Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto is probably the closest thing to an authentic Men’s Rights Activist there is operating in the mainstream media today, by which I mean he regularly puts forth “arguments” on gender issues that are breathtaking in their backwardness.
His latest, er, contribution to the gender debate? A column in which he suggested that drunk women who are raped on college campuses by drunk men are as guilty as their rapists. No, really. Here’s his argument, such as it is:
If two drunk drivers are in a collision, one doesn’t determine fault on the basis of demographic details such as each driver’s sex. But when two drunken college students “collide,” the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault. His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating factor for him.
Huh. I’m pretty sure we determine the victim of a rape not on demographics but based on WHICH PERSON RAPED THE OTHER PERSON. Much in the way we would charge a drunken person who shot another drunken person with shooting that person, rather than simply throwing up our hands and saying, well, they were both drunk, so no harm no foul, right?
For a longer take on the issue, check out this piece over on Media Matters.
Media Matters has also assembled a nice, and mercifully rather brief, media montage of some of Taranto’s other pronouncements on gender issues. See if you can make it to the end without pulling out all of your hair.
What Howard Bannister said. And then they kick up a lot of dust over just HOW drunk someone was, and HOW much they didn’t resist, and they act like it’s this huge clusterfuck when basically: people, don’t try to take advantage of someone’s drunkenness to get laid. NOT THAT COMPLICATED.
LBT:
Do you remember what the blog was called? That sounds like a good read.
I need to amend this earlier comment, because I realized that what they’re objecting to is that rape is even a thing. Giving it a name, making it both illegal and socially unacceptable, implies that you are wronging another person, when in their view, women shouldn’t be considered people. How can it be a crime to do sex to a woman, when that’s what we’re for?
An oxymoron is when a two-word phrase is made of words that appear to contradict each other, like “living dead” or “jumbo shrimp”. I think the word you’re looking for re: “stupid MRA” is “redundant”.
Found it, sparky! It’s a series. (Obviously, rape is discussed in here, so be forewarned before you go in.)
Oof, I forgot that it was specifically about rape within the BDSM community; it’s been a while. Still, a lot applies regardless. The author starts mentioning the “social license to operate” in <a href="http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/theres-a-war-on-part-2-the-creepy-dom-and-the-the-people-on-the-fringe/"this installment. It gets discussed even more so here. And yes, there is graphic discussion of violent rape and communities behaving very badly.
(Shit like this, by the way, is why I never did end up getting into the kink scene back at my old city. It just seemed like Rapelandia.)
Lea Tapp, your friend’s story is heartbreaking. I ended up arguing with some people in the comments of the MediaMatters article linked above, because they were claiming men couldn’t be raped, and it just makes me see red. This is what we’re talking about when we say “the Patriarchy hurts men too”.
None of which has jack shit to do with whether or not women are/should be equal (legally or morally) to men. People like to trot out that “men and women are different” as if that proves we’re also not equal, but I’ve never understood what it’s supposed to prove. “Equal” does not mean “identical”, does it?
Except we kinda do blame murder victims for being killed, especially if they’re black and/or female.
Yeah, the US has a long, sad history of putting the onus on disadvantaged groups to prove that they deserve fair treatment. Land of the free, baby!
Are we doing oxymorons? I saw a sign for new historic homes once.
I laughed at this. Does that make me a Terrible Person?
(It was the absurdity. I swear.)
LBT: Thank you!
Brain bleach? How about I flood the thread with chihuahua puppies?
http://www.smalldogsrock.com/post/23931357007/a-whole-bunch-of-chihuahua-puppies-getting-ready
http://leslyo.deviantart.com/art/one-of-our-chihuahua-puppies-333334963
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BxtKO53LEWI
Cretaceous, not Jurassic
/dinosaur pedant
I’d say it’s more that they don’t care. We’ve seen over and over again that MRAs don’t give a shit about real issues men face. Nothing matters to them except being able to victimise women; they really are rape advocates.
Unfortunately we do, especially when a woman is the victim. It’s only in the last few years that provocation has been removed as a defence here, and that was after a case when a long-term abuser made up shit about how his wife had taunted his sexual performance, provoking him to strangle her. He basically got away with it: short sentence for manslaughter, and he’s already out.
Is tautology the word?
Though MRAs are redundant in every sense. 😛
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
RE: emilygoddess
because they were claiming men couldn’t be raped, and it just makes me see red.
