Sexual Relations (a post on feminism)

Started by Jude, August 24, 2011, 12:16:54 AM

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Jude

For the longest time I was convinced that most of the problems between men and women were solved in the 20th century.  It seemed to me that since achieving what is basically legal equality women have been relatively close to being on the same standing as men.  I was aware that some inequalities persisted (wage gap, rape statistics, et cetera) and that societal attitudes change slowly, but what really changed my mind were some recent goings on in the skeptical community and how rational, smart men reacted to it (if you're interested in it, here's the gist of it:  http://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/).  I discussed all of the happenings with a good friend who has feminist leanings, and slowly my mind began to change.

Today, I'm not so sure that the issues between women and men are really that close to solved.  There are some feminists and feminist organizations out there that are majorly overstating the direness of the situation, but I've come to the conclusion that feminism is still very much a necessary thing in today's world in spite of all our advances.

I'm wondering, what do other people think?  Specifically, I really want to hear from guys.  I'm curious to hear what they think about feminism, if they believe it is still necessary today, and what they think the state of equality of the sexes is today.

DarklingAlice

If you want to talk about this as a general concept and something our modern day society still struggles with, and I firmly believe that it does, there is a whole mess of  ugly buried beneath a veneer of civility when it comes to sex/gender issues even in the best of communities and we are lying to ourselves if we pretend to have moved past them, I would talk about it outside of the context of Rebecca Watson.

If you want to talk about Rebecca Watson and her experience I would keep it specific to that. This particular issue has been highly polarizing on other areas of the web and tends to devolve into vitriol rather than actual discussion (for instance, despite what I just said above, I find Ms. Watson to lack professionalism and credibility, and some of her fans to lack basic human decency).

Just my 2 cents. I won't be around for the conversation either way, but if your intent is the former I will be quite interested to read it when I get back ^_^
For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant, and wrong.


Jude

#2
I kind of want to discuss both.  I figured with E being the place it is, civility isn't an issue.

I agree with you though, and I don't consider myself a fan of hers or particularly like her.

Missy

I'm kind of wondering who these guys who she meets are.

I mean, I agree these guys sound like real dickheads, but I don't think I know anyone like that.

Anjasa

I really, really get the impression that certain places in the U.S. are just terrible for on-the-street catcalling, and unwanted comments, etc.

I live in a really small city, and I admit that I'm not the most social person, but though I do get stares, people don't say things to me. As far as I can tell, they don't say things to anyone. In the bars and stuff I'm sure it's different because, hey, people are looking to be picked up / to pick people up, but for regards to every day life, it's not something that I, as a young and fairly attractive woman, have to think about.

Her story of a guy that invited her back to his room after she said that she didn't want people to be hitting on her probably didn't think he WAS hitting on her. He probably didn't see the comparison, because he wasn't being crass, he wasn't being rude. He probably didn't think he was anything like those guys that were always hitting on her.

It's like the 'don't rape women!' points and why they don't work. Men who rape women delude themselves. In one study of 1882 college aged men, men were more likely to admit to raping someone if it wasn't called rape.

Students were asked:

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?
2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?
3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?
4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

6% of the sample agreed with at least one of these statements.

Most people don't go around thinking "I'm a rapist!" but they justify it. She shouldn't have been drinking. She shouldn't have led me on. She was asking for it. She shouldn't have been wearing those clothes.

So it stands to reason that most people don't go around thinking "I'm a misogynist and I'm going to treat women as though they're less than me today!" They'll likely think things like "Women aren't as effective as men." "Women should stick to their strengths and stop worrying about science/math/manual labour."

This is probably going to sound pretty rambly to me when I wake up a bit more, and I know you wanted to hear from men, which I'm not, but this is just my perspective. Personal attitudes are going to take a lot longer to change if we don't fight people on their misconceptions and delusions about their thoughts on women, but I feel a great distance from feminism because of their stance on 'objectification' and sex work. I think they're going about trying to help women in the entirely wrong fashion if they feel that any time a man looks at pornography he's hurting all women by objectifying her.

Also, two more interesting articles on sex positive feminism:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/gender-equality-leads-to-more-sex-for-everyone-study/article2123402/
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/03/23/susie_bright

gaggedLouise

#5
Quote from: DarklingAlice on August 24, 2011, 12:36:31 AM
If you want to talk about this as a general concept and something our modern day society still struggles with, and I firmly believe that it does, there is a whole mess of  ugly buried beneath a veneer of civility when it comes to sex/gender issues even in the best of communities and we are lying to ourselves if we pretend to have moved past them, I would talk about it outside of the context of Rebecca Watson.

If you want to talk about Rebecca Watson and her experience I would keep it specific to that. This particular issue has been highly polarizing on other areas of the web and tends to devolve into vitriol rather than actual discussion (for instance, despite what I just said above, I find Ms. Watson to lack professionalism and credibility, and some of her fans to lack basic human decency).

Just my 2 cents. I won't be around for the conversation either way, but if your intent is the former I will be quite interested to read it when I get back ^_^

I agree with Alice those two issues should be held apart a bit. The story of Rebecca Watson and Dawkins - an encounter we only know in the versions projected of it by some of the people involved, and by their supporters, versions that sometimes seem to shoot into hyperbole - is not really a type case of "men imposing their power on women" and I think the way it's being used brings out several weak or blind sides of much of the feminist roster of the present. Not all of feminism, but a kind that is heavily visible in the media, and in politics in some western countries, these days.

-an overriding wish to peg down people and demand that they must respond according to what they "are" and/or accept to be pictured in certain ways. "You're not a real woman/a real feminist if you don't support US, if you don't buy how this "us" is interpreted by ME". Or: "How can you not support my fight against this male pig? What he did was equal to rape" (=she interprets it to be equal, and wants everyone to accept that reading). Sex/gender and sexual orientation, in particular, are often used as camp banners to push everyone who belongs there, or who claims to be in sympathy with, like, women or LGBT people: they "must/should" join - and will be vilified if they don't embrace those talking points at a given moment. I've seen this kind of campaigning lots of times, often with no intellectual honesty or reflection.

-a fickle slide between "you have to accept the right of X to bring charges, to talk about this" and "you must embrace the feelings and the way of telling the story that X expresses, or you've already sided with the enemy, with the men, with the pigs". No. A court isn't called to just decide "we believe this person more and everything X says, including interpretations and feeelings that happened during the crime or after, is true the way she puts it" but  rather "what actually happened at different points, taken by themselves, and what interpretations seem likely or relevant according to the law?" It can often be a difficult business, but it'äs inescapable if you want a state of justice. And it's just as pertinent in the media as in the courtroom: these days you can often get sentenced in the media quite apart from any court treatment. Tiger Woods and Strauss-Kahn are cases in point. AFAIK Tiger was never charged with any marital crime in court but his love affairs and sex contacts were all over the media and there was minimal criticism of the sources. In the news he became effectively a morally condemned man on "evidence" and allegations that were just being pulled in from anyone who had met him and cared to talk; many of these allegations would never have worked in a court.
And the Strauss-Kahn case has been dismissed, but just its being brought, the humiliating way it was brought (it would not have been done that way, pushed in handcuffed in front of news cameras, if it were Joe Smith) and the media storm, those factors cost him his job. I don't claim to know what happened in that hotel room  but it seems any courtroom discussion whether it was rape, sexual assault or anything (or just a failed titillation?) would have to relate to interpretations of what happened, how the dynamic looked between the two at that point, and then we are not really talking of a simple smoking gun crime any more.

-.many (self-styled) feminists today rely way too much on private narratives, anecdotes or pseudo-stories that are tossed up and used as pegs for a loose argument:  "and THAT was when I realized.." "NOW you know why I have never trusted men again", "if you believce in women you GOTTA believe in what she said" nd so on. The story that's being brought in is often more or less a prop to enlist feelings, to target someone else, to streamline an essentially fictional description of the state of affairs, and that way you get around any need to bring proper arguments that stand up on their own two legs, that can be discussed without pointing back to the person who is invoked for them (often the feuilletonist or pundit herself). Those tactics are not unique to feminist writers, they're quite widespread in the media and in the blogosphere, but to me they often vitiate the argument. If you want to bring that kind of story, it should really be something that can be validated outside of your own private person, or through its own inner logic so that the rest of us can recognize it as something we may have touched on in our lives too. There's an old "second wave" feminist maxim that "The personal is interesting /in public/ but not the private". I agree, but today the private narrative often jumps to the top spot.

-feminists today often seem blind to the fact that sex/gender has reached a much higher "explanatory power" in the climate of today than a generation ago. Or they just don't know how to handle it in an honest way. People are expected today to "act like men" or "act like women" and to have a personality, manners, interests, ways of talking, dressing, dating, eating that fit those slates, it's set in in a far heavier way now than would have been the case in the sixties or seventies, and these expectations (buouyed by a glamourized culture) is something many women trade a bit on, but many feminists seem to refuse to recognize that those shifts in atmosphere and ways of thinking have been happening. Nor do they wish to address that it often pushes men and trans people into corners. Women who pick up tradiutionally male careers, ways of behaving, clothing and attributes are hailed aloud as trailblazers, men who try to embrace a more modern and innovative masculine role (the old hard-drinking factory man is half dead anyway) or pick up ways of doing things, appearing, talking that have  a whiff of traditonal or semi-modern femininity are seen as wimps, and get ridiculed and rejected both by macho men and by a big part of the female public realm.

I really don't see many feminists around who try to pick up on those issues, there is a lack of modernity in some aspects of the masculine roles we have around but many feminists are perfectly okay with that because the state of affairs, and the way it's told in the media, often by these ladies themselves, showcases women, as a group, as more modern, attractive and intellectually at the helm - and still victimized! We really should be able to discuss those issues in a more dispassionate way but as long as many feminists just harp that "all men are pigs" and that every woman is trampled by every single man she encounters, that's not likely to happen.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Jude

I'm not just interested in hearing from men, of course, everyone's opinion are welcome and worth considering.  I was just especially curious how many men felt there was no problem in this community in particular, since so many in the skeptic community stated their opposition.

I really appreciated your post in particular Anjasa, because it jives well with many experiences I've heard detailed.  A lot of people want to pretend that smaller towns have better attitudes, but I wonder if that's really true.  My ex-girlfriend for instance worked in a bar in small town Iowa and faced some horrible sexism and harassment from the local patrons.  People in small towns aren't somehow better or more decent -- I think that's self-serving delusion, plain and simple.

Fenrisulfr

Quote from: Jude on August 24, 2011, 12:16:54 AMI'm wondering, what do other people think?  Specifically, I really want to hear from guys.  I'm curious to hear what they think about feminism, if they believe it is still necessary today, and what they think the state of equality of the sexes is today.
I think there is still a lot to do an several fronts; women gets the short stick on some points, men on others. Until it doesn't matter what kind of gender, race or sexuality someone has, there will remain a need.

So I'm all for liberal feminism and sex positive feminism; basically for any group that work for equal opportunities for everyone within our communities/countries, but focus their energy on those problems that affect themselves.

But radical feminism do I see more often than not as part of the problem, and consider them being a part of the same sewer as misogynistic men.

Noelle

I have plenty to say on this issue, as I followed it as it developed last month and got to slog through all kinds of comments and posts within the community surrounding it. So prepare yourselves!  8-)

The main issue I have with what you're saying, Louise, is that while you do make some astute observations that are true in some cases, you also paint a heavily stereotypical view of feminists that seems to lack a deeper understanding of the group itself. You've painted an 'us vs. them' picture that you have simultaneously expressed disdain for when you perceive it in feminist groups who seemingly "hate men". "Feminists today" and "many feminists" are inaccurate terms that dismiss nuance for a broader picture, and without numerical values to support your claims, at that. I could just as equally say "many men rape women" -- and while that may be true (seeing as 'many' is an incredibly relativistic term), it also contextually gives the impression that a majority of all men everywhere rape women and basically shuts down the discussion right there with a big, bold assumption off the bat. If you heard that latter sentence come out of the mouth of a feminist, I would be willing to bet that it would set off a red flag for you.

It's especially confusing to me when you acknowledge that not all feminists are 'this way' or 'that way', but then spend the majority of your post railing on why you dislike them so much and -- again -- using phrases like "feminists today". Aren't we kind of treading dangerous territory here? Take for instance this substitution:  "Not all black people steal, but many black people do." You are justifying your own prejudices with a qualifier to lessen the blow, but the message is still there regardless of how delicately or euphemistically or technically qualifying you try to be. It sounds a lot to me like saying "I'm not a racist, but..." At least that's my interpretation.

One part of your post snagged me in particular:

Quote from: gaggedLouise on August 24, 2011, 07:10:22 AM

-feminists today often seem blind to the fact that sex/gender has reached a much higher "explanatory power" in the climate of today than a generation ago. Or they just don't know how to handle it in an honest way. People are expected today to "act like men" or "act like women" and to have a personality, manners, interests, ways of talking, dressing, dating, eating that fit those slates, it's set in in a far heavier way now than would have been the case in the sixties or seventies, and these expectations (buouyed by a glamourized culture) is something many women trade a bit on, but many feminists seem to refuse to recognize that those shifts in atmosphere and ways of thinking have been happening. Nor do they wish to address that it often pushes men and trans people into corners. Women who pick up tradiutionally male careers, ways of behaving, clothing and attributes are hailed aloud as trailblazers, men who try to embrace a more modern and innovative masculine role (the old hard-drinking factory man is half dead anyway) or pick up ways of doing things, appearing, talking that have  a whiff of traditonal or semi-modern femininity are seen as wimps, and get ridiculed and rejected both by macho men and by a big part of the female public realm.

Except none of what you're listing are feminist problems at all. Most of these things are actually feminist concerns -- this is feminism 101, if anything. Of course feminists take issue with these things, they actually have a vested interest in breaking down gender stereotypes and roles across the board, which makes them perfectly in line with the interests of transgendered people and men. I'm not sure where you're getting your beliefs on this, but it plainly flies in the face of "the feminist agenda" (I hate this term as much as I hate "the gay agenda", but I mean it in a broader sense of what they're striving for) Are there feminists out there whose definition of equality is skewed in favor of women? Of course, but they are pretty firmly on the fringe and are scorned by any sane feminist you talk to. If you take the time to study feminist causes and hold a discussion, you would find that they are equally as disdainful towards those who abuse men and corrupt their position and will just as gladly show support for -- for example -- a male rape victim. Your whole paragraph here is just fundamentally inaccurate.

QuoteI really don't see many feminists around who try to pick up on those issues, there is a lack of modernity in some aspects of the masculine roles we have around but many feminists are perfectly okay with that because the state of affairs, and the way it's told in the media, often by these ladies themselves, showcases women, as a group, as more modern, attractive and intellectually at the helm - and still victimized! We really should be able to discuss those issues in a more dispassionate way but as long as many feminists just harp that "all men are pigs" and that every woman is trampled by every single man she encounters, that's not likely to happen.

This final paragraph has me thinking that you lack a lot of baseline understanding about feminism - and feminists themselves. You've got concerns that have been addressed by the feminist community before and are actually a bit fallacious. Truthfully, the picture you're painting is one I used to hold about feminists, as well, and you've made similar arguments that I've made in the past. I know where you're coming from, but to turn things to "but what about the men!" is simply a red herring. You've put feminists at odds with men all on your own -- it sounds to me as if you've made wanting equality for women mutually inclusive to 'it's okay to oppress other people on the way'. No feminist I have ever spoken with (...including myself?) has ever said "Men deserve to suffer, especially if we get ahead".

However, that's not even the point. To disregard the fact that there are major steps that still need to be made towards equality for women in favor of showing that other people have problems is irrelevant. Racism is also an issue, but it doesn't do anyone much good to say "what about white people?". White people have troubles too, but they're not oppressed. Men have troubles too, but they are not oppressed. The magnitude of problems men (especially straight, white men) face on the whole are incomparable to the inequalities and blatant disrespect that women face, on the whole. This ties into male privilege, which is a major factor for feminism.


For the sake of clarity, feminist values hinge on these things:

Breaking down gender roles and stereotypes (including impossible/hard-to-attain standards of beauty)
Ending slut-shaming / sexual liberation for women
Ending the rape culture of America / victim-blaming
Breaking down male privilege
Educating others about objectification / sexism

Feel free to ask about any of these things (they're also covered in the links I'll provide below, I'd recommend going to those sources first as they explain it better than I probably can) and I'd be happy to discuss them as a spoke of the wheel of feminism, but those are central tenants to the whole cause.

Resources:
Feminism 101 FAQ
Feminism Wish List (explicitly mentions trans* people)




REGARDING REBECCA WATSON...

The situation itself was not equatable to actual sexual assault or rape. Nobody is trying to say that, least of all Watson. Is it possible that the man was entirely well-meaning? Of course it is. I'm sure he's a lovely chap. But these details are irrelevant. The situation is the crux of things here -- Rebecca had just expressed her desire to go to sleep after being at the bar at 4AM in a foreign country by herself, and this guy didn't stop to consider that following her into an elevator -- alone, at 4AM, in a foreign country by herself -- would make her uncomfortable. That's the essence of male privilege -- the ability to disregard (consciously or not) the expressed desire of a woman in the pursuit of romantic interest. The guy probably wasn't a rapist, he probably wasn't a nefarious creep, but when you're in the situation, he becomes what is called Schrodinger's Rapist. You don't know. You don't know if he's just oblivious or if he's got malicious intent. You don't know he's a rapist until you've been raped -- or not. Which chance are you going to take?

Jude

#9
One thing I really dislike is the idea that we have a "rape culture," and I've never really seen a good argument put forth to backup the idea that rape happens because of gender inequality.  Even if we viewed women as objects culturally (in the truest sense, only as property of other people -- which of course is abhorrent, this is just a hypothetical to make my point), respect for other people's property is still a part of our society.  It would still be deemed unacceptable to assault women even if they were viewed as mere property of their mates/families like in more savage, patriarchal societies of the past.

If someone steals from a bank, they do so because the bank had something they wanted and were in a position to take, not because they have something against banks.  Clearly they have a negative, nihilistic attitude towards their fellow man or the immorality of doing what they did would've kept them from doing it, but I don't see rapists as people who disrespect women in particular but treat men with high regard.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't imagine a rapist being anything but thuggish, disgusting, and selfish in his interactions with both sexes.

I'd say the problem largely has to do with how a certain segment of our population is convinced that using violent ends to gain what you want is acceptable.  It's general sociopathic behavior and a lack of respect and consideration for your fellow human beings that I think is largely responsible for rape.  You would think that violent male tendencies in general contribute to violent behavior, not necessarily disdain for the victims of it or an expectation of privilege.

meikle

#10
QuoteIt would still be deemed unacceptable to assault women even if they were viewed as mere property of their mates/families like in more savage, patriarchal societies of the past.

In these sorts of societies, it wouldn't be 'rape' to rape your own wife, because she is property.

