Funny how it all keeps coming back to power, huh?
Why women don’t report applies 10x when the perp is one.
Ho-ly crap. This one really got me in the feels.
The topics of the song, her mother and the fallout victims go through after experiencing mysoginy and abuse, made me think it belongs in this thread.
http://people.com/country/sarah-silverman-country-song-las-vegas-victims/
ETA: Following up, I’m not really sure of how to feel about Sarah these days. Sure, she talks a lot of feminism, but AFAIK, up to the point of the big reveals she has been associated with Loius C.K. and Al Franken.
I know she’s not responsible for other people’s actions, but frankly I’d like to hear something from her stating a position on her awareness of show business’ sexual harassment problem.
This is a very good article on domestic violence, especially in rural areas. One thing it touches on but doesn’t really get into is that a big problem with stopping domestic violence is the same problem with stopping rape: its ubiquity.
Again, I really can’t relate.
It’s shocking to me how commonplace this type of thing is.
Erm, I expect many men can’t.
Look at Borutsky in the article I posted earlier. Three women, all abused and/or stalked by him, plus at least one ex-wife. So at least four women whose lives were made scarier – if not ended – by this one guy.
And then the “how I learned to be afraid of men” article – how many women do guys who act like that interact with, in that manner?
So yeah there’s going to be a discrepancy.
Do you mean that it’s relatively few men, but they act this way toward every woman they meet?
No. I mean it’s #notallmen who treat women this way, but the ones that do think it’s normal courting behaviour. That’s courting behaviour, not any other encounters with women. The guy who raped me in university behaved perfectly well in class, for instance.
Well, I just spent the last hour trying to catch up on this thread because I LOVE IT so much. In no way did I get through it all. But I will, dammit. It may not be Feminism 101, but I’ll never forget my first feminist lit class - Judith Fetterley, you changed my life. I’ve missed all you lovely people!!!
I’ve missed you too! Welcome back!
Define “few”?
We know that when polled, 30% of male college students said they would “have sex” with an unconscious person if they knew there would be no consequences. Is nearly 1/3 a “few”?
We know that when asked if they would rape someone that number drops to 13%. Is 13% a “few”?
(Funny how words matter eh?)
We know that out of 1800+ men, 120 describe acts that meet the legal definition of “rape”.
So 7% of those polled - but that also that 7% report approximately 6 rapes each.
So 120 men are responsible for 720 rapes. Is that “a few”?
So sure, “a few” - but they don’t do it once and then straighten out, they do it again and again and again. See Cosby, Weinstein, C.K. et al. And THATS what we’re talking about here.
It may be shocking to you, and it may be foreign to you and you can’t understand who would do this to another person. But to many many of us, its common place and its just the landscape of the world we navigate. Being appalled is not enough, saying you would never do anything like this is not enough, washing your hands of our every day lived experience is not enough, everyone needs to act, now.
And the attitude of the police.
In 1986 one of my staff came into work distressed because his estranged father had threatened to kill his mother and was walking around with a shotgun. (I sent him off to keep a watch, of course). When he told the police they replied that there was nothing they could do, he had a licence for it. Fortunately the man was too drunk to do anything.
Then the Hungerford Massacre happened and everything changed.
Slowly police attitudes have been changing and perpetrators around here get prosecuted if they come to police attention. Then the local criminal solicitor reads out the same script with a different name - alcohol problems, drug problems, trying to get act together. But never “grew up in a time and place where this sort of thing was considered normal”.
I have no idea. This is completely alien to me.
So what do I do?
I can’t even clean up my own act because there’s no act to clean up. I have never wanted to have sex with anyone, at any time, let alone an unconscious person. There’s not a lot I can do here.
Ok, so, I know you don’t mean to, but every time you say “this is alien to me” all I hear is “this doesn’t apply to me I don’t need to think about it or be concerned”.
There are 100s of 1000s of victims all screaming to be heard and be seen and its really hard to not react badly to your shrug of a response “what can I do” and not hear it as “none of my business”.
And please, don’t conflate sexual desire with sex assault, they two are not the same, at all.
So if you’re serious, about what you can do, there are many handly listicles online just for you!
Unless you’re actually serious and think “theres not a lot” you can do here… if you actually think that, I have no words…
Look at all the people in this scenario who could have made all the difference, just by changing how they interacted with the eventual victim over the course of the evening: