I need feminism because...

YumCha

Morag wrote: »

Dickwolves.

Sweet jesus... Reading about guys defending why they should be allowed to make rape jokes is just.. I can't even...

YumCha

Because good old Judge Martin Nolan can make comments like this about a convicted sexual offender:

Sentencing him, Judge Martin Nolan accepted that Rownicki deeply regretted the offences.

But Judge Nolan said "he went a few steps too far, one or two such offences may be forgivable but six is too much."

"What he did was deeply inappropriate and has affected the peace of mind of these women," the judge added at the time.

"He gave into temptation and he must go to prison."

Remember ladies - if you're sitting there on a bus minding your own business and someone assaults you, it's your own fault you seductive harlot.

Also this guy gets to walk around while appealing a deportation order, which I'm sure is of very little comfort to his victims - six of whom gave victim impact statements which were not read out in court.

GARGGGGHHHHHHH

Neyite

Scarinae wrote: »

"She’s the mother of a young child as well and, you know, that in itself doesn’t look great" - wtf? :mad:

I personally think carrying someone into a car park and raping them "doesn't look great". Or making apologies for convicted rapists and blaming the victim "doesn't look great".

Shure bring back the laundries altogether for these slutty unmarried mothers, Padre, eh?

bronte

Because in 2013 some people are still making lists like this:

http://www.fixthefamily.com/blog/6-reasons-to-not-send-your-daughter-to-college

It was posted on another forum I read...I was hoping it was some kind of joke.

Almost all of our children will choose to marry.

Yeah, "will choose"
:rolleyes:
Scary horrible people

bronte

Degrees trap women! Who knew?!

Sauve

bronte wrote: »

Degrees trap women! Who knew?!

And 'don't teach girls how to be a wife and mother'.

Best laugh I've had all morning

IvyTheTerrible

Sauve wrote: »

And 'don't teach girls how to be a wife and mother'.

Best laugh I've had all morning

I love how they turn around a man leaving his wife as being the fault of the woman for throwing in her lot with a bad'un.

iwantmydinner

bronte wrote: »

Because in 2013 some people are still making lists like this:

http://www.fixthefamily.com/blog/6-reasons-to-not-send-your-daughter-to-college

It was posted on another forum I read...I was hoping it was some kind of joke.

I should be raging, but honestly, I had the same reaction as I would have had if I'd read this on The Onion.

But still. FFS.

starling

bronte wrote: »

Because in 2013 some people are still making lists like this:

http://www.fixthefamily.com/blog/6-reasons-to-not-send-your-daughter-to-college

It was posted on another forum I read...I was hoping it was some kind of joke.

I wonder if they realise just how much they have in common with the Taliban?

Morag

This really shook me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86X8Ih2pxM

Tigger99

Bloody hell, that's stark. I find it hard to believe the stat tho, just seems so bad.

Woodward

Tigger99 wrote: »

Bloody hell, that's stark. I find it hard to believe the stat tho, just seems so bad.

Its more than likely BS put their to shock people and scare monger. 'Physical abuse' could be anything from a jostle in the playground during a game or you know, actual physical abuse

GalwayGuy2

Hmmm, I haven't seen that study so I cannot comment on it, but I wonder how any woman can feel safe and secure with dubious studies saying 1/3 of women will be raped.

Hell, even that video above mentioned Physical attack after the word "Rape whistle". I understand that these issues have to be raised and brought to the light, but, if that study is flawed, then videos like that increases the fear of women.

It's just kind of strange

YumCha

Woodward wrote: »

Its more than likely BS put their to shock people and scare monger. 'Physical abuse' could be anything from a jostle in the playground during a game or you know, actual physical abuse

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

Hmmm, I haven't seen that study so I cannot comment on it, but I wonder how any woman can feel safe and secure with dubious studies saying 1/3 of women will be raped.

Hell, even that video above mentioned Physical attack after the word "Rape whistle". I understand that these issues have to be raised and brought to the light, but, if that study is flawed, then videos like that increases the fear of women.

It's just kind of strange

Why is "BS" or "dubious" the first conclusion to jump to? I haven't gone through all the citations, but a quick look at the actual webpage for the Canadian Women's Foundation clearly explains their definitions and sources. They can't seriously be expected to explain all of this in a 30-second ad.

