A reminder of how bad it can be for a woman in a patriarchy

[SisiL78]

This article is just shocking.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/20 ... hange.html

I strongly caution against the article if stories of rape will trigger anything.

Honestly, its stuff like this that makes me so happy to live in the US. But, it also scares me to think that we are headed towards more patriarchy and how that de-values women and makes women the responsible party when they are victimized.

[emmiedahl]

Before we feel too happy to live in the US: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/20 ... fault.html

[JesusFightClub]

That...what. Do we get the murderer's side of the story next? And we all have to feel sympathetic?

Quick tip. If you're "technically a rapist" and a woman tells you you've raped her, YOU COMMITTED THE ACT OF RAPE. Which makes you A BAD PERSON.

When my SIL's murderer was being arrested, he said "But I'm a good person. Really." Didn't make it so.

[Guest Anonymous]

The rabbit hole of internet hell that follows the original link is pretty effing triggery (including the link that emmiedahl provides, which is shoved in your face the second you click the original link).

Here's one:

goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/nice-guys-commit-rape-too/#WpQmYIu5a4ORLtu9.99

This one is about how 'nice guys' rape people too. It's the equivalent of blaming video games, rap music, the parents, junk food, the dog ate it, drugs, teenage pregnancy, society, binge drinking, etc.

Here's a little nugget:

Like, for instance, the cue that says, she’s dressed in a way that I find sexy, and she’s flirting with me, so that means we’re going to have sex. That is not an illogical conclusion.

Another gem:

The rapist is just a person who may genuinely not realize that what he’s doing is rape.

Here's another one:

The problem isn’t even that he’s a rapist.

[Arete]

Holy someone needs a good chemical castration.....what the HELL did I just read in sogba's quotes? :shock:

She's has a sexy dress, she is flirting......the logical conclusion is she has a nice outfit on and having a good time, not that she wants to sleep with you.

No is NOOOOOOOOO! There is nothing ambiguous about the word. Having sex with a woman after she has said "No!" is rape.

The problem IS that he is a rapist. That is the problem, and a big one.

[SisiL78]

Egads, its enough to just make me want to stay in the house.

While I have never been accused of being sexy and/or alluring (except by lovely FH who is most definitely blinded by wuv) I have seen how hard it is for some guys to take "No" for an answer. I've had several issues in the past where I thought I had clearly rejected some dude and he still continued to contact me or follow me around at an event or something. Heck, even after getting engaged some of them came back to see if I was still single and looking (Note to those guys, still wouldn't be into you). What is it that makes someone not see "no" as no? I'm not into you, even if I am wearing a cleavage revealing shirt... I didn't wear this for your benefit.

I do find the Indian gang rape scenario scarier as it seems that there isn't even much sympathy for a child who kept on being attacked. And that somehow being out and about with a male friend on a bus at friggin' 9pm is the "excuse" the attackers had for attacking the 23 y.o.... it sounded to me that they found their actions somehow justified. It doesn't sound too much different from the idea of honor killings.

[cindyluvs24]

Perhaps these guys at the "man" Project need a different approach. I like your car. Its a nice car. I know you put in the garage overnight but obviously when you drive it around you want people to see it. I am going to break into your garage and take your car joyriding. I'm going to drag race and donut. Perhaps I'll just carjack it from you at gunpoint. Did I damage your car? Did I take it without permission? No, you allowed it to happen because I saw it and I liked it. Its your fault, and besides, all I did was drive it a little roughly, not that different from what you do to it. Its not a crime. I'm a good person. Yeah, and if that doesn't convince them there's always Jersey justice (a baseball bat). Of course, real justice would be what they encounter in prison.

[SayNoToMullets]

But if something walks like a fuck and talks like fuck, at what point are we supposed to understand that it’s not a fuck?

Nice. Woman-as-object. We're not autonomous beings with free will of our own, we're just fucks.

The entitlement men have about my time and my body really pisses me off. One time, a client at my internship thought I was coming onto him because I was serving him food. We were serving everyone food that day! He then later on came up to my office and started coming onto me very aggressively - his primary caseworker was in audible distance so she pulled him in for a nice long chat. Evidently he had tried the same with other caseworkers, and any woman who's nice to him is sending "mixed signals." But it's offensive how some guys think that just because I'm being friendly or doing my job, that's their in for their motives. It's not even that I'm overtly sexy most of the time, but I am a young woman, and look like the sort who would be "nice" (read: compliant).

[RosyDaisy]

"Good" men know that NO means NO!

[Peas n carrots]

"Good" men know that NO means NO!

Exactly. If I'm tired I tell my DH and he puts on the brakes. He knows he is not entitled to anything just by being married. How do these tools that don't even know me think they are entitled to the same?

Not that I really admire the culture as shown in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, but I do think it is interesting that the unmarried women will dress in a very provocative way but it is very clear to the men that they are not entitled to their bodies in their culture. So even in a very rigid patriarchies there are definite rules about sex and respecting women's bodies (in a somewhat twisted way).

.

[2xx1xy1JD]

All of that was just painful to read.

