This comment by kckrupp was in response to Lisa Hickey’s post “Rapists I Have Known.“
I completely agree that with the exception of a few radical pockets, feminists in general do not see it as “all men are bad,” and I think the bigger problem is carelessness in language and ‘accidental’ blame. A good example of this is the Slutwalk and the recent incident with the PA Liquor Control Board’s ad where the slogan that came out of the ordeal was “Don’t Get Raped vs Don’t Rape.” The “Don’t Rape” slogan is the same thing men have been told over and over again in regards to date rape. I’ve been to several date rape prevention education programs and talks directed at men (university required it as part of a fraternity) and they all boiled down to the same message over and over: “Don’t rape.”
The problem is, most men think rape is vile and respond with, “Well I’m not a rapist, I don’t want to be a rapist, I’m not going to ever rape anyone, so this message has nothing to do with me.” They tune the message out, just as Odds described.
An even bigger part of the problem is the entitlement belief that I see coming from most activist groups. They take a staunch “I’m right and you’re wrong” approach, and I mean almost ALL activist groups. Most activist groups seem to take the standpoint that society should rise to meet their ideology, rather than crouching down to meet society at eye level and then help society work their way to standing up taller. That is the key difference I see in Lisa’s piece and the Good Men Project as a whole from other gender-focused websites. You see, Cara, you are right, Men need to help men understand how to stop rape from happening and so do women, because if men currently don’t see it as a problem or are tuning the message out, then the burden is on those trying to change society and resolve the problem. Fortunately, the GMP is going about it the right way by talking about things in terms or personal reflection and perspective, connecting to men at their level, as equals, telling men you are great and valuable, and capable of great things, and we need good men like all of you to change the world. It doesn’t tell them, well you better do this, it allows men to come to their own conclusions and make the decisions on their own. And that is the only way to truly change a person’s mind and one by one change society.
♦◊♦
This is the comment by Odds that is referred to in the comment above:
Moreover, there needs to be some incentive for men to be good – if I’m assumed to be a rapist or a potential rapist by a group of people, I’m not going to try to change their minds, I’m going to disengage from them and find someone else to associate with. Same as how I expect a black man would react if I assumed he was a felon and drug addict until proven otherwise, or how a Jew would probably react if I assumed he was a Zionist agent until proven otherwise, or how a woman would react if I assumed she were a man-hating lesbian until proven otherwise. It’s every bit as unjust and cruel. Assuming the worst in everyone I see, even if it were (hypothetically) borne out in the statistics, creates an environment where the best of any group have nothing to gain by being part of it.
Say that society changed and I, as a man, was presumed guilty in a legal sense in the event of any accusation – rape, harassment, abuse, whatever. Name your feminist cause, I’m presumed guilty. Why would I bother to interact with any woman I did not already trust? Any slight emotional instability, any trace of feminist ideology in a woman, and I would have nothing to do with her. Too risky. Why would I bother to get involved when I see another man making questionable moves? The person reporting any crime is nearly always a suspect as far as the police are concerned. Why would I ever get involved and intervene on a woman’s behalf in the face of that risk? I’d simply not get involved. I can think of one woman who might be raped or dead today if I had not intervened on her behalf – but she was drunk enough at the time that, in a world of presumptive male guilt, she would have been unable to tell which of us was the good one.
It’s not so unbelievable. How many poor black neighborhoods are full of otherwise regular, innocent folks who simply refuse to talk to the police about anything? Who believe, with fair reasons, that the police do not have their community’s best interests at heart?
None of that is unreasonable. We live in a world where a five year-old playing doctor is a sex offender. If we take the feminist assertion that rape accusations are not believed often enough as a fact, for argument’s sake, then look at the world presumptive male guilt creates: in the short term, all this does is inflict the same injustice on another group (which is fine if two wrongs make a right, I suppose). In the long term, it casts doubt outside of the legal realm on the word of any woman. What man would ever believe a rape claim if he knew that in all cases, the woman’s word was enough? How many men need only be convicted by word alone before other, innocent men stop seeing it as justice? What would those men think of female accusers? Even honest accusers would not be believed, since the men were convicted on word alone, and not on evidence.
I think rape should be a matter of law. So, unfortunately as may be, it needs to be proved by evidence. As a professor, I’ve seen morning-after regret turned into action against male students. On the basis of one witness. Not good. This either is or isn’t rape culture. Not very meaningful anyway. Rape culture is prison– that’s true.
Say that society changed and I, as a man, was presumed guilty in a legal sense in the event of any accusation – rape, harassment, abuse, whatever. That’s already true. Feminists created an environment where a man accused of a sexual crime against a woman would be presumed guilty ahead of any legal process. That’s why we talk of a “rape victim” in a rape trial instead of talking about a “prosecution witness”. Calling her a “rape victims” says that the case has already been decided. That’s why the “rape victim”s name is not released but the man’s is. Because… Read more »
“To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Interesting sentiment! Facts and Candid! Have the meanings changed so much since 1848?
