the misery it caused her, FUCK YOU for making her think what happened was normal and acceptable. Logically I understand that violence is not the answer but if I ever meet the person who did that to her then frankly I don't know what I would do.

One final note, one of the factors that helped her find the courage to tell us was her incredible Boyfriend, he has been fantastic with her through the highs and lows, so while as men we may be the problem, I'm glad that we can also be part of the solution, at least in this case, for this one small thing

[JustAName]

I know. But the fact that just living in this society inspires survivor's guilt is kind of the point.

[CSt]

Is this simply a product of the Age of Information? Some dingus does this bad thing, and then everyone is on alert for that specific thing? Is it just feeding off of the "You could be next!" scare tactic?

Yes it is. In fact there is the phenomenon that in Germany crime on the whole is receding. (Sorry, but I insist on hard information, even if it is "all about women being frank about their personal, anecdotal experiences") But if you ask people they themselves have the feeling crime is rising especially the big splashy gruesome ones.
I have to admit, I had never heard of women locking themselves in their car with a breakdown and neither had friends of mine. By the way, after the lock-in, what then?
So honestly discuss all you want, but at least try to keep a level head. Apparently the USA have a "rape"-rate that is triple the one of Germany (with Canada more than double as high as the USA) so this discussion is more important than I thought.
Also I would like to point to the first sentence of Fayilis post. Because that is one aspect that is really important.

[Master Gunner]

When talking about cultural issues and the environment in which we live, you can't just go by "hard information". As you say, crime is going down in Germany, but people's perception is that it's increasing (a phenomena that's happening in many other countries as well).

As much as I hate to admit it, I have acted in ways before that disgust me now. I have frightened and harassed women because I wasn't aware that what I was doing was in any way incorrect or wrong. None of those actions will ever appear in any statistic, but that doesn't change that they happened.

The little mistakes and wrongdoings that almost every person is inevitably guilty of committing certainly don't compare to events like the one which started this discussion - but collectively, they create a culture and an environment which, at best, doesn't do enough to stop those event from happening. When we normalize the little events that never get recorded, we make the major events seem less extreme than they are.

[ex-Lurker]

Communication is key, I feel that the more we let each other know what's making us uncomfortable, the more we can avoid the low-level, where both parties tend to be good people .

[AdmiralMemo]

Gunner: But you have made the realization that you had done something that hurt someone emotionally. You have made the crucial step of admitting "I was wrong." That is the step that everyone needs to make at many points in their lives.

Admit you were wrong. Apologize and try to make amends with those you've hurt, when possible. Vow to never do that thing again. If you've done these 3 things, that is all you can do.

Sure, it doesn't bring things back to the way they were. Nothing can. However, a scar is preferable to an open wound.

If people were more like you on a massive scale, then we would be on our way to resolving this type of thing. I would hope that most people are not malicious at most points in their lives, but we do so many things to hurt others simply out of ignorance.

[RedNightmare]

I would actually like to add one more to that list Memo: Teach others about your mistakes so that they may avoid making them and in the process not unknownly harass more people. Only than will we actually change the culture moving forward.

Longer post incoming, this is a subject that I've been thinking about for months now and the last few days have brough quite a few new realisations.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

My Auntie was sexually assaulted and abused when she was young. I do not know the details because why should we claw the details from her husband?
It may have been her father. It may have been her own brother. It may have even been her brother's friends.

It was after she gave birth to my cousins that, she started not being herself. Overtime she would have more and more "bad episodes". All that people knew was that she was very volatile towards men during her bad episodes. Her husband. Her own son.
It was discovered that she had been sexually assaulted when she was a young.
And, it damaged her. She now has mental health problems as a result of it.

Why should someone take what they thought was owed to them at the expense of so many people? It's not just the person they abused who was hurt. It was the children she raised and the husband she married.

I've never mentioned this to anyone outside of my family. Because it had never been relevant. Perhaps maybe that's why it's taken so long for this knowledge to raise to the surface. I don't think about this all the time because the thought of it is awful. It was Fayili's post that brought this up from my mind. I hope, this is useful.


