The trouble I have with this is it not only isn't true, necessarily, but it helps societal provide justification for lack of intervention.
Plus, I haven't been in too many violent situations, I have never stopped to consider how the people are going to react, even if I might be aware of that dynamic.
Usually in situations like that things happen so fast that either you intervene or you do not
On the rare occassions when women are attacked in public places, people tend to intervene, and quickly. Most abusers are clever enough to abuse their partners in private, forcing the woman into a position of having to disclose something that has not been witnessed, putting not only her personal safety, but also her credibility on the line.
So an abused woman has to face her own personal Stockholm syndrome that locks her into a dysfunctional dynamic, but also she has to speak out in a way that feels, well, rather rude. To say nasty things about your partner feels churlish.
The trouble I have with this is it not only isn't true, necessarily, but it helps societal provide justification for lack of intervention.
My sister used to be a cop, and she said she has observed it to be true some number of times out of ten. The abused woman will sometimes become ferocious in defending her abuser in cases where he is threatened with removal from the home. And the cops will tend to always remove the larger and stronger male during domestic calls. And the abuse starts all over again after he's released from a holding facility. The women often have nowhere to go, or are afraid to strike out on their own for whatever reasons. There is an appalling lack of social housing in Canada. I think women just don't have the range of choices that they should have and too often feel trapped in bad situations.
On the rare occassions when women are attacked in public places, people tend to intervene, and quickly.
It's surprising what does happen sometimes. I've observed bullies mesmerize dozens of people at a time before someone actually says something.
ETA: I'm not from the Toronto area or any of the big cities. I don't know if they have training for women at the Cabbagetown club or not. I know they've produced some tough customers over the years, though. In Ottawa there is the Beaver boxing club. Most aggressors will not want to deal with a woman who can defend herself. Those guys will teach you how to throw punches in bunches and even to avoid them.
Stephen Harper to the rescue - in my riding, no less. The story also has some snippets about Saulie Zajdel, the long-time municipal politician who ran for the Conservatives last year in Mount Royal, trying to out-Zionize Irwin Cotler, and lost - and was promptly put on staff by Heritage Minister James Moore, to carry on Harper's work of infiltrating cultural communities:
[url=http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Project+combat+honour+crimes+gets+fe... to combat “honour crimes” gets $348,150 grant from Ottawa: Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes Shield of Athena Family Services announcement in Montreal [/url]
if you ask me why men rape, i'd say this:
-they can get away with it and they know it. it's been mentioned here several times that up to 90% are unreported.
-the idea of women as people in most cultures is a really recent phenomenon. Humans have been around for tens of thousands of years, women have been recognized as people for a few decades. That power dynamic is built into our culture in ways we can't even begin to understand. It's not "thou shalt not rape" it's don't rape your NEIGHBORS wife....spousal abuse wasn't even a crime until very recently, it was looked at as normal for thousands of years.
-rape is a way to humiliate someone in a psychological way that can't be acheived solely with violence. in other words you don't just want to hurt the victim, but do long term mental damage. like nuclear weapons, it's not just the actual physical toll it takes, but it's the ongoing psychological impact that makes it so effective as a means to control and humiliate.
The trouble I have with this is it not only isn't true, necessarily, but it helps societal provide justification for lack of intervention.My sister used to be a cop, and she said she has observed it to be true some number of times out of ten. The abused woman will sometimes become ferocious in defending her abuser in cases where he is threatened with removal from the home. And the cops will tend to always remove the larger and stronger male during domestic calls. And the abuse starts all over again after he's released from a holding facility. The women often have nowhere to go, or are afraid to strike out on their own for whatever reasons. There is an appalling lack of social housing in Canada. I think women just don't have the range of choices that they should have and too often feel trapped in bad situations.
On the rare occassions when women are attacked in public places, people tend to intervene, and quickly.It's surprising what does happen sometimes. I've observed bullies mesmerize dozens of people at a time before someone actually says something.