It’s a shame they didn’t stick with blaming “the government” instead of “man”, as they did in the line above. In fact that whole line is just pure rubbish. They had no business pretending to know that throughout history anything was going on. They were not anthropologists and they didn’t cite any evidence of historic events. it’s just a completely pointless attack on men. And It’s inserted deliberately because it breaks the pattern of mimicking the Declaration of Independence used up to that point. Although having said that in that metaphor who exactly were the women declaring their independence from… Read more »
“They were not anthropologists and they didn’t cite any evidence of historic events. ”
Has It changed?
I keep looking at the Original Citation of the term “Rape Culture” – and it seems for anthropomorphic reasons and for historical, even hysterical, inaccuracy, no-one will go near it!
Never let reason get in the way of a good Myth! All religions and cults are like that!
Summoning Lisa! (must… not… abuse… this power) The featured comment was actually a response to a different comment than the one reproduced above. The actual comment it was in reply to was one by Cara (dated December 23, 2011 at 1:31 am) which said: For the zillionth time. Feminists do NOT say “All men are BAD.” Nor is it the fault of women or feminists when the dominant conversation is about how women should be afraid of men because men are animals that can’t control themselves or are “biologically driven” to be violent or lustful or whatever crap is being… Read more »
Here I am! I did realize that the first comment was in response to Cara’s comment. It might have made Kckrupp’s first sentence clearer, but I thought his comment itself stood on it’s own and made some great point. Cara’s comment did not seem like she wanted to add to the discussion in a positive, productive way. Kckrupp had mentioned Odds, and I though Odds comment also stood on it’s own but gave a a slightly different perspective. Thanks, though for clarifying. So the way it went (for those just joining in) The original post was “Rapists I have known”… Read more »
“Even honest accusers would not be believed, since the men were convicted on word alone, and not on evidence.” In some parts of the world, like Afghanistan, when a female is raped, the law there says there must be FOUR male witnesses to the rape. It’s a sexist law created to exempt men from crime, which is equivalent to condoning it. I’m glad I don’t live there. What is so hard about consent? “The person reporting any crime is nearly always a suspect as far as the police are concerned. Why would I ever get involved and intervene on a… Read more »
“It’s a sexist law created to exempt men from crime, which is equivalent to condoning it.”
If it’s found to be adultery, they’re both stoned to death.
If a woman can prove it’s rape, only he’s stoned to death.
Apparently you’ve never heard of honor killings.
Apparently you have never heard of Bacha Bazi?
Actually the rule is that it takes four witnesses to prove the woman guilty of adultery. It was explicitly created to protect women.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/05/blogging-the-quran-sura-24-the-light-verses-1-20.html
Recently there was a news story about this muslim girl being forced to choose between marrying her rapist, or spend 12 years in jail for adultery (the rapist committed adultery on his wife but claimed it was the girl seduced/raped him). Since her rape occurred without witnesses, let alone 4 male witnesses, under Islamic law, she is seen as having committed adultery (sex outside of marriage). http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/11/islamic-law-.html “Sisters In Islam, a Muslim reform group in Malaysia, has surveyed the plight of women in the Islamic world and estimates that as many as 75% of women in Pakistan who are in… Read more »
I believe that, in the USA, Rape Messages being tuned out and why the Rape Culture Meme is propagating, is due to the “Abuse” of the word rape! It will have to be hoped that the changes set out below will start to have effect after what appears to be abuse of the many under the “cudgel” of one misused and abused word. ““Forcible rape” had been defined by the UCR SRS as “the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will.” That definition, unchanged since 1927, was outdated and narrow. It only included forcible male penile penetration… Read more »
Once again the new definition does NOT cover a woman forcing a man to have sex. It would only count a man as raped if he was raped like a woman would be raped (ie penetrated by someone). And once again this is just a statistical definition for the FBI’s UCR (Uniform Crime reporting) and is NOT a legal definition of rape. Any woman who actually forced a man to have sex would be committing a crime in any state and under federal law although typically it would be called something like first degree sexual assault or aggravated sexual abuse.… Read more »
“They know how to write gender neutral definitions of rape and the decision to NOT report men raped by women is deliberate.”
Is That Allowed?
Well its the FBI’s definition. It’s not the various states deciding for themselves what to report. I suppose in theory someone could bring a lawsuit against the FBI if they had some standing to say they were harmed by a discriminatory definition of forcible rape. The 14th amendment says the government cannot discriminate on the basis of sex and the US SC has ruled that administrative convenience is not a reasonable ground for violating that. However I don’t know if anyone could reasonably convince a court they had standing – ie that they were harmed by this piece of discrimination.
“administrative convenience” indeed!