This comment was from NickMostly, replying to Joanna Schroeder, on the post “I Can’t Speak for Men and I Shouldn’t Have to“
Joanna, I think there are two things here. The first is the response to Nikki’s piece, and the second is what our moral culpability is as members of society.
Nikki’s post at first assumes that rape culture exists, and then takes men to task for not fighting it. A lot of men don’t agree with her initial premise, so it’s something of a non-starter. I think the reason many men don’t accept the idea of a rape culture is because the idea is contrary to their personal experience. I’ll take my own personal experience as an anecdote – the most misogynist man I know, a guy who has internalized the “war of the sexes” as truth and sees women as manipulative bitches, would never rape anyone. As he said to me when I asked, “What? No, that’s just fucking wrong!” I also know (knew) two rapists. One is a highly disturbed individual (we’ll call him Jack) and is recently released from jail, living in a motel, and listed on the registry. The other (we’ll call him Gene) was a gang member, who was required to rape a girl as part of his initiation. Jack insisted she wanted it and got what was coming to her. Gene realized the wrong he had committed (he saw a difference between shooting a rival gang member and assaulting a “non-combatant”) and was remorseful until the day he died.
Researchers have done a lot to tell us who the rapists are. Most rapists are not like you and me, they are lacking in empathy and have other psychological disturbances. Gene appears to be the exception. His act was not one borne of feelings of privilege or malice towards women, but because of external pressure to be part of the gang. But neither Jack nor Gene are representative of men yet, according to the way “rape culture” is often described, we are to believe that our culture tolerates the behavior and existence of Jack and Gene. We know this is not true. Even in prison rapists are looked down upon as the lowest scum.
I think to many men the idea of a rape culture is foreign because they don’t know any rapists (or at least they don’t think they do). Again, going only from my circle of friends, none of them are friends with rapists or even know any rapists (saving one who is a public defender). To them, the idea that our culture “accepts” rape just doesn’t ring true.
Whether or not we believe “rape culture” exists, there is a secondary question of what moral obligation we have to address the incidence of rape within our culture. Setting aside the fact that men are also and increasingly victims of rape, this is actually a tricky problem that is exemplified by the classic moral dilemma of the drowning girl. If you’re not familiar with it, the problem sets out that you’re walking along and you see a drowning girl struggling for help. You can dive in and rescue her, but you’re wearing a very expensive outfit that will be ruined in doing so. Most people don’t hesitate in saying they would rescue the drowning girl and that it’s the moral thing to do. However, now assume that instead of a drowning girl, you’re asked to write a check to save the life of a girl around the world. We are assured that she will die and that our financial intervention will save her. Most people do NOT feel morally compelled to write that check.
I think this is the very mechanism at work with respect to the alleged rape culture. Men will work in their immediate lives to counter rape, both by not raping and by not tolerating rape or rape language among their friends. But to ask men to “write that check” to combat rape culture, and to fault them for not doing so, is to demand men behave in ways that moral psychologists say we as a species are ill-equipped to do.
I think what you’re saying, Joanna, is essentially what Murat is saying. He is acting morally within his personal sphere and he believes that it is our requirement to do so. What he rejects, and I don’t think you’re suggesting otherwise, is the idea that men should feel guilty if they don’t write that check. I’m inclined to agree, because as just as writing the check may be, it is a moral standard to which we don’t hold ourselves, and to demand it of others is unreasonable and unfair.
About the Editors
Have to say I do like this.
I suspect that many reading it will be uncomfortable having to consider their own “relativism” when looking at many issues, and just how that informs their thinking and words around many debates.
i can see why that was comment of the day, that was a fine fine post
This is really, really impressive.
As a person who loves tools, what do you think is the “tool” that is analagous to the check in the story? This is where I’ve been struggling.
If you’ve been following all this conflict about rape culture, I wrote a piece called The (Quiet) Feminist Revolution here on GMP. In some ways I was proven wrong and was willing to think about the realities of teaching my children to find women “Safer”… In other ways I stand by my truth of the article.
One thing I stand by is that I do NOT think individual guilt over a society’s crimes is worth anything, I think it actually overwhelms the individual. I think we can shed guilt and hopefully solve the problem on a macro level, as well as on a micro level (the man diving into the water), by men like Jacob in my piece or like Murat in the one you and I commented on.
