I’m still officially on my Man Boobz staycation, but I felt I needed to mention yet another example of a woman saying that men can stop rape … and getting rape threats in return.
Political analyst Zerlina Maxwell went on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News earlier this week and made the terrible mistake of suggesting to a hostile audience that men aren’t really doing any favors to women by telling them to arm themselves against rapists. Instead, as Salon notes, she said this:
“I don’t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there.” She told Hannity, “You’re talking about this as if it’s some faceless, nameless criminal, when a lot of times it’s someone you know and trust,” adding, “If you train men not to grow up to become rapists, you prevent rape.”
Indeed, increased rape awareness has contributed to a dramatic decrease in rape over the last thirty years.
But apparently a lot of men were shocked – shocked! – that a woman would suggest that their patronizing advice was less likely to prevent rape than rape prevention education aimed at the demographic group that is responsible for the overwhelmng majority of rapes. That is, men.
So, naturally, the angriest of these men decided they would show Maxwell just how wrong she was … by threatening her with rape on Twitter.
Here’s just one example:
Rape culture in action.
Maxwell’s supporters have stepped up to defend her and her remarks, and have started a hashtag — #TYZerlina — to continue the discussion. If you’re on Twitter, join in .
Here’s the Fox News segment in question featuring Maxwell:
Poxy
Please answer pecunium’s question.
You have stopped asking questions and now your statements are all personal.
What do you want?
@katz
Is it wrong to want the birthday haver to do the singing?
*goes to find mix CD*
@katz
Just who I was hoping for! Maybe it should be his birthday every day.
Hell, I was around for the Al days, and yeah, Poxy reeks of him. (Yes, Poxy, you may now preen with delight at your ability to inspire certain responses. Really, this says less about your ability as a social manipulator than it does the sheer obsessive assholery of Al.)
My personal favorite atheist at the moment is Dorfl the communist golem. But that’s just me.
“Check me out, I’m the most universally hated troll of all!”
Um, good for you?
RE: CassandraSays
Shows what he knows. I was around back in the golden age, when trolls were TROLLS! Besides, he hasn’t worked nearly hard enough to measure up to the greats like NWO and Tom Martin.
(Unless he really IS Al. In which case… congratulations, dude. You might be a worse person than NWOslave, who bitched about slutty children. Congratulations. Here’s your commemorative name plate.)
Tom and Slavey set the bar much too high for “hellkell and Cassandra are being mean to me!” to even get within spitting distance.
Falconer – yeah, that bit about TP was crass. I watched the documentary he made about assisted suicide the other night, and anyone using his condition as a throw-away line is just piling contemptible on pathetic. LIke the fuck it’s anyone else’s business what someone’s beliefs about the afterlife are anyway. But then TP is a generous and thoughtful and witty person, hugely creative and greatly loved, and will be mourned by millions when he passes, so I guess that alone is reason for loser trolls to snark.
I wonder what’s so clever about “Being obnoxious irritates people”? Seriously, a kinder kid can do that. It’s not like there’s even any novelty in it, he’s been at it for years. Pretty sad life for a supposedly oh so smart guy.
An appropriate flounce
Also, more to the point, Pratchett will be mourned by his wife and daughter. Don’t think that’s likely to happen for any of our trolls.
RE: Kittehs
I’d be interested in seeing that, for a good sane day. (Assisted suicide is a topic of interest for me; a bill here was recently narrowly denied on the subject.)
@LBT
IIRC you are in MA? The ads against that bill made me so angry.
Have you seen the Frontline: The Suicide Tourist? If not, I highly recommend it.
LBT – it’s pretty harrowing, and I’m totally for assisted suicide being legalised. It was largely focussed on two men who used Dignitas, a Swiss organisation, to help them die. One had MS, the other motor neurone disease. TP was present for the second man’s passing. Assisted suicide is still illegal here; I don’t know if it is in the UK. It was when this documentary was made three years ago.
For people who’re interested in this issue I think The Sea Inside was a great fictional take on it that did a good job of fleshing out multiple different perspectives.
(Also has great leads.)
There was one bit in the TP program that made me cross. He was talking to a man with motor neurone who’d opted for hospice care, because he was happy to keep going as long as possible. A nurse sat in on the interview, and butted in when TP asked the man whether he thought people should be able to die a peaceful death. “Don’t you think people in hospices die peaceful deaths?” Hello, it’s about choice, not about whether hospices are good/bad/indifferent, and you weren’t being asked. Plus I thought it was pretty damn insulting to say to someone who has Alzheimer’s and does not want to get to the point of being unable to communicate, to write – it really sounded like she was jumping in to say hospice good, assisted suicide bad. Purely my take but it got my hackles up.
