Misogyny, Guns, Rape and Culture..

Before I comment in this thread, can I clarify one thing? From what I can understand so far, it appears that some posters believe that one should not engage in any form of behaviour that reduces the risk of harm to oneself. Is this correct?

 

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It Really Doesn't Help That the Naked Children Have No Genitals

Well, then, how's that for a headline?

The "naked children" comic strip, otherwise known as Love Is, creeps a lot of people out. And there's just something weird about naked children on the comics page every day.

Except, of course, that they have no genitals, so ... er ... um ... whatever.

Because that's not important.

Because this just happened:

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​

Yes, really.

The image above, unfortunately, really did go out in newspapers.

As you might imagine, it didn't go over well.

Tribune Content Agency, the distributor for Love Is, apologized. Via Huffington Post:

To Our Clients and Readers:

Tribune Content Agency has removed from its content system a “Love Is” comic panel dated Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014, because it used inappropriate language that could be interpreted as a reference to violence against women. The cartoon does not reflect the high editorial standards we have in place and work vigilantly to maintain. The distribution of the cartoon resulted from a breakdown in our editing procedures, and we apologize for the error and any offense it caused.​

As apologies go, yeah, that one is better than most. But it should be noted that the signature in the lower left of the panel represents Kim Casali, the New Zealander who conceived and drew the strip for over thirty-five years. After her passing, her son Stefano Casali continued the enterprise with panels drawn by Bill Asprey.

Look, Bill probably isn't an evil guy; and TCA, while a private corporation, probably isn't looking to rape the world or anything. And it is easy enough to believe that something went wrong in their editing procedures that reasonably constitutes some sort of breakdown. But it really would be helpful to have some idea as to just how this happened.

To wit, there is always in these issues some talk of how pervasive certain attitudes are in our society. And, as Emir Ali Khan asserted:

The members of all communities, including nations and whole civilisations, are infused with the prevailing ideologies of those communities. These, in turn, create attitueds of mind which include certain capacities and equally positively exclude others.​

Additionally, though, these issues have drawn heightened attention in recent days, months, years ... the advocates on all sides are throwing down harder and louder. With increased attention given to domestic and intimate violence, a double-entendre treading on rape would seem to be the sort of thing that would stand out.

Except it didn't.

I mean, I suppose it's possible that everyone down the line saw it, knew what it meant, but hates the strip anyway so they ran it in hopes of destroying it, but it's also possible that Jesus will arrive next Tuesday, six minutes before tea.

And there is a cliché "teachable moment" in all of this, but we really, really need to know how this happened. What were the dimensions and dynamics of this breakdown in the editing procedures?

It's also worth noting that in the nineties, Popeye lost a cartoonist after he decided to do an abortion sequence in which nobody was actually having an abortion. And in a way, you know, it's understandable. Doonesbury has been pulled from various newspapers many times for offending the political sensitivities of certain readers and editors. Indeed, it happens so often that Garry Trudeau once did an extended gag about being suspended by the Commissioner of Comics, so that the strip was drawn by "Diego Tutweiller" for a month or so. Forty newspapers refused Lynn Johnston in 1993 when Lawrence Poirer came out of the closet, and For Better or For Worse disappeared permanently from nineteen in the week after the four-week series began.

And it's true that Jonny Hart's efforts to offend non-Christians drew controversy; the Los Angeles Times wouldn't run any of the "preachy" strips. While more politically liberal complaints about comic strips don't always have the same impact, neither is it a free ride for people like Hart, who was either very good at what he did or else very, very clumsy and simply inoculated against the worst outcomes by the cultural overtones of the nation.

