So, I came across the phrase “victim feminism” recently and, after calming the fuck down, decided to write a post about that special type of fucking bullshit self-defeating demeaning sexist idiocy in a nutshell of slimy ass pie.
Oh wait, just a moment while I calm the fuck down again.
.
.
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Part One:
Let’s first deal with the really awful aspect of that:
“Victim” used as an insult.
Don’t do that.
I know that victim-blaming in the U.S. has gotten to be so pervasive that it’s changed the nature of the word “victim” into an insult, but you don’t need to go along with that. You can decide not to do that. You can realize that the phrase, “making yourself a victim”, although grammatically correct, doesn’t actually make any damned sense. You know, just like “lifting yourself up by your boot straps” isn’t physical possible and an attempt would probably land you on your face in a pool of your own blood. “Making yourself a victim” is likewise physically impossible.
The blame, guilt and shame of victimization should never be shared with the target of the action, but rest completely with the actor. That axiom is “Not-being-a-fucking-asshole 101”.
If you want to imply that a group does not acknowledge their own power and agency, I’m sure there is a way you can express that, but there simply aren’t other words (however more accurate) that can quite compete with the demeaning power-play of calling someone else a “victim” of their own making.
This is why victims of rape, sexual assault, and battery often avoid the term “victim”. The word “victim” is simply too tainted by connotations of being lacking in strength, dignity, and social value. The term “survivor” on the other hand, hasn’t those connotations. “Survivor” is the term I use because it is often requested, and I respect that.
The only problem with the term “survivor” is that not everyone survives. Those who have been murdered or commit suicide certainly do not deserve the shame that has been heaped on victims for so long that the term “victim” itself is filled with it. I’m not sure what term to use in those situations, because “survivor” doesn’t cut it.
Part Two:
So, what is a “victim feminist”?
I can only hazard a guess, but I suspect that the distinction the person is making is between the “personal responsibility” crowd and the “sociology is a thing for fuck’s sake” crowd.
This is a mirror of the accommodationist vs. combatant tension that tends to manifest in any sort of social movement. Although I’m sure not everyone would agree with this assessment, but the “personal responsibility” (PR) crew are the accomodationists and the “sociology is a thing for fuck’s sake” (StFFS) crew are the combatants.
The PR crew is going to tell you to stop “being a victim” and get out there and accomplish things! Quit wallowing in your more-oppressed-than-thou status and buck-up and do something (as long as it doesn’t involve “complaining”). Anyone who gives you support is just enabling your weakness and fostering dependence!
The StFFS crew is going to explain to you how the system is unfair, rigged against you and talk about how much that fucking sucks.
For example, let’s say you go into an exam and everyone takes the exam and it is graded. A few students begin discussing the test and their grades and a few eventually strongly suspect that the students with last names starting with M-Z were given a test that was more challenging. Some students don’t believe it. Some students don’t care. Some students complain. Some students become angry. Some students are upset but don’t say anything. Some students drop the class. Some students yell at the students that complain to shut their hole and play with the cards they are dealt.
This is what happens.
This is not new.
And the PR crew are the students (many of which have a last name beginning with M-Z) who gain a great deal of self-esteem from being able to take punishment, succeed, and “survive”. They either deny or downplay the inequities and certainly don’t want to hear the constant lamentations of “victims” “whining” instead of soldiering through.
Being part of the PR crew has its advantages. Whether out of an extraordinary capacity to be a glutton for punishment, a delusional stupor of solipsist well-being, or true grit; they do tend to get through.
I could have too, I’m sure. I could have spent my years in graduate school with iron armor and a blind fold. Other women, in a similar situation, had gotten through before. Surely it wasn’t impossible. It wasn’t that bad, was it? Certainly the indignity of being ignored and being told not to “bother the boys while they are working”; feeling the need to calm down my classmates who were appalled at the way I was treated; being asked why in the world I would need financial support over the summer when I had a husband; and constantly kicking myself that I didn’t even consider the red-flags before I relocated my family; were things I shouldn’t have let stand in my way. How could I have ever known this would happen when the scientist who recommended my advisor, bemoaned my selfishness in asking my husband to follow me, instead of me following my husband?!
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The PR model worked for me, for a while. I took it hook-line-and-sinker and allowed myself to be socialized into the status quo to the point of misogyny and a hatred of the trappings of my own gender. I doubt I would have made it through if I hadn’t played “one of the guys” and not convinced myself that nothing stood in my way. But the PR model has a fatal flaw: You have to dance for The Man to get what you want and nothing fucking changes.
It made me refuse to see, for the longest time, what should have been obvious.
Part Three:
The system is unfair, rigged against you and it fucking sucks.
Yes, all of you, in varying and interesting ways.
Pointing that out is not “playing a victim” it is refusing to use denial to wish harsh realities away. Supporting others is not weakening them. Acknowledging toxic power discrepancies is not reinforcing them. Up is not down. The sky is transparent and appears blue during a sunny day.
If you don’t acknowledge the internal and external socializations that affect how you think of yourself and how others treat you, how can you even begin to find real solutions? Pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make them go away.
Pointing out privilege and other social realities is not denying personal agency or power; quite the opposite. The world we live in, IS the world we live in. We’re all playing the game with the cards we were dealt. How could you possibly NOT do that?
If trying to change the system instead of buying into it is the new definition of “victim”, I’ll wear that label any day.
Part Four:
Your claws are full of straw.
I suspect that “victim feminist” (just like “feminazi”) is just another label to describe some Frankenstein She-beast cobbled together from every angry outburst, every ill-chosen phrase, and every quote-mined diatribe that could ever be fashioned, in extreme lack of charity, as taking on the form of an enemy. She is shrill and meek. She is a bitch and a push-over. She hates men and worships dick. She is all sorts of complicated drama queen, ignorant, stupid, thin skinned, hysteric, locked-stepped, childish, and above all – she sees things that are not there. Burn her.
On the flip-side, in the past, I have been quote mined as a weapon against other feminists – deemed a “True Feminist”. The “True Feminist”, of course, being the feminist who asks nothing of society and blames women for absolutely everything; joining the throngs of garden variety misogynists, but paraded around under a “feminist” banner, with a sign around her neck prominently displayed with the text: “See, a woman said it! She admits her guilt!”
Honestly, if the feminist you describe actually existed, I probably would not agree with her on a variety of topics. But she doesn’t. Neither does this mythical “true feminist”.
I do not agree with all feminists. I don’t think everything a feminist has ever said or done is a good idea or based on right thinking. I can have a discussion about stuff and things. Real things. If you are not having an honest conversation with this feminist and wish to converse with a pile of straw, go ahead. Find a magical barn full of it. Just don’t throw a pile of straw in my face and bludgeon me over the head, declare victory and claim that I deserved what I got.
That’s not going to end well.
Part Five:
Sociology is a thing for fuck’s sake.
When discussing social inequities, whether they concern race, income, size, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, or gender, there is really no need to pull stuff out of your ass. There is a wealth of information waiting to be analyzed, discussed, and learned from. The stories of our own lived experience is one powerful source of insight, but other means of piecing together working models of the complexities of culture, economy, and community do exist.
