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:
@ marinerachel
was that for HPV?
It’s very well done, but I think in one sense she’s not taking the most effective approach. Gamer dudes who watched the video who haven’t already acknowledged the problem aren’t likely to be swayed by a lot of examples; they’re either going to yell “Samus exists! Your argument is invalid!” or hand-wave with “all gamers are men” and evo psych (ie, they’re either going to insist that there’s no inequity as long as they can think of one example that goes against the trend, or they’re going to insist that there’s some reason that the inequity isn’t a problem). (I ran into both the same objections when I did my quantitative analysis of gender in film last year.)
So a part of me thinks that, to be actually persuasive, Sarkeesian ought to address those objections, stupid as they are, because as is, her series is primarily preaching to the choir. But another part of me thinks that there’s no addressing those people; they’re just idiots and even if they comprise the majority of gamer dudes, there’s no point in trying to engage them. In any case, her videos are going to be a valuable resource for conversations on this topic.
@Marie
You are always welcome and never butting in. 🙂
@blitzgal
The way colleges handle rape is indefensible. My college (women-only) was really bad about notifying us about a man who was sexually assaulting women in the area, but at least they kept everything locked all the time!
AFAIK, that college did nothing other than tell its students to be more careful when rapists operated at nearby co-ed schools.* If they had policies to help students who had been raped, they weren’t anything I ever heard about and I should have been in a position to know. (The fact that the school was very big on enforcing their strict anti-underage drinking rules probably prevented anyone from coming forward.) If only I knew then what I know now….
*I never heard about any rapes on-campus, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Drones for domestic violence. You can’t make this stuff up. http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/03/09/drone-dealers-suggest-using-drones-for-domestic-violence-scenarios/
So, rape awareness = education?
How much of the decrease do you think can be explained by that? It would be interesting to see the details. The dramatic decline in violent and property crime in the early 90s is a well studied phenomenon and often increase in the number of police and the rising prison population are cited as causes.
@katz
Great analysis. Your comments section made me sad and tired. (Well done there, too, though.)
@Poxy
Yes, rape awareness is education (and activism). What else would it be? Also, if you have a point please make it.
(I have a feeling I know where you are going, and it is a very stupid place that one can only go if they either have no knowledge of the history of rape and rape laws or if they are ignoring that history. Which one are you?)
@some gal
Thanks 🙂 Hopefully I get less shy soon
@scarlettpipstrelle
I’m curious what that article is about, but kind of afraid to read it.
I’m kind of sad roscoe and the first guy who posted didn’t actually come back and read everything people responded. maybe then they’d learn something :/ (or not.)
^the ‘how dare you accuse me of wanting to rape my daughers (that’s totally what you were doing!)’ guy, too lazy to check his name. Not the first poster, I don’t remember who that was
@Marie
Shyness is really hard to overcome. I got very anxious in social situations up through college and it only got better by forcing myself to do things anyway, which is unpleasant (to say the least). If I am not helping, feel free to tell me to stop, btw. I won’t be offended.
@Some Gal Not Bored at All:
Ermm.. not sure what you mean. It’s just that there are even studies that outlawing lead gasoline made violent crime fall, so I’m just skeptical.
@some gal
You’re fine. I’m just a little high-strung when I’m getting used to new places.
I feel like my shyness has been better (if that makes sense) recently, since I feel like I can articulate my feelings more, but I’ve also been avoiding busy places a lot, so not many places to get shy. 🙂
(except my dad’s getting married in june and he said it’d be small, but his idea of small and mine are very different! oh well it’s his wedding…still not looking forward to all the relatives. /rambling)
@katz, my first thought was embassy, but the makeup dept works just as well. I should probably go back through the Boobz archives and find the original rant. It was pretty funny, about how deceptive makeup is and how it simulates sexual arousal in women to fool men into thinking she wants them. Vintage MRA idiocy.
And that didn’t take long: http://manboobz.com/2013/01/29/mgtower-wearing-makeup-turns-women-into-darth-vader/
@Poxy
So you are JAQing off? No point at all? Not sure that is any better, really.
@katz: Keep in mind, this is only the first in a series of videos. She could very easily do one of those in the future.
@Marie, Yes it looks like marinerachel was responding to your question. Here’s a little more info on HPV and the vaccine.