I really respect what you’ve said here and how you’ve said it. I just want to know more.
Hours after reading this a first time, I’m still asking myself “would I write that check?” Of course I would. Write a check save one living breathing individual person. It’s a specific action with a specific result. If you told me — write the check and we’ll help build the hospital which will save a child’s life — it gets harder. The more removed you are from the problem, the less sure you are in knowing that *your actions will make a difference*, and the harder it gets to save anyone.
It reminds me of a story — early in my marriage I was driving with my husband. Up ahead, a car had just crashed into a tree. Horrific, two teens, one dead upon impact, the other had her leg torn off. The car started smoking. We got there moments after the girls had been pulled out, just as the scream of sirens descended and those in charge took charge. And my husband, visibly shaken, said “I’m glad we didn’t get there moments earlier. I would have had to pull one of them out. I don’t know if I could have done it.” And I said “I would have had to also.” His eyes were far away as he replied. “But no one would have faulted you if you couldn’t do it. You’re a women.”
What a burden! To always be the one who has to save someone! And so it strikes me with “rape culture” — we herd all the “bad guys” over into one corner, and we expect the “good guys” to protect “us women” from “them”. That can’t be healthy. It cannot. And so, the same way my mind forces me to think “would I write the check?” — as I wonder over and over, “how much removed would that child have to be for me not to save them?” — I wonder over and over how much I would have to care about rape to actually take the actions needed to make a change.
And for me, what it comes down to is this. I used to think, “I can’t solve every problem in the world.” It seemed reasonable, pick and choose your battles. And now — older and hopefully wiser that I am — I’ve decided if I’m going to think macro, let’s think way macro. It’s not that I don’t care about rape. It’s that I care too much about rape to try to solve the problem of a rape or too. I’d like to solve the bigger problems, the systemic problems. The fact that abuse begets abuse. The fact that racism boils in our blood, that marginalization is something we are all guilty of no matter how kind. The fact that it’s not the physical rape itself that’s so harmful, it’s the inability to talk about it without shame that leave scars far beyond the physical ones. Or that often before rampage violence there’s a disconnection of the person from their community, a distancing, walls upon walls that have gone up.
I want to break down those walls.
I will save the drowning girl if I see the drowning girl. I can’t always see her. And so, instead, I will to my best to create long term systematic change by telling people this: “it’s ok to talk. It’s ok to tell stories. It’s ok to connect.”
That, I can do.
Two things:
Great piece and I think the Drowning Girl model is right on. There is a study somewhere, and I wish I had time to look it up but I don’t, that focuses on how much empathy anyone can have at any given time. So, the drowning girl gets our empathy because she is right in front of us. Our family and friends get empathy and usually we have enough empathy to reach out to our city arena. The farther away something/someone is the less actual empathy we have for them.
So that person across the world. We don’t know her, see her, feel her. It’s harder to have an immediate empathy reaction to her (in general). Or those kids in China making our plastic products. Right now there are millions of people in the world suffering and many of them are working to make the US a better place with cheap goods. We know this intellectually, that our Wal Mart products are cheap because they are produced outside the US, but we generally don’t bother ourselves with thinking about how those products are made and who makes them.
“I will save the drowning girl if I see the drowning girl. I can’t always see her. And so, instead, I will to my best to create long term systematic change by telling people this: “it’s ok to talk. It’s ok to tell stories. It’s ok to connect.”
This is exactly my point of view. Lisa I was stunned that your husband told you no one would judge you as a woman if you didn’t help. Because you were physically weaker? Or because being a woman meant you couldn’t emotionally handle it? Either way, you’d probably judge you for standing back, no matter how traumatic it was to be involved. You just act. I’ve had to act on a number of occasions that were just plain horrible and I did it. I did my best. I think very few people male or female wouldn’t try.
As for the rape section of the piece. This to me is KEY. “I think to many men the idea of a rape culture is foreign because they don’t know any rapists (or at least they don’t think they do). Again, going only from my circle of friends, none of them are friends with rapists or even know any rapists (saving one who is a public defender). To them, the idea that our culture “accepts” rape just doesn’t ring true.”
They don’t know if they know a rapist. Not a violent attacking rapist certainly, but a “oh come on, just let me in” rapist. And most men don’t know rape victims, or they don’t think they do, because most women don’t go around telling men if they’ve been attacked (especially if the men don’t know her). I’d say 75% of my female friends (and a few of my male friends) have experienced some level of sexual assault in their lives. That could be an out and out stranger rape. It could be being followed to their car after a night out and then groped (with the assailant running off), it could be a date that she called it at second base but things went father than she wanted, it could be all kinds of things. It could be a very bad date that a male friend of mine had with another man and he felt he couldn’t talk about it or go to the police.
It could entail stories that I couldn’t and wouldn’t call “rape” specifically, but sexual ill manners (like my personal example of a date holding me down and rubbing one out on my leg as I asked him to stop. He just wanted to finish and it was a really long and irritating 30 seconds. I wasn’t hurt, but I felt that he believed his pleasure was more important than my comfort.)
Would you call him a rapist? Probably not. But a lot of men knew him. And a lot of men knew me and I didn’t tell them about the situation. So that’s one damn bad date that people don’t know anything about. But the players are known by other men.
When I think of the term rape culture what I think of is the idea that this stuff is mostly invisible. We don’t know who is out there taking advantage of a partner’s good will. We don’t know who actually thinks a victim gets what they deserved. We don’t know which people might decide to carry around roofies on campus or at bars. We don’t know, of the people we hear making rape jokes, who really means it. We have a limited amount of empathy response and we save that for the people closest to us. So a concept like Rape Culture seems foreign and outrageous to many because it isn’t something we recognize based on it’s very invisibility.
Part of me has some sympathy for the term, but I think its not always very effective in bringing sides together. My systemic change would be to look at how sexuality in general is acceptable, how honest conversations and a promotion of pleasure and joyous consent will, generationally, help men and women (and all sexual orientations) communicate better and at the very least eliminate the poor sexual communicators and entitlement types. The actual predators, yeah, I don’t think communication and empathy will stop them from predating.
Great piece. Thanks.
Maybe much of situations like that would be resolved if people were more willing to talk about sexuality in general. So that misconduct and rude behavior on either the part of the woman or man was less likely?
They don’t know if they know a rapist. Not a violent attacking rapist certainly, but a “oh come on, just let me in” rapist. And most men don’t know rape victims, or they don’t think they do, because most women don’t go around telling men if they’ve been attacked (especially if the men don’t know her). I’d say 75% of my female friends (and a few of my male friends) have experienced some level of sexual assault in their lives. That could be an out and out stranger rape. It could be being followed to their car after a night out and then groped (with the assailant running off), it could be a date that she called it at second base but things went father than she wanted, it could be all kinds of things. It could be a very bad date that a male friend of mine had with another man and he felt he couldn’t talk about it or go to the police.
As you say the nature of rape culture is invisible, especially to men. Do you know how this sounds to a lot of men? Like we are being held responsible for something that 1. is rarely talked about 2. is being dropped on our shoulders only because we share gender with these invisible monsters.
Also it seems that some of the pushers of rape culture will use what you say here (about how a lot of women don’t share those experiences with men and men who are rapists aren’t going to just share that with other men willy nilly) as a bit of a Gotcha! trap. As in they bring it up to men as a way to show them just how “privileged”, ignorant, and responsible they are for women being attacked.
I would be all for getting all the cards out ont he table when it comes to sex. By that I don’t expect everyone woman to share all her sexual attacks with all her male friends but at the same time it seems almost unfair to choose not to tell a male friend something and then hold the fact that he doesn’t know about that something up as proof that he is responsible for that something and for why said woman didn’t tell him in the first place.
Get what I’m saying?
Yes I do. And am in the car so I can’t respond fully. I am not laying the blame at men’s feet nor holdin men responsible for things they didn’t do. More hopefully tonight if I can find wifi
I don’t know if I could have done it.” And I said “I would have had to also.” His eyes were far away as he replied. “But no one would have faulted you if you couldn’t do it. You’re a women.”
What a burden! To always be the one who has to save someone!