But what will be the magnitude of this particular gaffe beyond belief? The potential redemption here is if we can get some sort of explanation of just how the high editorial standards vigilantly maintained came apart. A breakdown? That much is obvious. But an autopsy might as well read, "He's dead, Jim"; the detail is where we can pull some value out of this sordid episode.
____________________

Notes:

Bellware, Kim. "'Love Is...' Newspaper Cartoon Sends Misguided Message About Rape Culture". The Huffington Post. October 15, 2014. HuffingtonPost.com. October 16, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/15/cartoon-rape-culture-newspaper-love-is_n_5991948.html

 

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South Carolina: No SYG for DV? Judges Hold the Line for Victims

Three paragraphs, to start:

South Carolina is one of more than 20 states that has passed an expansive Stand Your Ground law authorizing individuals to use deadly force in self-defense. The law has been used to protect a man who killed an innocent bystander while pointing his gun at several teens he called "women thugs." But prosecutors in Charleston are drawing the line at domestic violence.

In the cases of women who claim they feared for their lives when confronted with violent intimate abusers, prosecutors say the Stand Your Ground law shouldn't apply.

"(The Legislature's) intent ... was to provide law-abiding citizens greater protections from external threats in the form of intruders and attackers," prosecutor Culver Kidd told the Post and Courier. "We believe that applying the statute so that its reach into our homes and personal relationships is inconsistent with (its) wording and intent."

(Flatow)​

These would be three unbelievable paragraphs, except we're talking about South Carolina, the same state that ostensibly passed a fetal protection law to protect pregnant women, but have used the law over three hundred times to prosecute women, while the one male abuser charged under the law saw his conviction overturned.

So ... right. South Carolina. Palmetto virtue.

Whatver the prosecutors think, though, the judges are trying to do their job, and thus are holding the line:

On October 3, Circuit Judge J.C. Nicholson sided with Jones and granted her Stand Your Ground immunity, meaning she is exempt from trial on the charge. In response to Kidd's argument that individuals could not invoke Stand Your Ground to defend against violence in their own homes, Nicholson said that dynamic would create the "nonsensical result" that a victim of domestic abuse could defend against an attacker outside of the home, but not inside the home – where the most vicious domestic violence is likely to occur.

Kidd is unsatisfied with this reasoning, and is appealing the case to argue that Jones and other defendants like her can't invoke the Stand Your Ground law so long as they are in their home. The Post and Courier reports that there are two other similar cases coming up the pike that are being pursued by the same prosecutor's office. In one, a judge who dismissed a murder charge against a women who stabbed a roommate attacking her called the charge "appalling." In another, the defendant's attorney plans to ask for a Stand Your Ground hearing.

Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, the top prosecutor for that office, is also siding with Kidd. Wilson and Kidd do have a legal basis for their arguments. South Carolina is one of several states that has two self-defense provisions. One known as the Castle Doctrine authorizes occupants to use deadly force against intruders. Recently, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that this provision could not apply to fellow occupants of the home, in a case involving roommates, although that ruling was since withdrawn and the case is being re-heard this week. The Stand Your Ground law contains a separate provision that authorizes deadly force in self-defense against grave bodily harm or death in another place "where he has a right to be." Prosecutors are arguing that neither of these laws permit one occupant of a home to use deadly force against another. But as Nicholson points out, this interpretation would yield the perverse result that both self-defense provisions explicitly exempt domestic abusers when they perpetrate violence within their own home.​

And then a statistic.

Twelve days.

On average, one woman in South Carolina dies as a result of domestic abuse every twelve days.

And the prosecutors in Charleston want those victims defenseless.

Welcome to South Carolina.
____________________

Notes:

Flatow, Nicole. "South Carolina Prosecutors Say Stand Your Ground Doesn’t Apply To Victims Of Domestic Violence". ThinkProgress. October 14, 2014. ThinkProgress.org. October 16, 2014. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...doesnt-apply-to-victims-of-domestic-violence/

 

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So you want to compare a 12 week period of societal regulation of a 39 week voluntary ordeal to a lifetime of involuntary servitude? A woman is born free and ends up with potentially the same freedom after this period as she did before it. Both the fetus and the slave originate in bondage, and are either freed by their master or die in captivity. Society does not compel women to become pregnant; they have the ability to prevent it, and within reason to lawfully escape it if desired.