That is like, the essence of what rape culture means.  "It's not a problem because..." (she's my property, she's my wife, she was wearing a short skirt, she was too flirtatious, she should have known better) ...

Maybe your issue with the idea of rape culture comes from not understanding what the phrase means?
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Jude

Rape of one's wife is a very small portion of the overall problem.  Most rapes are done by people the victim knows, but not someone the victim is currently in a relationship with.  The stereotype of a woman walking down a dark alley is not accurate.  These aren't strangers doing it -- the whole 'attire' thing is a complete red herring.  Dressing more conservatively does not protect you against rape.

And I suppose it could come from ignorance, I won't discount that.  But I have not seen sufficient evidence to back up the idea that America has any sort of cultural proclivities that actually excuse rape.  Maybe I haven't seen it because I haven't seen it and such evidence does actually exist.  In that instance, I'd be more than happy to review it if you could produce it.

meikle

#12
Rape Culture also is not the same thing as the silly Stranger Danger scare.

Rape Culture is the kind of thing that leads you to write the post you did, completely managing to overlook that the cultures you referenced as cultures that are still hostile toward rapists are also cultures that say if a woman is married to a man (or property of a man, or whatever), it's not a crime when he rapes her.  It is the idea that a culture can create an atmosphere where it is okay (or people feel that it is okay or even justified) to target women with acts of violence.

A stand-out instance of this, anecdotal as it may be, was the whole Roman Polanski incident: somewhere along the lines, people decided that because Roman Polanski was an esteemed director, he probably shouldn't have to be held responsible for raping someone.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Jude

#13
I'm kind of confused, do you believe we live in a culture that thinks rape against one's wife isn't rape?  Because from what I know, it definitely is considered to be such and has for some time.  Legally and ethically in the popular conscience.  I don't know where you're getting the notion that we feel differently than that, but maybe I'm not understanding your point and that isn't what you're claiming at all.

I also think you're attributing the Roman Polanski thing to "rape culture" ignores the more obvious issue that's at play which has nothing to do with sex or gender:  the privilege of personal prestige, power, and celebrity status.  I have to be honest, it seems like grasping at straws to back up your point.

I'd be interested in hearing a formal definition of what the "Amercan culture of rape" is, and what the claim that is being made through its supposed existence is.

Pumpkin Seeds

Rape is typically an act of dominance.  This is not so much an act of taking something desired from another individual, but more of shoring up personal inadequacies.  A person that commits rape selects their victims based on opportunity, proximity and their ability to assert their own dominance.  That women are often selected as targets is an example of gender inequality contributing to violence.  Crime statistics show without a doubt that women are selected and targeted more often for violent crime, not just rape.  Women are seen as easier targets.  Rapists will typically say that the woman was “dressing like a slut and so he treated her like one,” “she was being uppity,”  “had to be shown her place.”  Sometimes the victims reminds the rapist of a person that ridiculed them and they are lashing out to retake their dominance.  Rape is not about being horny or desiring sex, it’s about wanting to be over someone and in control of them. 

An easier example is with prison rape.  The men that are often singled out for rape are the weakest of the group.  Prisoners use words for these men like bitches, pussies and other sexual terms that are often applied to women in the general public.  In a way the men are painting an image of gender equality onto another man, painting him as a member of the weaker sex in order to put them into their place as if a woman.  Fraternity rapes often involve affluent men, ones that would have little trouble finding a sexual partner.  Yet the men gang rape a woman.  The women are drunk, drugged and sometimes vomiting on themselves.  I cannot see that sexual desire is at the highest point here, but multiple men contribute to a rape.  Once more, the desire for dominance is there over the desire for sex.

As for rape culture, that is a fairly complex idea.  Ownership of women is only a portion of the concept.  More importantly is the objectification of women so that they can be owned as property and also used in such a fashion.  Also the overlay of violence in intimate portrayals of sex and in the acquisition of sex is an important factor.  Sex is portrayed in popular media as something done to a woman.  The man goes out to find a woman to sleep with and then spends the night trying to get her into bed.  Sex is not seen as a mutually desired option or something to bring pleasure to them both, but rather something the man does to her for his own gratification.  Phrases such as “gotta hit that” or “gonna tap that ass” or “down to fuck” are all overlaying a violent overtone to the act.  Then the act is complete and off she goes.  This is on a popular television show among many others that do similar things.

meikle

#15
Quote from: Jude on August 24, 2011, 07:49:34 PM
I'm kind of confused, do you believe we live in a culture that thinks rape against one's wife isn't rape?

We certainly live in a society where you totally overlooked the fact that having sex with your wife in a society where she is considered property is rape.  Do I believe that we live in a culture where people believe and act as if it is okay for men to rape their wives?  Yes, I think that a lot of people in our culture believe this is true.  They don't call it rape, though, because rape is a crime!

Here's an article about an eleven-year-old girl who was raped by eighteen men, as well as the New York Times coverage of it, which felt it was necessary to inform everyone that she 'dressed older than her age' and 'hung around with teenage boys': http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/03/09/new_york_times_blames_11_year_old_rape_victim/index.html

Generally speaking, I feel like you need to be actively trying to avoid seeing it if you really believe that our culture doesn'tactually support the idea that Sometimes Women Deserve It, which is pretty fucked up.  It may be an undercurrent, not loudly spoken, but it is certainly there, hidden in quiet suggestions.

QuoteI also think you're attributing the Roman Polanski thing to that ignores the more obvious privilege that's at play which has nothing to do with sex or gender:  the privilege of personal prestige, power, and celebrity status.

I think you misunderstand 'rape culture'.  Again: rape culture is not 'man vs woman', it is 'we live in a culture where some people are allowed to rape other people.'  Is it okay for celebrities to rape people?  Okay for rich people to rape people?  There you go!
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Jude

I think I have some more thinking to do on the matter.  Thank you both for your responses.

Pumpkin Seeds

Also, for your reference in believing that marital rape is a long recognized problem.  Here is an article to review.  http://www.crisisconnectioninc.org/pdf/US_History_of_Marital_Rape.pdf

I will highlight a couple of interesting points.

"On July 5, 1993, marital rape became a crime in all 50 states, under at least one
section of the sexual offenses code. In 17 states and the District of Columbia,
there are no exemptions from rape prosecution granted to husbands (Indiana is
one of the 17 states with no exemptions). However, in 33 states, there are still
some exemptions given to husbands from rape prosecution. When his wife is
most vulnerable (e.g., she is mentally or physically impaired, unconscious,
asleep, etc.) and is legally unable to consent, a husband is exempt from
prosecution in many of these 33 states (Bergen, 1996; Russell, 1990)."

"As was previously indicated, women who are battered are at greater
likelihood of being raped by their partners (Frieze, 1983). Additionally,
pregnancy appears to be a factor that places women at higher risk for both
physical and sexual abuse (Bergen, 1996; Browne, 1993; Campbell, 1989).
Being ill or recently discharged from the hospital are also risk factors for
women (Campbell & Alford, 1989; Mahoney & Williams, 1998). As research for
battered women has previously revealed, women are at particularly high risk
of experiencing physical and sexual violence when they attempt to leave
their abusers for this represents a challenge to their abusers' control. Finkelhor
&Yllo, (1985) found that two thirds of the women in their sample were sexually
assaulted at the end of the relationship."

Will

I think there is certainly a long way to go for real gender equality.  I'm not very optimistic about it, either.  I think feminism has hit a kind of brick wall. 

If your experience of privilege extends throughout your entire life, it's easy to look at it and see nothing wrong.  Inequalities have to be acknowledged before they can be made right, and the more obvious and glaring an inequality is, the more difficult it is to refuse acknowledgement.  If men can vote and women can't, for example, there isn't much chance of ignoring how unfair that is.  The issue I see, is that the problems left to be tackled at this point aren't so glaring.  Wage gaps can be (and are) denied even in the face of hard numbers.  Sexual harassment can be (and is) justified in a hundred different ways.  If the people in the driver's seat of society won't even acknowledge that there's a discrepancy, how do you even begin to fix it?  Time and determination, I guess, but damn.

The other problem I see is a lot simpler: I'm not sure how many people really care about feminism today.  In my daily experience, I certainly don't see much that convinces me otherwise.  Men and women both do their best to encourage and reward misogynist behavior day in and day out.  As unfair as the culture is, they all seem to be pretty happy with it.  They're invested in it.  They have no desire to see that culture struck down, or even tinkered with at all.

You wanted to hear a man's opinion, so there you go. : /
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

gaggedLouise

#19
Quote from: Pumpkin SeedsRape is typically an act of dominance.  This is not so much an act of taking something desired from another individual, but more of shoring up personal inadequacies.  A person that commits rape selects their victims based on opportunity, proximity and their ability to assert their own dominance.  That women are often selected as targets is an example of gender inequality contributing to violence.

I completely agree that rape is often, at heart, an assertion of violent domination: it's not really about sexual desires or lack of a partner but about wishing to put down, to feel a surge of strength. And I also agree that women (or LGBTs) get picked as targets because they are seen as less physically resistant, less able to fight back. There is also an added motive of "putting them in their place, under the thumb" as when a lesbian or a transperson is raped to demonstrate to them that their physical strength and self-respect can be broken at will and that their sexual orientation is not legitimate. These are abominable and cowardly acts. But in my opinion, feminists today often shoot themselves in the feet by jumping to the line that all males - and sometimes even all women who don't subscribe to said feminists' version of feminism, are sharing in the power structures that bankroll rape, even if they are otherwise really committed against rape and oppression. This kind of stance weakens the whole thing a great deal by saying, it doesn't matter what you think or do as long as you're not with ME and my girls, plus you're still guilty, and ultimately you're endorsing the rape culture. Ergo, you're a soldier in the rape army too.

Plus, rape is often used as kind of a metaphor and merged with what the law means by rape. "His way of talking to me/about me/speaking over my head felt like rape", "I was raped by the online mob", "his invasion of my private sphere was equal to knocking me out and raping me". And all kinds of attention that were not wanted, or not wanted after the fact, can get classed as part of the rape culture, and so "a rape lite". To my mind, this kind of talk dilutes the seriousness of real rape - it makes it harder to condemn and harder to understand, because if rape is so omnipresent it happens every day, at home, at work and at play, and everyone except a chosen few are guilty, how can you hope to fight it?

I would also say, when people make the claim that "it is rape anytime the woman has said afterwards that it felt like rape" this is problematic and likely a circular statement. This kind of talk is often pitched in reply to the "she dressed like a slut, so she was clearly inviting sex" argument. "She dressed like a slut" is bullshit, but the trouble with the "rape is rape is rape, it's when it felt like rape" assertion is that during the lead-in and flirting stage opening for a bed-down or any kind of sexual encounter, and even during the sex, we are often not that explicit with our wishes and suggestions. The dating and flirting game means that people don't ask straight off "Are you okay with getting fucked now?" or "Come on, just take me! Do whatever you want!". If "feeling like rape" means, the other didn't make sure you wanted it in advance, and this would be legal definition, then any kind of sexual encounter which hasn't been preceded by a formal deal would be liable to be prosecuted as rape by one of the parties, even a long time afterwards, and in reconstructing what went on, the part bringing the case (often the woman) would be demanding not just that the court accept her facts, but that it accept her feelings and her reading of what went on in the unspoken or double-edged communications that night, between the people involved.

See, anything that actually happens during an encounter that qualifies rightly as rape - that "makes it pass as rape" in the eyes of the law and also in the way most people think of rape (not the same thing, but the two are interrelated) -.could also be happening during a normal consensual fuck: even if rapes are sometimes violent it's not the level of vioolence or spoken lines such as "now I'm coming to get you, I don't care if yiou like it" that define them as rape. It's the intentions that count, intentions and the broken communication between the persons invöloved, and intentions are not a smoking gun thing which you can just pick up from the floor in court, they are often enveloped in the unspoken or half-spoken. Most people on this forum are into BDSM, and we all know that it's no longer just a cult thing, so I hope this gets through: many a normal bed-down may have the same level of violence as some rapes have: there is an overlap if we're only looking at the visible actions. If it's a normal fuck, bdsm or just naughty, then the violent or edgy element is seen as belonging to the situation, if one of the persons file for rape afterwards, then the very same violent actions and words become part of the picture of a violent invasion.

Really, it's not the level of violence that immanently (no, that was not misspelled), by itself makes it rape, but rather the intentions and interplay - and those intentions do not always leave indisputable material traces. Many judicially trained people understand this, and take it into consideration, it's no stranger than how a rough moment in an ice-hockey rink doesn't get dragged to court for manhandling while much lighter scruffs at work may be; the intentions and relationships between the people, and the frame of that moment, were different. But when a court moves to acquit a guy charged with rape because they find lack of evidence to that it would have filled the conditions for actually being rape, this often results in angry reactions, calling out that "women do not lie about this", "we must have more men convicted of rape, everybody knows that this is happening all the time and most of the time it's neglected! Even when it does go to court, they'll just walk away protected by their cronies!" or "as soon as there was not an explicit acceptance of sex, or that *kind* of sexual acts, in advance then it should be judged as rape and the offender sent away for fifteen years, no pardon". This is actually argued at fever pitch as "feminist" or "the only decent thing" in my neck of the woods and I'm sure it's been seen in America too. But is it really a good understanding of what rape means, and of how the law works?

Quote from: WillMen and women both do their best to encourage and reward misogynist behavior day in and day out.  As unfair as the culture is, they all seem to be pretty happy with it.  They're invested in it.  They have no desire to see that culture struck down, or even tinkered with at all

I think this is true a lot of the time. Claiming a position as "feminist" or as a scientist, media celeb, business exec or whatever allows you to get away with saying and doing a great deal, and saying outrageous things in the name of feminism, education, publicity or science, makes news and builds trademarks.  Whatever criticism you get can be brushed off or listed as "envy of how smart and successful I am". Unfortunately a big part of feminism today has bought into, or recreated, sexist ideas and structures, but it's not considered sexy to scrutinize this. Feminism needs to be reinvented, reframed or freed from some of its alliances with a cheap publicity culture. In other words, a large part of it needs to get its act together.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Noelle

Quote from: Will on August 25, 2011, 12:24:42 AM
The other problem I see is a lot simpler: I'm not sure how many people really care about feminism today.  In my daily experience, I certainly don't see much that convinces me otherwise.  Men and women both do their best to encourage and reward misogynist behavior day in and day out.  As unfair as the culture is, they all seem to be pretty happy with it.  They're invested in it.  They have no desire to see that culture struck down, or even tinkered with at all.

You wanted to hear a man's opinion, so there you go. : /

I'm not so sure that they're happy with it as much as they don't realize it's there.  Some people may not realize the harm in making certain things pink and shopping-related and labeling it "for girls" - that's when you get those who come out of the woodwork and complain about the PC police and don't they have better things to do? There are women who like the attention they get from men in certain situations but may not understand that they're being objectified.

I'm not so sure that it's a lack of interest based on the material not being worth their time so much as it is a basic lack of understanding for what's actually going on.

Will

It's certainly ignorance, there's no doubting that.  But it's the willfulness of that ignorance that concerns me.  Any attempt to point out the negative consequences of their behavior leads to people complaining about the "PC police" as you mentioned.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Will on August 25, 2011, 06:15:46 PM
It's certainly ignorance, there's no doubting that.  But it's the willfulness of that ignorance that concerns me.  Any attempt to point out the negative consequences of their behavior leads to people complaining about the "PC police" as you mentioned.

I absolutely agree. People are a bit too willing to be bought. And the lack of consistency over time in the positions people take is so obvious. Feminists today, at least in the media, often dress up what is really somebody's own (often the feminist pundit, researcher or blogger herself) personal tastes, dislikes and sympathies as the outcome of some profound and objective feminist reasoning or a project for bettering the situation of women. Even personal beefs and issues of emphasis that are 95% rooted in envy, career moves or earlier private encounters receive this makeover to let them appear as principled defences of femininist ideas.

Of course this fits like cake with how the media function today: personalized, shouty and low on carefully thought-through content. It's obvious the media love to style feminist discussions as catfights, but the people involved seem to willingly buy into the dramaturgy all the time, and sometimes to come across as drama queens (forgive me for thinking some of them really *are* feckless drama queens!). At least as long as they think it will help them score.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Will

Nothing I said was actually in reference to any "holier than thou" feminists.  I don't have any real idea what the proportion of fringe/extremist feminists to moderate/sane feminists is, so I won't make any sweeping statements about "feminists today."  Just to make that clear.

I also wonder if gaggedLouise has a clear enough understanding of those numbers to be making those kinds of statements herself.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

Noelle

I actually can't really recall the last time there were any prominent feminists in the media. The last major thing I can think of was the media coverage of Slutwalks across the US, and even those were met with a lot of vitriol from people who are convinced that gender relations are just peachy and believe that women "just don't want to take responsibility". I could be wrong, but I am hard-pressed to find any examples in recent history where we actually had a serious dialogue about what feminists are trying to get across except to say that they're acerbic harpies who want to oppress "the poor men".

Specifically in the case of Rebecca Watson, if you watch her video, she is calm, collected, and rational. The veritable shitstorm of comments that erupt from her video is staggering with the more dramatic lot lamenting that they can "never approach women again", or even worse, making jokes/threats of rape and assault towards Watson and others.

The very fact that a select few that you disagree with have become spokespeople for the entire group smacks of privilege; when a man gets up and defends his views passionately, he is courageous. He sticks by his guns, he's admirable, he's tenacious. When a woman gets up and passionately defends her views, she is shrill, overcritical, and bitchy. It's poor practice to make examples of a select few when it complements your point; I could speak, for example, about a transgendered woman who thought it hilarious to freak out guys by attracting them and then purposely pointing out she's still physically male (this is the quintessential "tranny trap" stereotype), but I think most would agree that that person should hardly be made a representative of that group and when someone does speak disdainfully of transgendered people and points out the "tranny trap" image they may have of them, aren't we quick to inform them that their views are incorrect and even offensive? If you can stand for that distinction, what's stopping you from re-evaluating your view on feminists?

gaggedLouise

#25
QuoteI actually can't really recall the last time there were any prominent feminists in the media. The last major thing I can think of was the media coverage of Slutwalks across the US, and even those were met with a lot of vitriol from people who are convinced that gender relations are just peachy and believe that women "just don't want to take responsibility". I could be wrong, but I am hard-pressed to find any examples in recent history where we actually had a serious dialogue about what feminists are trying to get across except to say that they're acerbic harpies who want to oppress "the poor men".