Its weird I know but in the minds of a lot of people its true. As a woman you would not have your womanhood questioned for not acting in a physical situation like that while on the other hand your husband would most likely be bombarded with “What kind of man are you?” remarks and looks for not acting in a physical situation like that. And it certainly happens in reverse. Say you and your husband have a child who becomes gravely sick at school. In the minds of a lot of people they would not bat an eyelash at your husband not coming to tend to them on the other hand I can hear the “what kind of woman are you?” remarks and looks if you didn’t rush to their aid. All becasue you’re a woman and he’s a man and there are some extremely messed up ideas on what tasks “real” men and women do.
And I really do think that this post is a nice illustration of the problem that a lot of men have with the idea of rape culture. The way its presented comes off as guilty by gender assiciation. As in I share gender with rapists therefore I’m responsible for stopping them (and truthfully how man situations can you think of where people actually defend the idea of “I share _____ with (some type of criminals) therefore I’m responsbile for stopping them”?).
Another difference is that in the drowning girl story you’re the ONLY person who can help. That makes a lot of difference. Imagine if instead there were several thousand people standing about many of them not wearing expensive clothes that would get ruined, many of them nearer to you, or otherwise better placed to do something. Others further away. It suddenly becomes quite a different situation.
But I do think there’s an element also of empathy again. Someone physically close is greater object of empathy than an anonymous person somewhere out there.
Now I should warn you that this article can be upsetting but if you “liked” the drowning woman thing this may be of interest. It’s Peter Singer’s classic written in 1972.
http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972—-.htm
The dollar amount of the lowest cost human life you could save in a reasonable sense of the word… well it’s hard to get data on it but it’s got a lot more expensive than it used to be say 60 years ago. And that’s a good thing. You’d think it would be a really useful statistic to have for all sorts of reasons.
Right now though the cheapest way to save lives is probably through Oral Rehydration Therapy of diarrhoeal dehydration and other cheap life saving techniques for kids that UNICEF and other charities perform a lot of. The problem is they tend to really low-ball their costs in my opinion and also that they are already getting funding. But they do make the pitch by claiming very cheap costs at the point where they’ve identified the kid that the treatment saves – such as $1 for a shot or for ORT.
I think the real cost might be more realistically $100 or $200 but I guess it depends exactly what you are measuring, how likely the person you “save” is to need other treatments or they’ll die anyway, hidden costs over how you go about finding the people who need the treatment, and whether the money would have been funded anyway so that in reality you’re funding some other project (because money is fungible).
http://rehydrate.org/facts/gobi-fff.htm
“”It reminds me of a story — early in my marriage I was driving with my husband. Up ahead, a car had just crashed into a tree. Horrific, two teens, one dead upon impact, the other had her leg torn off. The car started smoking. We got there moments after the girls had been pulled out, just as the scream of sirens descended and those in charge took charge. And my husband, visibly shaken, said “I’m glad we didn’t get there moments earlier. I would have had to pull one of them out. I don’t know if I could have done it.” And I said “I would have had to also.” His eyes were far away as he replied. “But no one would have faulted you if you couldn’t do it. You’re a women.””"
Lisa. Your husband’s right. For example, if we see a bunch of people around a house fire where children died, we see distraught women and we sympathize with them. We see men and wonder why they aren’t smoke-covered or burned. Similarly around a water course. Why aren’t the men wet? Why are they even on the bank?
Said it before: Footage of a Texas flood. A girl is in a tree above the fast water along with a Texas Guardsman. The footage started with that scenario so we don’t know how the girl got there or how the soldier did. A chopper comes along and the Guardsman gets the kid into the harness and the chopper pulls away. Theh Guardsman does a triumphant fist pump as the kid is hauled up into the chopper. End of footage. What happened to the Guardsman? Nobody knows and the photographer–or the editor at the station–decided that nobody cared, or not enough to spend a few more seconds of local news time on the question. Presumably, he got out okay. But so did the kid. So why was one news and the other not?
Said this before, too. Go to youtube. Search for “roger moore” “thomas atkins”. He’s cut it somewhat but the gist is still there. What it Tommy goes on strike?
If you’re going to break down walls, you can either excuse the men–which could be inconvenient if it’s your turn in the deep and stinky–or you can stop excusing the women, which is going to be a problem if the women decide being excused is convenient.
