From the Vaults
Ladylike: Ask Panty. Or not.
One thing that has bugged me since the outset is the pretense of ignorance many participants show. We might, for instance, contrast the
inquiry of the topic post↑, which is phrased with a pretense of gentle ignorance, against the assured belligerence of
the subsequent response↑ ignoring
what it responds to↑. It's a straightforward process: (1) Ask a question. (2) Ignore the answer. (3) Answer your own alleged ignorance.
And, yes, for the most part it seems like a setup; the inquiry was likely never honest. To the other, if we presume it was, what we end up with is the topic poster protesting that
"a term to describe collectively beliefs and behaviors within a societal culture contributing to rape" is an
"insult to our [male] gender and [general] culture" because it is
"a radical element" that
"truly makes men, all men, look like savages by nature".
Still, though, there is another aspect to the inquiry; there have been somewhere between several and many threads dealing with misogyny and rape culture at Sciforums over the last couple years, and they all run thick with pretentious denial. And the thing is that while we can't presume any one pesron has encountered this or that post or group of posts in this or that thread, we might suggest that it's hard to see how people might enjoy repeating themselves for the sake of pretentious ignorance presented by someone who simply refuses to acknowledge what other people are saying.
Then again, this is the discussion people want to have; they don't want to discuss
the nature and effects of rape culture↗, but, rather, argue about whether pretentious fallacies of their own invention are true.
Yet amid all that bawling and bluster, some get around to asking questions that people answered long ago, so we might as well get some of those on the record, too.
† † †
A question arises whether or not women contribute to rape culture. A counterpoint would be to simply ask if women are human beings. The answer to either question is
yes.
One of the most obvious contributions is the result of societal conditioning; for instance, an expression of the point from
May, 2014↗:
The end of this culture of male privilege will cause some women distress; generally speaking, those will be the ones who have found a comfortable niche within the structure. My daughter's maternal grandmother is a properly constricted, child-like, submissive wife in a particularly striking distillation of this privileged outlook. It's not the run of the mill abusive culture, but, rather, that she has been groomed throughout her entire lifetime to be subordinate. She is a devout Christian whose reading comprehension is such that she struggles through children's bibles; she never learned how to write a check; I'm pretty certain she doesn't know how to deposit one.
To the other, how can we expect her to indict her own life experiences? Neurotically it is predictable that anyone, regardless of puerility or no, would struggle to indict their own lifetime as such.
Or a couple weeks later,
considering Infinite Prevention Advice↗:
The problem is that all these IPAs who feel offended because, in their mind, they have the best of intentions and a functional answer, have neurotic investment, unwittingly or otherwise, in protecting themselves. I sometimes make the joke that they're trying to improve their odds of getting laid; after all, if it isn't rape? If it's her fault?
And this doesn't just affect men. Who among us would so easily indict their own life? How many women of my mother's and grandmothers' generations would hew to the traditional line because otherwise they must admit they are a sexual violence survivor, and what follows from there are the customary self-condemnations for everything she did wrong? It's always astounding when we can watch the tragic passing of that torch from one generation to the next, and others would hold those up as examples of a proper outlook. Avoidance of self-indictment is one of the easiest neurotic functions to observe; it is nearly as common as breathing, and in some acute contexts should be vivisected, not dissected.
May, 2015↗ raised a context of purity cult:
Somewhere in America right now, a mother knows she helped set her daughter up to be hurt. Not intentionally. She just passed on the family values. And that's why the girl didn't say anything. And that's why nobody noticed. Nobody enjoys indicting their entire life.
But that mother? Certes, we don't envy her; but what about the men? Consider that this spectre reaches into our daily lives. In order to drive the absurdity of that point, I would simply note that last year I had occasion to write↱:
And, you know, damn it, if a continuing rape crisis besieging the women we know—our mothers and daughters and sisters and friends—is what it takes for you to be able to crack a crude, locker-room joke without feeling like you’re oppressing women, what the hell is wrong with you?
Because, yes, that's how deeply it reaches. Nobody enjoys indicting their entire life. Rape is so fundamentally woven into our culture that everybody has a neurotic reason to look away. At some point, we have to accept that yes, dealing with rape culture really does mean killing some of the fun. And, you know, sure, it's not much compared to the actual phenomenon, but I would also ask that we consider just how absurdly awful things are that such a sentence would have any substantial meaning, or even reason for existing. Because that absurdity is why such a stupid sentence about killing the fun has such gravity. We can roll our eyes and scowl and roar all we want, but this is what we're up against.
And here we actually find one of the most acute iterations of rape culture; the generation that precedes me suffered greatly for the burdens passed from one generation to the next. For the most part it is a matter of acculturation and habit; in some cases, it bubbles up spectacularly.
To the other, the general proposition that, traditionally, mothers teach their daughters is pretty self-evident.
What are they teaching? What did prior generations teach?
My mother is hardly alone among her generation in prescribing a general notion of what is or isn't
ladylike. I don't even know where to start on what's wrong with that kind of gendertyping as a general proposition, but I would note that even at this more enlightened and liberating end of the ladylike spectrum, it is
still both heterosexually-oriented and subordinate.
No, really, I don't get how girl power and ladylike go together.
Nor is it my job to craft a definition for a progressively acceptable assertion of what is ladylike. Why would I invest anything in the endeavor, as I believe gendertyping needs to go away?
But my mother also tells a story of how her female coworkers, when she was a teenager, counseled a sixteen year-old who had just been attacked on her way to work to not report it because that was only making trouble for herself.
Society has come a long way, and maybe to some a mix of girl power and ladylike doesn't seem so big a deal, but the history invested in the proposition of what is or isn't ladylike, whether it whispers or screams, describes danger.
Rape culture is a term to describe collectively beliefs and behaviors within a societal culture contributing to rape. We all do our part. Even women. And I would think it self-evident that
cultural tradition, handed down through generations,
when it contributes to rape, is about as obvious an aspect of rape culture as one could possibly ask for.
In the question of mothers passing these traditions to their daughters, even in muted, diluted forms, the solution is simply enough expressed:
Stop it.
As a practical question, it simply isn't so simple.
Because, you know,
#WhatAboutTheMen? Some of them are still willing to fight tooth and nail in order to sexually groom their daughters. When purity culture faces the Star, we will actually have a religious freedom argument about all this.
But the question of women's contribution to rape culture arises. The if and how seem pretty self-evident. Then again, I half expect an inquiry wondering what is this notion of ladylike because they've never ever heard of it.
That's how stupid this discussion is getting. The question of women's contribution to rape culture arises; I can only wonder what the
real question is.