I’m not sure how anyone could possibly know for sure if someone else’s death is peaceful on an emotional level. The exterior stuff you can control and create a peaceful, stable environment, but a person could still not be at peace at all emotionally and if they didn’t confide in you how would you know?
I think – my interpretation, again – it was the peace of having the decision and timing in your hands, and knowing that the method is very quick. I’d sure prefer that to being pumped full of morphine and allowed to die of dehydration, which is about the only way we’re allowed to leave here – the “oh no we’re not really assisting suicide” pretence. Our laws are so damnably backward. One point made by the head of Dignitas (Mr Minelli – no relation, I think) was that plenty of people who sign up for their services don’t end up using them. The security of knowing they can gives them strength to go on. That makes total sense to me: removing the terror of being trapped.
The Suicide Tourist shows the entire assisted suicide so if that is the kid of thing you’d rather not see, you should probably skip the end. There is a nice statement of the man who had the assisted suicide, but it is probably not worth going through the suicide itself if you can’t handle that. (I have problems with ending a film about a man’s death with him speaking as I think it undercuts the finality of death. Just my opinion.)
*Kind of thing
@nerdypants:
Perhaps it’s aims more for specificity than sensitivity.
I won’t defend my statements about lawyers because they are obviously wrong.
Still regarding the first point don’t think I’ve seen good evidence that rape awareness caused a decline in rape. A lot has been written about the decrease in violent crime, but neither well-known/controversial paper by Levitt mentions it, or anything else I know of. It’s always just: stronger economy, increased incarceration rate, better policing strategies, decline of the crack epidemic, aging of the population, tougher gun control, abortion, increased number of police …
Also the NCVS says rape dropped no faster than violent crime in general. It wouldn’t be the first wrong prediction, or do we still believe like Brownmiller that women becoming physically stronger helps that much?
@LBT:
I was even defended against Owly once 😉 (on the light side back then). Of course nobody can measure up with NWO and his Georgia Guidestones, so you’re right. I would say, it’s like Sith Lord vs Dark Jedi.
@CassandraSays:
The only solace materialist atheists (who also can’t distinguish between evil and insane) get. But I don’t care, since you can’t witness it anyway.
Somebody said here, that evolutionary psychology was bad because it’s reductionist?? I give you that quote by Thomas Nagel, to think about: “If one doubts the reducibility of the mental to the physical, and likewise of all those other things that go with the mental, such as value and meaning, then there is some reason to doubt that a reductive materialism can apply even in biology, and therefore reason to doubt that materialism can give an adequate account even of the physical world.”
@The Ki…:
No, no, I was just remembered of Dawkins’ claims that religious believers have lower intelligence. That was the reasoning there.
Mr Al, aren’t you contradicting yourself a bit when you make the (very trolling for lulz, no doubt) comment about materialist atheists not being able to tell evil from insane, and then quote the bit about Dawkins saying the religious are of lower intelligence? Seems you’re making much the same statement he is, but reversing it.
(See? Engagement on the actual topic.)
I certainly mentioned evo psych being reductionist, but I was referring to the way it’s used (or misused) popularly, largely by people trying to force men and women into extremely limited gender roles and claiming it’s “natural”. I have zip interest in the field itself, not only because of its misuse but because the sciences don’t spark my interest generally.
I see that we still need to call in the pest control team.
@Poxy
At least that flounce was slightly longer. *sigh*
Do it again and try for longer this time.
Wrong again, Bob.
No, it’s because in their metaphysical position there can’t be a true difference between between evil and insane, that doesn’t have to have anything to do with intelligence.
Well, ok, you’re one of the more moderate. Most people here reject it completely. So it’s like…. alchemy for them?
Harvard teaches alchemy:
http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/programs_of_study/psychology.php
“Evolutionary Psychology: Greene, Pinker, Sidanius, Warneken”
I like science but I’m ignorant of biology. So I’ll shut up about that.
:shrug: I don’t think I’ve ever met an atheist who said there’s no such thing as evil, or attributed it to insanity, or didn’t distinguish between them. I’m also not wild about assuming people who happen to be atheist fall into one group when it comes to opinions about anything much beyond not believing in a deity/deities.