Well, the U.S. and Scandinavia are very different here. In Sweden (where I live) feminism has been a strongly influential movement - or a series of movements - for a century, with powerful impact on politics, lawmaking, attitudes and society. There's a much smaller proportion of housewives than in America, and a larger share of women economists, clergy or members of parliament. We were pretty much first in the world with women priests, state-subsidized family allocations for children and (later, in the seventies) state-funded and run children's day care to stimulate mothers working full-time, nearly first with gay/LGBT civil unions and later marriages, and ten years ago outlawed the buying of sexual services from prostitutes (this controversial law, since amended, a law I endorsed, while understanding that it was not meant to in itself "abolish prostitution", landed the offence with the buyer and not the hooker, to indicate that it's about oppression and exploitation of women and not about a marital offence or "lewd women"). I am completely embracing most of this and actually proud of it. What I am less okay with is that in recent years, let's say the last ten to fifteen years, the emphasis on equality through law, social mobility and ditto empowerment has shifted to a climate that's both "me feminism" and, as Will put it, Holier-than-Thou attitudes.

I think this is, in part, because the presence of a long-standing heritage of feminist movements that had achieved a great deal in the past and had really mobilized people, left a new generation of aspiring feminist politicians, writers and researchers with a feeling that they had to push themselves to the fore but also revolt against the gist of what came before them. And they had to do this on the conditions of a much more market-oriented society. Not very odd, it happens in music, literature and science too: making a fuss and revolting is the way to make youyr name known. Unfortunately they opted for sex and popular media, and an obsession with identities through gender and sexual porientation, as the brick and clay of their own take on feminism, and this wasn't really helpful. Sexual orientations do not make a great rock on which to build a political platform, or to profile yourself against earlier waves of feminism (which implies attacking let's say Doris Lessing or Simone de Beauvoir for having been frumpy cowards!). Not when recognition in itself is pretty much a passed stage and almost no serious politicians oppose, let's say, gay marriages. Once society moves past that point, sexual identites and gender grandstanding are more troubling than useful as a base for political ideology and unity. 

But it paid off in terms of media attention (or maybe you could say, "angry young women" was just what the tabloids, radio and media in general wanted, especially their marketing departments). There's been an endless boom for columnists, feuilletonists, freelance lecturers, writers and radio show hosts acting the part of "angry young girlpower chicks" in one variety or the other, with loud voices but generally low on conscientious or solid arguments. Everybody wants a columnist or blogger who writes like Courtney Love and styles herself a feminist. This all coexists with the gender studies departments at universities. And a large portion of this "media feminist" roster, as well as the univeristy gender studies set, are frolicking around with heavily moralizing arguments about "a rape society", idolize Valerie Solanas and her old SCUM manifesto (a pièce de résistance of gender fascism) and cry out that men are generically responsible for every ill that ever hit women, and deserve to be punished lest they repent.

I am not saying they have achieved much, but the amount of media attention, career pursuit and staking out of personal spaces has been impressive.

I'm not really alone in having stopped taking much of that crowd seriously. It's obvious that much of it is just personal or movement publicity, idle media activism and career building. Many of them will give up some of the principles they profess now once they have got a bit higher - or have given up on a media career. But there is little space for any kind of calm and principled discussion. The level of noise and moral investment is so high that very few people want to make any scrutiny. Why would you if the first argument you'll get is "He/she's defending the rapists!" or having some ten-year old incident from your own life hauled out into the open and shown off as of it were evidence that you are not a real feminist. Or indeed, the failsafe "Just envious of how young and smart me and my buddies are, and how much money we're making!" Face it, feminism around here is pretty much a watchword and not a nuanced and transparent set of ideas. The important thing has become to get on the train.

Okay, I realize many here are Americans (not everyone though) so why did I bring up this if I'm writing mainly from experiences of such a strange and different country? The reason is, much of the inspiration of this "2½ wave of feminism" has been American, both in terms of (neo-)feminist concepts and media strategies. And the way notions of a generalized "rape culture" and the kind of blowing-up of a personal story to represent overall female oppression are used, those things seem to be the same on both sides of the Attlantic. I completely recognize that kind of exploitation of a story and the half-stated matrix underlying this kind of agitation.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Noelle

While I am not versed in Scandanavian feminism to be able to properly address that portion of your post, what I can say is that I find it troubling that you are pointing out "rape culture" in quotation marks and seem especially bitter towards the idea of personal anecdote.

I don't blame you entirely on the last note there; personal anecdote is hardly quantified data, but what you're passing off as anecdote is arguably still important in examining the condition of gender equality as it stands, especially when that personal anecdote is corroborated.

My personal anecdote is that I used to work in a small bar in an arguably redneck town. I was subjected to comments about my body and my appearance. My authority was undermined repeatedly whereas a male figure's was respected. I was harassed, propositioned, and objectified. I was condescended, belittled, and insulted when I tried to stick up for myself. Yes, this is anecdotal, but let's also look at studies that have shown that men are more likely to interrupt women in conversation, that aggressive females do not reap the same rewards as aggressive men (sometimes to the contrary), that objectification arguably harms one's self-esteem, and so forth.

At any rate, the feminism that exists in America is one that has been heavily demonized by a largely unsympathetic public who doesn't care to actually figure out what message it is they're trying to get across except that someone is suggesting that men have some kind of unfair advantage and they shut down the conversation right there because dammit, we have a feminist literature course at this college, how can we possibly be sexist? I think that's what grates me about parts of your posts, is because it reminds me heavily of the type in America who heavily invests themselves in the notion that all feminists are unshaven, bra-burning radicals who want to destroy men (the type you describe in your post). It's a similar issue to what's going on with race relations; people see the new statue of MLK Jr. go up in DC and immediately start asking IS RACISM OVER? as if having the one token black sculpture on the National Mall means that we need to stop looking into why black men have a higher rate of incarceration or a harder time finding gainful employment. They see that women can wear jeans, have a full-time job, and even have their own special literature section and think all is well. That's the part I take the greatest issue with.

gaggedLouise

#27
Quote from: NoelleI don't blame you entirely on the last note there; personal anecdote is hardly quantified data, but what you're passing off as anecdote is arguably still important in examining the condition of gender equality as it stands, especially when that personal anecdote is corroborated


I am fine with the use of personal stories and anecdotes as long as the elements that are brought along for a further argument can be corroborated, or can in some sense be shown to match what other people have experienced. And it does not count as "matching stories" if people are commenting or tweeting a line and saying "Yeah great!" or "this happened to me too!" - that could very likely just be instances of people wanting to believe the stories or writers they like. But even if a story isn't corroborated as in "documented", it can still be made relevant through the inner logic or likelihood it shows, a curve corresponding to what other people have been through. I do think quantitative data, or support from recognized oral history projects or field research, can be essential in backing that kind of story. That way, we don't land with the writer, media profile, politician ultimately pointing to him/herself and saying "of course it's true! Are you suggesting that I would be a liar??"

Lots of times when politicians, media people or bloggers use a personal anecdote to buttress something, it is
a)vague in terms of how far the story or memory actually proves the stated conclusion,
b)not corroborated in any way, shape or form - and also heavily stylized ("I was a CEO of my own company at age 22 and could have provided hundreds of people with jobs, but the taxmen were always after me"). I don't feel your story is stylized, but many personal anecdotes in the media seem tailored to fit a premeditated conclusion and do it in a striking way.

Gossip is made to stand in for real arguments, and heavy, uncheckable conclusions are pulled out of those stories. Joe the Plumber is a typical example: he was not a licensed working plumber and his economic and professional conditions were nowhere close to motivating the questions he put to Obama, it was just a political prop and the idea was to make people believe many, many millions of small entrepreneurs and their staff would be crippled by Obama's tax policies. To me this is often inadmissible, but obviously the media happily accept it, even researchers sometimes do, and so do many opinion writers and pundits, feminist or not.

When it comes to rape culture or rape society - yes, I think those ideas have been overused and are often utilized to gain the moral high ground for one's own side by trying to give the impression that anyone who doesn't fully agree with you, or all men except your personal buddies, are complicit in a massive wave of rape, silencing and oppression.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

rick957

I don't want to derail the thread onto a tangent, but considering the breadth of topics being discussed here, I hope this question will seem relevant and appropriate to the thread.

Several people here have mentioned the objectification of women, and I wonder if anyone out there could help me understand what objectification is and how it is different from healthy feelings of attraction.  I'm not unfamiliar with the popular definition of objectification, and I'm not asking for references to off-site reading material (which I could find myself).  I'm very interested instead on how you personally understand the term and what you think about it.  Any responses will be much appreciated.

Pumpkin Seeds

Objectification of a woman involves reducing her down to an object that can be used and possessed without concern for her emotional well being.  In essence the humanity of her is removed in favor of her being something to stare on and make use of for personal gratification.  A healthy attraction would be taking an interest in her, more than likely physically at first, with the hope of mutual gratification and enjoyment.  This does not mean that a man and a woman cannot be physically attracted to each other and have a one night stand for personal enjoyment.  However, the act is meant for them to both enjoy and benefit rather than for one to feel better about themselves.

Examples of objectification are a man bragging that he left with the “hottest bitch” in the club.  This reduces the woman to a trophy piece that he uses to vault his status.  Or a man slapping a woman on the butt or getting in a pinch to show off that he can.  Men that tug on a woman’s clothing to try and get something to slip out of place, spill drinks on them to highlight areas of interest, shout out rude comments to show off for their friends.  The list really is pretty long.  Objectification has a lot more to do with showing off for social status than an actual interest in the person.  Sex becomes a vehicle to show off one’s masculinity and prowess rather than for gratification. 

An attraction to another person is healthy when the interaction is kept personal.  If the two are attracted to each other and have sex without fanfare then that is an attraction.  There is no bragging about the social status, no need to publically put the act on display or dehumanize another for personal gain.  The two were attracted to each other, decided to have sex, did so and have enjoyment.  I think that is where you will find a lot of women gain interest in a man is when they feel that the man is interested in them, not in what they can do for him.

I guess to boil it down to its most basic substance; objectification is focused more on the self while attraction is focused more on the other person.  Do note that women do objectify men as well, just not to the same extent I believe. 

I hope that helps.

Anjasa

I think I lose my feminism card every time I say this, but I'll say that objectification of a woman is only harmful when a woman is objectified by someone she has a relationship with (boss, friend, family member, husband), and they treat her as lesser than because of her gender/looks.

I don't buy into the idea that it's negative to 'objectify' a woman on the street, or to 'objectify' a model's image or what have you.

Objectification is a huge problem - in relationships - but many feminists have used the word so predominantly to discourage ANY TIME a man looks at a woman sexually without interest or thought to her feelings. For instance, they argue that all porn is objectification of women, or that strippers are being objectified in the clubs - that viewing these women as sexual 'objects' (in that they don't fully consider the entire personality and just focus on the sexual bits) is always negative.

Personally, I just don't buy into that. Viewing me as a sexual object doesn't bother me. Sexual harassment and assaulting me because you feel that's all I am bothers me, but just looking at me appreciatively does not.

I said this in another thread, but I'll say it here as well - it's not the thoughts of objectification, but the actions that people commit because they've dehumanized someone that matters.

Missy

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on August 26, 2011, 04:01:13 AM
Objectification of a woman involves reducing her down to an object that can be used and possessed without concern for her emotional well being.  In essence the humanity of her is removed in favor of her being something to stare on and make use of for personal gratification.  A healthy attraction would be taking an interest in her, more than likely physically at first, with the hope of mutual gratification and enjoyment.  This does not mean that a man and a woman cannot be physically attracted to each other and have a one night stand for personal enjoyment.  However, the act is meant for them to both enjoy and benefit rather than for one to feel better about themselves.

Examples of objectification are a man bragging that he left with the “hottest bitch” in the club.  This reduces the woman to a trophy piece that he uses to vault his status.  Or a man slapping a woman on the butt or getting in a pinch to show off that he can.  Men that tug on a woman’s clothing to try and get something to slip out of place, spill drinks on them to highlight areas of interest, shout out rude comments to show off for their friends.  The list really is pretty long.  Objectification has a lot more to do with showing off for social status than an actual interest in the person.  Sex becomes a vehicle to show off one’s masculinity and prowess rather than for gratification. 

An attraction to another person is healthy when the interaction is kept personal.  If the two are attracted to each other and have sex without fanfare then that is an attraction.  There is no bragging about the social status, no need to publically put the act on display or dehumanize another for personal gain.  The two were attracted to each other, decided to have sex, did so and have enjoyment.  I think that is where you will find a lot of women gain interest in a man is when they feel that the man is interested in them, not in what they can do for him.

I guess to boil it down to its most basic substance; objectification is focused more on the self while attraction is focused more on the other person.  Do note that women do objectify men as well, just not to the same extent I believe. 

I hope that helps.

Here, have a cookie.

Noelle

#32
Quote from: Anjasa on August 26, 2011, 05:19:55 AM
I think I lose my feminism card every time I say this, but I'll say that objectification of a woman is only harmful when a woman is objectified by someone she has a relationship with (boss, friend, family member, husband), and they treat her as lesser than because of her gender/looks.

I don't buy into the idea that it's negative to 'objectify' a woman on the street, or to 'objectify' a model's image or what have you.

Here is the issue with your stance here -- when we objectify women in advertisement, it is harmful to women as a whole because it creates, perpetuates, and reinforces beliefs that may already be present much in the same way that rape/assault jokes can. It can normalize a belief and show others that it's okay to think this way. Women's body parts have long been a selling point in advertisement and when you reduce a woman to the sum of her parts, it is incredibly degrading and arguably perpetuates a negative body image, impossible or incredibly difficult to maintain standards of beauty, and in turn heavily damages self-esteem. This can be seen for part of the reason that there is a sudden outpouring of demand for 'curvy' models and why the fashion world has slowly started to take steps against women who are pushed to be thinner and thinner. There's a reason that some of the more radical feminists have pushed back against things like shaving, high heels, and wearing makeup.

Beer advertisements are notorious for putting women in skimpy outfits and objectifying them which not only perpetuates the idea that women are just hood ornaments to stand and be stared at, but it also alienates them from the product itself and asserts that this beer is for the men. Interestingly, there has been a new beer that is also about as offensive as the very beer companies it's trying to go against. It's like they tried to think of the most mind-numbingly offensive stereotypes about women ever and rolled it into one package. The package itself is incredibly objectifying and the whole brand revolves around the idea that all women love the color pink, shopping, are concerned about weight gain, and require a light beer for their sensitive tastebuds. In other words: bullshit. :)

Here are some other examples of advertisements that are objectifying: Here, here, and here.

QuoteObjectification is a huge problem - in relationships - but many feminists have used the word so predominantly to discourage ANY TIME a man looks at a woman sexually without interest or thought to her feelings. For instance, they argue that all porn is objectification of women, or that strippers are being objectified in the clubs - that viewing these women as sexual 'objects' (in that they don't fully consider the entire personality and just focus on the sexual bits) is always negative.

This is just patently untrue. There is a whole, wide branch of feminism that is incredibly sex-positive, and, in fact, shows tremendous support for women in the sex industry. It's actually in the best interest for women for those trades to be better protected -- legalizing prostitution, for instance, gives a woman the power to control her body for income and have access to resources to keep herself safe. Porn stars such as Sasha Grey openly talk about how they feel empowered doing porn and that it was their choice. That's the quintessential part of feminism that some people miss -- it's not about being a CEO or the president and it's not about banning women from being housewives or homemakers. It's about women being able to make their own choice and have a say in the matter and being able to control how they present themselves.

To suggest that women don't or shouldn't want to be looked at is ridiculous. Feminists, as a whole, are not man-hating prudes who don't want others to show attraction for them. Many women enjoy flirtation and that's perfectly fine. Many women enjoy things like casual sex and the like and that's perfectly fine. There's a whole issue of context and execution; when I'm at a club and someone tells me they think I'm attractive, I am flattered. When they stand across the room and stare at me all night, I am creeped out and I feel unsafe. When they ask me if I want to dance, I am flattered and I can either accept or politely decline. If they grind up behind me and grab me, I am creeped out and feel unsafe. Major differences here.

QuoteI said this in another thread, but I'll say it here as well - it's not the thoughts of objectification, but the actions that people commit because they've dehumanized someone that matters.

Ah-hah, but I could just as well argue that one leads to the other -- in fact, the terms are practically synonymous at the core.

Quoteobjectify:
    Degrade to the status of a mere object

Quotedehumanize:
    Deprive of positive human qualities

The thing about objectification is that it doesn't always jump out and slap you in the face. It's easy to see a man grab a woman's ass and say "whoa, buddy, that's objectifying!" -- it's not so easy to see a man dismiss a woman, interrupt her in conversations, and generally take her less seriously and identify it as coming from latent objectification.

Edit:




:(

Healergirl

Light beer, ugh.  Me, I'm a Guiness Extra Stout fan!  Or any stout.  Porter is good as well.  And hard apple cider, yumyum.

My favorite liguor:  Myer's Dark Rum.  Second favorite:  Captain Morgan's Rum.

These stereotypes are costing brewers and distillers a boatload of money.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Noelle on August 26, 2011, 05:16:40 PM
Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide



:(

Not to weaken or belittle your point, but would you be offended if I reposted that image in the Hilarity thread? It just cracks me up in its absurdity and shameless blatancy.

AndyZ

Why do these posts always come up after my attention span is completely shot?  Maybe people just always post to them so quickly that I can't keep up, especially with all the corresponding links.  I've managed to skim a decent amount on here, but rather than just staying quiet, I think I'd like to post anyway.  That way, people can at least tell me how I'm wrong.

So, disclaimer that I haven't read everything, and apologies if you already made a point about something and I missed it.  I've decided that it makes more sense to post than not to post.

I consider myself to be big on equality regardless of race, gender or many other issues, with regard to many factors.  As Anjasa said, though, I think I do, but I may very well be wrong.  That said, I'd love to test it and find out if people consider me a bigot; maybe I do need a calibration of my views.

Now, I'm asthmatic, which makes it pretty impossible for me to do a lot of things.  Sports are right out for more than a couple minutes at a time, people smoking sends me into hacking fits.  I'm well aware that people have better strengths than others and don't expect special treatment.

Somebody put a thing about how "men should stick to math/science/manual labor" would be racist.  Now, I'll agree that it's racist because there are many women for whom such things are natural strengths, and I could easily list them here.  Not everyone follows the stereotypes for gender, race or anything else.

Personally, I believe that our education system is completely messed up.  We don't even try to segregate classes based on relative intelligence except for the extremely intelligent or extremely unintelligent; obviously Albert Einstein and Forrest Gump don't belong in the same class to be learning about math at the same rate, but shouldn't we consider taking this a bit further for each subject, doing something more akin to teaching everyone at their natural speeds?

Dear crap, I'm just scatterbrained today.  My apologies for anyone who's still reading.

Now, if people are doing the same job at the same rate, they should be paid the same, no argument there.  If I'm playing baseball with Sammy Sosa, though, I don't expect to get paid the same amount as he.  I have no idea how exactly that's happening because it's pretty impossible to check into when people aren't allowed to compare paychecks, but I don't see why you wouldn't allow people to compare paychecks either.  That does kinda raise a red flag.


