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So the Sigma Nu house at Old Dominion University in Virginia apparently decided last weekend to reinforce the not-exactly-unjustified popular perception that fraternities are basically giant petri dishes for growing rape culture by hanging these lovely banners out for all incoming students to see.
People have already come out of the woodwork to defend the banners as “politically incorrect” humor, as Amanda Marcotte points out on Pandagon, and suggesting that they can’t possibly be referring to rape. She quotes one Washington Post commenter, who claims that while
the signs are crude and dumb … this repulsive habit of charging “rape culture” every time a male mentions sex with a female is even more crude, more dumb, and far more dangerous. There is absolutely nothing in the signs (at least not the ones in the photo above) that even implies non-consensual sex. These lunatics throw around “rape” the way Joe McCarthy flung around “communist” and with just as much concern for truth and justice as he did.
Marcotte, who has encountered more than her share of mansplainy MRA trolls over the years, points out the fundamental bad faith of this “argument.”
Just because the signs imply rather than overtly call for force does not mean they aren’t rape culture. This is how rape culture is, in fact, created: Through winks and nudges, rather than overt calls to force sex on women.
While the banners do not overtly say “rape” on them, the implication is easy enough to see, even for people pretending they don’t see it. …
If you think of consent as something that is freely given and enthusiastic, the coercive element of these signs, which portray women as basically fuckholes who have no say in how they’re used, is staring you right in the face. …
But, of course, that comment shows what rape apologists always do: They suddenly pretend they are aliens from another planet and only learned human language last week and therefore are incapable of picking up on humor, implication, non-verbal communication and nuanced language. They pretend to ascribe to a form of communication so literal that even the slightest bit of metaphor or implication, to hear them talk, sends them spinning into a state of confusion.
Sounds like more than a few MRAs and GamerGaters I’ve encountered in my day. Actually, it sounds like almost all of them.
Happily, the school administrators at Old Dominion University are having none of it, suspending the frat pending an investigation.
Over at Fox News’ Outnumbered show — the one with all the women on it — co-host Harris Faulkner resorted to the old “boys will be boys” argument, saying that
these guys are teenagers and in their twenties and they were probably drunk when they were writing the sign … they’re just having a good time.
Later in the show, after co-host Kennedy Montgomery jokingly suggested she would send her own daughters to a convent to keep them safe, Faulkner declared
I’m going to keep them home in the kitchen.
For anyone playing along at home, this is rape culture too.
I think the Corbyn single-sex carriages might just be a dog-whistle to his Islamist supporters. This isn’t being talked about much, but Islamist support can and does sway selections and elections in certain constituencies (like mine) – I don’t know how much difference it could make in a national race, but given the weird voting methods – who knows? Especially given the fact, that although there has been some talk recently about this being a problem in Paris, there hasn’t been much talk of this in London. Yes, I HAVE seen verbal harassment so bad that I have pretended to be a woman’s friend so that she wouldn’t be seen as ‘on her own’ and another woman joined us a part of ‘our group’ (yay sisterhood!) and it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if incidents do occur on the Underground, but I haven’t heard much about this being a big problem. And I take the LU many times a week and used to take it back after a night out when you could still drink alcohol on the train – ah, those were the days.
… “Islamist”?
http://i.imgur.com/7twtbRN.gif
Speaking of dog whistles…
Perhaps you could have looked at the article in which the suggestion appeared before making this ridiculous smear? Corbyn suggests the possiblity of introducing such carriages at night. What Islamist is going to want women travelling alone, let alone doing so at night? Corbyn places the suggestion in the context of other measures to combat harrassment of women in public spaces. The article also mentions that Clare Perry, the Conservative Transport Minister, raised the same possibility a year ago. Was she dog-whistling to Islamists?
Corbyn actually says that he’s not too keen on the idea of women only carriages and he’d prefer to address the subject of violence and harassment generally; but that he had been approached by some women’s groups who’d suggested the idea so he said he’d have a consultation about this if elected.
Now his opponents are spinning it as if he’s suggesting that women should lock themselves away of they don’t want to be raped. If you know how hostile this election contest is it puts it in context.