Those who claim that sociology, or biology, or psychology is on their side sometimes have yet to seriously dig into the often uncomfortable landscape of information and ideas. Many times they fail at figuring out how that knowledge can be applied to particular issues and situations; and fail to acknowledge when that applicability is limited. There are many fruitful, enlightening, and even transformative discussions that are just waiting to happen.
It’s disingenuous to claim that you want those conversations to happen and that we are on the same side; while throwing out insults and rebrands and straw effigies at the disloyal opposition, encouraging defensiveness and contributing to a siege mentality.
It is flat out dishonesty if nothing of substance or specificity is offered among the torrent of violent clichés, naïve platitudes and introspection eschewing accusations such as self-victimization.
SINMANTYX 
My feeling is that a lot of the bad blood you mention is not so much because people think these are non-issues but rather that they are:
a) Not issues they are personally that interested in (which is their right, ofc).
b) More and more often being voiced in venues where the level of relevance is tenuous at best.
If you look back at the history of atheist and skeptic arenas of exchange, you don’t see a huge amount of discussion over issues such as rape culture or the harmful aeffects of using gendered slurs etc. That is not to say that these are not legitimate subjects to be discussed: of course they are! However, macroeconomic policy and depleted fish stocks in the North Sea are also entirely legitimate and worthy things to discuss but if either of us attempted to make an atheistic arena of exchange about these issues, ad nauseum, I dare say the response we would get would be twofold:
1) Shut the fuck up about the bloody cod stocks in the north sea you boring bastard.
2) Why don’t you go and discuss the subject in a more relevant arena where people who are interested primarily in conservation or fisheries management discuss just such issues?
Is that unreasoinable? Maybe so, maybe not. The trouble is, I get the feeling that if all the skeptics/atheists who have no interest in social justice symptoms got out their white flags, conceded the organisations to the political beasts who are and went and formed new organisations so that they could carry on discussing what DOES interest them, you know what i think would happen? They would just be followed and once again the claron call would again be “your new organisation must be interested in discussing these things because these are the things i am interested in”.
What i just don’t understand is the need for it. Sure, we need to discuss unwanted behaviour within organisations (the discussions involving codes of conduct for conferences are entirely legitimate things to discuss, regardless of viewpoint on the issues themselves) but many of the discussions at the heart of the feminist agenda (and ther mra agenda every bit as equally) are much more suited to general politcal fora, rather than apolitical groups like skeptics groups and single issue political groups such as atheist associations.
Just my take,
jim
Wow, thank you for the great post. 🙂
Bookmarking it for future reference for discussions involving dudely wisdom.
Thanks. (I’m not adverse to creating a swear-less version for wider publication if you’d like.)
@M.A. Melby
Naw, I’m sorta past caring about civility when it comes to issues like this.
These issues need to be struck squarely in the most bluntly honest vernacular so no doubt is left as to how trenchantly important they are to women and society.
Now let me fetch what I said about you from the other thread. As it seems startlingly relevant.
This post isn’t about atheism. Even though the person who used “victim feminism” as a phrase was discussing it in the context of A+, he is not the only one to accuse feminists (generally) of having some sort of victim mentality and that happens in many contexts. The personal stories that I conveyed in the post occurred when I was theist. Just wanted to make sure you realized that I’m not pretending as if this post is specific to atheism, not even close.
However, there are very strong intersections between feminism and atheism; or at least feminism and the cultural effects of religion. Unfortunately, I think the feminists within the atheist movement have been made so busy defending themselves against (thanks for the example) people who think that feminism is as relevant as cod stocks in the north sea; and are therefor being constantly told to shut-up about feminism; that those connections are not always articulated. When they are, unless it’s something as no-brainer and politically incendiary as acid attacks and child brides, and has little or nothing to do with Western Culture, the message is not only ignored but there is push-back.
I’m reminded of when Thunderf00t decided to open up a bunch of dead topics surrounding harassment policies; ironically blogging about NOTHING ELSE on his short FtB stint besides feminism, while simultaneously castigating others for supposedly talking about it too much. I mean that whole situation brought irony to some sort of absurd performance art, as his *shut up about it* posts prompted other bloggers to blog about specific topics concerning feminism and harassment policies that they were really sick and tired of talking about.
So, from my perspective, talking about feminism is sometimes considered off-topic ONLY when it is not anti-feminist.
Although recently, I know Justin Vacula was asked to leave INK essentially due to connections and activism with AVfM (which is an extremely toxic org in my opinion).
At this point, as you are well aware, some of the “social justice” crew has taken their toys and gone home. They ARE creating their own organizations that are more in-line with their intersectional approach to secular activism.
However, organizations take time to manage and grow. So, we are seeing power-plays within existing organizations. Lines are being drawn concerning continued support and participation within those organizations. I suspect that is the tension you are seeing, I do NOT think it has to do with what topics are “relevant” or “irrelevant” – but real ideological divides.
I wrote a pretty sarcastic post about what the atheist-activism landscape is like for women right at the moment: https://sinmantyx.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/can-men-fully-participate-in-the-atheist-movement/
I think of myself as fortunate actually, because I only became interested in movement atheism about two years ago when everything was hitting the fan. So, I’ve been able to join and help shape organizations that better represent and serve me, and interests that I care about.
I think in the best-scenario end-game, the current organizations will survive but be more well-defined; and join forces on very specific issues and act on those issues from those multiple perspectives and using various tactics. Consider it akin to the advantages of biodiversity. This approach worked very well in gaining marriage rights in my state; where a purely single-issue coalition was created and coordinated extremely diverse organizations toward a single purpose. In essence, I personally worked in unison with a great number of organizations that, if given other topics, I would be in active opposition to.
As far as providing educational and social opportunities, any group that sees the negative effects of religiosity on women and gender as a convenient talking point and not a vital lived experience; or sees feminism akin to the price of tea in China; is of limited use to me as it treats male as the default.
If you are interested in the intersection of feminism and atheism, a great deal has been written on the subject. I wrote a cute little blog post here: https://sinmantyx.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/were-right-here/
But this isn’t a new subject. Books have been written for decades by people who know a hell of a lot more than I do about the ways in which religion is used to oppress women and how those norms permeate culture.
Relevant to this discussion of relevance is No Longer Quivering: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/
I have to be blunt, the stand point that feminism is irrelevant to atheism is not defensible (or more accurately, just as defensible as atheism being completely irrelevant); and the notion that it is “off-topic” is often just a euphemistic way of attempting to erase, silence, and avoid having unpleasant conversations. (Irony there.)
This becomes pretty obvious as currently the conversation is switching from accusations of “hijacking” and fears of “mission drift”, to catering to the right *kind* of feminism.
And yes, I do see, as part of the best-case-scenario end game, the marginalization of the oddly popular idea that being a free speech advocate (for example being strongly against blasphemy laws) somehow goes hand-in-hand with the entitled expectation that being a complete and utter fucking asshole is devoid of social consequences; even when the context of that assholery renders it morally unconscionable.
Quite a good article, and you make some fair points that I’ll readily agree with – notably about the “many fruitful, enlightening, and even transformative discussions … just waiting to happen”.