Now, advertisements.  I don't think you can argue that women get objectified on these kinds of things and that men don't.

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1RNNN_enUS364US365&q=male+model&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1201&bih=739

We live in an objectifying culture.  That's not sexually discriminating; both men and women get objectified.  I don't understand how this is keeping women down any more than it keeps men down.


Absolutely no argument that rape is wrong, and it doesn't have to be intercourse to be rape.  However, using rape as a point of contention that women are being treated as inferior to men is misleading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_gender#Non-statutory_female-on-male_rape


Hopefully I haven't offended anyone.  I know I'm not very good at this.  I invite people to tell me how and why I'm wrong, and what I missed by not reading through everything in detail.
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Noelle

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on August 26, 2011, 09:58:52 PM
Not to weaken or belittle your point, but would you be offended if I reposted that image in the Hilarity thread? It just cracks me up in its absurdity and shameless blatancy.

Hahaha, it's not mine, so use as you'd like!

Quote from: AndyZ on August 27, 2011, 07:38:09 AM
Somebody put a thing about how "men should stick to math/science/manual labor" would be racist.  Now, I'll agree that it's racist because there are many women for whom such things are natural strengths, and I could easily list them here.  Not everyone follows the stereotypes for gender, race or anything else.

Sexist, actually, but that's just a minor point here! The only real nuanced thing I have with this phrase is that 'natural strengths' is a little tenuous a term to be using, as sometimes it can be used as a point to deepen the divide of why men or women should or shouldn't do a certain thing. For example, many people will argue that women are naturally more nurturing, so clearly they should always be nurses and no man could ever be a good nurse. Some have tried to argue that women are naturally more emotional and therefore shouldn't be the president -- and so forth. But you also somewhat touched on this by mentioning stereotypes, so it's not really a big point of contention.

QuoteNow, if people are doing the same job at the same rate, they should be paid the same, no argument there.  If I'm playing baseball with Sammy Sosa, though, I don't expect to get paid the same amount as he.  I have no idea how exactly that's happening because it's pretty impossible to check into when people aren't allowed to compare paychecks, but I don't see why you wouldn't allow people to compare paychecks either.  That does kinda raise a red flag.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here, nor with the beginning paragraph about having asthma. Would you mind elaborating a bit?

Now, advertisements.  I don't think you can argue that women get objectified on these kinds of things and that men don't.

QuoteWe live in an objectifying culture.  That's not sexually discriminating; both men and women get objectified.  I don't understand how this is keeping women down any more than it keeps men down.

Here's where things start to get interesting. The argument in the case of feminism isn't necessarily that men don't also have similar issues (I, for one, don't seek to suggest men don't have their own struggles) -- it is the extent to which they are A) prevalent and B) affecting them as an entire group.

This is where the concept of male privilege comes in. I found that this checklist, while having a few points on there that I feel iffy about (the first few in particular), is a fairly decent start. Men do not have the same standard of appearance to maintain, are typically not routinely sexually harassed in the street by total strangers, and do not have to worry that whatever their wearing will make them a target.

The ads I posted in a previous post are common - women's bodies are used to advertise quite a few things, even things that are totally unrelated to the human body. Are men's bodies sometimes used? Of course they are, but is it to the point they're practically fellating a sandwich? And when they're given roles in ads, are they sexualized ones? If a woman is in an ad pertaining to football (usually beer ads), she's often shown in a kind of sexy football uniform showing a lot of skin, but the actual football players are often fully clothed and portrayed seriously. Ads such as the infamous Old Spice Guy were obviously playing directly to the man's appearance, but the man was also playing up his own outstanding, empowered (if not totally hilarious/ridiculous) qualities.

There is incredible objectification in comic books going on towards women, as well. Take this for instance. I think they look ridiculous - I couldn't take them seriously as superheroes posed in the same manner. And why does dressing like a female version of a popular superhero mean apparently always needing a skirt? Comicon and other conventions are full of 'booth babes' - scantily-clad women who are essentially there to sell with their looks and are often baring a considerable amount of skin in the process.

QuoteAbsolutely no argument that rape is wrong, and it doesn't have to be intercourse to be rape.  However, using rape as a point of contention that women are being treated as inferior to men is misleading.

Rape on all fronts is wrong, and I think you'll find that there aren't very many sane people who will argue with you on that. It's sad that men are shamed into not reporting the rape they endure and certainly we should be doing more to help them. Statistically speaking, however, the likelihood of men being raped, harassed, and assaulted is lower than the female equivalent. The threat is simply not the same. It doesn't mean we shouldn't take the rape/harassment/assault of males seriously, but the two are not on equal grounds in terms of risk factor and prevalence.

At any rate, this got very long-winded, but I hope it all made sense. :P

rick957

#37
Big thanks to all of you who responded on the topic of objectification.  AndyZ, your comments were a particular pleasure to read, though I felt that way about all the posts, really.  The range of views expressed here is really quite impressive.  Not only was the familiar feminist viewpoint on objectification very well explained, but several of you also articulated some sophisticated criticisms of the familiar feminist viewpoint.  That was especially helpful and got my brain juice a-flowing.  :)  I may post again later with more comments about such things.


EDIT I revised a part of this post that asked for original criticisms of feminist positions (though I'm still interested in hearing them).

AndyZ

Quote from: Noelle on August 27, 2011, 11:41:52 AM
Sexist, actually, but that's just a minor point here!

Dear crap, I'm an idiot.  I know it's supposed to be sexist.  I was thinking prejudiced or bigoted and I guess I missed the word.

Quote from: Noelle on August 27, 2011, 11:41:52 AM
The only real nuanced thing I have with this phrase is that 'natural strengths' is a little tenuous a term to be using, as sometimes it can be used as a point to deepen the divide of why men or women should or shouldn't do a certain thing. For example, many people will argue that women are naturally more nurturing, so clearly they should always be nurses and no man could ever be a good nurse. Some have tried to argue that women are naturally more emotional and therefore shouldn't be the president -- and so forth. But you also somewhat touched on this by mentioning stereotypes, so it's not really a big point of contention.

I agree that it's false logic.  You only need one instance to disprove a logical claim in mathematics, so if even one of a particular subject doesn't fit a stereotype, it's not something you can rely upon for serious decision making.

Quote from: Noelle on August 27, 2011, 11:41:52 AM
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here, nor with the beginning paragraph about having asthma. Would you mind elaborating a bit?

Let's say that I'm at a construction job making widgets.  If we're going to be fair, then the person who can make more widgets should be paid more than the person who can't make as many.  This is how I see it.

For this reason, I wouldn't expect to get paid as much as someone who doesn't have my medical issues for jobs where my asthma and other issues would cause me to be bad at my job.  It's terrible for me, sure, but if I'm constantly hacking, wheezing and can't keep up with other workers, it doesn't make any sense for me to get paid as much.

Now, I'll certainly agree with equal pay for equal work, but it doesn't mean that I want equal pay regardless.  I've seen cases where someone isn't keeping up with the rest and the word "discrimination" gets thrown around even when it's not.  I doubt that you're asking for equal pay regardless, but I've seen it before.

QuoteMen do not have the same standard of appearance to maintain, are typically not routinely sexually harassed in the street by total strangers, and do not have to worry that whatever their wearing will make them a target.

Appearance is just one of those things that I never really got.  I've been told that the main reason women dress up is because other women judge them based on their appearance, so I'm not really sure how that's the fault of men.  I'll agree that sexual harassment is wrong, and rape is wrong regardless of what someone is wearing.

However, I'm seeing a dichotomy here. 

QuoteComicon and other conventions are full of 'booth babes' - scantily-clad women who are essentially there to sell with their looks and are often baring a considerable amount of skin in the process.

You mention that you should be able to wear whatever you want, and I agree, but you also go after the girls who dress up at conventions.  If they want to dress up that way, I say to let them. 

However, I'll admit that even if I'm not screaming out obscenities, I'm still going to look.  I've been known to stare when a girl flashes, but I think that just makes me attracted to females more than it makes me a bigot.

Backing up on the superheroes, they're always in stupid poses.  They deliberately draw them to appear larger than life, more powerful and heroic.  Look at all the stupid things Tobey Maguire was doing in the Spider Man movies in order to look like the drawings.

Though I'll agree that chainmail bikinis are idiotic, and when I'm looking for a picture to play a female, I refuse to use a faux-armor pic to play an armored character.

QuoteAnd why does dressing like a female version of a popular superhero mean apparently always needing a skirt?

I'm guessing it's circa 60s fashion, when many of these superhero styles became iconic archetypes.  Thus why Silk Spectre and many of the others never had them.  No idea why fashion industries push for that, but if anyone reading this wants to get in on starting up more fashion styles of non-skirt superheroes for costumes, I think it'd sell pretty well.


QuoteRape on all fronts is wrong, and I think you'll find that there aren't very many sane people who will argue with you on that. It's sad that men are shamed into not reporting the rape they endure and certainly we should be doing more to help them. Statistically speaking, however, the likelihood of men being raped, harassed, and assaulted is lower than the female equivalent. The threat is simply not the same. It doesn't mean we shouldn't take the rape/harassment/assault of males seriously, but the two are not on equal grounds in terms of risk factor and prevalence.

This gets into stereotyping, though.  Rape on all fronts is wrong, so it's not really fair to blame all men just because more men are rapists, especially when there are women rapists.  Certainly we wouldn't blame a particular race if that race is more apt to commit crimes, right?

However, we don't even know if it is equivalent, because a lot of it goes unreported.  Similar cases with abuse, but some studies show that lesbian relationships have similar levels of violence as heterosexual relationships.  Assuming that lesbians are not more likely than heterosexual women of being abusive (and if you claim that they are, I want to see some data), then it stands to reason that the number of abusive women and men are similar in level.

I have absolutely no idea if this is true in rape, but the matter is academic in any case.  Unless you want to blame the innocent for the crimes of the guilty just on a particular trait that they have like race, gender, religion or the like, I don't believe that men on the whole are responsible if women are being raped.  I would rather say that rape is a problem regardless and we should simply crack down upon it.

I'm probably missing the point for this one, for which I'll apologize.  Most of my bosses during my life have been women, which may put me in a minority or might just put me in a great neighborhood.  I'll certainly agree that some places are much worse than others in discrimination.

Hopefully I haven't come across as too much of a jerk, and I apologize if I have.  I've gotten people very upset from these sorts of Socratic discussions before, which is why I'm holding back on a lot of my thoughts and trying to keep to some specific issues.  I may bring up some others if people haven't gotten sick of me by the time this post is done.
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meikle

#39
QuoteWe live in an objectifying culture.  That's not sexually discriminating; both men and women get objectified.  I don't understand how this is keeping women down any more than it keeps men down.

Who exactly is keeping the male population down?  The rest of the male population?  If you don't understand, you should educate yourself before arguing the point.  But here's the rub: there's more to objectification than "scantily clad photos exist in magazines."  Studies! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090216-bikinis-women-men-objects.html

QuoteHowever, using rape as a point of contention that women are being treated as inferior to men is misleading.

"It is not impossible for a woman to rape a man" is not a good argument toward the suggestion that rape and sexual assault are not a problem for women.  In fact, they're not even related ideas.  Rape and sexual assault are pervasive problems; when 16% of women can claim to have experienced rape or attempted rape, you cannot pretend there is not a problem! (That was  Uh, unless you want us to shift our focus to men's problems, and ignore women's problems?  But that's, you know, sexist.

I mean, tl;dr, it's hard not to take these kinds of comments -- "men got it just bad as women!" type of things -- as being inherently sexist themselves.  I mean, you're welcome to your opinion, but when your opinion has to ignore the actual ramifications of the things you're citing, it's really hard to take it seriously.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

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Jude

#40
That male privilege checklist is really the epitome of the only thing I actually have against feminism:  it's a bunch of unproven, unsubstantiated statements lacking in empirical backing, taken to be gospel, which men are supposed to accept uncritically largely without evidence.  And if we call it into question, often we're blatantly called things like "sexist" or worse, condescended to.

Feminists condescend men all the time when we're just trying to ask questions.

meikle

#41
That list links to discussion of and citation for many of its points ...
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Jude

#42
Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 01:52:28 PM
That list links to discussion of and citation for many of its points ...
Check out some of the links, the studies posted are often poorly done/dead links.  Also, the percentage of points that actually have sourcing?  Not very big.  While your use of the term "many" is subjective, objectively fewer than half of the points have elaborations.

EDIT:  Furthermore, a lot of the (more) links are, as you said, elaborations.  They may contain a better explanation of the idea in the eyes of the claimant, but not necessarily evidence for it.

EDIT2:  In the name of fairness, I'd like to acknowledge that some of the points were well-substantiated.  Then again, I didn't find the entire checklist to be objectionable.  At least half of it I think is probably true.  But this is the source of my lament:  I could say nice things about 100% of it if it only stated things that could actually be backed up.

rick957

#43
Out of curiosity, I just glanced over the Male Privilege Checklist you folks just mentioned here, and the parts I read seemed incredibly insightful, although I assumed that the checklist was devised as a rhetorical tool, for provoking thought, and not as some kind of judgmental screed or call to arms.  IMO, the only thing that would have made it better would be if the same writer turned around and generated the same kind of checklist for Women.

gaggedLouise

Sadly, a good deal of contemporary feminism is full of vague ad hoc explanations, circular arguments and appeals to prophetic authority and supposed guilt. It's also low on will, in any particular band of feminists. to discuss their own inconsistencies. I am not okay with a theory that purports to tell us important things about reality and society but often boils down to exhorting: "You gotta agree to this without questions because this is what WE believe in!"

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

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Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Healergirl

In fairness to the young women of today, there is a good reason why they feel they have no need for feminism:  many of the important battles ahve been on.  case in point:  Qualified women were hideously underrepresented among College students.  Certainly not the case nowl  In fact, women are dominant in most student bodies.  Interms of numbers, that is.  I have noticed an increasing level of attack on the value of higher education.  I am convinced the two are connected.  The declining percentage of men getting advanced degrees is leading to the cultural devaluation of such degrees.  I have heard/read speculation that women are better suited by nature or nurture to Industrial  and post-industrial civilization.  The change in student body complements may be evidence of that.

Noelle

Quote from: AndyZ on August 27, 2011, 01:08:14 PM
Dear crap, I'm an idiot.  I know it's supposed to be sexist.  I was thinking prejudiced or bigoted and I guess I missed the word.

Not an idiot :) I appreciate your attitude on the subject; the big mistake a lot of feminists (and others with strong beliefs) make is that they tend to blast apart people who are well-intentioned, but may not necessarily understand or have all the information, especially when they bring up certain subjects or suggest things that may be offensive. I suppose this is where the 'raging, angry feminist' stereotype comes from.

QuoteLet's say that I'm at a construction job making widgets.  If we're going to be fair, then the person who can make more widgets should be paid more than the person who can't make as many.  This is how I see it.

For this reason, I wouldn't expect to get paid as much as someone who doesn't have my medical issues for jobs where my asthma and other issues would cause me to be bad at my job.  It's terrible for me, sure, but if I'm constantly hacking, wheezing and can't keep up with other workers, it doesn't make any sense for me to get paid as much.

Now, I'll certainly agree with equal pay for equal work, but it doesn't mean that I want equal pay regardless.  I've seen cases where someone isn't keeping up with the rest and the word "discrimination" gets thrown around even when it's not.  I doubt that you're asking for equal pay regardless, but I've seen it before.

I'm guessing what you're getting at here is workplace discrimination between the sexes or is it something else? The issue with equal pay is that it seems there are women who hold positions that are the equivalent of another man's and they are routinely paid less, on average, which I think is worth investigating. There was recently a lawsuit by a group of women against Wal-Mart due to some issues where it seemed to be that there were women who were up for promotion, but were consistently passed over for men. I think they tossed it out because Wal-Mart was deemed to already have sufficient non-discriminatory practices, but I find it hard to believe that if you see a pattern of a certain group being routinely passed over, that it's purely based on merit.

QuoteAppearance is just one of those things that I never really got.  I've been told that the main reason women dress up is because other women judge them based on their appearance, so I'm not really sure how that's the fault of men.  I'll agree that sexual harassment is wrong, and rape is wrong regardless of what someone is wearing.

A lot of expectations are perpetuated by men, and women can also exhibit sexist behavior towards other women, as well. If a woman doesn't shave her legs or armpits (and arguably, there is sometimes an expectation for shaving below the belt), it is considered unhygienic and 'gross'. In the 40's and 50's, there was a lot of literature put out (by men, of course) about a woman's "role". Some of it had to do with keeping herself looking a certain way for her husband. Since then, it's hard to say where it all stemmed from in modern times (I don't know everything there is to know on the subject), but there is a cycle of consumption out there, especially perpetuated by the media who, to nobody's great surprise, has been run predominately by men back in history.

Of course, you also see the message echoed in objectifying ads such as the beer ones - you see thin, white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed models with large breasts, narrow hips, and a flat stomach, and it sends the message that this is what men want to see. And of course men are looking and judging, too! Men aren't immune to visuals, if the prevalence of Maxim and Playboy has anything to say about it. Why do men dress up? To look nice, feel confident/sexy/insert your own adjective here, and/or to potentially attract other people. Who are they typically trying to attract (obviously we're barring homosexuals from this reference)? Women. Who is looking and judging? Women. I would say it's not a whole lot different for women, either.

QuoteHowever, I'm seeing a dichotomy here. 

You mention that you should be able to wear whatever you want, and I agree, but you also go after the girls who dress up at conventions.  If they want to dress up that way, I say to let them. 

I think you're misplacing my point a bit. I have nothing against women who want to dress provocatively - if they're doing so for the right reasons. This is the premise for female self-objectification. I personally think it's kind of a blurry subject because who am I to say what empowers one female and degrades another -- but at the same time, if they're emulating their favorite superheroes or anime characters or what-have-you, who created THOSE characters, and to what end? Wonder Woman is a strong female lead, but she's wearing bondage cuffs and a bustier, which are hardly practical for fighting crime. Are they dressing up as those characters because it makes them feel good and empowered, or are they doing it because it's expected? The whole joke about Halloween being one of the only times it's acceptable to dress "like a slut" pretty well exemplifies it, I think.

QuoteHowever, I'll admit that even if I'm not screaming out obscenities, I'm still going to look.  I've been known to stare when a girl flashes, but I think that just makes me attracted to females more than it makes me a bigot.

I'm not condemning men for being attracted to women -- I think this is a point that kind of gets lost in a lot of these kinds of discussions. When you become fixated on a woman for her body, it is objectifying. Initial attraction isn't a bad thing, certainly someone's looks are the most readily noticeable thing about them, but things like staring and occasionally obsessing over body parts (tits and ass, if you will!) is objectifying and it is harmful. It reduces the owner of those things to the sum of their parts.