@katz, Thanks. Good points. And on your analysis of gender in film, I thought you might appreciate this. 😀
@Roscoe P. Coltrane: A bunch of people have responded to various aspects your comments already, but I wanted to focus on one point that I think you’ve missed: that people can participate in reinforcing and upholding unjust patterns of social control without intending to, wanting to, or even realising that they’re doing it.
I think this protective instinct is a perfect example of the point.
Understand firstly that I don’t believe that either you or regeya actually want rape to exist, or that the existence of rape makes you all rub your hands together in glee and think ‘oh good, now I have an excuse to control my daughter’. I am sure that when you give your daughters or the other women in your lives advice on how to keep themselves safe, you do so for no other reason than because you love them. However, your protective instinct and desire to prevent her rape – motivated by love as it is – has unintended consequences.
First, advice on what to wear, how to behave, where it’s safe to go at night, etc. (much of it misguided, btw) amounts to control over her. It’s not as though you are using the threat of rape as a means to control her to your own ends, but that will be the outcome of the situation. In the most extreme examples, women are prevented from going anywhere outside the house unchaperoned. Our society is more liberal than that, however the more subtle constraints on what she can do and how she can behave will have the same effect, that it will stifle her autonomy and her opportunities to participate in society and make her full contribution. This reinforces the advantage that men have over women in terms of freedoms, opportunities, and ultimately power.
Second, more perniciously, the advice given (unless it’s very carefully worded and grounded in sound theory) will carry with it a message that if she does get raped, it will be at least partially her fault. This message has an absolutely devastating effect on women who have been raped. They often struggle with issues of guilt, self-doubt and self-blame, so to have society telling them that their rape was their own fault is horrendously unjust. And then there are a whole heap of complicated nasty flow-on effects that I couldn’t do justice in this short comment.
I think it’s great that you love the women in your life and want them to be safe. There are many avenues through which you could usefully direct this protective instinct. For example, it’s already been mentioned that the overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. It’s my impression that not many people know this fact, and I think that arming girls with that knowledge would not only go some ways to protecting them, but empower them if it does happen to correctly identify what it was that happened to them, and then to feel safe telling someone about it. Maybe the other commenters will have some other ideas.
I watched it and thought it was a good start however I do think she could have gone over why it was a bad thing for women (and men too actually) more at the end. I look forward to the next one.
That make up rant was…weird.
@cloudiah
thanks 🙂 I just couldn’t tell. (and thanks too to marinerachel for responding)
The same thing occurred to me, however I think the decline in rapes has been steady for longer than the reduction in lead in petrol? Based on Pinker’s work with a graph of rape stats here.
Speaking of toppling of the “damsel in distress” trope, I found a Kickstarter for a book of stories of girls/women fighting. That was nice.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869717111/fight-like-a-girl-a-short-story-anthology?ref=category
The thing to look at is rape as function of ratio (rapes per hundred thousand), and then control for rape as percentage of total crimes of violence. If the numbers for rape are falling faster than other violent crimes it’s reasonable to presume there is a different factor causing that decline.
Certainly, in my lifetime, the general attitudes toward rape have changed. This conversation (that it’s on the rapists to stop rape) would have been very different 30 years ago.
No problem.
We give it to twelve-ish-year-old boys and girls routinely through public health in BC.
The unpleasant sting associated with the vaccine (probably due to the VLPs) seems to be associated with increased risk of fainting. For whatever reason, when I’m administering Gardasil to classes of grade sevens, the boys hit the floor (not literally – I sit them down and support them if they faint) at twice the rate of girls.
The idea of “protecting the wimmin” has ownership overtones which has always bugged me. It also appears to fit neatly into the rugged individualist myth that animates so many anti-feminists and U.S. conservatives. Whereas, telling men that certain behaviors are unacceptable is more of a commonwealth solution and that enrages the anti-feminists and U.S. conservatives.
Getting back to the protecting myth, who chooses the protectors? (“Who watches the centurions?”) For example, police departments have had active rapist police officers. I once knew a respected pediatrician, who was also a wife beater, child beater, and a child molester.
Also, too, if “protecting the wimmin” worked at all, why has rape been such a common occurrence over all of recorded history?