And to get back on track, I need feminism because I can't deal with how any mention of rape culture gets shot down. The reaction to Una Mullally's Irish Times article is just so depressing, but on the upside, I get to post this gif (which comes from this awesome video):

I am a feminist, however I find it hard to identify with a lot feminist theory and thinking for example the idea of a woman always being a victim of social forces, the ideas that its always structure and never agency when it come to a woman helping herself, on the other hand I get annoyed that when I as a woman am out for a walk near by, I hesitate going by an old castle that is a bit isolated and has lots of places to hide, I hesitated because I am women and women have been flashed at there, I waited for a couple who were walking there dog and walked with them.

Dubhlinner

YumCha wrote: »

And to get back on track, I need feminism because I can't deal with how any mention of rape culture gets shot down. The reaction to Una Mullally's Irish Times article is just so depressing,

What was the reaction to that article?

Have to say I think its a flawed article in some respects.

It is good in that it highlights that blame should always be with the attacker.

I don't know where she's coming from in other aspects of the article:

Men must accept that most violent crimes perpetrated against women are by men, and that they have the power to stop this

First part obviously true, second part - what does she mean? This comment is saying I as a man am responsible for violent crimes against women (in that I have the power to stop them) - what exactly do I do to become non-responsible?

Unless I'm missing something big I think shes talking about societal groupthink change, in which case, fair enough - but (and its a big but) I tihnk she's being hugely irresponsible with her use of language as she is isolating a lot of people.

That above statement says that all men are equally responsible for harmful attitudes toward women. This is outrageous. It means guys who condemn victim blaming are still responsible as men and women who say "yeah well shes a slut anyway" type remarks, simply because they are men.

It seems to me akin to blaming all Muslims for the actions of al qaeda. When people do that it leads to divisions, discrimination and an increase in Muslim extremism. Similarly I think there's likely a correlation between an increase in careless statements made in articles like this, and the recent increase in men screaming misandry at every opportunity.

Don't get me wrong, I really think that far too high a proportion of society have horrific attitudes to victims of sex abuse, but putting forth the idea that we're all equally responsible isn't helping to change that.

Another big issue here :

Men, don’t rape
Instructing women to be careful gets men off the hook. The potential perpetrators of attacks are seldom asked to be as conscientious, apart from occasional innovations such as the Don’t Be That Guy campaign. So, women, be careful? How about men, don’t rape? Men, don’t murder your exes or partners. Men, don’t beat up your wives or girlfriends. Men, don’t assault someone you’ve just met that night. Men, don’t shout at women across the road just because you can. Men, stop hanging your threat of rape over dark streets.

This kind of seems like she thinks men rape women because they're taught by society that it is ok. The reality is rapists know it is wrong but believe they will get away with it.

Rape would be seen as one of the worst crimes in society. Larry Murphy would be a likely candidate for irelands most notorious criminal.

I think this is why people concentrate on vigilance rather than condemning rape in safety campaigns, but I would agree they should be more focused on the attacker, also blame is not a linear concept - telling somone to be vigilant is in no way mitigating the crime of their potental attacker

Carlos Orange

Dubhlinner wrote: »

What was the reaction to that article?

It was pretty successful comment bait.
I don't imagine anything else was intended.

clairefontaine

mariaalice wrote: »

I am a feminist, however I find it hard to identify with a lot feminist theory and thinking for example the idea of a woman always being a victim of social forces, the ideas that its always structure and never agency when it come to a woman helping herself, on the other hand I get annoyed that when I as a woman am out for a walk near by, I hesitate going by an old castle that is a bit isolated and has lots of places to hide, I hesitated because I am women and women have been flashed at there, I waited for a couple who were walking there dog and walked with them.

Feminism is not going to change that. Ever. But it has changed the perception of vulnerabilities. So while you might get flashed, your male counterpart might get knifed,and that's the reality, but feminism has changes the spotlight.

Ambersky

Feminism does indeed change the spotlight.
One of the radical ideas of feminism is to look at who did what, precisely, and to who.

So instead of looking at how often women are raped we can look at who rapes, how and why they rape and examine and put into place programmes to get them to stop doing it.
I need feminism and other feminists, women and men to do this, because that simple message will get distorted and turned around untill we are looking at women purely as victims again. I need feminism because despite the frequency of rape and sexual assault and its devastating effects, women are often put down for exaggerating how bad it is and are corrected for not understanding the true various definitions of sexual assault and rape. Women are even told in discussions on their fear of rape that as bad and all as rape is, it isn't as bad as what men suffer.