However, while I will also readily agree that there are some strawman aspects to the terms “victim feminist” and “feminazi” – although I expect you would agree and/or I would readily argue that there are at least a few “feminists” who “play the victim card” all too quickly or inappropriately, or who are rather fascist in the promotion of their particular ideology – I think you also are “guilty”, to some extent at least, in creating a few strawmen of your own. Which doesn’t help matters much.
And one of the largest of those strawmen is your “PR model”, and the entailed conflation of a whole raft of issues and concepts surrounding personal responsibility. While we discussed this at some length on Sarah Jone’s blog (1) – although I’m not sure we changed each other’s minds to any great extent, but thanks in any case for giving me “some capital … for putting on the brakes” – I think the biggest and most common stumbling block is created by failing to differentiate between moral and legal responsibility. As Wikipedia (2) puts it:
Now while I suppose one might argue that discounting the “victim’s” testimony in a rape trial because of her actions and behaviours prior to or during the rape might constitute some sort of “legal penalty”, I think that is a bit of stretch because the demand for evidence seems common across all accusations of criminal actions, and because it seems the major part of the legal penalties fall on, quite justifiably, on the perpetrator. As for “moral responsibility”, I wonder whether you completely reject the concept – as apparently do those who entirely reject the idea of free will. Which, parenthetically, I think is an untenable if not silly position – I tend to the view that it is not an all-or-nothing concept – either complete free-will or total lock-step determinism – and go with the entirely credible scientific concept of “degrees of freedom” (3).
But if you accept the idea of some degree of moral responsibility then I think you have to give some thought to the question of how it might apply in cases of rape. And, to introduce some possibly relevant analogies – analogy being, as Crommunist put it, “an excellent method of exposing inconsistencies in logic, which is an important component of refuting bad arguments” – let me ask you whether you have insurance for fire and theft, and, maybe more to the point, whether you lock your home and car when you’re not in them. But both of those are, I would argue, cases of people taking some degree of moral responsibility for their own well-being. That some crook might break into your home or car and steal stuff therein certainly and in absolutely no way absolves the crook of any “legal responsibility” for the crime itself – they’re the ones going to jail. But I don’t see that that absolves you – or, in effect, any of us – of the moral responsibility for looking after our own “stuff”.
And while it might really suck that women tend to have to spend more effort in that regard than do men, one might also point out, analogously, that that is also true of the rich: they, poor little rich people, have to spend more – I know, a shocking miscarriage of justice – in the way of protection to ensure that what they have isn’t stolen. But, appropos of which and as somewhat of a summary, you might note this comment (4) in “The Pit!!11!!” by “Skep tickle”, someone who, I might note, is a well qualified doctor – she wound up on a State and National list of “Top Doctors” in 2012, & 2013 – so hardly anyone who would qualify as a rabid MRA:
As for how that moral responsibility actually plays out, I think that that is a bit of a sticky wicket. While I think it is a completely untenable position to even suggest that women in general have to lock themselves in their homes and only come out wearing burkas and in the company of 4 male relatives – sort of a strawman position on “your side” of the fence as suggested by many including this somewhat amusing YouTube video (5) which makes heavy use of both hyperbole and straw – I still think there are more than a few areas, some more debatable or credible than others, where women can still take, analogously, some more moral responsibility for their own safety. For instance, I note in the Wikipedia article on rape (6) that:
Might then be a “good idea” for women in particular to be a little more careful about who they go drinking with, particularly considering that a well-known effect of alcohol is to reduce one’s inhibitions. Again, not that that absolves the perpetrator of any legal responsibilities. But because some 50% to 75% of all rapes are perpetrated by friends or relatives (6) in some degree of privacy where obtaining proof is at least “problematic”, it does make some sense, at least to some of us, to be a little proactive about risk management.
And in that regard, if one wishes or needs to engage in various “high risk activities” – such as drinking with those one doesn’t know all that well, or prostitution – then there are a number of technological solutions or methods of potentially reducing that risk. For examples, this one which I’ve suggested in an AtheismPlus thread (7), and to several ex sex workers, several of whom thought the idea had some merit, and one of whom pointed me to several other similar products on the market such as these (8, 9, 10). In addition, even Rebecca Watson implicitly gave credence to the concept of “moral responsibility” with her YouTube video (11) on implementing a “buddy system” for women at various conferences.
So it hardly seems an untenable position to be arguing that women should take some degree of moral responsibility to help reduce the incidence of rape – without that in any way entailing any reduction in the legal responsibility of the perpetrators – “feminist” strawmen to the contrary notwithstanding. Again, I recognize and concede that it kind of sucks that women, in the nature of things, have a greater degree of that responsibility than men do – they generally being “richer” in that regard. But in the interim – or until we can do DNA testing at birth to indentify and mark those men, more sociopathic and psychopathic than not, most likely to commit that crime – it seems one of the more effective solutions.
—-
1) “_http://anthonybsusan.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/opting-out/”;
2) “_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_responsibility”;
3) “_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_freedom”;
4) “_http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=131511#p131511”;
5) “_http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8hC0Ng_ajpY”;
6) “_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#United_States”;
7) “_http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5336”;
8) “_http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1431511”;
9) “_http://ubyssey.ca/news/panic-button-749/”;
10) “_http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-02-07/business/sfl-dating-app-iphone-link-010711_1_new-iphone-app-personal-safety”;
11) “_https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9buFTmdakbc”;
You are still – STILL – conflating a stance against blaming victims and a stance of encouraging imprudent behavior.
I do not encourage imprudent behavior, and cultural messages that encourage women (especially) to avoid risk taking behavior tends to be overstated to the point where many women allow fear to rule their lives.
You know – essentially let the terrorists win.
Campaigns to focus on why men rape, instead of how women can attempt to avoid rape, makes sense in a cultural context where ONE avenue of reducing the instances of rape is extremely understated and the other is over stated.
NOBODY – is saying, “HEY LADIES! Go get shit-faced drunk with a bunch of people you don’t trust. It’s fun and exciting! Encouraging risk-taking is the same as liberation!!!!!”
ONLY that if someone went out and got shit-faced drunk with a bunch of people they didn’t know very well and was raped; that the person’s real or perceived imprudence is not the focus of those who SHOULD be supporting that person. A very stark example of how our culture gets this wrong was Stubenville – but that horrible stain on my faith in humanity is indicative of how these things are handled a great deal of the time, especially in small towns, unfortunately.
I really have no idea how to make this more clear. You seem to be arguing against a stance I do not have.
Skeptickle is talking about agency. I tried to make a distinction about that very early in the post here:
“If you want to imply that a group does not acknowledge their own power and agency, I’m sure there is a way you can express that, but there simply aren’t other words (however more accurate) that can quite compete with the demeaning power-play of calling someone else a “victim” of their own making.”
In my story about Graduate School, I am not denying that I had agency in that situation. It is likely I could have absolutely soldiered through with my original thesis adviser, but given how much power advisers have over their students; my decision to leave him and work with someone else (despite having to change the topic of my thesis as a result) made sense. I could have made a better decision about WHERE to go to graduate school – in fact, I VERY OFTEN give advice to people choosing graduate schools to do things that would have avoided that situation all together. I could have made other BETTER decisions about my housing situation which would have made it easier to relocate. I could have decided to do the research I WANTED to do, within the music department. Blah de Blah blah blah.