Well said, Nick. The assertions of men in general accepting rape culture ring false to me, because neither I nor any men I know do. It’s like saying men perpetuate car theft culture, because just look at all the cars that get stolen every day, mostly by men. Not even playing Grand Theft Auto has made me thing that maybe stealing cars in real life would be a cool or moral thing to do. It’s a criminal thing, not a man thing. I wasn’t familiar with the drowning girl dilemma, but I like the point you made with it. When it comes to rape, I’m all for decreasing it and penalizing it, but I don’t feel morally culpable for rapists any more than I feel responsible for cars getting stolen. If guess someone could argue that I *should*, but as you describe, that kind of responsibility doesn’t come naturally.
You haven’t separated good men from bad men into corners.
You’ve demonized all men as rapists when merely %2 of them actually are.
Then you ask the innocent %98 to participate in their own further demonization and loss of due process in the courts.
No!
We’re done shooting ourselves in the foot for crude manipulators of the social structure.
There is no “rape culture” only RAPE HYSTERIA
OK. First and foremost, I agree with the end part of this comment. Second, first part is what I needed to learn.
Men who read the GMP don’t believe in rape culture. Moreover, using that term gets people far more upset, and they sometimes fail to listen past it, because it is such inflammatory term.
See, I didn’t realize that “rape culture” was so inflammatory – and I apologize for my naivete. I was never using it as a weapon. I thought we were on the same side of that (and I still believe we are, as we all agree good men don’t rape). The thing many readers are missing is that, in MY experience as a woman, rape culture exists (now PLEASE keep reading). I don’t think it exists because I am afraid of men, or think men will rape me (for the love, read my post again) – I believe rape culture exists because of the WOMEN in my life who have been assaulted and raped, the way in which they have dealt with that rape, and the way in which we discuss rape in our greater society. It’s also because of the way rape is used around the globe, and the statistics on it, and the way we talk about it. That INCLUDES the fact that we don’t talk about men as survivors of rape, and because I think I know men who have been sexually assaulted but don’t feel comfortable talking about it, with me or anyone else, because rape culture also says “men don’t get raped.”
See, here’s the thing. Like “feminist”, the term “rape culture” has clearly been twisted about in conversation and diatribe to mean many different things to many people. Personally, I wish we would stop arguing over what these terms mean *as weapons* and look at the roots of them, the issues behind them, and listen to one another on why they are what they are now, and if the issues really do still exist. And, I know I’ll get some shiz for this one, but simply because you, as a man, don’t experience rape culture doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist – in fact, if *women* like me are telling you it does, and it overwhelmingly affects women (by definition, not by reality, and also a problem just in that), then perhaps you should listen, instead of ranting at us that we’re wrong.
Final point: I agree with Joanna and Julia. Simply because you wouldn’t rape anyone, and you don’t think you know any rapists, doesn’t mean you don’t know any, or, again, that rape culture doesn’t exist. Another thing we’re missing is that rape is NOT “stranger danger” all the time. I know only one woman who was raped in the way we have overwhelmingly been talking about rape here. All the others? Knew their rapists. Some of them even allowed the rapes to happen due to coercion or the fact that they were too young (16, 17) to know how to say no to an older man of authority. The fact that we focus overwhelmingly on rape as happening to “other women” by “crazy people who aren’t like me” is part of the problem. For example, this is what got me going in the first place: http://womenarefrommars.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/i-never-said-no/ Maybe reading that would make things more clear.
So, yes, I do think we are all responsible for speaking up (not by saying “oh men rape!” but by making a safe space where women AND men can talk about their sexual assault, and most importantly, when they put the blame on themselves, we say to them “no, this is not how people behave – you did not invite this because this is not how people behave” – and YES we actually need to say that!), and no, I don’t think it happens as far away as you think.
@ Nikki B.
Would you kindly explain me in about 30 words what you mean by “rape culture.”
Thanks.
If you really want to talk about whatever it was, and not just attack men, then don’t use that term. Is that so hard? If it is just a word to you then please don’t use it.
And right off again you are making it men vs women. Especially given that we now know that as many men are raped as women and about as many women rape as men, what exactly is the point of doing that?