The stark statistic is

99% of the people convicted of and imprisoned in response to rape accusations were male, with only 1% of those convicted being female

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_gender

On the issue of women getting raped and men getting knifed. Again if we dont just look at the victim and look at who is doing the violence we see that.

86% of violent offenders are male.

www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/wo.pdf‎

It is difficult to get statistics on male violence. Violence is usually talked about in general terms. When looking at gender and violence to find out more about what men are doing what usually comes up is information on domestic violence. I had to look at statistics for female violence amonst the statistics on violence in general to find out what percentage were male. Even then it is an American statistic.

Looking at male violence is seen as being sexist and anti man. Looking at female victims is more the norm. Some men say we need to look at male violence and that it is a mans issue. Again I need these feminist men.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ElJxUVJ8blw

Morag

http://www.thejournal.ie/child-abuse-hse-ombudsman-1108874-Oct2013/

Heart breaking.

YumCha

Morag wrote: »

http://www.thejournal.ie/child-abuse-hse-ombudsman-1108874-Oct2013/

Heart breaking.

Extra depressing when you consider in CARI's annual report reported a 162% increase in the number of calls relating to rape and sexual assault of children and adolescents, including a rise in gang rapes...

A selection of what victims said:
- I am to blame
- It’s my own fault
- I was drinking
- I lied to my parents about my whereabouts that night, now no one will believe me
- I feel ashamed and embarrassed

clairefontaine

YumCha wrote: »

Extra depressing when you consider in CARI's annual report reported a 162% increase in the number of calls relating to rape and sexual assault of children and adolescents, including a rise in gang rapes...

A selection of what victims said:
- I am to blame
- It’s my own fault
- I was drinking
- I lied to my parents about my whereabouts that night, now no one will believe me
- I feel ashamed and embarrassed

And Feminism does what exactly for child sex victims? Nothing.

Oh right, only the girl victims. My bad.

Femme_Fatale

Yeh, why is feminism needed because of sexual abuse of children? I know there are certain things for which feminism is needed, but child sexual abuse?

Morag

The HSE does not cover counseling pertaining to sexual abuse at all, they have teams that deal with childhood depression but not the direct cause, it gets left to CARI.

Do you really think that there is no connection what so ever between feminism and ending sexual abuse or services for the victims? wow ok then.

http://www.rcni.ie/about-us/values-and-history/#toggle-id-1

Rape Crisis Centres emerged from the women’s movement in the 1970s and a new, feminist analysis of sexual violence. Feminist analysis recognizes that rape, incest and child abuse are all acts of violence, involving abuse of power and control.

The analysis of power lies at the core of an RCC response to all forms of sexual violence. We recognise the abuse of power by the perpetrator, and the experience of complete loss of power by the victim.

We recognise sexual violence as a violation of human rights and we work from the conviction that women and girls, men and boys, have the right to live free of sexual violence and the threat of sexual violence.
We seek to bring about social change which will end all forms of sexual violence.
We strive for the creation of a society that accepts responsibility for the eradication of all forms of sexual violence and violence against women.

Femme_Fatale

Do you not think that without feminism there would be no protections for child abuse victims today?

Woodward

We strive for the creation of a society that accepts responsibility for the eradication of all forms of sexual violence and violence against women.

so violence against men is just fine then?

YumCha

I was just replying to the other post - and those stats aren't broken down by gender btw.

But while we're on it, do you think there's no correlation between those victim statements and the type of "rape prevention" advice that's given to women?

YumCha

Woodward wrote: »

so violence against men is just fine then?

Why are you deliberately ignoring the sentence above that?

We recognise sexual violence as a violation of human rights and we work from the conviction that women and girls, men and boys, have the right to live free of sexual violence and the threat of sexual violence.

Ambersky

Femme Fatale
Do you not think that without feminism there would be no protections for child abuse victims today?

You mean you are asking us to imagine if things hadn't evolved in the way that they did, would they have evolved anyway?
Whats the point in that imaginary scenario?
Rape incest and child abuse centers evolved as they did with a large part of it from the womens movement. Why try to detract from this with some other imaginary situation.
Somebody else didnt do it anyway, feminists set up these centers inspired by the womens movement. That who did it and it was a good thing.
Really there is no point to this thread. Anyone who says they need feminism for anything will be immediately jumped on to defend their position.
I need feminism but this is not where I find anyone able to talk about it.