Of course, a generation ago, my choices and my power would have been much more limited. There would not have been a graduate school – ANYWHERE – that I would not have encountered the problems I did. I would have either needed to be an extremely exceptionally talented emotional juggernaut – or I wouldn’t have a snail’s chance on salt to get my degree at all, much less in the field of my choice.
At is was, I began working with the only female faculty member in the whole place; because considering what I was going through I wasn’t about to avoid doing so out of a misguided “gender-blind” ideology. It worked out in a lot of ways.
The whole point of *most* of the OP was that being aware (and even complaining about) sexism is NOT at odds with personal responsibility; and understanding sexism and acknowledging how it effects me may have actually helped me succeed in my original career goals instead of the other way around. I was in a great deal of denial about my own capacity to deal with the situation and how unacceptable it really was.
My point was NOT that people discussing things in terms of “personal responsibility” are all heartless clueless ogres; only that is DOES require a certain amount of towing-the-line to work within current structures to reach your goals. At some point, personally, I was unwilling to do that. I couldn’t swallow that much of my dignity, even for something I was passionate about.
I know I presented this in a dichotomous way that seems antithetical to the annoyance with straw-feminism. I was hoping that Part Four would soften that a bit; but perhaps I wasn’t explicit enough and came off as hypocritical.
So please take this clarification with charity – I don’t think that everyone who has ever discussed the importance of “personal responsibility” has all characteristics I attributed to the “PR crew”.
Instead, this post is more of an expression of my own internal dialog between two approaches that appears to be shared with others and tends to manifest as conflicts within various social movements.
The OP is civil – it’s just full of swears. 🙂
I often wonder if the swearing punctuates my points or distracts from them; but I suppose (besides simply being how I actually talk when I am free to do so for whatever reason) swearing avoids the trap of sounding pseudo-intellectual or academic, as if you’re talking about abstract ideas that have no impact or consequence.
Arbourist,
I absolutely agree that no group should get a ‘free pass’ to bigotry and inequalities within their group, i thought I had happily conceded that point.
The point is, a lot of people think things have gone much further.
I am sure if you join the society of amateur motor mechanics you will find inequalities that need stamping out. However, that would be manifestly different than joining up and expecting the society to start discussing social justice issues as part of their normal run of things, that is just not something they are interested in and they would have every right to tell you to piss the fuck off.
Myers himself has been equally insistent that skeptics organisation start tackling religion, something they really do not wish to do and traditionally have steered clear of. Now tackling religion is something I have devoted 95% of my online efforts to and a passion i share with Myers. Where we differ is that I don’t feel it my place to tell organisations that my concern has to be theirs (although ofc, if religious bigotry is taking place in those organisations then that would be an issue that would need addressing) and in so respecting their right have to accept that such organisations are not the place for me. Same with social justice issues, particularly those from the feminist and mens rights camps.
I think we are just talking about two different things here, Arbourist.
Jim
Thanks for the “clarification” – I’ll try to take it in the spirit in which it was given. 🙂
How so? I’m hardly denying that there are, in fact, a great many actual victims – as my quotes of, and references to the Wikipedia article on rape statistics should adequately confirm. And I suggested a number of possible ways to reduce the incidence of the crime so I’m hardly unsympathetic to their plight, or to those of future victims. In addition and most importantly, I quite clearly indicated that “it is a completely untenable position that women in general … [should] only come out [of their homes] wearing burkas”. Doesn’t much look to me like any support for a “stance blaming victims” on the basis of what they were wearing, or any insistence on wearing less revealing clothes, or any conflation of that with questioning or encouraging “imprudent behaviour”. Although I will readily concede that there certainly seems to be, rather problematically, no few individuals who apparently attempt to condone rape in those first two cases. But you might want to itemize those cases – your arguments might hold more water if you had such evidence ready to present.
However, while I don’t know how pervasive “victim-blaming in the U.S.” really is, I think you might, with maybe some justification, have gone overboard in response, and which might lead you to think, erroneously, that I’m conflating those two quite distinct cases. For instance, I think your “Making yourself a victim is likewise physically impossible” is highly questionable on at least two accounts in being somewhat of a strawman, and in repudiating your own condemnation of “imprudent behaviour”.
And in the first case, as I pointed out in my previous comment which you seem to have ignored, it is apparently less a question in the minds of many of someone “making yourself a victim” than it is one of more than a few apparently being engaged in some “oppression Olympics”, of trying to prove that they are part of a group more oppressed than any other one. Which tends to devalue the concept of being a victim – sort of a case of the boy who cried “wolf” once too often. Although it is probably a moot point how and to what extent that influences the perception of rape.
And in the second case, if you concede that “imprudent behaviour” can lead to being victimized then I think you pretty well have to concede that engaging in such might reasonably be construed as at least contributing to “making oneself a victim”. You can’t, I think, reasonably have it both ways: you can’t agree that “imprudent behaviour” can lead to being victimized – without that in any way absolving the perpetrator – and then insist that engaging in such behaviour, of utilizing one’s agency to do so, is not, at least to some extent, “making oneself a victim”. As for how prevalent that type of behaviour is, and relative to your “HEY LADIES!” comment, I might point again to the statistics I provided earlier on rape: some 90,000 per year in the U.S., and some 47% of those in which one or both parties were drinking. How “prudent” is that then?
Interesting story – sounds like it was a bit of a “challenge” for you to say the least, part of which was, no doubt, due to sexism, to the “misapplication” of various questionable stereotypes. However, I might point you to the Wikipedia article on the topic (1) which notes that:
While I won’t condone that “misapplication”, something which has many different ramifications and manifestations – for example “driving while black”, or “single parenting while male” – one might also suggest that you were simply “smarter, more focused, or more driven than the average bear”, that you “won” something a little extra in either the cultural or genetic lotteries – unless you wish to argue we’re all born no more different than peas in a pod.
Whew! I’m at least potentially off that hook! 🙂 But a complex issue with a great many problematic nuances, and many different views that can lead to accusations of “arguing in bad faith”; I think it useful to remember the adage, “honest men and women can disagree”.
And, as a case in point and relative to that issue, I refer you to this (2) comment of yours on Jones’ blog which I never got a chance to respond to:
While I sympathize with the way you see the situation, and I wouldn’t argue that all rapists qualify as sociopaths – “empathy challenged” at the least – I really don’t think you and many others are really prepared to even try to see the situation through my eyes, and those of many others. And that is – largely, absent chasing and catching the will-o’-the-wisp of consent – that you have about as much chance of success in “demanding responsibility of [some] men for their actions towards women” as you have of demanding of robbers that they don’t rob, of commanding the tide not to come in: robbers gonna rob, rapists gonna rape, tides gonna come in. And all of those “excuses” you described are just that: largely just the rationalizations of criminals before or after the fact.
There are, no doubt, some people that you might reach with such demands, such attempts at “re-education”, and it might be a viable long term solution – maybe when there are no longer economic disparities, when potential rapists are forced to take pills to change their behaviour patterns and motivations, when all rapists have been put behind bars – after creating untold victims. But in the interim I tend to think that “personal responsibility” is likely to give “the biggest bang for the buck”.