Do you think you could say what you want to say without hitting all these anti-male buzzwords like patriarchy, male privilege, rape culture, rape… perhaps without even mentioning men or women? Do you think that would be possible?
Nikki
“,,,,rape culture also says “men don’t get raped.” ”
In that case it is a bad model – it’s bad socially to use it – and it’s bad intellectually and even academically to support and endorse it.
Is that possibly a set of reasons what the American Government have not used the term since 1975 when it was first coined?
There is a Whiff of fundamentalist going around where an idea has been made concrete and mixed up with essentialist thinking and the sum of the parts does not make sense.
How Does Rape Culture explain such matters as the rape of disabled people, the elderly, male by male. female by female, male by female, child by adult, and many other combinations of statuses?
Once this Model of rape culture is addressing reality and not just a subset of reality for a chosen group, then maybe just maybe some will take it seriously. But until then, the term and it’s usage appears to be about power, control, political expediency, stopping language, abusive use of Thought Terminating Cliché and is a spectacular Own Goal for the group who insist on using it with a view to cutting incidence of rape.
I also wonder why it has had such a sudden revival in The US liked to Slutwalk.
I have also traced the First Known usage of the term “Rape Culture” – it is the 1975 film, Cambridge Productions – look it up in IMDb.
Opening Credits Read:
“A group of inmates at Lorton
prison in Virginia organised
“Prisoners Against Rape”.
Only one member was a
convicted rapist, but all felt
the need to fight rape in
prison and on the “outside”.
They worked with the
DC Rape Crisis Centre.
Since the filming two of
these men have been killed,
victims of prison violence.”
If others wish to disagree – they can view the source materials on the website of Cambridge Documentary Films. The opening of the film is freely available on the website.
Even the producer of the film Margaret Lazarus is on record objecting to how the film’s content was interpreted and how the Male Prisoners own words have been misinterpreted.
Maybe it’s tome to go back to basics with a view to addressing issues and not having fenced off enclosures and imprisoned minds?
We’re missing the forest for the trees.
To me, “rape culture” is a term that describes how we view, discuss, and deal with rape and sexual assault, which includes the fact that we focus on rape of women by men, despite all of the other forms of sexual assault you point out. To me, it also means the fact that we shame survivors into thinking its their fault. Etc etc etc. It is also, of course, about the fact that rape is a violent act that fundamentally about control, and is used as a weapon of control in many places around the globe.
It’s about how we view, talk about, and deal with rape – and I don’t condone or like the way we do that. I want to change that. I want to fight *against* what I call “rape culture” and what you might call something else – which is very different but I would argue more important that fighting against the use of the term “rape culture”. Because I fully, wholeheartedly agree with you that we need to make some changes, we need to get rid of a culture that says “the only form of rape is men raping women” and “it was her own fault” and “rape only happens in dark alleys” and “let’s shame the victim” and (as my post points out) “if you do this or wear that, a dude will rape you”. Of culture that permits rape as a way for people to exert control and spread fear. I do expect men to be a part of that fight.
If, however, you don’t think these things exist in our culture, or in others around the globe, then I really honestly wholeheartedly and genuinely am asking you to start acknowledging there is a world far beyond your boundaries, and maybe stop talking and start listening. And I don’t ask that in a derogatory or condescending voice, I’m honestly pleading here.
“Of culture that permits rape as a way for people to exert control and spread fear. I do expect men to be a part of that fight. ”
And one thing that seems clear to me is that human beings use a wide variety of weapons in their desire to dominate each other and sexual violence is one of those ways.
All of us should be in the fight against that. Fight itself indicates violence doesn’t it. Huh.
Shitnuts. Yes it does indicates violence… perhaps we can still think about better language, although sometimes I get very tired of talking over words and doing little else.
Nikki If you are tired of talking over words – act !
Use your web presence to seek support and ideas!
tell people you want a new Product and advertising slogan – no debate – just a better and more inclusive way to get the message out there and working!
Harness the experience and imagination out there – twit #rapeculture2 and ask for a better way!
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
George Bernard Shaw
Stop being so F’ing reasonable and change things! P^)
Imagination works wonders – and it doesn’t have to be your own!
