Degrees of Misogyny

Now you're starting to get it, but―

―for all women are trying to tell us the problem, that you should ask that particular question means you haven't been paying attention.

You, Schmelzer, Ophiolite, mtf, DaveC. You've all taken part in a disgusting behavior intending to silence women in a discussion about their lives.

Unacceptable. Repulsive. Dangerous.

 

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Depends on the environment. There have been several cases where nothing but compliments (as defined by the person offering them) have been declared sexual harassment by the courts.

It is, of course, possible to compliment someone else without it being harassment, and indeed 99% of compliments fall into that category. That does NOT mean that any compliment is OK.

 

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Wait, I think I get it: _Anyone_ who dares to do anything but vehemently agree with anything Tiassa, Bells, and some others say, is, in the view of Tiassa, Bells etc. a misogynist, rape advocate, victim blamer etc.

What is unacceptable, repulsive, and dangerous is how you twist around what people say.

What is unacceptable, repulsive, and dangerous is that you aren't reading what is written.

What is unacceptable, repulsive, and dangerous is how you imagine and see things that aren't there.

You are the bully here.

 

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Basically yes. Which means 90% of the people out there (including women) are misogynists. At least according to them.

I see this phenomenon on a lot of forums. There's a tendency to normalize to the opinions of the moderators or frequent posters; anyone to either side of them is an extremist. Support nuclear power and renewable energy? On boards with right wing posters/moderators you are a loonie liberal who wants to drive power prices up and kill the children of poor people; on more left-wing boards you're a corporate shill who wants to kill the same kids by putting piles of nuclear waste in their back yards.

 

I'm sorry but I find that hard to believe. I understand your feelings regarding human rights, human equality and bigoted intolerance - and I respect and feel much the same way.

However, reading back through the last few pages of his thread, I can't help but feel that there's a chance you could have misunderstood DaveC's "middle ground" opinion as an attack on values that we should all strive to hold dear, instead of what I see as trying to... shall we say, "extend the scope of the context" specifically from rape survivors and other women, to the general public - of which vulnerable women are definitely a part of, but not the whole.

I don't see that as trying to disregard women, but as including them in with everyone else. If you feel that such an approach may be seen as trying to drown out the voices of those women, that's a valid concern, but I don't think it was DaveC's intention.

 

Well said.

Tiassa is building a great big straw man. We are talking about perfunctory, lawful, public interaction. Tiassa is attempting to extend that to something entirely different.

She pretends to speak for a stranger on the street as if she can know what they are thinking and what they want - because - what? - all women think the same way as she does? Many people welcome interaction with others. Some are lonely. The world is a rainbow of people. To pidgeon hole them based on their gender is the definition of sexism. They are people first. Individuals.

To suggest that normal, social, public societal behavior is an attempt to "silence" (a demographic of 3.5 billion) is as straw as one can get.


If someone is out in public, then - by definiton - they can expect to interact with the public - in a generally accepted and acceptable way. Speaking is acceptable.

It only becomes unacceptable once the person communicates their desire not to engage and that is not heeded.

Sorry, Tiassa, there is no societal rule to not speak to strangers. On the contrary, it is part of what it means to be a society.

 

Ummm... She's a he - the word irony comes to mind here...

 

It doesn't matter to my contribution. Put any pronoun in there and it reads exactly the same.

That's the beauty of addressing what someone says, rather than who someone is.

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No, Daecon, this time I must disagree with your attempt to pretend some reasonable, pragmatic middle.

When the question is catcalling, the answer is that a woman doesn't have the right to leave the house and expect to be left alone. He's been on that tack for months.

The women are telling us what the problem is, Daecon, and the response is to simply invalidate them. When they speak of disruption, the response is that they ought to be grateful for the compliment. When they speak of catcalling, the response is to complain about banning "conversations". When asked what gives him the right, we are told she must make herself clear; our neighbor Schmelzer has gone farther by deigning to instruct women on how they must reject men; what is absent from any of this is, say, what the women are telling us, and apparently the verbal abuse, physical abuse, and even murder in the wake of these rejections just aren't anything Dave or his buddies need to consider. After all, her feelings aren't worth considering on the front side, and when she tells us what the problem is, her feelings aren't worth considering, full stop.

I even offered an explicit example; I even reiterated it. Can't get an actual specific answer. All anyone gets in return is generalization, an expanded valence. This counterpoint results in two possibilities:

(1) That the generalizations are intended to invalidate and exclude the actual examples by simply ignoring them.

(2) That the generalizations do, in fact, include the specific examples, and this is our answer, anyway.​

Thus, if I decide to tell you that you have pretty lips? How 'bout if I follow up by telling you how much prettier they would look wrapped around my cock? What, I'm just paying you a compliment, right? It's just a "conversation". You don't have the right to leave the house and expect to be left alone.

This proposition does, in fact, disagree with the effective reality I remember. Even today there are places in my society where talking to a man like that will get me killed. And for three quarters of my life, the presumption was automatic: If I didn't want to get killed, I shouldn't have hit on him.