In any case, I think the two views we have on the issue is decidedly typical of such debates, but rather too common and rather too problematic. As a paradigm for it, I’m reminded of this cartoon (3), and of something from Michael Shermer’s The Believing Brain:
And, as another somewhat more amusing example, I’m reminded of a scene from one of my favourite movies, Annie Hall where both Diane Keaton and Woody Allen are at their individual psychiatrists who each ask them – in split screen – how often they have sex. And she says, “Continuously. About twice a week”. And then he says, “Hardly ever. About twice a week”. Largely or substantially the same set of facts but some very different interpretations due to personal if not “gender” idiosyncrasies.
Not quite sure how “we” can get over that particular hurdle, but identifying and trying to understand it seems like a good start.
—–
1) “_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes”;
2) “_http://anthonybsusan.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/opting-out/#comment-1367”;
3) “_http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2939”;
Noel Plum
Reminds me of something that Bill Maher said to the effect of, “Muslims just want to be left alone to abuse their women”. While every group has, of course, some right to some degree of autonomy, there are, of course, some limits to that, many of which are based on larger societal values. And which constrains the efforts of “newbies” to redirect or hijack the directions and values of the host group – somewhat analogous to the “infection” of a cell by a virus.
But if any of that is going to happen, it seems that the best way of going about it is to spend some efforts to develop a consensus of sorts – invading a group and attempting to impose foreign values and perspectives tends not to end well. Somewhat apropos of which, I see that there is apparently a new print issue (1) of Free Inquiry, the journal for the Council for Secular Humanism, which includes an editorial by Tom Flynn titled The Left Is Not Always Right. Several of its main points (2):
Apart from wondering whether or not that’s the proverbial fox in amongst the chickens, one might argue that that has been the most problematic aspect of the attempted “integration” of “feminism” into the atheist-skeptic communities: some real concerns that much of it is in fact “woo”, that it is the thin edge of the wedge driven by some highly questionable Marxism and post-modernism.
—-
1) “_http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=index”;
2) “_http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=131624#p131624”;
@M.A Melby
Re:Steersman
Explaining feminism and social justice to prolixy dudes who don’t get it. Have fun with that.
*sigh*
Yes Steersman, according to the statistics you provided, it would be prudent for men to avoid drinking since drinking is positively correlated with them raping people.
They should also use the buddy system so that if one of them is tempted to rape someone, that their buddy can intervene.
Yes, of course there will probably always be rape – just like there will always be other crimes. However, there are cultural norms that increase the instances of rape. We have ALREADY made women and girls in this country scared to death of being raped. We rarely go anywhere alone. We DO generally avoid getting drunk around people we do not trust (unfortunately rapists are usually people who have gained our trust). We watch our backs. We don’t go out at night. We take self-defense classes. We often carry weapons.
I can’t even carpool with a male colleague without my own vulnerability to being raped by him, enter my mind.
And all that shit doesn’t really help much when we are raped by our boyfriends and husbands.
The most glaring issues with rape culture are that many people do not see all rape as rape; and are willing to constantly focus on what girls and women should do to avoid it, and not that boys and men should not do it.
The culture is ludicrous and dishonest with itself.
The SAME people (and I know this from experience) who will say, “If someone put his hands on you, I would cut them off!!! I’ll protect you from those creeps!” are the people I have had to literally FIGHT OFF when they are drunk.
Your point is well taken about differences in perception. You see that statistic and you think: Potential victims should not get drunk because they might get raped.
I see: If you tend to grow eight hands when your drunk and sexual assault your friends or try to rape them; perhaps you shouldn’t FUCKING GET DRUNK.
The reason I see it differently, is that I have three friends on my, “Will never be alone with them, especially if they are drunk” list – for very good reasons.
As far as rape, this isn’t a conflict between “personal responsibility” and “prudence”, but that our culture puts ALL emphasis on the personal responsibility and prudence of potential victims and NOT ON potential RAPISTS.
There is no reasonable preventive measures that will protect a person from *being raped*. There are reasonable preventive measures that will protect a person from BEING A RAPIST.
You know – like not thinking rape is okay.
But of course, NOBODY says, “Rape is okay”. If you do a survey and you ask, “How many people have you raped?” “Are you a rapists?” Very few people will say, “Yes, I am a rapists.”
If you asked them if they have ever had sex with a person who didn’t want to have sex with them or was incapacitated.
Then you get the honest answers.
Conclusion: People don’t know what “rape” is and don’t want to understand or acknowledge their behavior as “rape” and therefor as WRONG.
So YES – many cultures do not see rape as wrong, they just SAY they do. This is true on both the personal and sociological levels.
The extreme case are child brides. The “husband” sees the “wife” as property and he is entitled to sex. In some cultures, a wife is obligated to have sex with her husband regardless of her own wishes.
These are echoes of a cultures that are only coming out of the “women as property” dynamic in the last few generations.
In traditional wedding ceremonies, a father gives the daughter to the husband.
“Who give this woman in marriage to this man?”
She then vows to “obey” her husband.
These ideas that a man is entitled to sex with a woman and that being denied that sex is emasculating to him – is absolutely pervasive.
It is rooted deeply in history – and it manifests as rape.
Why do you insist that attempting to make real cultural changes (that I have seen first hand – in my lifetime – become a HELL of a lot better) is an act of futility?
Why push back against that?
I don’t get it.
I’m still working on a performance art piece called “turbulent flow”!
Not quite sure why anyone thinks that listening to feminists means accepting everything any feminist has ever said or done. If you internalized “feminism” as a whole the cognitive dissonance would probably cause some sort of seizure.
As far as Skepticism, in my opinion the most vital mission of Skepticism at the moment is to combat quackery – including religious quackery. However, if those orgs and individuals become strongly associated with atheism, it will (because of psychological and political realities) hamstring that mission. As far as unearthing “woo” – there is no subject within which there is no “woo”.
Church-state separation orgs have the same issue. For this reason, however much I appreciate FFRF, if I had to choose what org to support – I’d be there with AU. Even as an EXTREMELY devote (holy crap I was something else again) Christian, I was a Church-State separation advocate.
Evolutionary Biology education advocates know darn well that being associated with atheism is a huge political nightmare. That is why I’ll point to Ken Miller (a Catholic) before I’d ever point to Myers or even Aron Ra.
But if I go to an atheist event, and am told “feminism isn’t a valid subject” – the only way for that stance to be self-consistent is if ALL PANELS were devoted solely to the nuts and bolts of philosophical naturalism, tea pots, and defining “agnostic atheist” for the 111th time.
I think that’s sort of boring at some point.
As I said earlier though, I think the issue is less about what should be a valid topic (especially among atheists) but a desire for the discussions not to require any introspection. Ironic that – it’s a valid topic, just as long as it isn’t about us.
You say po-tat-o, I say po-ta-to; you saying prolixy, I say short attention span and dogmatic.
@Steersman
Listening to dudes explain in detail how awesome our patriarchal system is, in fact, boring.
Defending the status quo is facile and as much as you’d like to dress it up with loquaciousness the results are the same:
Women should be happy with the second class status and marginal rights to their bodies that men have afforded to them.
Why?
Because we say so.
I would be more interested in what have to you say if your arguments varied from this toxic chestnut of a theme.