As Julie stated, just because you don’t know someone who raped a stranger or someone who was convicted of rape, does not mean that you don’t know a rapist. I would take it even further and say that the fact that you claim to know only those two rapists, is evidence in of itself of rape culture. Do you know anyone who gave a woman an extra drink to try to change her mind? How about anyone who didn’t stop at “no” and kept pushing to get to that yes?
Rape culture is, in fact, everywhere. You remember that blockbuster hit “The Devil Wears Prada?” Rape scene, right in the middle of it when the protagonist is in Paris. When you can observe rape in a movie rated PG-13 for “some sensuality” I believe that implies that it’s pretty embedded into our culture.
Wait, what? Andi was raped?
This might be an example that might seem extreme and possibly gets some people riled up – and whether you believe that to be rape or not? Well… that alone is telling. BUT leave that argument, please, to see the underlying point: The idea that someone can manipulate someone else into sex, or avoid listening when someone says no, or coerce them to say yes, etc… that *is* rape culture, and it’s not ok.
And, for the love, in reality there is no gender attached to that statement. In what I term rape culture? It’s always men manipulating women. And that, of course, is part of my point.
* the idea that doing these things is acceptable is, to me, “rape culture” – not the idea that they actually happen. It’s the acceptance of it as “normal” behavior.
If you are all talking about the scene in Paris where Andi and the weaslly dude have sex? I didn’t read that as rape. I read that as Andi making a questionable moral choice after making an additionally questionable moral choice going to Paris to begin with.
The book makes it much harsher.
She wants the dude, doesn’t know how to be bold brazen and say “Sure, jerk, let’s go be lovers.” She feints, he seduces. I saw them as playing roles.
Her whole theme in the book is “I didn’t have a choice.” but she does. she makes a lot of them very passively as to avoid blame.
Narratively, this is a part of her progression. She realizes what those passive choices are leading to, a life where people fuck each other over etc. She could choose aggressively to be like Miranda, or she could passively be a pawn. She chooses, finally, to be her own person and reject that life.
Which just underlines another issue which is that so-called “rape culture” for feminism often means manufacturing rape where it never existed in an attempt to make men look evil or something. And that leads to whether so-called date rape and other variations should even be discussed in the same way. They probably should not. You can’t have it both ways and feminists do. They wanton the one hand to describe rape in terms of it being a violent crime of extreme significance and at the other end of the spectrum they want to say it’s very common and can be really hard to tell if it has happened or not. Well it can’t be both. That’s using one word to describe two different things. it’s manipulating the language.
The term “rape culture” is a feminist jargon used to extend the presumption of male guilt. They do not have to say that all men are rapists, instead claim that men support rape culture. A nice piece of feminist wordsmithery.
“Rape culture is, in fact, everywhere. You remember that blockbuster hit “The Devil Wears Prada?” Rape scene, right in the middle of it when the protagonist is in Paris. When you can observe rape in a movie rated PG-13 for “some sensuality” I believe that implies that it’s pretty embedded into our culture.”
I have looked at this paragraph repeatedly – and It remands of of two things. Hysteria and Paedophilia.
It seems that Rape Culture as it is being used and “Pushed” for media attention and wider usage is just what happened in the UK some years ago around Paedophiles. It created hysteria!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/872436.stm
It was alarming that people actually started to attack the homes of “Paediatricians” because they thought it was the same thing.
It got so bad that men were openly talking about such things as not being willing to bathe their own children, undertake volunteer activity with children (Sports/Scouts/car Sharing) – even fathers saying they would not take their kids swimming at a local swimming pool because if they helped their child to change into or out of a bathing costume there was real fear of someone shouting “Kiddy Fiddler”.
This Rape Culture Meme is going the same way. I am already aware of it being abused and we have even had articles here on GMP about it. Maybe some did not notice.
Rape Culture is a “Social Model” – not a reality,
That Model is being abused – and the risk of increased abuse is growing.
Before it becomes even more socially damaging the people using it and abusing it should be stopped.
If they will not stop – then the model has to be debunked, deconstructed and a more suitable replacement created.
When everything is rape you have no culture, only “Hysteria” – and I’m sure that if people abusing the term Rape Culture were called Hysterical Feminists there would be Outrage and more!