Heh. I should introduce them to my family sometime. I can’t help but envy their shiny little existence that makes such a thing so alien to their worldview.
Also, victim-blaming exists because a lot of people just can not handle the idea that the world is not a mostly fair place. It’s mentally easier to decide someone must have done something wrong rather than revamp your whole idea of the universe.
LBT – holy shit, that thing from Yes Means Yes about the knife.
That … I can’t say here what I’d want to do to that man.
What always gets me about these remarks, apart from the obvious typical rape culture denial crap, is that they try to portray themselves as edgy and ground breaking with their, um arguments. This is such age old, tired, and archaic crap. Nothing new here folks! Same-o same-o. Seriously, at least get an original thought if you’re gonna start a “discussion” about rape while being a misogynistic tool.
Yeah, redundancy was what I was after. I blame a lack of caffeine for when I posted, plus distraction from kitties. The youngest has now decided he is going to fuss if he can’t get immediately on my lap at the computer, I push the keyboard tray away, get my legs out for him, etc, then he walks on my lap and immediately jumps off me and onto the cat tree next to the desk.
I think he’s showing he’s my alpha male. He’s not wrong, I am below *all* the cats in the pecking order, in their minds.
Cat paw, I am under it.
RE: Nitram
I know, right? It’s like they expect us to applaud their oh-so-original thinking.
WOW GEE MISTER NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE
Feline Perversity, it is a thing.
“I dont want to sit in that chair, what makes you think I wanted to? Just because I was sitting on the table next to it and staring you out of countenance and jumping on the back of the chair and the arm and going back to the table and staring again doesn’t mean you should presume to think you know what I want.” – Maddie, paraphrased.
I feel I should also mention that the cats don’t like it if I drink alcohol, or come home after drinking alcohol. They don’t care what Mr Kiwi does, but I get clear disdain from them if I have had anything to drink.
I have wowser MGTOWs in my house.
Totally off topic, don’t know where to put this:
I don’t post here often but lurk a lot. But I know that some of you got to know Lana, DallasApple, here recently. She started posting quite a bit the last couple of months. She said she really loved this place and the people here.
I just wanted to let you know that Lana is in the hospital right now fighting for her life. I don’t want to share too many details here and I don’t know a whole lot. She had an infection in her lungs and she’s been in the hospital almost two weeks now. It doesn’t look good. She’s been in a drug induced coma while they try to keep her oxygen levels up and give her antibiotics.
If any of you are the praying sort, please pray for her. And otherwise, send good thoughts her way. She’s one of the best people I know.
Oh geez, poor Lana.
Oh no! Poor dallasapple! D:
“Also, victim-blaming exists because a lot of people just can not handle the idea that the world is not a mostly fair place. It’s mentally easier to decide someone must have done something wrong rather than revamp your whole idea of the universe.”
The Just World fallacy; probably the single most damaging fallacy of all.
That Yes Means Yes! is a really good analysis; and a really tough read.
[TW: rape and rape myths]
The author of that series linked to an article wrote on ze wrote on Feministe, which is relevant:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/03/25/predator-theory/
Brings together all these things much better than I can:
1. Most rapes are not the “stranger in the bushes” type, but acquaintance rape.
2. Most rapes are committed by a small percentage of repeat offenders, who consciously and maliciously use the tactic of getting a woman so drunk she doesn’t know what’s happening to commit rape. These men are predators who know exactly what they are doing.
3. These rapists consciously utilize that tactic because of the rape mythology in the culture. They know that a victim is less likely to report; and even if they did, would be less likely to be believed; if the victim was intoxicated. They use society’s attitudes to get away with rape.
4. The myth of sexual “grey areas” really helps rapists get away with rape.
That whole “it’s not rape, it’s drunk sex” myth just needs to die.
Woah, dallasapple is in the hospital? All the best of wishes from here, that’s for certain. Yikes. Thank you for taking the time to update us on that Nynaeve
Oh no! I am the praying type, so I’ll be sending prayers to Lana!
Please keep us posted, Nynaeve.
Thanks everyone, I’ll try to keep you updated as I know more.
We’re looking in to some sort of donation program to help with medical expenses. I’ll let you all know the details of that once we figure it out.
It’s just so unexpected. She was healthy and then all of a sudden she started having a back pain. She didn’t want to go to the hospital. And now she’s unconscious and she may just slip away. Most of her best friends are all online friends and so we can’t even go visit her.