🙂 No doubt a reference to Dawkins’ “Postmoderism disrobed” article (1), and his quote of a paraphrase or interpretation of the French “philosopher” Luce Irigaray:
How’s it going in tracking down those “unarticulated remainders”? As a physicist, you have a replacement for the “Navier-Stokes equations” waiting in the wings, ready to be unveiled? 😉
Not quite sure why you phrased it that way since I think I quite clearly indicated with the quote marks around “feminism”, and with an explicit statement that I think “much of it is in fact woo”. But nice analogy with which I quite agree – as I have argued elsewhere many times by pointing to the 17 different ideologies – some of it quite contradictory – that are “encompassed” by the rubric “feminism”.
However, that is part of my objection to the ideology, that far too many seem to take it all as gospel truth, and that any criticism of any feminist or of any tenet of it qualifies as outright misogyny. For example, you might “enjoy”, particularly if you’re an aficionado of “gallows humour”, this tweet by Ophelia Benson (2) who insisted that:
Real classy, Ophelia, real classy. You would have done Ignatius Loyola (3) proud.
In any case, I think it great that you at least can recognize those problematic contradictions within “feminism”. Although I might suggest that you could make those observations in locations where they might do the most good – such as FTB, particularly Pharyngula, as I’m banned on several sites there. Even if, or maybe because, I think you might get short shrift there for doing so.
Indeed. Curious that. Seems that our blind spots tend most to obscure and encompass ourselves. Why there is some benefit in having enough of an open mind to be willing to listen to and to see what others hear and see, particularly about ourselves. Apropos of which you might want to read this article (4) on Internet Silos.
In any case, I’m reminded of the aphorism, “God grant us the grace to see ourselves as others see us.” Not necessarily to agree, but at least be willing to confront such observations. Seems to be rather a dearth of that in the atheist-skeptic-feminist communities.
—–
1) “_http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/824-postmodernism-disrobed”;
2) “_http://i47.tinypic.com/wk5pxf.jpg”;
3) “_http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Loyola#Spiritual_Exercises_.281548.29”;
4) “_http://www.edge.org/response-detail/23777”;
Arbourist:
“Dude”? So, am I speaking with a “dudette”? In any case, apparently one deep into their cup of “feminist” Kool-Aid.
Regardless, I wonder whether you might deign to explain, in Spain, where and how I’m waxing poetic on “our patriarchal system” since the only place where the word showed up here is in your comment. Though for something for you to chew on, I think that “The Patriarchy!!11!” is largely a specious fiction and a reification. Not to mention its heavy use being intrinsically sexist if not misandrist.
In any case, maybe you could also show me where and how I have said anything even remotely like the following which qualifies thereby as an impressive strawman, a real howler:
Absent some clarification on those points I will still say, “short attention span and dogmatic”.
I have these types of conversations in those places.
There has been some pretty lengthy conversations about the nature of sex work and pornography and if legislation is a valid way of attempting to rectify some of the problematic aspects of those things.
We talk the nature of religious covering; and how to avoid the pit-falls of neo-colonialist thinking.
There is only once in two years that I’ve been accused of being anti-feminist; and everyone else in the conversation spoke up and said they disagreed with that.
There are a few stances that will get you dog piled or banned in any of those places, for example, being a “trans* critical” feminist.
Nobody (I dare say *nobody*) thinks there is no woo in feminism. I just don’t think feminism IS woo.
You might then be interested in this (1) recent conversation on Ally Fogg’s FT blog on the topic of the “White Slave Traffic”.
I think you’re being rather too kind to the commentariat of Pharyngula and its host. You might note, in particular, these posts (2, 3) and their context. And I’m sure EllenBeth Wachs would be only too happy to elaborate for you.
Some questionable if not biased “fiddling” with definitions there methinks. Not that that is not understandable as it suggests or is entailed by the “no true Scotsman” fallacy: “an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion”, in that case of yours that feminism consists of some specific set of attributes. However, the problem is that a great many other people think that the term encompasses some entirely different sets of attributes, some of which are decidedly contradictory.
Why I tend to view the problem from the perspective of set theory – not that I have a particularly good handle on the nitty-gritty details of the discipline, most of which is rather outside my salary range. But that is to consider that there is some superset of attributes and principles, all of which at least some people are going to assert qualify as coming in under the rubric of “feminism”. But if there is no commonality whatsoever then it seems rather untenable to say that feminism itself is or isn’t any thing; all one can really do is, I think, put the word in quotes and indicate that the term encompasses some set of principles, some of which are contradictory, and some of which qualifies as “woo”.
All of which tends to bring the term, and even some of its more credible proponents, into some disrepute. Relative to which, you might wish to view this YouTube video (4), from a woman I might add.
—-
1) “_http://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat/2013/09/13/white-slave-traffic-a-friday-13th-guest-post-by-emma-goldman/”;
2) “_http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/03/22/adria-richards-did-everything-exactly-right/comment-page-3/#comment-587307”;
3) “_http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/21/an-experiment-why-do-you-despise-feminism/comment-page-1/#comment-518836”;
4) “_http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ifDD3sk3ng0”;
M.A. Melby:
Indeed. I can well see this controversy, particularly if it “metastasizes” throughout the larger body politic, causing a serious and precipitous drop in the per-capita consumption of alcohol. So much so that liquor companies might decide to underwrite the technological solution I’ve suggested just to forestall that eventuality. … 😉
How many? What are their names and where have they published those assertions? What percentage of the population do they comprise? Even Al Stefanelli, who you threw a few stones at, made no bones about condemning rape and who, if I’m not mistaken, clearly indicated support for charging Shermer – IF the evidence justified it. And that is the rub – the issue of consent, and the rather private nature of the crime which tends to preclude much in the way of evidence – that you and many others seem rather unwilling to consider. Although it is interesting and of some relevance to note that Richard Carrier has been taken to task (1, 2) – revolutions having a tendency to eat their own – for having supposedly engaged in some “rape apology” of his own in spite of issuing a rather draconian if lengthy condemnation of Shermer for supposedly engaging in sex without consent. Maybe Carrier wasn’t unequivocal enough to satisfy Madame Defarge.
But, in any case, while I am truly sorry that that issue of consent and evidence is apparently the crux of the matter – as I’m sorry, as shocking and so terribly traumatic it is to reveal, that over the next 100 years more than 7 billion of us are going to die – being sorry simply does diddly squat in changing the nature of the beast. And until that fact is confronted I don’t see much prospect for progress. While I will concede that I am, as you suggest, maybe more fatalist than entirely justified, and that “re-education camps” either before or after the revolution arrives may be of some value if not a great leap forward, it is, I think, still less a question of not seeing “all rape as rape” as in determining – from the evidence which tends to be thin on the ground – whether that has actually taken place or not.
I think you missed adding the “/sarcasm” tag. 😉
However, I think it also qualifies as a bit of a strawman, as a bit of a false dichotomy. Obviously – the statistics – some women get drunk and wind up getting raped, and some men apparently set out to get themselves and their partners at least inebriated so that they can perpetrate a rape. However, I rather expect there are a great many other cases where both get inebriated, engage in a bit of mutual seduction and presumably wind up reasonably happy about their experiences.
