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.
I don’t think you’d get that chance, as you’d be ejected.
Also, saying that when you haven’t actually been through it strikes me as something you can really only do because you ‘know’ you won’t get raped.
No, what would really be straight up better, instead of better for her and her alone, would be to *CATCH THE MOTHERFUCKING MURDERER*
“Actually, if I went to a gay bar in a fishnet tank top and assless leather pants, and got passed-out drunk, I would feel a little responsible if “something” happened…”
ORLY?
Ozymandias: For the last time, I’m not disagreeing with any of you that rape is a problem or that rapists are responsible for their actions. But until rape, and all other crime is eradicated, we live in a world where it still happens, and if there are ways to protect yourself, you should be aware and not ignore them. I really don’t see what’s so hard to understand about this.
What’s hard to understand about this is that a lot of those “ways to protect yourself” involves restricting how you can live your life and enjoy yourself, and those ways are far, far from foolproof.
Answer my original question then. There is a person who is driven to rape (or murder). He likes blondes. Every woman has dyed her hair blondes. There are no more blondes. Does he shrug and say, “I guess I’ll stop now.”
I’ll answer because I know you’ll continue to be completely disingenuous in this. If a person is that sick and compelled to assault and kill people, he is not going to stop because he runs out of blondes. And what if someone is specifically attracted to black women? Children? Can they change the color of their skin? Can they age overnight? Exactly at what point do we hold the criminal responsible rather than his victims?
I also wonder what he means with “sketchy situations”. How convenient to leave that part so vague…
The only useful tip that actually prevents rape noticably:
Become a hermit, live away from everyone else in some incredibly isolated part of the world. Be off the grid entirely. Let nobody know you exist, including hunting/fishing/farming your own food (But on not too large a scale so as to avoid notice).
Somewhat effective tip that will reduce rape incidence:
Join seperatist commune for only women and that is entirely self-sufficient. There are still women who rape so this is not very foolproof, but it is much more likely to help than existing in normal society.
Hengist: As someone who has spent entirely too much time talking to and about male rape survivors… that whole “I’m a little bit responsible” idea is one of the things that makes recovery from rape so difficult. It adds this whole layer of self-hate and self-loathing to the toxic brew of rape survival.
And if you read my giant-ass post, I don’t think any of my comments were “rapists are responsible for their rape.” My comments were based on pointing out that your ideas are limiting of people’s freedom, unlikely to work and actually help rapists.
Kollege: I suppose he also thinks Schrodinger’s Rapist is misandry?
(by the way, shouting “Mansplaining” whenever a man says something is one of the reasons many people aren’t taking feminists seriously. Just saying)
Even if it’s another man who tells you that you’re mansplaining? Because I am, and you are.
Hengist, the majority of rape victims are assaulted by someone they know– a friend or acquaintance, not some random stranger at a “Wear a Wet T-Shirt, Get in Free” club night. Also, many victims– some on this blog– have pointed out that they were not “dressed provocatively” at the time of their assault. How can we protect victims against being assaulted by a friend or acquaintance without drawing MRA ire for “treating all men like rapists”?
Yeah, why engage people’s arguments when you can just make shit up? It’s much easier to refute hypothetical feminists!
You know the “best” part of the whole “it’s partly your responsibility if you don’t dye your hair to a rapist’s non-preferred color and then he rapes you” argument? The logical extension of it, given modern-day medical science, is that EVERY woman is “partly responsible” for getting raped. After all, we all know that there are rapists out there who target women. If we’d all just get sex change operations, those rapists wouldn’t rape us*! After all, it’s apparently legit to hold someone accountable for not altering her body to better match a rapist’s non-preferred type.
*(We’d very possibly get raped by OTHER rapists, of course, since trans folks don’t exactly have it easy on this front, either.)
Advice on the “fighting back” front goes back and forth over the years. Sometimes we’re told not to fight back, because it could lead to further serious physical injury or death. Other times we’re told that we should fight back.
The suggestion of carrying mace and using it is especially humorous considering that, as noted above, most assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. It’s pretty obvious that he’s thinking of stranger rapes when he makes this suggestion. These are the same guys who argue that most rapes are false reports, so I doubt he’s suggesting that we start macing our dates.
Do you mean every woman dyes her hair brunette? Otherwise it doesn’t make sense. And yeah, if he had a thing for blondes, he might stop. We don’t know for sure because this is a hypothetical murderer.