I once wrote about post-Holocaust anti-Nazi theology, and observed that the very meaning of terms like good and evil were changed by it. When some people would talk about how ordinary people didn't ask questions and really confront what was going on around them, or would write about the banality of evil and how Eichmann just "just following orders", they were assuming that these were good people who happened to be involved with something that was evil. When I was growing up, however, that was turned on its head: If the Holocaust was Hell and Nazism was evil, then anything that allowed it to happen must also be evil. If a culture of obedience could give rise to someone who could plot genocide in the name of "following orders", then obedience itself was linked to evil. If a culture of conformity meant that no one questioned the disappearance of a group that seemed different, then conformity was bad.

I felt the same feeling reading the "Nice Guy Rape Too" piece. It prompts us to redefine "nice".

"Nice" doesn't mean that we know someone, since bad guys aren't all faceless boogeymen.

"Nice" doesn't mean that someone is well-dressed and clean.

"Nice" doesn't mean that someone doesn't hang out in back alleys.

"Nice" doesn't mean smart or funny or well-connected or able to make conversation or decently employed.

"Nice" means that someone has enough respect for others that he or she would not violate their body without proper consent - even if they were horny, even if they were in a situation where they thought that they could get away with it, even if no one was standing over them announcing that it was wrong, even if they had blurred their senses through drugs and alcohol.

[mstee]

This quote from the article blew my mind. I put it in a spoiler since it could be triggering.

a 13-year old girl was gang-raped by four boys. After they left her by the side of the road to die, she crawled into a brick kiln, where she was found and raped by two other men. Later, she was found and raped by a rickshaw driver, only to be abducted and raped for another nine days by a truck driver and his accomplice.

There are no words.

[B5SnowDog]

Not that I really admire the culture as shown in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, but I do think it is interesting that the unmarried women will dress in a very provocative way but it is very clear to the men that they are not entitled to their bodies in their culture. So even in a very rigid patriarchies there are definite rules about sex and respecting women's bodies (in a somewhat twisted way).

Did you see the episodes that featured grabbing?

[Micah]

The grabbing 'tradition' (ick) didn't feature at all in the American series. I don't know if they just glossed over it, but it wasn't brought up, or shown at all.

Sorry, Hi! I don't post very often :-)

[RosyDaisy]

That may be because of cultural/ethnic differences. The American series featured Romanichel gypsies, and the British series featured primarily Irish Travellers. Those are 2 very different groups.

[B5SnowDog]

The grabbing 'tradition' (ick) didn't feature at all in the American series. I don't know if they just glossed over it, but it wasn't brought up, or shown at all.

Sorry, Hi! I don't post very often :-)

Yeah, the American series was My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding.

And hello. :-)

[Jinger Jar]

While I might catch flack for saying this, but here I go.

I have both lived and extensively traveled in South and Southeast Asia for 25 years. And I have never, ever, ever, ever, never ever been pinched, groped, squeezed, fondled, wolf whistled, and and just plain harassed by male strangers as I am when I'm in India.

Public transportation is the worst, and overnight train journeys are a nightmare. Men feel it's completely Okay to stick their hands behind the sleeping berth curtain and cop a feel all night long. On one trip I woke up to a woman screaming. A group of local men had pulled a young Japanese or Korean woman out of her sleeping berth and were carrying her to another compartment, and if it hadn't been for her friends and a group of burly Israeli men who jumped in to help, God only knows what would have happened to her. And the local guys? They honestly could not understand why another group of guys would take issue with their behavior. True story.

I'm not trying to stereotype. I'm not trying to be xenophobic. I'm not trying suggest that every man from India is a rapist or even that most are capable of that behavior. And I've found this behavior to be more pervasive in some parts of the country than others. But I have encountered it over and over again there. I've not spent enough time in the culture to even begin to say what this is, but I have experienced it a lot, and it's thoroughly infuriating.

[patsymae]

Okay, I'm going to get personal here, and warning this will probably be long, so skip if you want.

I was gang-raped at age 15 and became pregnant from that. I had been out when I wasn't supposed to, and when I got uncomfortable at a party when an older man hit on me, I accepted a ride home from guys my own age--and was raped. I was young. blonde, pretty, and out when I wasn't supposed to have been, and therefore, according to parents, cops and just about everybody--I either was a slut who was lying about being raped or a slut who deserved to be raped. At that time police were actually posting notices that said, "if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it." (This was supposedly a well-intended message to not get yourself murdered, but the phrasing is instructive.) A male (former) friend told me, when I asked how HE would feel if he were raped, that that would be an entirely different situation--the act itself isn't repulsive for a woman, while the act itself is for a heterosexual man. Ergo, rape should not be traumatic to women.

Fast forward almost exactly 40 years, and I was raped by a burglar in my own home. I had been burgled two times before (this is when I lived in a Caribbean country) but the guy came back when he knew I was at home because the two previous attempts had netted him not much and he knew that I must have had money somewhere. This was at 4 in the morning; I was in my mid-50s, overweight, in my own home which had bars on all the doors and windows. This guy raped me it still seems to me almost as an afterthought--originally he came up from behind, nearly strangled me to death and told me he wasn't going to hurt me just wanted money. Then he decided to amuse himself, before leaving in my car.