Actual rape is wrong. I have trouble feeling motivated to get all uptight about real problems with rape in consideration of how society, government, feminism, and modern women marginalize false rape allegations and do not hold women accountable for such claims. While I do want to see an actual rapist prosecuted and imprisoned I am disgusted by the laws and social rules that treat males accused of rape as guilty until proven innocent. Most likely more males are victimized by false rape allegations than females are by actual rape.
The problem with “rape culture” as theory is that it requires men to view men as rapists. Men do not view men as rapists. I know of no rapists in my family or circle of friends. The rapists that I have encountered in my life were punished severely both legally and socially. One instance was when I worked a as a fishermen in Alaska in my 20′s. A very popular crew member went to town and followed a woman home from a bar, broke into her home and raped her. Before that moment he was well thought of. After that moment he was despised. Months later when he managed to send someone by to pick up his gear, TV, Playstation, etc, from the boat all his things had disappeared.
My point is that “rape culture” is a ruse. It’s not about preventing rape. It’s about shaming men into supporting feminists who hate men. It’s basically saying, “if you don’t hate men then you are supporting rape culture”. It’s a double bind that damns you if you do and damns you if you don’t. If you disagree then you are a perpetrator of rape culture. If you agree then you are confirming that rape culture exists. Both actions reaffirm in the mind of the feminist ideologue the rightness of her claims and disallow any notion that she might be in error. It’s a self-perpetuating theme that makes feminists into rabid fools and reaffirms the belief that feminists are misandrists and that’s all they are.
Ironically, I don’t see any mention in the rape culture literature that discusses women’s promotion of rape as a value. The billion dollar romance novel industry which portrays rape and sexual harassment as masturbatory vehicles for women probably doesn’t do much to dispel the “myth” that women don’t like rape.
The thousands of BDSM clubs around the country that cater to hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans probably doesn’t do much to dispel the “myth” that women don’t like rape, violence, bondage, beatings, torture, or to dish those things out on men or women or both.
When Catherine Kieu Becker poisoned, castrated, and mutilated her husband’s penis and the CBS talkshow “The Talk” and their millions of female viewers laughed, cheered, and guffawed with delight probably doesn’t dispel the myth that women don’t like rape or in this case sexual violence. Clearly a significant portion of women think it’s “FABULOUS”.
But I digress. This isn’t about the actions of women. It never is. As always, in the minds of feminists it’s the evil patriarchy that is at play and not the autonomous independent choices and actions of blameless women.
I’ll finish by saying this. I don’t rape. I have never raped. I have had countless opportunities to rape and I could have gotten away with a few of them but I would never forgive myself if I did. It wounds me deeply that some men rape. It wounds me even deeper that women and particularly feminists try to portray rape as a male value and once again cast all men as rapists (Ironic isn’t it that when women are lumped into a category they demand that their individual innocence be recognized but they rarely offer that same consideration to men). It comforts me slightly that less than 1% of men will ever rape.
That said–and in response to your drowning girl reference– I would neither save the drowning girl nor write a check. Despite your assertion to the contrary I have no moral obligation to do either. Those days when a man would be expected to risk his life to save a woman’s are over.
My idea of an equal society does not require one gender to be responsible for the health and safety of the other. That my friend is called “patriarchy”. My life has value. It is not a disposable commodity to be extinguished in service to women–a class of people which during my 41 years has made it painfully clear that they despise me and can only think of males positively in regards to our utility and usefulness to their purposes and whims.
Another aspect in which women often promote rape, and it seems to come very often from the feminists themselves, is that they will recount a story about being “raped” and they will say they didn’t go to the police over the matter. To me if you are saying that rape is a very serious crime and you are going around writing about how there’s a rape culture and how men ought to act to stop it, and then you tell a story where you refuse to report a rape (and hence presumably allow a rapists to continue raping people) then you are being very double minded. Why is stopping rape men’s job but you refused to do your part? Why do you not even see a problem with saying you didn’t go to the police? Oh you were afraid they might be mean to you? Grow up. You just let a rapist maybe attack someone else because you wanted to save your hurt feelings. How is THAT telling us that rape is important?