I was talking, obviously, about things that people can actually do. Hence the ‘risk prevention’ thing. And at no point at all is the criminal not held responsible. That this has nothing to do with risky behaviors the victim may engage in is what you refuse to understand.
Well, your analogy, and the ideas behind it, are flawed. Basically, you’re doing what every rape apologist loves to do: shift blame from the rapist to the victim. The victim wasn’t doing the right things to avoid rape; therefore xie was raped. Very old idea. Very wrong idea.
Let’s keep the blame where it belongs, okay? A rapist rapes because xie wants to rape someone. Because xie’s found someone vulnerable, accessible, and lacking credibility who xie can rape without (much) fear of punishment.
I guess if you want to caution people against being vulnerable, accessible, and lacking credibility, that’s probably the best way to avoid being raped. Although you should keep in mind that implicit in that advice are things like “Don’t be a mentally disabled person who lives in a group home,” and “Don’t be a migrant worker,” and “Don’t be homeless” and “Don’t be a child.”
What I think is interesting about the whole, “don’t dress sexy when you go out” thing is that if someone is a sexual predator looking for someone to prey upon, and it is assumed that he/she will be deterred by one’s dressing dowdily, that this person will simply move on and assault someone who is dressed sexily. Which means that unless women’s clothing is strictly legislated, under the general “don’t dress sexy argument”, not dressing sexy doesn’t prevent rape, it simply prevents the individual from being raped.
Which is why it’s much better to counsel rapists not to rape, obviously.
Sure, if by “logical extension” you mean “slippery slope fallacy”.
Most likely. He would probably victim-blame the same women who he thinks of as paranoid man-haters for not trusting man easily, if they got raped. For hanging out with “sketchy” guys and not being more careful, I assume.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, as the saying goes.
Well, I wouldn’t say feminists don’t care about rape, as a collective. But a lot of individual feminists seem more concerned about using rape as a misandrist rhetorical weapon against men and MRAs. Newsflash, gashes: If you haven’t been raped (and even according to the most generous statistics, the vast majority haven’t) you don’t know jack shit more about it than the average man.
“Most likely. He would probably victim-blame the same women who he thinks of as paranoid man-haters for not trusting man easily, if they got raped.”
Well, as you all seem to already know what I think and what I’ll say, I’d say my presence is not actually required for this argument to continue, so I’m buggering off for a while.
Rape appologist appologizes to all the rapists for people telling them not to rape.
Hengist, there’s not a whole lot of evidence that women’s dress or behavior plays a significant role in her liklihood of being raped. The Helpful Hints to Avoid Rape are usually aimed a stranger rape, not the most common type, which is rape by a person known to the victim.
So, if these Helpful Hints play a marginal role at best at reducing risk, why are you so vociferous in defending them? Especially since the Ways You Can Keep Yourself Safe argument is so often used as a red herring to shift blame from rapists to victims? If there’s something that women can do to reduce the risk of rape by 1%, and women refuse to do it, what point has been made? Does that mean that women must then share responsibility for being raped? Or does that mean that women, like all human beings, weigh costs and benefits in determining their behavior?
At best, your argument is trivial. At worst, it’s the usual attempt to shift blame to the victims by focusing obsessively on their behavior rather than that of the rapist.
Sure, if by “logical extension” you mean “slippery slope fallacy”.
I actually mean “reductio ad absurdum.” Which is, admittedly, difficult, seeing as your initial proposition is itself painfully absurd.
But do feel free to explain exactly where the line falls between “changes women are required to make to their body in order not to be partially responsible for being raped” and “changes women are not required to make to their body in order not to be partially responsible for being raped.”
Hengist, Kollege and I were talking about xbyiu, not you.
“Sure, if by ‘logical extension’ you mean ‘slippery slope fallacy’.”
And the endless list of “Don’t wear a certain length of skirt”, “Don’t get drunk”, “Don’t go to x places”, “don’t go places alone”, “don’t go places after dark” feels like nice, dry, level ground to you?
Hengist, you compared a woman doing… what, all of these things? slutty things?… to not securing your money when you go out. But how often do you have to consider what you are wearing in the context of whether or not you’ll be assaulted? Do you ever go out at night? Do you go alone or with friends? Do you only feel unsafe in black neighborhoods, or are the white ones okay?
Well, you seemed awfully sure about what those hypothetical feminists would say about a study proving that slutty clothes lead to assault (LOLZ), so why were you even here arguing in the first place? Also, I notice you still have no answer on what to do about rapes that don’t occur at naked frat parties or whatever.