Quote
Backing up on the superheroes, they're always in stupid poses.  They deliberately draw them to appear larger than life, more powerful and heroic.  Look at all the stupid things Tobey Maguire was doing in the Spider Man movies in order to look like the drawings.

Though I'll agree that chainmail bikinis are idiotic, and when I'm looking for a picture to play a female, I refuse to use a faux-armor pic to play an armored character.

I'll agree with you here that there is a definite problem overall in comicbooks of unrealistic, insane crap (...capes? Why are they wearing capes?! That's not practical!), there is simply no comparison to the sexualization of the women involved. They are not portrayed as being powerful for their physical prowess or cunning -- hell, isn't it Poison Ivy and Catwoman who had powers that involved kissing their enemies? Batman isn't straddling his enemy's lap with his midriff showing while making a seductive face. Their suits don't come with a handy zipper down the front to show off their rippling man-cleavage.

QuoteThis gets into stereotyping, though.  Rape on all fronts is wrong, so it's not really fair to blame all men just because more men are rapists, especially when there are women rapists.  Certainly we wouldn't blame a particular race if that race is more apt to commit crimes, right?

You're on the right lines, yes, but when we look into why a certain race has more crimes, we also look at what is surrounding them, what is perpetuating the desire or need to commit crime. For many minorities, it is their socioeconomic status, fueled by a society that is still dealing with issues of non-obvious racism and prejudice that make it harder for those people to get/keep jobs, own property, and even eat healthy foods.

In the case of rape, it's certainly very hard to pin down the exact numbers (and you really can't estimate what isn't reported), especially because some of the numbers are conflated by lumping in sexual assault or simply indiscriminate categorizing (some feminist websites, for example, don't presume innocence until proven guilt, so they lump all reported cases of rape/sexual assault together regardless of the legal verdict), but based on the greater numbers of women who are threatened by sexual harassment, the prevalence of an attitude that is "don't dress like a slut" (SlutWalk aims to counter one particular example), as well as the more powerful position of men in society on the whole, I'd say it's a fairly realistic guess to say that men, on the whole, are not being oppressed by rape in the same way women are and it is a more realistic guess with the given statistics to say that while male rape does happen and should be addressed and the victim-shaming stopped, it is simply not as prevalent as violence towards women.

To relate this back to race again -- if minorities, on the whole, are being shown to have lower employment rates, it is not incorrect or untrue to say "Well, I'm a white male and I can't find a job", it's just not indicative of any greater trend that may be overshadowing it.

AndyZ

Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 01:16:16 PM
Who exactly is keeping the male population down?  The rest of the male population?  If you don't understand, you should educate yourself before arguing the point.  But here's the rub: there's more to objectification than "scantily clad photos exist in magazines."  Studies! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090216-bikinis-women-men-objects.html

Are you saying that men are the only ones capable of keeping people down?  Sounds rather discriminatory to me, but let's read through the article.

QuoteIf a similar study were done with women, Fiske told National Geographic News, it would be hard to predict whether a woman shown a scantily clad male body would dehumanize him in the same way.

We do the studies for men but not for women?  The very fact that the scientists only do one particular gender proves a bias on the part of the scientists.

Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 01:16:16 PM
"It is not impossible for a woman to rape a man" is not a good argument toward the suggestion that rape and sexual assault are not a problem for women.  In fact, they're not even related ideas.  Rape and sexual assault are pervasive problems; when 16% of women can claim to have experienced rape or attempted rape, you cannot pretend there is not a problem!

No argument that rape is terrible, regardless of the genders involved.  I already went over this towards the end of my last post; if you like, you can read through it.

Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 01:16:16 PM
(That was  Uh, unless you want us to shift our focus to men's problems, and ignore women's problems?  But that's, you know, sexist.

So is it also sexist to talk about women's problems and ignore men's problems?  Being able to compare and contrast an argument requires actually looking at both sides.  So many of these things talk about the problems that women have but completely ignore the problems that men have.

It's a lot like saying that because women can have multiple orgasms, it's so much better to be a woman, but not mentioning menstruation or childbirth, or any other such things.  When you only give half the argument and call it sexist to bring up anything else, things seem a lot worse.

Anyone got an article where they talk about the entire set and do some actual comparisons?

Quote from: Jude on August 27, 2011, 01:34:57 PM
Feminists condescend men all the time when we're just trying to ask questions.

Condescension is an ancient tool, but in my experience, is generally most commonly used when someone is losing the argument.  When people don't have something intelligent to say, they start slinging insults.

Quote from: rick957 on August 27, 2011, 02:11:11 PM
Out of curiosity, I just glanced over the Male Privilege Checklist you folks just mentioned here, and the parts I read seemed incredibly insightful, although I assumed that the checklist was devised as a rhetorical tool, for provoking thought, and not as some kind of judgmental screed or call to arms.  IMO, the only thing that would have made it better would be if the same writer turned around and generated the same kind of checklist for Women.

Good to know that it's not just me.

Quote from: Healergirl on August 27, 2011, 02:23:53 PM
In fairness to the young women of today, there is a good reason why they feel they have no need for feminism:  many of the important battles ahve been on. 

This may very well be why I don't see it as so much of a problem: I never lived through much of the really bad stuff.  I'll certainly agree that the problems in the past were truly horrendous, and they may still be in some areas, but it so often seems like problems are still brought up which have been solved.

It's sort of like how we still have the NAACP.  By and large, I feel as though the war for equality has been pretty well won.  Are we still at the point where we need a major organization for African-Americans?  I've seen so many people who have been shown to be discriminatory get blasted by everyone, regardless of race/gender/whatever, like that incident with the guy who used to play Kramer.  I don't know if we need these huge organizations when public opinion itself will destroy these people.

Quote from: Healergirl on August 27, 2011, 02:23:53 PM
The declining percentage of men getting advanced degrees is leading to the cultural devaluation of such degrees.

I've heard that it's because so many people are going out to get degrees nowadays that such things are not as valued as they used to be.  It used to be that having a college degree was distinguished because so few had them, and now that so many do, it doesn't give you an edge in the business world.  Makes sense to me but I don't know if it's true.

It seems likely that your hypothesis is more probable than mine if there are less men in college than there used to be (regardless of how many women are enrolled, and compared to previous decades), and that mine is more probable if the numbers are equal or greater, but I can't find any information on relative numbers of male college-goers over the last few decades.  Even so, it'd only be circumstantial, so who can say?

Quote from: Healergirl on August 27, 2011, 02:23:53 PM
I have heard/read speculation that women are better suited by nature or nurture to Industrial  and post-industrial civilization.

Sounds like a stereotype to me.  No offense, but I don't see any reason to believe that any more than that one gender is better than another at anything other than childbirth, or that one race is better than another at something.

I've heard these similar arguments, though.  This is where feminism is going: since no one argues with equality, some claim that men are inherently inferior in the same way that people used to claim that women were inherently inferior.  It baffles me, but I've heard that things inherently move in cycles, shifting back and forth until a true equilibrium is found, so maybe it's necessary to disprove things on both sides in order to find a true balance.


I have more, but people keep posting before I can finish, so I'm putting this down.
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QuoteAre you saying that men are the only ones capable of keeping people down?  Sounds rather discriminatory to me, but let's read through the article.

Is there a pervasive culture-spanning tendency of women to be in positions of power over men in the US that I've overlooked?

QuoteWe do the studies for men but not for women?  The very fact that the scientists only do one particular gender proves a bias on the part of the scientists.

No, it doesn't.  If the hypothesis is, "Men objectify women," testing women to see if they objectify men is not relevant.  You can, of course, run your own study if you're interested in that topic.

QuoteSo is it also sexist to talk about women's problems and ignore men's problems?  Being able to compare and contrast an argument requires actually looking at both sides.  So many of these things talk about the problems that women have but completely ignore the problems that men have.

There are not 'two sides'.  These are different problems.  When discussing the problems that women face, problems that men face don't matter.  The problems are not competing with each other.  We are not playing misery poker.  Men crying "what about us!" whenever the topic of problems that women face comes up is really tiresome.

Acknowledging that women have problems does not mean diminishing that other people face problems, as well.  Not until someone decides that there needs to be some kind of competition over it, anyway.
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#49
QuoteWe do the studies for men but not for women?  The very fact that the scientists only do one particular gender proves a bias on the part of the scientists.
There has been research done on it, just not as much.  It's not that we aren't curious how objectification affects both of the sexes, it's just that we have to set priorities.  Objectification seems to be a much bigger problem for women, so the priority is set to explore that component of it first and at greater detail.

You're right though, in that more efforts are being made at examining the struggles that women have as a result of the structure of our culture, but there's a reason for that.  It wasn't even 100 years ago that women couldn't vote.  There used to be gigantic academic gaps between the sexes.  There is still a wage gap.  There are a lot of verifiable inequalities between men and women today.  If we want to live in an egalitarian society, it wouldn't make much sense to start with the sex that is better off than the other, and remove societal roadblocks that exist for them first.  That doesn't mean there aren't problems that men face.

I know it's hard when talking about stuff like this to keep away from an us versus them mentality.  Human beings an innately tribal; we feel a need to defend groups that we belong to from outsiders.  When feminists use a lot of language like "some men do this" or "the patriarchy does that" you just have to remind yourself that if you're not one of those men, and not take it personally (unless you are, then it's time to do some soul searching).  If you've never done a catcall, touched a woman against her will, considered her intellectually inferior just because of her sex, or otherwise abused women, then you're fine and the fact that other men do this in no way reflects negatively on you.

You are not a representative for your sex.  You didn't choose to be born a man, so there's no need for you to defend that group.  There are a lot of men out there who are selfish assholes with disgusting attitudes towards women that they don't even realize they possess.  Take a personal inventory, ask yourself if that's you -- if you can honestly say no, then don't worry about it.

AndyZ

Quote from: Noelle on August 27, 2011, 02:43:40 PM
Not an idiot :) I appreciate your attitude on the subject; the big mistake a lot of feminists (and others with strong beliefs) make is that they tend to blast apart people who are well-intentioned, but may not necessarily understand or have all the information, especially when they bring up certain subjects or suggest things that may be offensive. I suppose this is where the 'raging, angry feminist' stereotype comes from.

This is why you rock.  I'm extremely Socratic and you've been nothing but nice and patient with me.  In a lot of places, even on this site, I just end up giving up because people attacking me makes me shut up and start arguing, which doesn't help anyone.

Quote from: Noelle on August 27, 2011, 02:43:40 PM
I'm guessing what you're getting at here is workplace discrimination between the sexes or is it something else? The issue with equal pay is that it seems there are women who hold positions that are the equivalent of another man's and they are routinely paid less, on average, which I think is worth investigating. There was recently a lawsuit by a group of women against Wal-Mart due to some issues where it seemed to be that there were women who were up for promotion, but were consistently passed over for men. I think they tossed it out because Wal-Mart was deemed to already have sufficient non-discriminatory practices, but I find it hard to believe that if you see a pattern of a certain group being routinely passed over, that it's purely based on merit.

I have absolutely no idea if it's discrimination or not.  I'll agree that it shouldn't happen if it's because of discrimination, but it's impossible to say.  I don't even know how you'd prove it.

There used to be things like Affirmative Action where you absolutely had to have someone of a particular race.  They probably still exist in various ways, but I don't know because I haven't looked into it.  However, I consider it completely the wrong direction to require people of a particular race/gender/etc. in order to fill a particular quota.  Maybe it used to be required; I don't believe it still is.

Personally, I think that if you don't hire or promote someone based on some sort of discrimination, and they're the best person, you're handicapping yourself.  Other people will not have such practices, and therefore they'll have better people on average, so you're hurting your business.  However, that's pretty academic.

QuoteIn the 40's and 50's,

Absolutely no argument that we used to be very, very discriminatory.  However, this always seems to be the breakdown in the argument.  I call this the "Caveman Problem" because that's in the past as well, but I don't feel any compulsion to apologize for the sins of ancestry.  Doubly so when I'm not even related to the people in any significant way (like how my ancestors didn't come until after slavery had been stopped in the USA).

Just a point I've wanted to make for a while now.  I see so many arguments about people who hate white males, or Christians, for something that happened way, way back when.  As I read this over and over, though, maybe you're trying to say that it bled over, but I don't really understand why it would.  Consider how vastly styles changed in the 60s and 70s.

Nowadays, we have so many fashion magazines written up, like Seventeen, Redbook, and Glamour, just to name a few.  I don't know who runs them, but so many of the articles are written by women.  This suggests that women are pushing the fashion world in its direction, but I would figure that the primary force of such things would be what women actually buy and don't buy, that women are intelligent enough to choose for themselves what they do and do not want to wear in casual situations.

Professional dress I realize is very different.  Given the choice, I wouldn't even wear a suit and tie to my own wedding or funeral.  (If you're reading this, please bury me in a T-shirt and jeans.  If it's the last thing I'm going to wear for a while, I want to be comfy. ^_^  Sorry, serious convo requires at least one joke thrown in somewhere).  I do consider heels every bit as idiotic as a necktie, and will gladly agree to abolish both for people who don't want to wear them.  Beyond that, I don't know enough about female fashion to see if you're as limited at options of dresses as men are with suits.

QuoteI think you're misplacing my point a bit. I have nothing against women who want to dress provocatively - if they're doing so for the right reasons. This is the premise for female self-objectification. I personally think it's kind of a blurry subject because who am I to say what empowers one female and degrades another -- but at the same time, if they're emulating their favorite superheroes or anime characters or what-have-you, who created THOSE characters, and to what end? Wonder Woman is a strong female lead, but she's wearing bondage cuffs and a bustier, which are hardly practical for fighting crime. Are they dressing up as those characters because it makes them feel good and empowered, or are they doing it because it's expected? The whole joke about Halloween being one of the only times it's acceptable to dress "like a slut" pretty well exemplifies it, I think.

I've been to many anime conventions but don't really understand people dressing up.  I'm going to agree on the premise that it's possible that there's discrimination going on, but it's impossible to say.  However, nobody makes women dress up for these things, nor for making characters more based to their liking if they so choose.

Wonder Woman originally came from 1941 according to Wiki.  I guess this is part of how that bleedover occurs.  The funny thing there is that she was originally part of the Amazons, which was a sort of feminist movement all its own.  I guess it was just one of those "it was acceptable in the 40s" thing, but if they gave Catwoman a new outfit, I don't see why they can't with Wonder Woman as well.  (The original Catwoman had many, many different outfits, some sexier than others).

Of course, Batman's suit has nipples as well, and I think I already said that chainmail bikinis are idiotic.

QuoteI'm not condemning men for being attracted to women -- I think this is a point that kind of gets lost in a lot of these kinds of discussions. When you become fixated on a woman for her body, it is objectifying. Initial attraction isn't a bad thing, certainly someone's looks are the most readily noticeable thing about them, but things like staring and occasionally obsessing over body parts (tits and ass, if you will!) is objectifying and it is harmful. It reduces the owner of those things to the sum of their parts.

I honestly used to believe that girls were very concerned about their appearance, so if a girl was all dressed up and looked great, it was a compliment to stare or make comments.  Obviously, I have learned better.

Quote(some feminist websites, for example, don't presume innocence until proven guilt, so they lump all reported cases of rape/sexual assault together regardless of the legal verdict)

To me, this is a major damage to the cause.  If you really believe that something is a problem, you should be willing to bring your case honestly and truthfully (which you have, don't get me wrong there).  It's sort of like the whole Climategate thing where they found out just how much various scientists were fudging the data on global warning.  If you have to lie, it only makes it look like the truth won't hold you out.


QuoteI'd say it's a fairly realistic guess to say that men, on the whole, are not being oppressed by rape in the same way women are and it is a more realistic guess with the given statistics to say that while male rape does happen and should be addressed and the victim-shaming stopped, it is simply not as prevalent as violence towards women.

Probably.  I'm not going to try to say which is more prevalent; my point is more that it's terrible regardless.

With a lot of these, it's more subjective.  Is WalMart sexist or isn't it?  Is the clothing line sexist or isn't it?  Rape is terrible no matter what.

Is there any truth to that statistic that Miekle gave about 16% of all women have been raped or had it attempted?  That just seems completely insane.  If nearly 1 in 6 of all women have, our justice system has completely failed us.  Even at 10%, I'd want to own a gun.

I guess a lot of everything is that I either want to be able to do something, or else prove to myself that I'm not doing this.  I've had people yell at me before and it makes me worry that maybe I am a little bigoted, but it seems like I'm pretty okay.
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#51
Quote from: AndyZ on August 27, 2011, 04:52:10 PM
Is there any truth to that statistic that Miekle gave about 16% of all women have been raped or had it attempted?  That just seems completely insane.  If nearly 1 in 6 of all women have, our justice system has completely failed us.  Even at 10%, I'd want to own a gun.

http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims
Quote1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape).1

http://www.slc.edu/offices-services/security/assault/statistics.html
QuoteAt least 1 in 4 college women will be the victim of a sexual assault during her academic career. Hirsch, Kathleen (1990)”Fraternities of Fear: Gang Rape, Male Bonding, and the Silencing of Women.” Ms., 1(2) 52-56.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/219181.pdf
QuoteOur findings indicate that about 20 million out of 112 million women (18.0%) in the U.S. have
ever been raped during their lifetime. This includes an estimated 18 million women who have
been forcibly raped, nearly 3 million women who have experienced drug-facilitated rape, and 3
million women who have experienced incapacitated rape.

the National Criminal Justice Reference Service pdf is the most recent source I found (after about five minutes of searching), published in 2007.
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AndyZ

Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 03:47:05 PM
Is there a pervasive culture-spanning tendency of women to be in positions of power over men in the US that I've overlooked?

No, it doesn't.  If the hypothesis is, "Men objectify women," testing women to see if they objectify men is not relevant.  You can, of course, run your own study if you're interested in that topic.

There are not 'two sides'.  These are different problems.  When discussing the problems that women face, problems that men face don't matter.  The problems are not competing with each other.  We are not playing misery poker.  Men crying "what about us!" whenever the topic of problems that women face comes up is really tiresome.

Acknowledging that women have problems does not mean diminishing that other people face problems, as well.  Not until someone decides that there needs to be some kind of competition over it, anyway.

Let's go over this a little more slowly by talking about the study you mentioned.

How much do we really know about the human brain?  It talks about lighting up the part of the brain associated with tool use, but later goes on to clarify:

QuoteMen were also more likely to associate images of sexualized women with first-person action verbs such as "I push, I grasp, I handle," said lead researcher Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University.

Push, grasp, handle, could it just be that they're imagining performing certain verbs upon these women?  Is it sexist to have such thoughts?  When women see images of men, do they imagine doing things to them as well?

The importance of comparisons is to decide whether it's actually an issue of sexism or if there's something else at work.  I'm sorry about what happened in your past, but everyone has problems, and it doesn't automatically mean that things are worse for some than others.