The problem there seems to be that those latter cases – of which there seem to be a great many – are entered into with intent, but many of them apparently wind up shading into withdrawn consent, outright rape, or false accusations. Of course, if people knew ahead of time that the evening would end in such outcomes then of course the victims – in either case – would have declined. Differentiating between them seems the objective, not preventing the cases of mutually satisfying inebriation which is likely to be rather difficult if not impossible to do.
I think you are, at the least and being charitable, not really being careful enough – not that it is easy to do – in identifying all of the possible scenarios, and all of the motivations, that can lead to those consequences. Sort of like trying to insist we all stop using cars because 36,000 people die on the highways (in the U.S.) every year.
Fair questions. But I think you’re mischaracterizing, and strawmanning, my argument as somehow an attempt to block, or push back against, “real cultural changes”. I’m hardly insisting on a return to “women as property”; I’ve quite frequently quoted and agreed with the Canadian suffragette Nellie McClung who said that “no nation rises higher than its women”; and, as a cherry on top, I’ve even been banned from A Voice for Men for defending “feminism”. However, I think those issues, and maybe the paradigmatic “a man is entitled to sex with a woman”, is an entirely separate can of worms from the issue of “personal responsibility” which seems to have been the primary focus of your OP. And which I still think you’re not being particularly fair about.
For instance, consider this rather categorical and problematic statement from Sarah Jones (3), and your response:
“The standard you walk by is the standard you support”. Yet your own litany – which I’m sort of sorry to see – of the things that you and others do to avoid being raped by “friends”, and by those you carpool with, of the self-defense classes “you” take, of the backs watched and the weapons carried, seem to be precisely the “actions to avoid rape” that Jones deprecates and condemns in the most dogmatic, obstinate, and pigheaded fashion, and which you apparently agree with. Something seriously “doesn’t compute”: seems to me you either need to tell Sarah she’s full of it, or you have to abandon taking those precautions you talked of.
While I will readily agree that it no doubt sucks big time to have to take those steps – as does the analogous fact that I have to spend $400 a year for a home-security system purchased after having been broken into twice – it seems to be some rather dangerous and problematic “advice” that Jones and no few others are peddling. In the light of your own experiences you might want to consider the consequences of people following it.
—–
1) “_http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=131724#p131724”;
2) “_http://www.anamardoll.com/2013/08/feminism-mansplaining-for-my-lady-brain.html”;
3) “_http://anthonybsusan.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/extraordinary-nonsense/”;
” that you and many others seem rather unwilling to consider.”
That is so much bullshit. I have to call you on that. Can you really look at what is happening and say that I am not willing to consider that many rapes include a lack of evidence?
Perhaps it’s the crew that is implying that lack of evidence means it didn’t happen that you should be having that discussion with; and not the ones who are pointing out that convictions in court are sometimes difficult to obtain.
Unfortunately, even when there is evidence, the criminal justice system does a piss poor job of dealing with it and obtaining convictions. It’s getting better, but it’s still completely unacceptable in many places.
Missed a sarcastic marker? I’m not being sarcastic, are you serious? If a person tends to react to being drunk by becoming sexually aggressive or violent; that person should not become drunk. That person should listen to the people around them and acknowledge their own behavior, and know that they should not drink in excess. Why in the WORLD would you think I am being sarcastic?!
If you tend to COMMIT CRIMES, especially against your friends, when you are drunk – you shouldn’t drink. People use the buddy system to make sure they don’t drink and drive ALL THE TIME. It is up to you to make sure you don’t do bad things. That would go for both men and women.
Everyone is more vulnerable when they drink, still people choose to drink for their own personal reasons.
Heck, I got very drunk last night (by accident, because the party I was at only had diet soda; and I *HATE* diet soda). The only “crime” I committed is being a humorously obnoxious and using the bathroom for an unreasonable period of time.
I agree with Sarah Jones on this. I have decided FOR MYSELF what sort of precautions I take. I decide my own risk-benefit analysis.
If other people impose (by law or social pressure) what my movements SHOULD be, what I SHOULD do with myself, and judge me harshly for my own free movements that I choose that effect me; it’s paternalistic and wrong.
It’s not JUST victim blaming, In the end, it’s a means of control through the fear of rape.
If I decided to walk through the park to get to the grocery store at night because I wanted to get something to eat, someone saying, “Be careful” I can handle. Being told, “You’re just asking for it.” – is NOT okay.
“How many? What are their names and where have they published those assertions? What percentage of the population do they comprise?”
This is a well-known thing. In sociological research, we KNOW that when asking survey questions if we ask questions in a way that challenges someone’s self-perceptions as a good upstanding person, we do not get honest answers.
You’d have to dig into the 70’s to see studies where it essentially dawned on us that rape was happening all the time, but the rapists and even those who were raped didn’t considered it “rape”. That inspired all the “rape is rape” campaigns as well as “no means no”.
The AVfM crew see this as “rape hysteria” being perpetrated by feminists because they hate men or something.
In my lifetime, at the very least, the mainstream media no longer seems to make rape some big joke, or encourage people to rape. You know, like sage advice about not taking no for an answer, talking about how she is playing hard to get, and tricking someone into having sex (Revenge of the Nerds) or physically forcing sex (Days of our Lives) leading to marriage. That was pretty common then.
I don’t have time (right at this moment) to dig up stuff on that. I’ll ask around for a few good (well documented) articles when I get the chance.
M. A. Melby:
If you and others don’t want to actually do something about that lack of evidence then I figure many other responses are ineffectual at best, or complaining simply for the sake of complaining at worst. The lack of evidence is the problem, or at least a major part of it. Tell me – honestly – Dr. Melby, how would you solve it? How would you “instrument” the environment to obtain it?
Looks to me like you’re just being argumentative, or are engaging in some egregious cherry-picking. My point was that I rather doubt that case you picked covers the entire spectrum of the ones relevant to the issue, or is even particularly statistically representative; it was that I expect many of the rapes are committed by men who “got carried away”, that they weren’t aware they were capable of such crimes. Rather difficult in such cases to convince them not to engage in the precursors – as I think several of your anecdotes suggest.
That has got to qualify as so much moonshine, if not some egregious intellectual dishonesty. Her assertion was that by suggesting “that women take any sort of action to avoid rape, you shift the blame [from] where it properly should be …”, yet you are doing precisely that with your precautions: taking actions to avoid rape. Looks to me like you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too.
That seems a fair point. I hadn’t realized that that was the case – a question of “privilege”, I guess, or simply not within my ambit – I tend to have very little patience for “sitcoms”. But I’ll keep it as a point of reference in viewing the output from people like AVfM, although I’d appreciate the refences you mentioned if you can find them.
“yet you are doing precisely that with your precautions: taking actions to avoid rape.”
Taking your own precautions is not the same as telling other people they should take precautions; and certainly isn’t the same as focusing on those precautions, effectively controlling the movements and actions of potential victims and not being willing to advocate for the control of the movements and actions of predatory, entitled or careless individuals.
Also, I’m pretty sure that the quote from Sarah Jones was in the context of 20/20 hindsight as well – so that’s not very useful now is it?
“Rather difficult in such cases to convince them not to engage in the precursors – as I think several of your anecdotes suggest.”
When you have an entire culture willing to take power and freedom away from you and not them, it is.