Here's another question: What if you've been there before? What if it's already been your turn, so the moment I lean close and put on that smile, before I even purr those encouraging words about how much prettier you would be if you would just make those pretty lips smile, you're right back in the moment? Parish priest? Drunk uncle? Psycho bully up the street when you were eight? I got it, how about your high school basketball team?

Yeah, you're welcome. And all because I wanted to (ahem!) give you a compliment. Seriously, is it fair that I might do that to someone else?

What if that someone else is a woman? What then?

See, according to our brothers, over there, that's not our concern. That's her tough shit, and it's still her job to make the point of rejecting us, but only in a way that meets our standards. Some days, we kill over this shit. That's how determined we are to secure our right to sexually harass and terrorize women.

They tell us about the catcalling. They tell us about the disruption. They tell us about the harassment. Should we really pretend this is our right?

No one who steps into a public place has the right to say "I never want to be seen as approachable." They do have the right to say "I do not wish to be approached now. Go away." or "You should know that this is a place where it is not appropriate (perhaps, the workplace)."

(DaveC, #90↑)​

That's DaveC's response to the proposition that women do not exist for his benefit; he was, at that point, promoting chivalry. He's been on this tack for months. She is there for men to approach; I ask what gives him the right, I am told he doesn't need a right, and this is a consideration of catcalling and harassment. The women are telling us what the problem is. Does our neighbor (1) invalidate what they say, or is he (2) advocating that women do not have the right to be free of harassment?

Neither answer describes a sufficient attitude.

This retreat to generalization is very problematic. It is a desperate attempt to stand a worthless line, and requires invalidation of either woman's experience or existential condition.

Even in its most forgiving description―the soft hatred of dehumanizing indifference―it is still hatred.

 

Were we not talking about someone saying "I think you're beautiful"? In each of my posts, I made it abundantly clear that I was referring to simply speaking to someone in public. No more. And I pointed out that it cannot go beyond that, or it certainly does cross over the line of harrassent.

That is not street harrassment. If we are talking about any of the things you mention in your diatribe, then absolutely, I do not condone that, or indulge in it.

Since I was not referring to that, you can direct that strawman elsewhere.

You have gotten it backwards.

I am not lumping street harrassment under public interaction - you are lumping public interaction under street harrasment.

 

This is true.

But we must separate the wheat from the chaff. These emotionally-baiting, deliberately-shaming comments continually being put forth are eroding any credibility. Being angry at the world will not get one the results they hope for.

 

All right. I'll accept that.

I did not read enough preceding posts to see that there were divergent conversational threads. I conflated two.

It is not my intent to belittle the rights and freedoms of women or to brook any kind of harrassment.

 

That's not at issue. The issue is the ability of women to call upon the existing power of the State, if and when necessary, to protect themselves from you on the public street.

Childish nonsense.

And politically kind of dumb: you intend to force women to make a choice between a police state or continual harassment and threats from you? Smooth move. You just got half the population to back police state oppression of you, because that's the only option you allow them other than continual abuse and harassment. Plus their parents, relatives, etc.

It was an observation. Good laws exist, despite vague boundaries surrounding all areas of human behavior.

It's routine, done all the time. Terroristic threats, false warnings of danger, slander and lies, talking really loudly and disturbing the peace, harassing phone calls, all illegal, no problem.

Accosting someone on the street is public behavior. It can be governed.

An equally stupid claim, but unlike yours nobody is making it.

Uh, yes, it is - at least, it's an advocacy of allowing others to make such threats. Just strangers enjoying their free speech, after all.

What women do you imagine to be not vulnerable to abuse and harassment on the street?

 

It's not clear that the way some women's rights activists are going about this is actually reducing the number of rapes and rape threats.

It's not clear whether slogans like this
http://madibengtimes.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/STOP-RAPE-NOW-280_1449290a.jpg
http://dmanewsdesk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/stop-rape-delhi.jpg
actually lead to a decrease in violence against women.

You should have an answer to that question.

You don't have the moral highground if you can't actually solve the world's problems.

 

I don't question your goals, but I question the efficacy of the methods with which you propose to attain those goals.

As long as people believe that happiness or satisfaction in life is to be sought in various material pursuits and as long as we live in a universe with limited resources, this long will there also eventually be theft, lying, robbery, assault, rape, murder.
IOW, the problem underlying rape is much bigger than just "men hating women."

 

Nonsense. For starters, it's not the world's problems in this situation - it's your neighbor's problems, your town's problems, your problems. In the second place, no one can solve the world's problems - that doesn't mean everyone occupies the same moral turf. Some people, some times, have the moral high ground. The people who justify and protect the harassing of women on the street are not among them, in this matter.

The problem of men hating women is not small. There is no "just" to append to it.

Your suggestions, for better methods of attaining the shared goals, can be provided here.

 

... also known as the "world's problems," ie. the problems one encounters living in this world.

If they cannot offer a viable and actionable solution to a problem, then they do not have the moral highground.

Why don't you read what I said?
As long as people believe that happiness or satisfaction in life is to be sought in various material pursuits and as long as we live in a universe with limited resources, this long will there also eventually be theft, lying, robbery, assault, rape, murder.
IOW, the problem underlying rape is much bigger than just "men hating women."