Quote from: Jude on August 27, 2011, 04:35:01 PM
There has been research done on it, just not as much.  It's not that we aren't curious how objectification affects both of the sexes, it's just that we have to set priorities.  Objectification seems to be a much bigger problem for women, so the priority is set to explore that component of it first and at greater detail.

Maybe the point I've been trying to make isn't very clear.

If you don't look at both sides, of course things are going to appear bad.  Knowing the white blood cell count of someone with leukemia doesn't mean anything unless you also know a healthy white blood cell count by comparison.  Science requires a control

If you have something like "science proves that men objectify women," if you actually care about accuracy, you should check to see if women react the same way.  Otherwise, you're making women out to be victims without even checking if this is just how primitive parts of the brain work for arousal, regardless of gender.


QuoteI know it's hard when talking about stuff like this to keep away from an us versus them mentality.  Human beings an innately tribal; we feel a need to defend groups that we belong to from outsiders.  When feminists use a lot of language like "some men do this" or "the patriarchy does that" you just have to remind yourself that if you're not one of those men, and not take it personally (unless you are, then it's time to do some soul searching).  If you've never done a catcall, touched a woman against her will, considered her intellectually inferior just because of her sex, or otherwise abused women, then you're fine and the fact that other men do this in no way reflects negatively on you.

You are not a representative for your sex.  You didn't choose to be born a man, so there's no need for you to defend that group.  There are a lot of men out there who are selfish assholes with disgusting attitudes towards women that they don't even realize they possess.  Take a personal inventory, ask yourself if that's you -- if you can honestly say no, then don't worry about it.

You are, of course, correct ^_^  I just get sick of being attacked purely for being a man, but very few people on this thread have done that, for which I am grateful.

Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 05:09:07 PM
http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims
http://www.slc.edu/offices-services/security/assault/statistics.html
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/219181.pdf
the National Criminal Justice Reference Service pdf is the most recent source I found (after about five minutes of searching), published in 2007.

Dear crap, it's over 1 in 6.  Our police force is completely incompetent!  Why are our jails not further stuffed with people?
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#53
Quote from: AndyZ on August 27, 2011, 05:22:21 PMI'm sorry about what happened in your past, but everyone has problems, and it doesn't automatically mean that things are worse for some than others.
o_O

QuoteIf you don't look at both sides, of course things are going to appear bad.  Knowing the white blood cell count of someone with leukemia doesn't mean anything unless you also know a healthy white blood cell count by comparison.  Science requires a control

What exactly is a 'healthy white blood cell count' as it would apply to this particular experiment?  Presumably, your control is the male brain with no images to stimulate them at all, in the same circumstances as whatever situation they were in before the images were presented.  Not every test is a drug trial, after all.

Again, it's not a competition.  "Males associate the image of a scantily clad woman with a tool" is a literal proof of objectification; these men literally see these images as tools and not as people.  Proving that women do the same thing wouldn't change this observation.

Chopping the heads off of the women in the photographs might have swayed the results a bit and the findings should reflect that ("men recognize headless women as not being people" might be a meaningful difference"), and the difference between a photograph of a woman and an actual woman is probably interesting to look at as well, but hey.
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AndyZ

Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 05:34:01 PM
"Males associate the image of a scantily clad woman with a tool" is a literal proof of objectification; these men literally see these images as tools and not as people.  Proving that women do the same thing wouldn't change this observation.

This isn't really what the study says.  It says that the grab/grasp/handle part of the brain lights up when men view scantily clad women.  Now, one interpretation is that men only see women as tools, but this is hardly the only possible reason.

I posit that when you imagine wanting to do something to a person, the "grab/grasp/handle" part of the brain activates, because you imagine grabbing/grasping/handling the person.

This is quite different from seeing women as nothing more than tools.  In order to understand which one it is requires further study.  We don't have a strong enough understanding of the human brain to make such a claim.

QuoteChopping the heads off of the women in the photographs might have swayed the results a bit and the findings should reflect that ("men recognize headless women as not being people" might be a meaningful difference"), and the difference between a photograph of a woman and an actual woman is probably interesting to look at as well, but hey.

You're starting to see what I mean with this ^_^  Obviously you're not going to have too much social cognition because you're not having a conversation with a picture.

I'm not saying that there aren't douchebags out there who objectify women; I'm saying the science is far from adequate to claim that all men objectify all women.
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#55
Quote from: AndyZ on August 27, 2011, 06:02:01 PM
This isn't really what the study says.  It says that the grab/grasp/handle part of the brain lights up when men view scantily clad women.  Now, one interpretation is that men only see women as tools, but this is hardly the only possible reason.

I posit that when you imagine wanting to do something to a person, the "grab/grasp/handle" part of the brain activates, because you imagine grabbing/grasping/handling the person.

That is not what it says.

It says that men associate women in bikinis with personal action verbs.  Not "she does this", but "i do this".  It also say "some of the men studied showed no activity in the part of the brain that usually responds when a person ponders another's intentions" and "The lack of activation in this social cognition area is really odd, because it hardly ever happens." (implies that other studies have been done that show that this sort of response is somewhat unique to women in bikinis)

It says that this response comes from "men who scored higher as "hostile sexists"—those who view women as controlling and invaders of male space".

QuoteI'm not saying that there aren't douchebags out there who objectify women; I'm saying the science is far from adequate to claim that all men objectify all women.
It's a good thing the claim looks more like 'the fact that some men objectify women is enough to cause significant problems.'

Unless you mean the claim in the article, which doesn't say anything about "all men" but simply discusses the findings from their experiment.
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rick957

#56
The thread seems to have turned into a case study in epistemological uncertainty.  (Wha?)

Sorry, I can never resist using a word like "epistemological," and I haven't had a fitting moment in a long long time!

Okay, carry on.  I'm out!

AndyZ

Quote from: meikle on August 27, 2011, 06:15:48 PM
That is not what it says.

It says that men associate women in bikinis with personal action verbs.  Not "she does this", but "i do this".  It also say "some of the men studied showed no activity in the part of the brain that usually responds when a person ponders another's intentions" and "The lack of activation in this social cognition area is really odd, because it hardly ever happens." (implies that other studies have been done that show that this sort of response is somewhat unique to women in bikinis)

It says that this response comes from "men who scored higher as "hostile sexists"—those who view women as controlling and invaders of male space".
It's a good thing the claim looks more like 'the fact that some men objectify women is enough to cause significant problems.'

Unless you mean the claim in the article, which doesn't say anything about "all men" but simply discusses the findings from their experiment.

Going to bow out now.  I believe we've reached the point where we're both repeating ourselves.


Quote from: rick957 on August 27, 2011, 06:25:59 PM
The thread seems to have turned into a case study in epistemological uncertainty.

:)

Sorry, I can never resist using a word like "epistemological," and I haven't had a fitting moment in a long long time!

Okay, carry on.  I'm out!

In my experience, scientific debates often turn out that way.  With science, you have to prove that your hypothesis is the only reason for a particular event, and it's so horrendously rare to actually see that nowadays.

People often forget that a theory is just a theory, and that scientific concepts are only accepted until another, better idea comes along.  It was less than 30 years ago when people came up with the idea of a meteor causing the dinosaurs dying off, and even that is being questioned now with the prospect of a supervolcano.

Of course, these are the same people who don't realize that Schrodinger was using hyperbole, that of course the cat wasn't alive and dead at the same time.  I'll put that in a spoiler tag because it's way off topic, but it's worth pointing out as a common misconception.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Schrödinger wrote:
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.[3]
The above text is a translation of two paragraphs from a much larger original article that appeared in the German magazine Naturwissenschaften ("Natural Sciences") in 1935.[2]
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Missy

At this point I don't really want to be involved with this discussion and have only really continued reading because I want to better understand women and feminism and how those relate to me and the world.

I'm honestly annoyed that any person would suggest that because some men don't think about having a conversation with a photograph, we all don't, especially when the subtitle of that article clearly stated "some". Sorry, that's all I have to say.

meikle

#59
Quote from: MCsc on August 27, 2011, 07:16:14 PMI'm honestly annoyed that any person would suggest that because some men don't think about having a conversation with a photograph, we all don't, especially when the subtitle of that article clearly stated "some". Sorry, that's all I have to say.

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Jude

#60
She hasn't said that all men are that way anywhere -- please calm down and stop being offended on behalf of a social group you do not belong to.  Don't take it personally, it isn't about you.  You're probably one of the decent guys out there :P  They're not rare.

It is also a good point though that we're talking about men's reactions to a photograph in that particular study.

Please also keep in mind that the statistics she gave on the prevalence of rape are projections based off of estimations about the number of rapes that go unreported and also self-reported questionaires (which is notoriously unscientific and unreliable due to the fallibility of the human mind and memory).  In 2009, there were 89,000 rapes in the United States that were legally proven -- spread across nearly 300 million people, over half of which are female.  Bump up the number to 100k for ease of calculation and say women comprise half, and you've got 100k/150000k = 1/1500 women were the victims of a convicted sex offender in 2009.

Small aside, I changed the language a bit there, because you have to remember that everyone who is convicted for rape is not necessarily guilty just as every instance of it is not reported and every rapist is not actually convicted when they deserve to be.  The real question is, how many rapes are actually occurring compared to those that resulted in a conviction?  If we believe the 1/6 number, then we have to inflate our 1/1500 number over the course of a year into that.  Start with a 75 year lifespan, and you're sitting at 75/1500 (which is a fraction reducible to 1/20).  So basically, if we ignore wrongful convictions, in order for 1/6 to be true, there would have to be roughly 2 rapists who get away with it for every convicted rapist out there (and if you compensate for all of the corners I cut in ease of calculation, it's closer to 2 and 1/2 or 3).  That's a haunting number.  There are other problems with my calculation though, like assuming that the rape rate has stayed the same for some time -- it probably hasn't.

You also have to be careful with any number that is given in these debates as feminist groups have a history of deception with rape statistics.

gaggedLouise

#61
Okay, I had all but decided to keep out of this thread for now, but I'll give it one more try to bring out something that's persistently bothering me about the way feminism is often argued these days, both in research and even more in the popular media. (As I've indicated before, I am happy to regard myself as, well, old-school feminist; nobody is obliged to buy the things sold today to be able to call oneself feminist).

If you'll splash enough pathos or personal, ranty expressiveness onto something you are telling, and perhaps add some moral coercion ("how can you not stick with my causes?" or "you have no say because you weren't there in the heat of it at the time" etc) it isn't hard to hide a lack of conclusiveness or good sense in what's being shown up as a proof or a solid argument. And this is easier to do if it's built around a sketched out "personal story" or an argument to the effect of like, this is what I always felt in such and such a situation, this is typical. "nearly all my women buddies have been raped, or been in situations that were close to rape, or called cunt" - how do we know this is true and just what does "close to rape" mean here, considering how often rape is used as an image or expanded to a "rape society" beyond actual violations?

I can buy that women are getting a bad deal some of the time and that this is partly rooted in old atttitudes and institutions (though I think this is being recreated by both males and females). Economic deprivation too, absolutely. But to get anywhere in discussing it we need to have real examples, some kind of evidence or indications, or it will soon just slide back to people pulling out stuff that happened three hundred years ago or that is happening in Africa, but which isn't necessarily a good pointer to what things are like in the modern Western world.

And that's where I can see a difference between two ways of corroborating this, offering some informal evidence - short of purely scientific quantitaive data or in-depth surveys. If someone is saying, "There are much fewer women than men painters in the modern age who have had the kind of consistent, long-term success and recognition over many decades that the likes of Picasso, Diego Rivera or David Hockney had" that's a statement we can all check against the outside world we know, not just against somebody's mind. If you say "How many women rockers (not pop or r'n'b acts) get the kind of adulation and artistic respect, over a long time, that Neil Young or Pete Townshend have enjoyed?" okay, that's got some sort of solid core to it (the contrast, if you look at women with long and brilliant careers as rock singer/songwriters, is probably even more striking outside of the U.S.). We can all form some sort of opinion whether this is so, from the outside world, from material facts, and add onto it with things we'äve read in reviews and so on.

But if a female rocker is saying, "everytime I started a band with one or two guys in it, they would have, like, better chops and be too eager to jump past us girls and take over the steering wheel - that's the way men will try to dominate us! Even if they didn't consciously want to push us down, it always, always ended up that way. You know, men are like that, and that's why we girls had to fight on our own., Men are pigs, they're just doing their own vein of bluesy potato virtuoso rock with as many intricate guitar licks as possible - that's male oppression!" (this is a roughly authentic quote off memory, from Marit Bergman, a feminist rocker and activist), what kind of evidence is that? She's tossing up a very stylized piece of private narrative, impossible to check and pretending to describe something that happened over a long period of time which, she indicates, was regular and which, it is strongly implied, happens in any mixed band if the girls are trying to stand up for themselves musically.

If I'd question that it actually happened like that, that the proficiency of the guys unyieldingly led to them putting down their female bandmates, that there were no other reasons for conflict, and if I question that this is what's going to happen generally - which has to be the glue in the argument - then that kind of "private story pitch" will essentially fall back on "you know me, are you trying toi suggest that I'm a liar?". No, if we're only discussing and haven't got to know each other "in real life" - and in public debate we most often don't know the debaters apart from their public life and talk/written output, nor do they mostly know each other so intimately they could check this kind of story as it's being told - then there's no way of knowing if it's true, hence if it could be valid. To be valid in this context it has to be a bit representative outside of her own life. But the next argument, if I'd point this out and question the other's honesty, is likely to be, "You don't believe me so why should I take you into account when you're just trying to debase my voice? You are part of the patriarchal conspiracy!"

Today, personal stories sell and they are avidly used to build up arguments and trademarks. Listen to any talk radio show or tv spot, check out most popular amagazines, the emphasis is on stories (sometimes pimped up with personal attacks, attempts to push the reader emotionally into a corner or insinuations bent on tarring all of a kind - men, Muslims, car drivers or judges... - into one bunch sharing the same sins) rather than penetrative, cogent argument where you're actually supposed to prove or explain something, pointing to the world we all have access to, or from trying to show something by the inner logic of a story and then use the principles shown, not the story itself, as the starting point for what you're saying.

If I'm reading a discussion piece I'm not interested in feeling cozy with the person who wrote it, I want to see if they have decent arguments and can offer reasons that'll stand up for taking their view. Unfortunately, the contemporary world soemtimes seems more interested in what sounds cool or brash than in what can be shown to be true or solid by argument, and many feminists these days, though they didn't invent this, seem to eagerly buy into it.

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Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

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Pumpkin Seeds

There is a good point touched on here regarding relationship abuse.  While the link demonstrated by Andyz is not a particularly good one, he still brought up an issue of contention.  Violence between men and women actually does go both ways to a pretty devastating degree.  During research for a paper I stumbled across some research that showed the level of violence between men and women is roughly equal in terms of both physical and emotional abuse while in a relationship.  Unfortunately the actual research article is no longer in my possession, but was certainly an intriguing read.  Part of the requirement to get into the heart of the issue was not labeling an act as abuse but rather detailing the act.  For instance a woman does not view slapping her boyfriend as hitting him.  Whereas a man slapping a woman is an obvious case of abuse to most people and so the researcher, a woman, had to design her survey around the language problem.

Domestic violence against men is a difficult topic to research due to a man’s easy access to excuses and a cultural tendency to ignore the situation.  Research has shown that emergency room physicians are more willing to accept a man’s excuse for accidents at home/work than a woman’s excuse for the same injury.  Men are also less likely to seek help, have fewer resources available to them for abuse and are ridiculed to a greater extent for their plight.  One article I read had an interview with a man that said the police quite literally laughed at him over the phone when he called for help after his wife attempted to stab him.  In a way this highlights my greatest problem with feminist thought, but my problem is not merely with feminist thinkers but the public at large.

Much of the research regarding domestic violence against men is hard to find.  There are numbers but typically the studies are underfunded or poorly done.  Often times feminist researchers launch into attacks on this research in an attempt to turn the spotlight back onto women.  Feminism though is supposed to be about gender equality.  I do believe, personally, that one of the two greatest failings of feminism is ignoring the plight of men in the world.  The second is that feminists do not actually advance femininity but rather masculinity.  Feminists have allowed themselves to be drawn into a typical, “us vs them” argument that does not serve a greater purpose.  That being said, the fault lies with both sides as can be evidenced in this thread where sides between men and women are being sharply drawn.  The goal should not be a “well men are objectified too!” but rather a unified realization that the act is wrong across the board.  Unfortunately, much easier to point at the other side and accusations than to perform self-examination and unification.

A point was made regarding the enrollment of women in education.  In recent years women have surpassed men in enrollment of classes in college and in graduation rates.  Feminists of course jumped onto this information as proof that women were intellectually superior.  Fact is of course less interesting than fiction as women are enrolling in less science and math based courses.  This is not to suggest that such courses are inferior, but rather to highlight that women are following societal influences over a natural inclination to be smarter.  Studying and education are more acceptable for women to do than men.  Men on the other hand are pressured to pursue fields that generate money, required technical skills and heavily rely on math/science.  This is certainly a poor of equality that men feel pressured to leave college and pursue technical degrees over diplomas.  Yet here is the kicker for this particular train of thought as to why a focus might be best served on the female end of this problem.  Despite the larger graduation rates shared by women…. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html

I would like to highlight a particularly interesting section of the article.

Perhaps the most compelling — and potentially damning — data of all to suggest that gender has an influence comes from a 2008 study in which University of Chicago sociologist Kristen Schilt and NYU economist Matthew Wiswall examined the wage trajectories of people who underwent a sex change. Their results: even when controlling for factors like education, men who transitioned to women earned, on average, 32% less after the surgery. Women who became men, on the other hand, earned 1.5% more.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html#ixzz1WI9BbnOA

While I am not trying to demean the plight of men that feel pressured and humiliated at having to pursue a career in carpentry or business over the fine arts, there is a certain importance in showing that women are still making less despite their pursuit of further education.  This has applications in their ability to take care of themselves, contribute to the country and lead a productive life.

Side Note:  Jude I noticed you made an attempt to account for wrongful convictions but not wrongful acquittals.  Any particular reason you believe that a conviction of rape is easier to acquire than an acquittal? 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/20/rape-convictions-lady-stern-cps

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/13/rape-convictions-low
“Of the rapes that were reported from 2007 to 2008, only 6.5% resulted in a conviction on the charge of rape. The majority of convictions for rape resulted from an admission of guilt by the defendant, whereas less than one quarter of all those charged with rape were convicted following a successful trial.”

Oniya

I would suspect it has more to do with the fact that it's rather difficult to get statistics on wrongful acquittals, considering the presumption of innocence that the US court system is supposed to use.
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Jude

#64
I didn't really properly account for either to be honest.  My assumption was that if the 1/6 number was correct, the wrongful acquittals/unreported rapes would amount to the 2-3 rapists "free" for every one caught figure, and I ignored those who were wrongfully convicted entirely (didn't even begin to take them into account in any mathematical way because it's impossible to know).  To be honest, I have a suspicion the number is that high, but there isn't good data (and might not be a way to collect good data) to back that up.