 

So... you are saying people are avoiding posts...

Would you kindly respond to my last post here and let me know what additionally I should be doing, as a man, to reduce rape?

 

If you never raped anyone, you as a man don't have to change anything, since you are doing well in terms of the conditions of justice. The problem is females seem to be under the spell of a stereo-type, where they irrationally assume one size fits all and a clean record still counts as liability. Unless you are a therapist you may not be able to deal with this detachment from cause and effect.

Women have a lot of insecurities and men, like those in the democratic party, know how to exploit this. The republican women don't have the same level of insecurity since these men don't exploit it as often. If you get women worked up with underlying insecurities, in ways that brings all their other insecurities to the party, men are required to lie and accept responsibility for that which they did not do. This is not healthy for men, since you sacrifice your common sense, for a quick fix to make the nagging stop.

I never done any of these things, like rape, so I am clean in terms of reality and justice. But reality is not enough to appease the insecurities which feminists extrapolate and projection onto me and the vast majority of innocent men. This may be why women were not allowed to vote, for many years, since appeasement of female insecurity becomes wasteful and often makes the problem worse. Rape appears to be increasing and not decreasing since innocent men have been force to appease due to false stereo types.

 

Alrighty, I follow so far.

Wait... what? Pause, rewind. Replay.

So... you are accusing Democrats of emotionally attacking women and making them insecure, and exploiting such insecurity to their advantage?

And then saying that Republicans do not do this...?

How in the hell is trying to stop rape from occurring suddenly a political thing...?

You are going on about female insecurity... perhaps the reason for such "insecurity" is, I dunno... things like this:

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Use of photoshop to make celebrities look thinner and more vibrant

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Or here, where a photograph of Megan Fox is touched up to make her skin more vibrant, not to mention hiding the minor blemishes and imperfections on her face and chin.

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Or how about this one, where Aisha Tyler's photo is touched up for her advertisement?

You want to talk about damaging and causing insecurity? How about the insecurity young women develop when they try and try and try to look "as good" as their idols and celebrities, buying more and more makeup and beauty care products... only to fall short, not because they aren't "good enough', but because the pictures they are trying to emulate are, in fact, physically impossible photoshopped images?

How about all the movies that make violence appear manly and masculine? Hell, just look at the James Bond movies - he always got the girl... whether she wanted him or not!

We put this image out there that men are supposed to be "big burly manly men"... and we wonder why our young men are so entirely out of touch with reality. We tell our sons to "stop crying and be a man", and then we wonder why, as an adult, they are completely incapable of expressing negative emotions without resorting to violent behavior.

Seriously... what the hell is wrong with our society?... and somehow you are equating it to political party lines!?

[/rant]

 

No, actually you didn’t. You didn’t know anything about it, and as I previously pointed out, your insanity defense is very similar to ours.

If you want to use your credentials or personal information to support your position, be prepared to back it up with proof.

Wow, women are more emotional than men, eh? You do realize that anger is an emotion, right, Bells?

“Women achieve higher concentrations of alcohol in the blood and become more impaired than men after drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol.”

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa46.htm

Tell me, how and why you think that drinking is not associated with the outcomes of sexual assaults.

Now, tell me why you think that sex is the one thing that no man will ever use violence to attain.

Bystander intervention is vital but first you have to feel that the person is deserving of help. Don’t assume that it’s someone else’s responsibility. If everyone assumes this, nobody will intervene.

Altruistic behavior is more likely when there are similarities between the person helping and the person in need. ( Source )

Surprisingly, though, increasing group size of women produced greater helping of a female victim, but increasing group size of men did not. ( Source ) Why is that, Kitt?

Your empathy is enhanced when you’re able to identify with the person in need. Can you identify yourself with a female? Are we in your "group" or are we merely potential sex partners?

Mansplain bromance for me, will you, Kitt? Can we really be just friends or is this platonic coexistence merely a facade?