M. A. Melby:
Ah ha! A very important distinction! Mea culpa! How could I have been so blind as to have missed that???
Except Sarah didn’t say “telling other people”, she used “suggest”, to wit:
But kind of a petty distinction, a strawman, at least in the context of this discussion, isn’t it? In spite of you having apparently learned of the wisdom of taking those precautions in the “school of hard knocks”, you think it totally inappropriate to even suggest that other women might consider learning from your experiences?
How so? You said here that you agree with her on the point so it still seems in play.
But you’re unwilling or you’re unable to correct her now that you’ve seen the light? You think it unreasonable to pass along your hard-won wisdom to the younger generation? To suggest now that it might have some relevance to them? You think it appropriate that she – and others that she’s peddling that decidedly dangerous schlock to – should be obliged to learn that lesson the hard way? And maybe even in a harder way than you did?
This whole trope or meme of “victim-blaming” has, I think, some seriously problematic consequences. Arguably as many as those from anti-vaxers which you’re supposedly up-in-arms about. But you might wish to take a close look at the loons on AtheismPlus (1) for a particularly egregious manifestation of that, and ask yourself whether you agree with them.
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1) “_http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3194”
I don’t think you realize – I have NOT learned from experience these fears of certain behaviors.
I very rarely get drunk. Nobody has ever taken advantage of me when I was drunk. I’ve not had a bad experience due to my own drinking – ever.
Those men should learn from their mistakes. I made no mistakes that caused them to act badly toward me what-so-ever. Why would you assume that? It’s weird.
M. A. Melby:
I guess then that you don’t think these statements of yours qualify as or entail “experience”:
“Weird”, indeed.
Right – but it’s not learning RULES of behavior – only knowledge that very specific people are handsy.
So, I don’t see that as lessons for future generations – unless I am REALLY holding a grudge.
M. A. Melby:
Christ – GMAB. I pointed out – repeatedly – that Sarah explicitly used the verb “suggest”. Which means, since English seems to be a second language for you, this:
And you implied, creating an impressive strawman in the process, that I was claiming that you “taking your own precautions” was a case of someone “telling other people they should take precautions”. One would have thought that some woman expressing how they reduce the probability of being raped would suggest to other women – convey the idea by indirection – that they could do likewise. But, apparently, you believe they are too obtuse to draw the necessary conclusion – maybe they’re not too good with “thinky work”?
And when I pointed out that your own statements about your own experiences might reasonably qualify as “suggestions” – monkey see, monkey do – you attempted to deny that you might have had reasons to take those precautions – presumably based on experience unless one could infer that the idea sprang, fully-formed – like Athena from the mind of Zeus, into your own mind without any precursors.
And then you didn’t have the good grace to concede the point, but only responded with some evasive and specious suggestion that learning by example – monkey see, monkey do – somehow doesn’t qualify as learning. Or maybe you think that “RULES of behaviour” are necessarily always categorical and have no contingency built into them – rather inconsistent with the one you yourself suggested: “If [contingent on whether] ‘friend’ drinking then be careful about being alone with them”.
But it sure seems like you have a “funny” way of thinking. It seems decidedly odd that you would prefer to stand with your “sisters” in spite of what I consider to be a fact, that your precautions are the more sensible and rational course of action, and that the “policies and rules of behaviour” of Sarah and her cohort are characteristic of those who are barking mad.
*bashes head against desk*
So you were serious about separating “suggest” completely out of the realm of “telling someone else what they ought to do” even though – in the context of what she said – that is exactly and clearly what she meant?
For goodness sake.
How about this: That is how I READ what she said, and therefor it is why I agreed.
Fixed?
Okay, so on to other not-as-semantic news. I did ask around for articles, and I found a very good one.
And PLEASE do not (yet again) avoid realizing that I am making distinctions between an opposition to socially enforcing “preventative” behaviors or placing responsibility (and blame) on people to not “get themselves raped” – and encouraging risk taking behaviors.
[As in – actual risk taking behaviors, as opposed to not deciding to live without constant self-policing and fear ruling everything you do.]
We know that many rapists wait until a potential victim is vulnerable to rape them; this very often includes alcohol (as you pointed out). That doesn’t mean that not getting drunk will provide magical protections or that nobody should ever allow themselves to be the least bit vulnerable to anyone else out of persistent fear.
The moral and social onus for an individual is clearly and ONLY that they do not harm other people (that’s why I mentioned handsy drunk guys I know); not that they magically or through extreme self-policing avoid being a target of those who DO harm others.
I think our culture is currently very skewed in this way. I think that is a huge problem. That problem is one of the reasons that our culture allows rapists to continue raping people.
I did not find an article specifically about how people are more apt to self-report rape if it is not called “rape”, but the article addresses that and gives some links.
It does however, give some ammo to the notion that there is this small number of extreme offenders; which is something I didn’t have a handle on before, but many people have suggested. I sometimes conflated this with the extremely stupid “rapists in the bushes” bullshit, and now I have a better notion of reality. (Go actually looking into the literature.)
Although there is a significant percentage of men who have committed or attempted rape (hovering around 6 to 13% self-reported – when we are talking about rape 1 in 10 is not “small”), the VAST majority of rapes are committed by a very small percentage of serial rapists who know how not to get caught; and very rarely target strangers.
This is actually very hopeful in a way – the idea that stopping them – and ending the silence and shaming that allows them to operate may not be so insurmountable. Realizing that they are such a minority is reassuring.
Then again – when we do finally bring one of these serial rapists to justice or find out who they might be – we risk having a riot in his defense because he was a good football coach or something.
…or, I don’t know…some other popular guy.
What now? Steerman – do you realize that “patriarchy” has a meaning, and is actually a term used to self-describe the social structure that many of the religious groups in the U.S. advocate?
M. A. Melby:
Your previous comment is going to take some chewing on to digest sufficiently to respond to, but this one seems a little more straightforward. But, in passing, thanks for the link.
Yes, I realize that “patriarchy has a meaning”. But my point or argument was that, as suggested, in the hands or minds of many “feminists” it seems to have taken on a number of highly problematic and specious meanings, that it has been reified into some tangible thing that has been ascribed a supposedly causal efficacy in itself that is rather untenable to say the least. And that seems predicated on some highly questionable assumptions at the heart of sociology. For instance, consider these observations from Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate (highly recommended):
Pinker goes on to describe a great many other similar cases, many of more recent and more problematic vintage:
While I think there is a great amount of utility and value in the concept of emergence (2) – the concepts of the “group mind”, the superorganism, and “the patriarchy” being, I think, cases in point – I also think it is one that can be badly misused – as Pinker suggests and as does, I think, the all too facile recourse to “the patriarchy”.
In addition, it seems to me that it makes at least some sense to talk of sets of values and laws to which one might attach the descriptive label “patriarchy” – statements of fact. However, in the hands of those “feminists” it seems to have acquired a prescriptive, normative, or value-laden sense (1) which I don’t think holds all that much water. Some evidence of dogma driving science – which tends to end badly, Lysenkoism being a case in point.
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1) “_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact%E2%80%93value_distinction”;
2) “_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence”;
I came across this one recently: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07370016.2012.697852#.Ukb2lIasiFx