But to answer your question, I don't know what is more prevalent.  If we're talking unreported and wrongful acquittals versus wrongful convictions, I assume it's the former.  However, I don't know whether wrongful acquittals or wrongful convictions are more common.  I have my concerns about the fairness of court proceedings in the United States.  We accept hearsay and illogical testimony; it doesn't have to make sense at all, the jury just has to be convinced.  For example, someone once testified that they were raped at a time where they'd already testified that they were asleep.  The prosecution pointed out the error during cross examination, but the witness persisted in claiming that they were molested in their sleep and that they knew it occurred somehow despite not being woken up (their justification was - I had other dreams that night, so that couldn't have been one).  There was no physical evidence to back up the story.  The accused was found guilty anyway, despite that the whole thing made no sense.

We also know for a fact that memory implantation is a serious problem.  There have been plenty of families torn apart and people sent to prison on the basis of faulty "memory recover therapies."  Human beings are remarkably vulnerable to suggestion, and that can even change the way they remember things to the point of altering their recollections in dramatic ways.

Sex is something intensely private that happens, basically by default, with no witnesses to corroborate stories.  Intense feelings of shame can definitely alter people's recollections of what happened.  With the way we shame women as a society for enjoyment of sex, I wouldn't be surprised if there were instances where the mind of some victims recalls things as less than consensual to shift responsibility for the shaming act onto the male involved.  We already know this is basically why women fantasize about rape when they do -- it isn't that they want to be victims of forceful sex, but that feeling of powerlessness decentralizes responsibility for the act onto the party that is supposed to be the sexual aggressor by societal standards, freeing them of guilt for enjoyment.  To be clear, I don't think that effect is that prevalent, not at all.  I'm just saying, this is a very tricky situations, and the only way we'll ever know for sure the actual numbers on sexual assault, is if we were to somehow monitor all human behavior.

I know some people are going to take what I've said the wrong way and assume I'm claiming basically that "women are deluded about rape."  That's not it.  I'm claiming that human beings are notoriously bad at accounting for truth, especially in gray areas where a lot of emotions and perception is involved.  I don't think women are any more prone to revisionist memories than men are, but I think all of this makes collecting reliable data on rape by asking people, "hey, were you raped?" with subjective questions on surveys a very problematic exercise.  With such inclusive, subjective decisions that ask nothing rigid of respondents aside from personal, anonymous testimony, the data just isn't that reliable.  Especially when you read the prompts being given by a lot of those surveys, check the methodology yourself if you like, in many cases it sounds like fishing.

Good news is, I agree there's a lot we need to do, and that if we change societal attitudes towards sex, that in and of itself will go a long way to fixing the problems we're facing.  I'm not saying throw monogamy or modesty out the window, but we need true sexual equality.  Follow that up with programs that teach men to be less violent, think of women in more humanizing ways, and destroy sexist stereotypes, and we'll have a much better society.

What concerns me ultimately is "the sky is falling" statistics.  We live in a very flawed world, we have a lot of work to do, but things aren't that bad.  People shut down when what you're saying is too dramatically out of touch with the world they know.

gaggedLouise

#65
Quote from: Oniya on August 28, 2011, 01:15:43 AM
I would suspect it has more to do with the fact that it's rather difficult to get statistics on wrongful acquittals, considering the presumption of innocence that the US court system is supposed to use.


And no doubt even harder to get statistics on the number of rape or sexual assault charges that were filed with the police and led to some kind of investigations or interrogations, but were dropped before they reached the court room. After someone has been acquitted at a widely reported rape trial it's often asserted that the police do not bother to investigate rape properly, or that the judiciary is overly fussy in allowing that kind of case to be handled, and so a huge number of cases of "practically certain rapes" are swept under the carpet: one more instance of patriarchal society protecting men and one more reason not to trust courts or police! It's also often baked into the said argument that "women do not lie or overstate this kind of thing" becqause of how traumatic it is to recover after a rape and to file charges with the sniggering male pig police.

That supporting argument about why women cannot lie is an obvious circular ride (if the incident wasn't rape then resistance to go through with the filed charges can't be written to the fact that rape is so traumatic, etc) and the whole thing forms a simplistic argument to try to balloon the numbers of rape and assault into a vague but huge figure, to make them overwhelming and support claims that almost any man will rape women, and will be protected if he does.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Pumpkin Seeds

#66
So, to answer your question Andyz the numbers that meikle used are supported by the Department of Justice which is considered one of the definitive sources for criminal statistics.  The other set of numbers used is the Uniform Crime Report published by the FBI that tracks actual arrests and has a more narrow definition of forcible rape.  Their numbers estimate that 29.6 women out of every 100,000 are forcibly raped.  Note that does not include sexual assault and the numbers reflect actual arrests.  These are published numbers and as such carry the weight of scientific analysis, scientific inquiry and peer review. 

Keep in mind also when considering speculation that both the Department of Justice’s victim survey and the Uniform Crime Report both state that rape is considered the most under reported crime in the United States.  So among researchers, their unpublished speculation is that the numbers should be larger and not less.  A criminologist then, someone trained and dedicated to the research of crime, is more likely to state then that if speculation must occur then the numbers should be speculated up and not down.

And because I did not like the statement mentioned by Jude (whether by intent or not) that makes rape sound like a fantasy to many women.

"45.8% of men in a 1980 study reported fantasizing during heterosexual intercourse about "a scene where [they had] the impression of being raped by a woman" (3.2% often and 42.6% sometimes), 44.7% of scenes where a seduced woman "pretends resisting" and 33% of raping a woman.[1] Where male rape fantasies centre around raping rather than being raped, they may bring sexual arousal either from imagining a scene in which first a woman objects but then comes to like and eventually participate in the intercourse, or else one in which the woman does not like it and arousal is associated with the idea of hurting the woman.[2]"  Bader, Dr, Michael J. (2003). Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies. Macmillan Publishers. p. 126. ISBN 0312302428.

Men and women both have fantasies about a loss of power.  A desire to be raped is another matter entirely.  Rape fantasy is a bit of a misnomer.


Jude

Sadly, I watched enough bad anime porn when I was like, 17, to know that men love rape fantasies too :(

TheGlyphstone

If anime porn was a reliable indicator of fantasy prevalence, there'd be far more embarassing incidents at emergency rooms involving octopi and squids than hamsters and guinea pigs.

gaggedLouise

#69
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on August 28, 2011, 11:24:05 AM
So, to answer your question Andyz the numbers that meikle used are supported by the Department of Justice which is considered one of the definitive sources for criminal statistics.  The other set of numbers used is the Uniform Crime Report published by the FBI that tracks actual arrests and has a more narrow definition of forcible rape.  Their numbers estimate that 29.6 women out of every 100,000 are forcibly raped.  Note that does not include sexual assault and the numbers reflect actual arrests.  These are published numbers and as such carry the weight of scientific analysis, scientific inquiry and peer review. 

Keep in mind also when considering speculation that both the Department of Justice’s victim survey and the Uniform Crime Report both state that rape is considered the most under reported crime in the United States.  So among researchers, their unpublished speculation is that the numbers should be larger and not less.  A criminologist then, someone trained and dedicated to the research of crime, is more likely to state then that if speculation must occur then the numbers should be speculated up and not down.

If somebody's filing at the police for rape would be open-and-shut equal to an assured actual rape, why would we need trials? Seriously, you are implicitly making the assumption that 'women don't lie or overstate things when it comes to rape' - but this is patently false, and pointing this out has nothing to do with putting down any individual who has filed charges of rape.

(I am emending "women" for rape filers because it's almost exclusively women that file charges of rape; one reason being the stigma attached for a male to saying he was raped (or beaten up at home), especially by one or more women.)

And again, rape, as a crime, is not simply defined by the level of violence or outward force. Many a shag that took place with an established understanding of what was going on and for mutual enjoyment, though often not preceded by a formal request (because it's seen as cheesy and unromantic and not smart for the active part, mostly the guy, to ask in plain words for sex and then turn back immediately if it be not granted) can contain just as much violence or more than many rapes do. The difference is in the communication and not in the flood of violent acts or even words. That's why rape is not a simple smoking gun thing where it would always be possible to see at once if it's rape or mentally consensual sex (a fuck can be mentally consensual even if the sex plays at being non-con, and could well look like non-con to an outside observer, such as a police detective who was only gathering info about the sequence of acts and words).

Sex contains a good deal of theatre for very many of us, both in the lead-up to it and during the actual bed time.  Most people enjoy the chasing and teasing game on the road to intimacy, especially when it's sex between people who aren't married or in a steady union, so it's considered dumb and off-putting to always take a "no" at face value and break off. And lots of people, not just us kinksters, play at robber and hostage or teacher and naughty schoolgirl in bed. This is disregarded by those who want a simple "rape is rape" definition (=it is rape when the target person says it felt like rape, even a statement or a filing of charges that was made long after, and/or when there was no formal "yes" in advance from the person being penetrated) and then we don't really need much of research into the circumstances, the communication, we don't need any kind of impartial investigation, do we?


QuoteMen and women both have fantasies about a loss of power.  A desire to be raped is another matter entirely.  Rape fantasy is a bit of a misnomer.

Agree, or rather: a fantasy of being overpowered and forced does not equal an actual wish to be used simply like meat in real life, to have everything of the kind fantasized about truly happen to oneself.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

Oh gosh, this is a long and slightly convoluted topic by now...

I mean, we all agree that rape in any form is wrong, and yet how many people who have commented about rape and how bad it is have RPed a noncon scene? Obviously, I don't want anyone to reply. It's just something to think about.

I believe that by focusing so much on rape in this topic, it has kind of lost the broad concerns of feminism. My friend told me while in class one day that I was a feminist. I was quite surprised by her observation of me. However, the more I thought about it, I realised she was probably right.

I am a feminist in an intellectual way. For years I have studied texts and media, seeing how relevant they are to the concept of gender. It taught me interesting things about our concept of gender, and how equal we are in that concept.

It's funny to watch programs or films from the 70s and 80s, at the pinnacle of the women's movement. The movie would start with the women being strong and independent. She works alone and calls the shots in her relationship. However, as the film moves along, she gets herself into strife and requires her man to bail her out. I think the film was called Coma, but I don't have my notes anymore so I can't verifiy that. And it's not an isolated case, by any stretch of the imagination.

Women in the media, even now are still portrayed in a few key roles. The sex goddess/femme fatale. The smart girl/hard worker. The mother/nurturer. The passionate/psychotic. The innocent/angel. Yes, their roles can change in any given text, but they mainly conform to these roles. Oh, there are set roles for men too, but this is about feminism. Look through history and you'll see the same roles echoed throughout, for men and women.

I'm a feminist in a way. My core belief is that the way we consider gender needs to change as a whole. I could go more into the way that nothing, not even gender is absolute, and as a whole it is on a sliding scale, however that would be getting a little off topic ^^

The problem that many people seem to be having with this topic is its generalisations. Unfortunately, gender in essence is a generalisation. There is no set parameters of what makes a man or a woman. Not even biologically, because, as people are just beginning to understand, there is whole sliding scale there too. What I'm saying is, look at it from a different perspective. If my degree has taught me anything, it's that nothing can be learned if you can't see the opposing side.
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Noelle

QuoteI mean, we all agree that rape in any form is wrong, and yet how many people who have commented about rape and how bad it is have RPed a noncon scene? Obviously, I don't want anyone to reply. It's just something to think about.

These two may, on a superficial level, seem related, but in truth they are not at all. Rape has nothing to do with the victim - it has nothing to do with their pleasure, what they're feeling, or anything having to do with them as a person. The attacker is typically not at all concerned for whether or not they're hurting the person and doesn't care whether or not the person they're raping ever "comes around" to liking it.

NC, on the other hand, is pre-arranged and consensual. The partners know each others boundaries typically and respect them. The "attacker" is (or should be) concerned with the partner's pleasure. It's a facade, one that only exists because both partners have agreed on it.

Rape fantasies aren't about being raped; being raped is brutal and dehumanizing. It's usually the "controlled" loss of control (meaning you can choose who give up control to, as opposed to an attacker choosing you) that comes with NC as well as having an "attacker" that is able to pleasure them in the process. Rape is missing all of these elements because rape has very little (to my knowledge) to do with the victim and everything to do with what the attacker wants.

ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

I think you're missing the point that the players are stimulated by the idea that it is not wanted. It is nonconsensual. Yes, the boundaries are prearranged, but it doesn't change the fact that they are being turned on by the idea of rape. Control is something central to this fantasy, and that doesn't change between the fantasy and the reality.
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

gaggedLouise

#73
Quote from: ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut on August 28, 2011, 04:32:02 PM
I think you're missing the point that the players are stimulated by the idea that it is not wanted. It is nonconsensual. Yes, the boundaries are prearranged, but it doesn't change the fact that they are being turned on by the idea of rape. Control is something central to this fantasy, and that doesn't change between the fantasy and the reality.

Precisely. And it's not just people in the S/M lifestyle, or swingers, that are acting out more or less developed rape/robbery/loss-of-control scenarios in the bedroom. It's long since spread to what is sometimes called the vanilla world, and many of its people are not likely to set up formal rules, safewords - or to do it exclusively with their standing partners (which makes explicit rulekeeping easier, because the play session doesn't become so much part of a game to pull in the new lover).

Which pushes the question to the fore: if people are turned on by violent sex, or sex acts connected with actions that would appear degrading if taken by themselves even in a bedroom context, while bdsm sex or "rough sex" is no longer seen as a disease or an abnormity, then many "mentally consensual fucks" will contain more violence (in action or words) than on many occasions that are deservedly judged as rape - and if that is it, how do we differentiate between a consensual risk-averse bondage/rape session and the kind of sex that really should be marked as rape? How does the law do it, in some kind of objective way? Not all rapes are spiced up with violence, many times the rapist/s gets their way simply by coolly making the victim aware that s/he is low on chances to resist successfully.

This wasn't much of a problem fifty years ago because back then, much fewer people had heard of bdsm sex in a positive light, people were much less willing to file charges of rape and within marriage, rape charges were pretty much out of the question - they were not recognized as something that could occur between man and wife. But now it is a problem and saying "anyone who has been on the upper side in a more or less rough sex session, got charged, and who doesn't seem sympathetic must surely count as a vile rapist" is not a good solution.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Jude

This is of particular relevance to the discussion of rape, and whether or not things are getting better:  http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=913013

Pumpkin Seeds

Actually  Louise I made no such implicit statement, but instead confirmed that the number given by meikle are from the Department of Justice.  I also went on to state that the Uniform Crime Report records those arrested.  In order to obtain an arrest warrant, there needs to be sufficient evidence.  Police do not simply drive out to arrest people based on an unconfirmed statement.  They have to have arrest warrants which means a judge has to look at the evidence.  Both the numbers, as I mentioned, are from the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  These are considered the two primary resources for criminologists. 

So instead of jumping up and down with unsupported references about 88,000 women lying, one can do a quick search for what is called False Accusation percentage.  At face value this number is 8%.  So 8% of the accusations given by the Department of Justice (note not the FBI because those are actual arrests) are considered to be false.  Yet, digging a little more one can find that an intensive study was done that reduced the number to 3% false reporting.  The reason behind the more in depth investigation is that false reporting is not a universal rule and the requirements to be considered a false report change from district to district.  For the record the average rate of false reporting among other crimes is 2%. 

I do agree with Jelly Doughnut that this discussion of feminism has spent too long in a discussion of women being raped.  This does little to contribute to the overall discussion except to side rail the focus in a less useful direction.

Also, that is a big stretch to say that pornography is to receive credit for the past 25 years of reduced rape.  I suppose feminists should have just shown Double Penetration videos at rallies.

Jude

#76
http://www.slate.com/id/2152487/

I mean, of course I think there's a lot that has lowered it.  I don't think pornography is responsible in any major way, it was mostly for the data involved, I just think it's good news that things are getting better.

These discussions are depressing, and it's just nice to have something to feel good about.  No one wants to think that 1 out of 6 women in the US are going to be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

Pumpkin Seeds

Crime in general, including rape, is on the decline across the United States.  The Department of Justice figures and the Uniform Crime Report both make indications of this.

Jude

Yep, and this is something everyone in this discussion can be happy about despite how we feel on the issue of feminism.

gaggedLouise

#79
@Pumpkin Seeds,

"False accusation percentage" seems to be a flimsy or controversial concept (I only get one single google hit and it leads us to a discussion where the concept is called vague and unsourced). And one reason for the limited usefulness could be that it's not the police, nor even the attorneys who decide what accusatons are "truthful" (tell the truth). They don't get to do that singlehandedly - any rape or sexual assault case is decided in court, provided it gets there for a real trial. If charges are pulled back before the actual trial (not just a pre-trial to decide on setting of bail etc) is begun, the reason often seems to be that the evidence - technical and testimonies - was considered too weak to carry in a trial. This is also a long-standing major reason for acquittals. Are you telling me that we, um, need to bring down the level of careful scrutiny or the demands of accuracy of evidence, in order to nail more offenders, more men rapists?

The recent Strauss-Kahn case in New York indicates, to my mind, that an accusation is in no way the same as a final fact of rape. It also shows that some attorneys are a bit too trigger happy.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Pumpkin Seeds

No, I’m saying that for a person who doesn’t approve of personal stories or the use of single events to sway an audience there is certainly a lot of those being used in your posts.  I have put forth information from sources in the majority (if not all) of my posts, while yours have been oddly devoid.  Even now you put forth one case to refute numbers from two reputable sources. 

Also, do not attempt to extrapolate a statement that I wish for the scrutiny of evidence to be lowered based on my relaying of crime statistics.  Any case that is dropped or plea bargained down before trial is done so for a lack of strong evidence, that is not exclusive to rape cases.  So not really sure where you are going there.

gaggedLouise

#81
I pointed out that as a police, you can't really decide beforehand , in a solid way, what accusations are "true" and which are false (or overstated). You're pointing to police statistics but the very nature of what the police are supposed to have measured means most of those true/false decisions would have to be the police's own stuff, provisory at best, seeing that most of the cases didn't go to trial: This is a logical argument against the use of those figures, not  technical as in "I don't believe that, I don't want to take it into account".

With the DSK case, I was singling it out but I thought it would be plain that it wasn't the first one to make me consider attorneys sometimes going overbold or pulling in people to score points in front of the public. In America attorneys, and some judges, are elected by popular vote, right? So they may have a personal interest in delivering striking cases and sometimes in being seen working certain kinds of crime, in order to get re-elected. In most Western countries, all judges and prosecurtors/attorneys are appointed, generally by other law people, and they don't have to fawn to the public to win or keep their posts.