ETA: I'm not from the Toronto area or any of the big cities. I don't know if they have training for women at the Cabbagetown club or not. I know they've produced some tough customers over the years, though. In Ottawa there is the Beaver boxing club. Most aggressors will not want to deal with a woman who can defend herself. Those guys will teach you how to throw punches in bunches and even to avoid them.
Since you seem disinclined to listen to those with more knowledge and authority on this issue, I will repeat what has already been said over and over again. The solution is not for women to learn to better protect themselves. The solution is for men to stop abusing women.
The feminist forum is not an area of this board where a lack of understanding of the issues is easily tolerated. Unless you can speak with real understanding of the issue of violence against women (and no, your sister the cop doesn't provide that credibility for you) I strongly suggest you refrain from posting in this thread.
milo, individual men rape and attack women in the context of a society that encourages this behaviour, allows it, and approves of it.
Speculating why individual men rape will not end rape culture.
Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women's daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you're alone, if you're with a stranger, if you're in a group, if you're in a group of strangers, if it's dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you're carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you're wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who's around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who's at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn't follow all the rules it's your fault.
I started this thread a very long time ago and its intention is not to educate men on the basics.
If you insist on sticking to analyzing the behaviour of individual men, that very narrow view will not get you far. Decades of feminist history and theory has created an excellent theory and framework through which to understand, break down, and eradicate rape culture, and violence against women in general.
It's the application to real life that's the problem, which is what I was aiming for in starting this thread.
I didn't read milo204 as "insist[ing] on sticking to analyzing the behaviour of individual men".
For example, you write:
individual men rape and attack women in the context of a society that encourages this behaviour, allows it, and approves of it
Milo204 writes:
they can get away with it
That power dynamic is built into our culture in ways we can't even begin to understand.
spousal abuse wasn't even a crime until very recently, it was looked at as normal for thousands of years.
It seems to me that milo204's post is not at all antithetical to analysing rape from a systemic perspective. No...?
i agree i'm probably not offering any unique insights to you, but the question was asked of men, why do we think men rape...that's what i think. you can take that for what you will, but i'd respectfully disagree that my position is ignoring that "individual men rape and attack women in the context of a society that encourages this behaviour, allows it, and approves of it."
That's really what i was trying get at by pointing out that rape and sexism in our culture is thousands of years old. While we might, like racism, publicly disapprove on the surface it none the less persists in the culture because thousands of years of history is not easily undone. And as you point out, it's a pretty small percentage of people who are even aware of the feminist theory on this (both men and women), which clearly is not something that is a part of mainstream culture.
and perhaps that answers the question. when a critical mass of people ARE aware of that viewpoint and it DOES become a part of our cultural discourse moving forward, we might begin to deal with issues such as systemic sexism and racism. The problem is how do you move the conversation we're having here to a place where the mainstream culture is exposed to it and accepts it. For that there's no easy way which makes me think it's going to take many many years, maybe hundreds of years to reverse this culture.
Interesting points Milo, but reversing a culture isn't the key -- there is no ideal point to reverse to. We need to think about violence and inequity in ways that address what is most persistent.
true, reversing it would just take it back to an even worse time! scratch that we need to PROgress!
I do like Michael Enright. Recall the debate around the extradition of Roman Polanski to the US a couple of years ago, when Michael said, after a reasoned consideration of both sides, concluded with, "The man drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. He needs to be brought back to the United States in leg irons and a choke chain."
And intervening in a public domestic dispute is not always a good idea, either. Sometimes the young woman getting slapped around by her bf will turn on the outside objector and tell you to mind your own bees wax.
The trouble I have with this is it not only isn't true, necessarily, but it helps provide societal justification for lack of intervention.
Holy crap, it took awhile to even find a thread remotely appropriate for this excellent link:
[url=http://www.guernicamag.com/features/it-will-look-like-a-sunset/]It will look like a sunset[/url]
The above article is a beautifully written and painful expose on what it is like to live, love and survive a violent partner.