What’s it like to be a woman, Kitt, do you know? Do you want to know? Why not register as a woman. Post a picture on an online dating site, or better yet… a science forum.

 

Anyone who doesn't intervene in an act as horrid as rape is, in my opinion, just as guilty as the person committing the crime. The problem with this, though, is that often times, rape occurs when nobody is around TO help.

So people, in general, suck at being altruistic... I already knew this.

I wish I knew. I can't understand why people act like that.

Can I identify myself with a female? I'm not sure what you are asking - I would presume you mean, can I empathize with a female? Yes, I can... I do it a lot. After all, we're both human beings, we are both living, breathing creatures with emotions and intelligence and the ability to be so much more than the sum of our parts if only we could overcome this apparent desire to tear others down to build ourselves up.

I make a conscious effort, every day in every interaction, to try and be aware of what the people around me are feeling. Am I always successful? No - I can misinterpret subtle hints and queues just like anyone else. The difference is that I make that active effort to be aware, instead of just blundering about my day.

"merely potential sex partners"... that's a rather... dark... thought, to be honest. Then again, I consider myself both Sapiosexual and Demisexual - I am incredibly attracted to intelligence (just ask my wife how much I adore the fact that she and I can have intellectually stimulating conversations about any and all topics) and I did not (and do not) feel any kind of romantic or sexual attraction to someone without first having an emotional bond with them. Note; this does NOT mean I cannot look at a random stranger and appreciate their beauty (again, you can ask my wife - I can do this for both male and female); I simply do not perceive any sexual attraction to them. To me, you can have the most incredible body in the world... but without the mind and personality to back it up, well... simply put, I wouldn't be able to be around you if you were incapable of holding a conversation of more than a few sentences.

I'm not sure why you are using the term bromance, and then asking if a friendly coexistence is possible. Yes, of course you can be "just friends". There are several females (ranging from a few years younger to several years older) in my life that I am good friends with; one of whom was one I had a serious crush on in high school, but is now more like a sister to me. Is there attraction there? Probably - as I said above, I can appreciate ones beauty without it being sexual or romantic. Is there any desire to do things to them? No, not at all.

Now, yes, we are probably a bit more "touchy" than I am with my male friends... but that is equal parts my personality and theirs - these women tend to be a bit more comfortable with physical contact (a hug, massage, tickle fight, what have you) than the guys I hang out with. Is it sexual or romantic in nature? It certainly doesn't seem that way to us.

Believe it or not, I have played several games using female avatars (including a few MMO's). My wife absolutely loves my reasoning behind it (she finds it hilarious): If I have to watch some character run around on screen while I play, it may as well be one that is pleasant to look at. I have also played using male avatars. Do people treat the two differently (especially if I play on the female avatar being female)? Sometimes they do. I have found it is generally easier to get someone to assist you (be it with information, items, currency, et al) than it is with a male avatar. I find that reprehensible, to be honest.

Do I feel this accurately represents what 'being a woman' is like? Hell no. Behind the veil of anonymity... people do all kinds of weird shit they would never dream of doing were their real identity attached to it.

What it's like to be a woman... well, excluding certain extenuating circumstances (reincarnation, past lives, et al) - in my 26 years, 4 months, 21 days, and approximately 8 hours of life, I have always been, and always identified as, male. So, I cannot say I know what "being a woman" is like, exactly. I will never know what it is like to develop breasts, have a swollen clitoris or erect nipples when sexual excited, deal with a menstrual cycle, get pregnant, give birth, or experience menopause.

But then again, I doubt most women can fully appreciate a guys first ill-timed erection, voice crackling/changing, and the like.

I do, however, appreciate that we are not as different as one may think, once all the silly labels are stripped away.

 

What, are you kidding? Apparently this is secular sanity.

• • •​

No.

 

Yes, if you’re a woman.

And bam! We’re right back to where it all started.

