Ugh. No jokes this time, just an appalling little exchange on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit. First, a Redditor called xbyiu offers some unsolicited, and pretty pig-ignorant, thoughts about SlutWalks. The basic thesis:
Personally, I think a lot of feminists just don’t care about rape victims. They’d much rather see women as a whole being a victim of the patriarchy and fight against that sort of abstract idea then deal with the reality of rape, which can be fought against with simple tips on how to protect yourself.
Hold on; it gets worse.
To this the r/mr regular EvilPundit replied (in a comment that, last I checked, had gotten three times more upvotes than downvotes):
I’d go even further, and say that many feminists love rape. For them, it’s a perfect way to demonise men in general.
If rape didn’t exist, feminism would invent it. In fact, feminism does invent a lot of rape, with its imaginary statistics such as “1 in 4”, and so on.
In other words, feminists don’t really want to prevent rape. But most rape is imaginary. So feminists are trying to not prevent something that doesn’t much happen anyway. Brilliant.
A note on the “1 in 4” thing: EvilPundit’s insinuation that it’s an “imaginary statistic” is a common MRA talking point. It’s not imaginary, but it’s not quite accurate either. The one-in-four number comes from a study conducted in the 80s by researcher Mary Koss: based on a detailed survey of college women, she found that roughly one in four of her respondent had been a victim of rape or attempted rape since the age of 14. This is often simplified – and distorted – into “one in four female college students are raped while in college.”
In fact, Koss’ survey found that one in eight college women answering her survey, not one in four, had been the victim of completed rape. Other studies have reported numbers not far off from this. The National Violence Against Women Survey, for example, found that roughly one in six of female respondents reported being the victim of rape in their lifetime.
The fact that some people have misrepresented Koss’ study doesn’t mean that her findings are “imaginary.”
I’m not even sure why I’m writing all this, given that as a feminist I presumably don’t care at all about rape.
Pic above taken from here.
EDITED TO ADD: EvilPundit’s comment has gotten some downvotes since I posted this, but it still has more upvotes than downvotes.
Sure. Imagine being a key which opens every lock in the world. Pretty awesome, right? Now imagine being a lock which can be opened by every key in the world. Not so hot anymore. :p
[quote]I think americanlink was unwarrantedly piled on; if I’d been faster my reply would merely have been:
Are you guessing from the person’s appearance or do you have a source?
Same thing CassandraSays seems to have been going for, but without assuming malevolence on americanlink’s part.[/quote]
Thank you. Hershele Ostropoler. I will admit I forgot the link in my original post- it was late night for me. And sorry for getting crabby, CassandraSays. Just wasn’t expecting to get jumped on so much with my first comment… D:
Hengist, someone else already talked about how ridiculous the key and lock analogy is. Here is the thing. Penises are not keys and vaginas are not locks. They have nothing to do with each other. The double standard comes from men that want to have as much fun as they can but can’t handle it if women behave the exact same way. They want to limit and control women’s sexuality, but believe themselves to be above those rules. Now MRA’s are whining when women decide that the double standard is bs.
Kollege Messerschmitt was in before you Hengist.
I think Kollege deserves a prize for correctly predicting the form your misogyny would take.
The quote below:
“I’m pretty sure it will be something along the lines of the “If a key opens lots of locks, it’s a master key. But if a lock is opened by lots of keys, then it’s a shitty lock.” analogy.
Because apparently, vaginas natural purpose is to…uh, lock something away? I guess?
I never got that one. “
So men are for getting into women, but women are for keeping men out. A perfect statement of sexual double standards.
I think the MRA position is that double standards are a *good* thing. ‘Cause, you know, women. They’re not men. MRA positions make a lot more sense if you don’t read with “but people are equal” in mind.
redlocker:
It seriously can’t happen soon enough, to be honest. I just hope they will actually stop their whining then, but I have my doubts…
Bostonian:
Thank you :D! Though I’m not sure if being able to correctly predict what an MRA will reply is a great skill ): It’s kind of sad, even.
I’m actually kind of shocked by THAT much lack of self-awareness. I mean, wow.
MRAs are not especially bright in general, so self awareness would be rare for them.
A virtual confection of your choice is yours Kollege.
Well the men that promote the double standard shouldn’t whine when women don’t want to have sex with them. In MRA Land, for a single woman, her options are to be a slut or frigid. Married women of course are supposed to be sex goddesses for their husbands, and only give and never take. Married women are no longer locks, and refusing sex to their husbands is a crime against humanity. I’m glad I understand these bs rules.
Um, Hengist? Hate to break it to you, buddy, but your particular key most definitely does not open my lock. In fact, it turns it into a padlock with extra bolts.
americanlink, welcome! Thanks for the correction, and sorry things got off to an, er, awkward start here. We’re sort of used to weird prounouncements from MRAs; I think that’s why people reacted as they did.
nova, oy. What a sad situation. I used to live next to a guy who was really verbally abusive to his, well I never did figure out if she was his wife, or daughter, or caretaker. He was probably around 80 years old, and in a wheelchair, but the hatred in his voice made me finch. It was mostly in Italian, with a few curse words in English (“asshole” was a favorite); she would reply in a much quieter, placating voice. i didn’t call the cops, because I didnt’ know what they could do; he obviously wasn’t a physical threat. But just hearing him, day in and day out, so sad.
For everyone who was wondering, feminist popcorn is, of course, popcorn that has been salted with the tears of men.
And now Hengist has committed the Fallacy of Buh?, in which the analogy is entirely unrelated to the topic at hand.
I don’t even understand that thought process. I mean, Hengist, you’re a straight man, right? You like sex, right? Why would you want to discourage women from having sex they would like to have? That can only mean less sex not only for you but for your brothers in straight and bi manhood.
Huh, what do you know: bigotry IS predictable, if Hengist is any indication.
Ah, locks and keys. Anyone written a convenient blog post detailing why this is a crap metaphor? If not, I’ll write one so we can just link to it in the future, because it’s really a sad and pathetic thing to have to rehash.
I predict Hengist will next say it was a joke and we have no sense of humor.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone’d take you up on that bet.
Coming in late, about ringing child services. If it works the same as here, you can do it anonymously, so he can’t come after you. Yours will not be the first call to them, by the sound of things – their neighbours and the school, for instance, probably have called too. When child services does get enough evidence to rescue the child, the fact that they have had X number of calls from X number of people over X period of time will help their case in court.
He might say the smiley for sticking his tongue out was a reference to Kollege Messerschmitt’s comment.
We will all, of course, just have to trust him on that.
americanlink, you can call me “it” if you wanna. I don’t care. Lots-o-people cultivating their indignities here.
Um… if all the locks only work with their own key (because they’re Good Girl locks), then there can’t be a key that opens all locks. If all the locks are locked up, then it’s impossible to have a master key, or even a key that gets around a little bit.
And this does translate back to penises and vaginas, quite tidily.
Oh Maggie, aren’t you the special self-hating snowflake as always!
Yes yes, Mags, you don’t care about being insulted based on your class because you’re just so much better. Are you done with your NAWALT posturing yet? Well, NATALT, but the principle is the same.
Shit, I don’t care for shit that has hurt people I love being repeated. It’s not cool.
Why not? They’re just going to have it with people who aren’t you anyway, same as always.
So… nothing changes for me, while all those other men who flaunt their sex-having suffer?
…I’m okay with this.