As for the Islamist thing, it’s probably fair to say he had been a bit naïve. He’s spoken at meetings where women have been forced to sit at the back of the room and he’s shared a platform with people who have some rather repressive views on women (and think gays should be killed) and called them ‘friends’.
He’s nowhere in the league of rape apologist George Galloway though; now there is someone who is willing to throw women under a bus to appeal to Islamists. Luckily now he lost his seat in the last election despite his slurs against his opponent. She’s a Pakistani woman who recounted how she’d been raped when she was 15. He accused her of racism and trying to bad mouth men by lying about her age. (apparently it cant be rape if you’re over 15). His general position is that you can’t expect men to get consent for each act of penetration anyway. He’s a real charmer.
Re Islamist
For the sake of clarity I should probably mention that in the UK this is a term specifically used to distinguish those people who subscribe to a particularly repressive and violent form of Islam and wish to see it imposed on the general population, by force if necessary, from your everyday Muslim.
These goddamn rape apologists. I wish they would just piss the hell off.
Virginia is for lovers….. Whether they like it or not.
@maghavan
About three or four years… maybe five? I’m only 25, but what I meant is that I initially just went to this tiny-ass college with no dorms or anything; it literally sat on the side of a highway across from a mall.
Granted, it didn’t offer much in the way of classes, but I had been planning to go to a proper college thinking it would be fine, and then I see things like this… and considering I’m already prone to just completely shutting down and wilting in a corner when it comes to even polite strangers….. yeah, this is not a situation I want to put myself in, because that’s basically just leaping right into the lion enclosure. If I ever get the chance to go back to college, I’ll stick with online degrees.
(I have no idea what you mean about the youth thing, though.)
“rather than overt calls to force sex on women.”
So in other words rape culture is too beta for a self-respecting Roosh supporter.
Yes, I agree – he should have been a lot more careful who he associated with, and I’m inclined to think it was more like turning a blind eye than simple naivete: anyone involved in pro-Palestinian or anti “Global War on Terror” activism needs to be aware that antisemites, misogynists and homophobes are also involved, and to oppose their influence. But then, two of his opponents voted for an illegal war in Parliament, and the third would undoubtedly have done so if she had been there at the time. And Corbyn’s known and open foreign policy views and opposition to domestic anti-Muslim bigotry make the idea that he would need to “dog whistle Islamists” all the more absurd.
Ugh. This one always annoys me. (I mean they all do, obviously, but I’ll focus on this one.)
When I was in college, there was a guy in my close circle who was *extremely* awkward. I don’t remember if he had actually been diagnosed with Asperger’s or had self-diagnosed– self-diagnoses of Asperger’s were big at my college, lol– but regardless, he was definitely very socially awkward and missed a whole lot of social cues.
The thing is, like the great majority of awkward, social-cue-missing people who are functional enough to go away to college and take care of themselves, he knew perfectly well he had trouble reading cues. So, when it came to touching people (outside of normal things like handshakes), if he wanted to initiate, HE ASKED FIRST.
He asked first if he wanted to put his arm around me when we were watching TV on the couch. He asked if it was alright to snuggle closer. When he wanted to kiss me, he asked first if that was okay with me. He waited for my answer before proceeding, and if I said no, he accepted that without anger or blame.
And it was the most amazing thing, he didn’t spontaneously combust once! He didn’t appear to be suffering terribly, or in fact to be in any kind of pain whatsoever! (Though I admit accepting rejection so gracefully may have been difficult.) It was almost like he found this a reasonable, comfortable way of interacting with women for him! It’s amazing! A socially awkward, sign-missing man who could manage not to rape or sexually assault a woman who has trouble saying no “clearly” enough. (In fact, since he waited for an answer, simply the lack of a “yes” would halt anything.) He must have some kind of superpower!
Oh, no, wait. It wasn’t a superpower, it was decency. He had decency. My mistake.
Any socially awkward, social-cue-missing person person who was aware of the issues and had decency could act the way he does, and thus never rape and sexually assault anyone, because the lack of positive consent would stop anything from moving forward.