He never said that the victim was somehow to blame. He made the same statement that the Rape Abuse National Network made. "We believe that it is important to educate members of a campus community on actions they can take to increase their personal safety. In fact, we believe it’s irresponsible not to do so." That political correctness should not triumph common sense and good judgment. Drink responsibly. Don’t get in bed with someone you barely know. Don’t get naked. Does this advice reduce your risk? Yes or no?

Now, tell me why you think that sex is the one thing that no man will ever use violence to attain.

 

My one friend is strange with alcohol... granted, he's a six foot two inch dude of maybe a hundred eighty pounds... poor guy can do two shots of whiskey, skips drunk, and goes straight to hung over.

 

Of course not. It's your damn stupid analogy, remember?

btw: What is mandatory is not voluntary, kind of by definition.

No, that's wrong, dumb, and trollish.

So the differences between his statement and theirs are not significant, including contextual meaning?

OK: now we are calling rape victims "irresponsible" if they don't govern every minute of their daily lives according to a list formulated by what appear to be prudish and misogynistic patriarchs. That's not "blame" - how could anyone interpret "irresponsible" as a term of blame? - but "prevention". And it doesn't restrict women's freedoms at all - it's benevolent advice, justified on the grounds that if taken it will reduce rape by some unspecified degree, and anything that reduces rape by any degree increases women's freedoms - by definition, apparently, despite the caveat earlier. That's your position.

Say what?

You have no integrity, no honesty, no ethical boundaries left at all in this discussion.

At some point in the future (when you have regained capability) trace your descent to that level, illustrated there, and you may see what is wrong with your model of "rape prevention" via institutionally assigning responsibility to potential victims: it leads to courtrooms dominated by lawyers defending rapists by talking like you, it leads to public blaming of identified victims and cowing of unidentified, and it leads to restriction of potential victims's rights and freedoms and lives, and it leads to culturally institutionalized oppression of (especially) women including abetted rape in appropriate forms, in any society organized accordingly. This is not theoretical - we are surrounded by examples. Saudi Arabia was introduced earlier as sufficiently alien and distant to discuss reasonably, and ignored - redux?

 

Yes, RAINN felt it would be irresponsible to not provide education on actions they can take to increase their personal safety.

Do I agree with the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization? Yep!

"In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming “rape culture” for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campuses. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important to not lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime.

While that may seem an obvious point, it has tended to get lost in recent debates. This has led to an inclination to focus on particular segments of the student population (e.g., athletes), particular aspects of campus culture (e.g., the Greek system), or traits that are common in many millions of law-abiding Americans (e.g., “masculinity”), rather than on the subpopulation at fault: those who choose to commit rape. This trend has the paradoxical effect of making it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own actions.

By the time they reach college, most students have been exposed to 18 years of prevention messages, in one form or another. Thanks to repeated messages from parents, religious leaders, teachers, coaches, the media and, yes, the culture at large, the overwhelming majority of these young adults have learned right from wrong, and enter college knowing that rape falls squarely in the latter category.

As anyone who has worked on rape prevention knows, risk-reduction messaging is a sensitive topic. Even the most well-intentioned risk-reduction message can be misunderstood to suggest that, by not following the tips, a victim is somehow to blame for his or her own attack. Recent survivors of sexual violence are particularly sensitive to these messages, and we owe it to them to use them cautiously.

Still, they are an important part of a rape prevention program. To be very clear, RAINN in no way condones or advocates victim blaming. Sexual assault is a violent crime and those who commit these crimes are solely responsible for their actions. That said, we believe that it is important to educate members of a campus community on actions they can take to increase their personal safety. In fact, we believe it’s irresponsible not to do so."

https://rainn.org/images/03-2014/WH-Task-Force-RAINN-Recommendations.pdf

 

And what are RAINN's "prevention" criteria?

Furthermore, there are questions you have refused to answer.

At what point does the list of rape "prevention" tips become a quality of life issue?

How does one "drink like a man"?

How does one "take it like a woman"?