I'm aware that cops and attorneys can sometimes be so hellbent on getting someone in that they feel they "know" he's guilty, know it as an objective fact. You probably have to feel that way sometimes to soldier on as a police detective or a prosecutor. But it doesn't translate to any kind of objective truth.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Pumpkin Seeds

The numbers are from the amount of people that have come forward and reported being raped (Department of Justice) and the number of arrests made for that crime (Uniform Crime Report).  So I do not see how the nature of police work comes into play logically.  If you are saying that people lie, then this is certainly true.  Most researchers are aware of this knowledge and as such setup fields of error.  There are also numbers utilized such as false reporting.  A logical argument against two sets of numbers from two sets of agencies is not going to be, women lie.  Especially when we are dealing with numbers like 88,000 and 191,000.  To continue forth with that logic that this many women lie each year ( keep in mind the number has decreased steadily over the past few years) is running into the idea of a conspiracy theory.

Honestly, that is not logic at all but an attempt to throw dirt on something by using personal opinion to sway the reader’s feelings.  “Well we all know people lie and rape is all subjective, so well then women lie about it and we can’t trust numbers.” 

Restated, in the year 2005 191,000 women reported being raped.  In the year 2009 88,000 arrests were made on charges of forcible rape.  Women lie is the rebuttal. 

That is not logic. 

gaggedLouise

#83
Nope, what I'm saying is that you seem to be equating the number of instances where a person has contacted the police and filed charges for rape, subtracted by the number of accusations that were later (informally?) deemed false or erroneous by - the police, sometimes in league with a local court attorney, and possibly also removing those that were taken to court and the defendant/s acquitted - you're equating that with the (minimum) true number of rapes.

That's erroneous, a logical error. No rape is certified until an offender (or offenders) has been found guilty in court. At least not certified in a way that could produce workable statistics. And an arrest doesn't prove diddy either about what happened. Yes there are false accusations and no, the occurence of a rape is not always as easy to determine as a case of overspeeding.



Concerning the popular election of judges and judiciary, because someone made a post, and then removed it,  saying this didn't occur in America. These pages seem to indicate otherwise: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1515970

http://attorney-online.info/publ/business_law_articles/expenditure_for_elections_of_judges_grow_in_the_usa_courts_are_still_independent_part_1/5-1-0-285

http://attorney-online.info/publ/business_law_articles/expenditure_for_elections_of_judges_grow_in_the_usa_courts_are_still_independent_part_2/5-1-0-286

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/07/27/midday2/


The paper  "Public Defender Elections and Popular Control over Criminal Justice" by Ronald F. Wright, published in the Missouri Law Review, opens:

"Voters in the United States select some of the major actors in criminal
justice, but not all of them. Among the major figures in the criminal court-
room, voters typically elect two of the three: the prosecutor and the judge, but
not the public defender. Prosecutors in almost all states are elected at the
local level. Judicial elections offer more of a mixed bag, but a strong majori-
ty of jurisdictions elect their judges in some form or other. Unlike prosecu-
tors and most judges, however, the public defender is typically not an elected
official ---"

http://law.missouri.edu/lawreview/docs/75-3/Wright.pdf

I'm not sure of just how recent that last paper is: looking at the url it could be from 1975 (at least, it's hardly a hundred years old, judging from the style of writing), but the other ones are certainly more recent and I've heard of several occasions where the office of judge, especially in local courts - not courts of appeal - is an elected one, and that this is a widespread practice.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Pumpkin Seeds

Where did I make that claim or develop that formula?  I’ve heard of people putting words in another’s mouth, but not mathematical equations.  I have maintained at all times what those numbers are and what they mean.  To my knowledge I have never said that those were the number of women raped in the United States.  I think you are seeing an implication that I never made.  The numbers are what they are.

And yes, district attorneys are elected to their positions.  As are sheriffs and some low level judges. 

meikle

#85
QuoteThat's erroneous, a logical error. No rape is certified until an offender (or offenders) has been found guilty in court.

Logically erroneous is claiming that a rape only occurred if someone is called guilty in a court.

Rapes that occur and rapes that are convicted are two different statistics.  Ra != Rb.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

gaggedLouise

#86
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on August 28, 2011, 05:22:08 PM
Actually  Louise I made no such implicit statement, but instead confirmed that the number given by meikle are from the Department of Justice.  I also went on to state that the Uniform Crime Report records those arrested.  In order to obtain an arrest warrant, there needs to be sufficient evidence.  Police do not simply drive out to arrest people based on an unconfirmed statement.  They have to have arrest warrants which means a judge has to look at the evidence.  Both the numbers, as I mentioned, are from the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  These are considered the two primary resources for criminologists. 

Sufficient evidence for an arrest is not final evidence and at that early a stage in investigation, the evidence is going to be much weaker than what is actually needed to bring a case to conclusion and have anyone sent to jail. Especially with a crime that often takes place at somebody's home, or in a hotel room, or in the open at night, with no exterior witnesses, and where both filers and suspects can have many reasons to hide awkward facts or to invent circumstances, and are strongly engaged emotionally.

Quote from: Pumpkin SeedsSo instead of jumping up and down with unsupported references about 88,000 women lying, one can do a quick search for what is called False Accusation percentage.  At face value this number is 8%.  So 8% of the accusations given by the Department of Justice (note not the FBI because those are actual arrests) are considered to be false.  Yet, digging a little more one can find that an intensive study was done that reduced the number to 3% false reporting.  The reason behind the more in depth investigation is that false reporting is not a universal rule and the requirements to be considered a false report change from district to district.  For the record the average rate of false reporting among other crimes is 2%. 
(my boldening)

The statistics on the amouint of "false rape accusations" was obviously provided from police data level, even if they were processed higher up by some commission. It doesn't take into account how things look on courtroom level: by the implied "true accusations" or veracious filings for rape, it has to mean such reports filed with the police and considered true by someone at the police, perhaps some of it in conjunction with an attorney. The vital point is that the scrutiny provided in the court room clearly doesn't come into question before those numbers are singled out as the 'true accusations'.

No one has quoted or linked anything so far that shows what the police actually labeled those figures in their statistics. If the police, ior the Department of Justice, seriously said, this is the true accusations we have here, then they would have gone in advance of courts or defied the courts (if the statistics were compiled after the cases had gone to court and many of them had been rejected; of course many never went to court at all). But thenm, the summing up of those 92% as "true accusations" could hwell have been made by someone lese, interested in boosting the apparent number of rapes that don't get a fair hearing. Anyway, if those statsoitic were supposed to show the number of truly occurrring rapes, or even give a rough idea, that's a logical error.

Yes, to claim that a given rape has actually taken place, in a sense that makes it useful within statistics, there has to be a positive court decision behind it. Except in some cases where somebody says he/she was raped by a total stranger, and the fact of assault is borne out by medical examination soon afterwards, but the victim has no idea at all who it was. But those cases could oinly be a small fraction.

"instead of jumping up and down with unsupported references about 88,000 women lying..." - you are very clearly trying to push it on me that either I have to accept those statistics or else I must be claiming that a very large number of already assured rapes didn't take place and that every one of those 88.000 women are lying.  A clumsy attempt at rethorical blackmail. No, there can be many reasons why a case wasn't taken to court or was pulled back. The woman, or the attorney, may have come to realize that what they thought was rape didn't fit what the law demarcates as rape, and so they found it impossible to go on, or wee not allowed to go on by the judge, by the rules of the court. This kind of thing happens, and with the word rape being used in a vague way it's likely to be happening more and more.

Quote from: meikleRapes that occur and rapes that are convicted are two different statistics.

Well, you're doing just what she did, putting an equals sign between the number of "actual rapes" /i.e. factually true rapes/ and the number filed to the police. This is illogical, at least if you want any kind of reliable numbers to make statistics from.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Will

Quote from: gaggedLouise on August 28, 2011, 07:47:51 PM
Well, you're doing just what she did, putting an equals sign between the number of "actual rapes" /i.e. factually true rapes/ and the number filed to the police. This is illogical, at least if you want any kind of reliable numbers to make statistics from.

It's also illogical to say there's no relationship between the two at all.  It's avoidance.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

Pumpkin Seeds

Honestly at this point Louise you’ve gone way off the deep end.  According to your logic, if I was murdered and nobody caught my killer then I was not murdered.  I just had an unfortunate accident with a bullet.  No conviction = No crime.

Yes, you are basing the throwing out of reputable and dependable evidence based on “women lie.”  Your entire claim to logic comes down to two words, “women lie.”  Everything you are saying essentially boils down to, “women lie.”  So since women lie, discount all numbers.  Yet even if there is conviction information there come the contention of wrongful convictions. 

As for the false accusation number, it is gathered from what each district believes counts as a false accusation.  False Accusations also go to court because that is illegal.  The district police turn in the number of false accusations of a particular crime they receive to FBI for the Uniform Crime Report.  From there a statistic is generated.  The reason for the revision in some studies is because of the subjective nature of the false accusation report among certain districts and the inconsistency in the rules. 

There is no logic in saying one conviction = one crime.  There are a myriad of reasons why a conviction cannot be made.  This may include police error, prosecutor error and mistrials.  None of these involve evidence.  There is also the difficult nature of obtaining evidence regarding a rape.  If a woman takes a shower, evidence is lost.  If the perpetrator wears a condom, evidence is lost.  If the woman is drunk, a prosecutor may not take the case believing a jury won’t believe consent wasn’t given.  For a long time women were not considered to be raped unless they fought back, while at the same time people were telling them not to fight back because they would get hurt. 

At this point you are ignoring evidence and using false logic to deny scientific information while giving no information of your own.  I will not continue this line of dialogue with you and look forward to someone bringing the thread back on track.

gaggedLouise

#89
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on August 28, 2011, 08:32:26 PM
Honestly at this point Louise you’ve gone way off the deep end.  According to your logic, if I was murdered and nobody caught my killer then I was not murdered.  I just had an unfortunate accident with a bullet.  No conviction = No crime.


If your body wasn't found and there weren't any other kind of super solid evidence that you had been killed - like, your mattress drenched in blood and with bullet holes but no corpse - then it would be impossible to say in any way that you must have been murdered. And no judge worth his wig would allow for a trial, or even putting a suspect in long-term custody, on the supposed crime, unless they had that kind of evidence that a murder had taken place. To include it in murder statistics would be, to put it frankly, a fake.

Rape often leaves nowhere near as obvious and unmistakable traces as a murder. You know that, don't you?

I am trying to defend the integrity of justice here, and the right of people not to have their lives smashed to pieces on misguided accusations, not to get sent to jail or even death for crimes they didn't commit, unless they have actually been found guilty, but I can see that's no priority of yours or of some others.

I also think it's distasteful to try to use trumped up figures and conjectures made from them to implicate all men in a wide arch of "rape culture". Makes great propaganda though.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

meikle

#90
Quote from: gaggedLouise on August 28, 2011, 09:00:18 PMRape often leaves nowhere near as obvious and unmistakable traces as a murder. You know that, don't you?

If it's harder to prove a rape after it occurs, doesn't it make more sense to assume that it is happening and not being proven (because all it takes to lose the evidence of rape is to, say, take a shower, a not at all unreasonable action when some violent attacker's jizz is lingering inside of you) than to assume that 191,000 people lied about being raped in 2005?

QuoteI am trying to defend the integrity of justice here, and the right of people not to have their lives smashed to pieces on misguided accusations, not to get sent to jail or even death for crimes they didn't commit, unless they have actually been found guilty, but I can see that's no priority of yours or of some others.

Funny how nobody else is even discussing how things ought to play out in court.

QuoteI also think it's distasteful to try to use trumped up figures and conjectures made from them to implicate all men in a wide arch of "rape culture".

For the millionth time, though, I'll repeat: it's not a competition.  It is not Men vs Women or Us vs Them.  It's "stop fucking defending rapists", it's "stop calling rape victims liars", it's "stop making it a scarier proposition to go to the police about rape than remain silent", but it's not a fucking competition.

With that, I'm going to follow Pumpkin Seeds: you are not arguing in good faith, and so I am not going to continue on with you.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

gaggedLouise

Quote from: meikleIf it's harder to prove a rape after it occurs, doesn't it make more sense to assume that it is happening and not being proven (because all it takes to lose the evidence of rape is to, say, take a shower, a not at all unreasonable action when some violent attacker's jizz is lingering inside of you) than to assume that 191,000 people lied about being raped in 2005?

Circular proof plus an attempt at making anyone questioning your figures appear as the crony of the rapists. Come on!

QuoteFunny how nobody else is even discussing how things ought to play out in court.

Some of the others have bowed out because they didn't want any part in a discussion that's been getting increasingly obsessed with pushing guilt and hinting that men as a gender are to blame for the misfortunes of women.
I am not surprised that certain people here have no interest in what happens in court. You and Pumpkin are basically counting on that women should be given every concession of credibility as soon as they file charges of rape, and that men should be taken care of and - lynched? We know they are guilty anyway. It could be done long before there is any time to question things closely in court.




Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

meikle

#92
"[my] figures" are the figures of the United States Department of Justice.

nobody is talking about punishing men.  that is your own persecution complex at work.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Will

Quote from: gaggedLouise on August 28, 2011, 11:13:43 PMSome of the others have bowed out because they didn't want any part in a discussion that's been getting increasingly obsessed with pushing guilt and hinting that men as a gender are to blame for the misfortunes of women.
It's probably best not to make assumptions about others' motivations.  The truth might be a bit different.

QuoteI am not surprised that certain people here have no interest in what happens in court. You and Pumpkin are basically counting on that women should be given every concession of credibility as soon as they file charges of rape, and that men should be taken care of and - lynched? We know they are guilty anyway. It could be done long before there is any time to question things closely in court.
As much as I appreciate you leaping to defend all malekind and our right to a fair trial, I promise you, it isn't necessary.  I'm not all that worried about getting lynched, so save the hyperbole. :P

Burden of proof is a good thing, I won't disagree with you on that.  Wrongdoing should be proven to at least a reasonable degree before punishment is administered.  Mistakes do get made, people do lie, and memory can be faulty.

But to use that fact to discredit any and all rape statistics, even from extremely reputable sources, is pure avoidance.  One in every six women is a lot of women.  There is of course going to be a margin of error due to the aforementioned mistakes and dishonesty in testimony, but you can't possibly believe that margin of error is one hundred percent... Can you?  My mind is seriously boggling at that possibility.
If you can heal the symptoms, but not affect the cause
It's like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze

One day, I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
- Jack Kerouac

Noelle

#94
BUNNIES

HUNGRY BUNNIES


DERP BUNNIES


MOBILE BUNNIES


BUNNIES ON LEASHES


TWO BUNNIES


LITERATE BUNNIES


BUNNIES, BUNNIES, BUNNIES!




there, now don't you feel better?

Jude

#95
Quote from: meikle on August 28, 2011, 10:38:22 PM
It's "stop fucking defending rapists", it's "stop calling rape victims liars", it's "stop making it a scarier proposition to go to the police about rape than remain silent", but it's not a fucking competition.
Out of curiosity, who here do you think is defending rapists and calling rape victims liars?  I think Louise's point is that 'some people are lying about being a rape victim.'  My point was that some people are mistaken about it -- and my points on the fallibility and suggestibility of memory was completely ignored.

Pumpkin Seeds

That would probably go toward what has already been established by both sides.  Rape is very hard to prove and often times the key witness, the rape victim, was subjected to a trauma during the course of the memory.  Witnesses, while being required for accusation, are often considered unreliable by lawyers because of such theories as memory suggestion and impairment.  That often times the woman is intoxicated, drugged or in shock is also a contributor.  Her reliability is about as good as that of anyone being assaulted at the time of the attack. 

Seriously, is this what feminist theory and thought have been taken down to.  A focus on how men are falsely accused in rape charges?

Jude

#97
Quote from: Jude on August 24, 2011, 12:16:54 AMThere are some feminists and feminist organizations out there that are majorly overstating the direness of the situation
It was part of the OP.

EDIT:  By the way, I consider myself a feminist (I ascribe to the belief that men can be feminists too).  That's why I'm concerned about the claims we're making and how we make them.

In my experience (which is admittedly limited) this sort of response (misery poker as it's been referred to) is pretty common when you discuss this sort of thing with men who are not feminists and are unaware of the subtle problems in our society that leave women disadvantaged.  I think this happens because the way we communicate the problems that women face activates their latent human tendency to defend groups that they are part of because they feel personally attacked.  I think this is a fault in our message -- both in how it's constructed and the severity of our tone.  I say this because I was, not that long ago, a man who would've never called himself a feminist that was changed to that way of thinking through a series of thoughtful, polite debates with a very rational, intelligent, and patient feminist who listened to everything I had to say and countered my arguments with pure reason in a sympathetic fashion.

I'd like to see more moderate feminists emerge who use careful language and avoid jumping the shark with exaggerated terms like "American Culture of Rape."  There may even be some truth to that, but it's a question of tactics.  If you barrage people with mountains of claims and make them feel like you're saying 'everything is wrong' as things are now, they will shut you out and you will ultimately fail to complete your objective (bettering life for women) even if you are speaking the truth.

Admittedly, it's easier for me not to be shrill, insulting, or lacking in patience because while these problems affect people I care deeply about (my ex-girlfriend, my sister, my mother, my friends), they do not affect me in a strictly direct sense.

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Jude on August 29, 2011, 12:14:57 AM
It was part of the OP.

Indeed (unfortunately DarklingAlice, who pointed out that incidents and allegations of rape are sometimes not useful as the hurricane center of a debate on feminism, has been on a journey ever since and hasn't been around for this one).

Seriously, anyone reading this thread can rapidly see I never said all women who file about rape and don't have it vindicated in court would be liars. Rape is a bit less physically clear-cut than murder or overspeeding ("illegal penetration" isn't all that does it) and some rape charges simply don't match what the law means by rape.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

I find it very interesting how a thread that started off being about feminism in general and a little bit about rape, has become focused on rape. I think for the feminist cause, Sexual assault is more key. That's more about objectification and inequality than rape, which is about violence and control. Of course, sexual assault is an even more subjective charge than rape.
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

meikle

If you want people to chill out, taking a condescending tone about it is probably not a very good way to do.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
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meikle

#101
Do you actually have anything to say about the topic, or are you just going to criticize the way people argue?

You haven't actually posted any thoughts for anyone to criticize, as far as I can tell.  Just a bunch of condescending posts about how you don't want to get involved while criticizing the people who aren't hiding behind 'not being drawn into an argument'.
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

meikle

#102
So no, you don't intend to actually add anything to the discussion of the topic.

Well, thanks for that!
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Beguile's Mistress

#103
Since this discussion had degenerated into what looks more like a backyard brawl than a beneficial debate this thread will be locked.

Please remove your toys from the sandbox and go home.


EDIT:  As a reminder - Out of respect for the person who begins a thread it is proper to stay on topic in the discussion.  If you have another issue you wish to discuss opening your own thread is also the proper thing to do rather than hijacking a thread for your purposes.