So being a fat old lady alone at home at 4 pm (I worked nights and went straight home after work) didn't "protect" me from being raped. Nor did the reinforced locks and bars that my landlord had installed after the burglaries.

What did I do wrong? Be alive? Work? Raped two times in my life over more than 50 years? Maybe I'm just the kind of person who subconsciously attracts rapists?

Yet I've had people (again, now former friends) including women, tell me things like "I wouldn't let myself be raped." Yeah, like it's a frigging choice.

Rape has zip to do with sex, and it is not the same as sex that you just don't feel like having at the time. It is a violation not only of your body, but of your soul, the essence of your being. It is not something that you ever "get over."

And it's not always about dominating women, either. Raping women, especially when it is cross-cultural or cross-racial (even the UN finally admitted that after the Serbian/Croatian mess) is often just men using women to communicate to other men. In the US, white men--look what I can do to YOUR women. Almost all conquering armies. Use raping women to show up "their" men.

I have to say that I'm totally disgusted at rape being a discussion in the public agenda, unless it is to develop public policy that will protect women. Other than that, who is "really" raped, what is "real" rape, who "deserves" to be raped and who doesn't, whose pregnancies are a result of "real" rape and what the government should allow them to do about it, and whether women who want to terminate a pregnancy should be subjected to a test of whether they were 1) raped (because women who voluntarily engage in sex deserve a "gift from god" as a punishment, or 2) if the woman who says she was raped was "really" raped--then the rest of nice society, who believes that no one they know, or themselves, would ever "let themselves" be raped) it total crap and should not be anything that any political body in the US should have as an agenda.

[desertvixen]

Raping women, especially when it is cross-cultural or cross-racial (even the UN finally admitted that after the Serbian/Croatian mess) is often just men using women to communicate to other men.

This.

[Bbfamteam]

While I might catch flack for saying this, but here I go.

I have both lived and extensively traveled in South and Southeast Asia for 25 years. And I have never, ever, ever, ever, never ever been pinched, groped, squeezed, fondled, wolf whistled, and and just plain harassed by male strangers as I am when I'm in India.

Public transportation is the worst, and overnight train journeys are a nightmare. Men feel it's completely Okay to stick their hands behind the sleeping berth curtain and cop a feel all night long. On one trip I woke up to a woman screaming. A group of local men had pulled a young Japanese or Korean woman out of her sleeping berth and were carrying her to another compartment, and if it hadn't been for her friends and a group of burly Israeli men who jumped in to help, God only knows what would have happened to her. And the local guys? They honestly could not understand why another group of guys would take issue with their behavior. True story.

I'm not trying to stereotype. I'm not trying to be xenophobic. I'm not trying suggest that every man from India is a rapist or even that most are capable of that behavior. And I've found this behavior to be more pervasive in some parts of the country than others. But I have encountered it over and over again there. I've not spent enough time in the culture to even begin to say what this is, but I have experienced it a lot, and it's thoroughly infuriating.

No you are right. I traveled for almost 7 weeks around the Indian countryside and experienced much of what you mentioned. My friend straight up slapped a guy in a crowd after he copped a feel, and after people started staring at him, he then quickly slunk away with his buddies. Not all men were like that, I met plenty of awesome respectful people, but it was more acceptable for some to try and there really weren't any consequences for those who did. There were a couple of young men who even tried messing with me on the plane back but a death glare and a threat to call over the flight attendant put a stop to that pretty quickly.

[patsymae]

"There were a couple of young men who even tried messing with me on the plane back but a death glare and a threat to call over the flight attendant put a stop to that pretty quickly."

Good for you and your death glare. Oh, yeah, and a threat to call the flight attendant. How stupid of me not to have threatened to call over the flight attendant.

[Bbfamteam]

"There were a couple of young men who even tried messing with me on the plane back but a death glare and a threat to call over the flight attendant put a stop to that pretty quickly."

Good for you and your death glare. Oh, yeah, and a threat to call the flight attendant. How stupid of me not to have threatened to call over the flight attendant.

I actually hadn't read your post when I wrote mine. I was responding to the person who mentioned that they were harassed while traveling. Our situations were very different and I would not make light of what happened to you. I was in a controlled environment with about 300 other people around, if I hadn't been who knows what I would have done or not done.

[shedemei]

An Indian coworker and I have talked about this a few times. It hit her really hard as she knows how awful it is to be a woman in India. She tells me that, in the rural areas, it is considered so shaming for women to be raped that they'll kill themselves. In some cases the entire family will commit suicide.

[fundifugee]

Crossing India off the list of places I want to spend a few months. Not worth it, too many good places where rape is not so common and acceptable.

[EyeQueue]

Okay, I'm going to get personal here, and warning this will probably be long, so skip if you want.

I am so sorry this happened to you. We should all be shouting the points you made from the rooftops until these asshat men and complicit, judgmental women (who would not 'allow' themselves to be raped) get it through their thick skulls. :(