"As a woman, I'm told not to go out alone at night, to watch my drink, to do all of these things. That way, rape isn't just controlling me while I'm actually being assaulted — it controls me 24/7 because it limits my behavior. Solutions like these actually just recreate that. I don't want to fucking test my drink when I'm at the bar. That's not the world I want to live in."

—Rebecca Nagle​

Tell us why she's wrong, please.

This is a human rights issue.

 

That is of course irrelevant to my post. Why are you attempting to deflect my post? To remind you: The question, admittedly rhetorical (your answer plainly "yes") was "So the differences between his statements and theirs are not significant, including contextual meaning?" .

No, it hasn't. And it should. Would that it get lost in every debate in which it is beside the point. Like this one.

Not so. In the first and most significant place, a need to focus on the socially inculcated "traits" common to "masculinity" that lead to rape in this culture is the issue you are dodging here. That focus is not happening, and therein lies a serious obstacle to effective rape prevention.

In the second and less important place, it is bizarre to call for focusing on the subpopulations that commit rape and then disparage the consequent attention paid to those subpopulations - teams of athletes, groups of men organized as fraternities, etc.

WTF? How are conscious decisions by a subpopulation harbored within a given community supposed to be addressed without their context of "cultural factors"?

Is it true that an overwhelming majority of young men in all subpopulations entering college - enough to dominate any subpopulation's (such as athletes) culture in a given college - have learned to recognize rape and collectively as well as personally abhor it, reflexively avoid it ? Evidence, please.

Good for them. But what RAINN claims not to condone or advocate is beside the point at issue here.

Now let's talk about all the other important parts of a rape prevention program - the ones that do not involve restricting the freedoms, constraining the lives, and modifying the behaviors, of women.

 

Well, in the same vein, people who fight against rape prevention are a rapist's best friend. Nothing like supporting rapists by suppressing the information that might stop them.

 

The Big Lie of a “Rape Culture”

The Truth Lost in a Sea of Political Correctness

April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. Outcry against the “rape culture” will almost certainly be a core part of the rhetoric and reporting. As a woman who has experienced genuine sexual violence, I ask one thing of the awareness month and the people promoting it. Tell the truth. Tell the truth to women and tell it about men. Those who use the big lie of “rape culture” to promote their politics have more in common with rapists than they know; both use the pain and fear of women to their own advantage.

http://blog.panampost.com/editor/2014/04/14/the-big-lie-of-a-rape-culture/

 

The response I'm getting on the traits common to masculinity is that it is pointless to try to define masculinity. (See "Men, Masculinity, and Humanity".)

I think there is some neurotic conflict in that; we have tremendous expectations for women's conduct, according to definitions of proper femininity. It seems pretty clear why men would be reluctant to undertake similar constraints.

But we might also note that it's apparently just fine in many men's opinions to suggest that sexual belligerence is simply men being men, as long as it's offered in defense of sexual belligerence. The deafening silence on that count in the above-linked thread, as well as the infamous 2008 thread is a stark counterpoint to, say, Trooper's bizarre distortion about Arthur Chu, and how that apparently equals calling all men rapists. But we had MRAs around in 2008, even taking part in that infamous discussion, and the reduction of men to mindless sex machines was just fine with them. And, in the present thread discussing masculinity, where are the other men who are appalled at the idea that sexual belligerence is just "men being men"? What's that? It was a woman on FOX News who said it, in defense of sexual belligerence, so it's all cool? Well, of course it is for those who would blame a woman for her failure to prevent a man from deciding to try to rape her.

Because, as our neighbor argues, it's a woman's responsibility to not fail to prevent someone from trying to rape her.

"As a woman, I'm told not to go out alone at night, to watch my drink, to do all of these things. That way, rape isn't just controlling me while I'm actually being assaulted — it controls me 24/7 because it limits my behavior."​

—Rebecca Nagle​

Apparently, Trooper disagrees. We can only wonder if she has the courage to explain why.