What makes this even sadder is that when my Mum and Uncle were young, my Uncle used to punch my Mum (I think I may have told this story a few times on these forums) a lot. My Mum didn't strike back because she wasn't like my Uncle. She was nice, so why the hell did my Uncle feel the need to strike her? Why didn't my Grand Dad or Granny intervene instead of teaching my Mum (who is not violent and still isn't) to punch herself? So there's a really horrible irony now regards to my Uncle's circumstance.

That makes me realise something. Why should women have to be taught how to defend themselves if not all of them are content with being violent? It makes it feel like it's the woman's problem. When the problem are the threatening men. It's everyone's goddamn problem.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Submitted without comment.

[JayBlanc]

I was unaware of this new head of the age-old debate until this thread. The key problem I see when discussing women living in fear of men comes down to sheer probability. Say that the bad guy rate is 0.5%. (I don't know the real rates, but this is one that seems small enough.) In your average city, during your commute to work, home, the store, etc. think about how many people you actually encounter. I'd say a couple hundred, as a ballpark. Your mind glosses over most of these right away, as they're not important. But with the percentage rate of bad guys combined with the sheer number of people you encounter, it is likely that you encounter at least one person who is thinking about doing you harm every day despite the 99.5% of people who mean you no harm. The 199 men that were just fine don't matter. It's the 1 guy who did, and acted upon it, that does. He causes this fear, because you don't know which 1 guy that might be until they act, because no one's telepathic.

Except it's not 0.5%.

In the 2002 study conducted by Lisak & Miller, in a questioning of 1882 college aged men, 6% said yes to one of the following questions -

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?
2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?
3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?
4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

6% of college aged men would actually admit to having raped someone, so long as you don't directly call it rape, and 4% admitted to having done so five or more times. And that's just the ones who admit to it.

There is a huge social bias to refuse to admit how many people think raping women is acceptable, and worse how often rapists can repeatedly get away with it.

And the reaction to being told this keeps on being "Yes, but not all men..."

You know what, if a bakery only had large amounts of arsenic contaminating "just" 6% of their cupcakes, wouldn't you want them to fix it not say "Yes, but not all our cupcakes are deadly."

[JayBlanc]

So yeah, I am a feminist, and I WILL ALWAYS BE A FEMINIST...

...but I'll be damned if I ever again SAY I'm a feminist.

I'm sorry, obviously someone forgot to give you your medal for being a decent human being. After all, Men deserve recognition and praise when they're not evil. Because men are just that stupid and useless right?

Okay, and just incase the sarcasm there wasn't obvious...

MEN GETTING UPSET AND INDIGNANT THAT THEY DO NOT GET AN AWARD FOR NOT CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM, IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU, STOP DICTATING THAT YOU MUST RECEIVE PLAUDITS FOR DOING WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD BE DOING.

Women should not have the additional pressure that they have to keep the men happy, and avoid ever treading on a man's toes, or not being duly accepting of a man's offer to be an ally, or the men will stop being their allies. Every time someone like you goes off on a rant about how awful the feminists were to you when you'd done "good things", is adding on to the weight of "we can't trust men because they think they deserve some kind of better treatment for not being awful".

[Metcarfre]

As a corollary, everyone should note that "white knight" is just a delightfully awful alternative term for "willing to call dumbasses out on their shit".

Another good tweet I remembered and will paraphrase here;

Woman says yes -> slut. Woman says no -> "friend zone". Woman calls you out on it -> bitch.

(To which I add, "dude calls you out on it -> "white knight")

[AdmiralMemo]

Why should someone take what they thought was owed to them at the expense of so many people?

Why? You want to know why? Because they don't care. They sincerely don't care. They believe they are owed something, that they deserve something, and the "me first" attitude that society has tried to instill on everyone has worked on them, so they will try to get it, no matter what anyone else thinks. They are very selfish and self-centered and genuinely do not give a about the needs or desires of others.

Except it's not 0.5%.

In the 2002 study conducted by Lisak & Miller, in a questioning of 1882 college aged men, 6% said yes to one of the following questions -

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?
2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?
3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?
4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

6% of college aged men would actually admit to having raped someone, so long as you don't directly call it rape, and 4% admitted to having done so five or more times. And that's just the ones who admit to it.

That only reinforces my point. I didn't know the statistics off-hand, and I was low-balling my numbers, and it still came up to scary numbers. If the truth is 12 times that number, then it's even worse of a problem.