What's socially acceptable and unacceptable is determined by social consensus. That's what would decide what gets you fired (though the workplace ought to have clear and specific rules here), what gets you thrown out of the bar, what gets you barred from your friends' homes and the PTA. What's _legally_ acceptable and unacceptable is trickier. It should, IMO, be based on threat rather than offense. I compared commenting on someone's rich possessions and asking for them, with commenting on someone's physical attributes and asking for sex or implying that the commenter wants sex. There seemed to be a feeling from some posters that the first was threatening and the second was not. And I disagree. I think that the second is equally, or more, threatening. When someone more powerful than you asks for something from you, that has an element of threat and coercion, even when the phrasing and tone is that of a joke or a hint or simply an expression of one's desires, rather than a request or a demand. There's also the question of persistence. OK, maybe some guy thought that that woman at the bar would appreciate him complimenting her. She didn't seem to appreciate it, so he tried again. Then he tried again. Then she told him, please don't speak to me again. If he tries again, then his behavior has gone beyond communication and into harassment, and any confusion is his responsibility. Yes, maybe he's seen a bunch of Hollywood movies where the male lead harasses the female lead until she gives in and then they live happily ever after, and therefore maybe he's genuinely confused. He can blame Hollywood, but he's still going to get bounced out of the bar. And if he hangs out outside the bar and tries to continue the conversation with that woman when she comes out, and she asks him to go away, and he doesn't, and she calls the police, and he gets arrested...I'm having a lot of trouble seeing that scenario as one where he's a to-be-pitied victim of a confusion of social standards. I'm not advocating a situation where this guy walks up to a woman in a bar or a filled movie lobby or a populated and well-lit square and says, "Hey, your hair smells terrific," and the next thing he knows he's in jail, rubbing mace-filled eyes. I'm talking about one where he has had ample opportunity to correct his behavior. Now, if he walks up to a lone woman, in an isolated area, in the middle of the night, without announcing himself, and sniffs her hair...yeah, he may get hurt. Now, what about cat-calls where there is no imminent threat, such as shouting from a construction site in broad daylight in a well-populated area? I would advocate employment consequences - that is, you get warned, maybe twice, and then you get fired. If the situation is somebody shouting from the outside area of a bar or other private property, I would advocate the guy getting bounced from the property. But what about legal consequences? I'm curious to know what the laws are about other behavior that's fuzzy around the speech/action/harassment/disruption line. For example, is it protected speech to stand on any street corner and shout one's political opinions? I hope so. Is it protected speech to shout those opinions through a megaphone at ear-damaging levels? Probably not. Is it protected speech to stand on that same corner and play music for money? Possibly not; I seem to recall that there's such thing as a license for that, which suggests that you can't do it without said license. Is it protected speech to ask people for money? The existence of panhandling laws suggests not, at least not in all jurisdictions. Is it protected speech to shout racist slurs to the population in general? What if you're shouting racist slurs at specific people? What if you're wearing a Klan hood? What if you follow people? What if you brandish obviously-fake weapons at them? What if you shake your fists at them? What if there are several of you, and you advance toward the targets of your words? Where does speech become harassment or threat? Apparently in some jurisdictions it crosses that line at "Spare some change?" asked from several feet away. To me, that is less threatening than a catcall. As for your question about giving another driver the finger, no, I'd say that that's just rude, not a legal offense. If you did it while driving for your employer, yeah, you may be in trouble with them, but there shouldn't be legal consequences. But if you make a gun with your fist, cops-and-robbers style, and "point" that gun at another driver? Now we're into threat, even if the mechanism for carrying out the thread is not immediately displayed, and the odds are higher that legal consequences are reasonable.
OK, I have to do some reading, because I thought that the "rape culture" idea was supposed to be about society - men _and_ women. In other words, that it's all of our faults, to some degree, not in any way just the fault of men. (I'm confident, for example, that my mother would have been _far_ more likely to blame a rape victim for what happened to her, than my father would have been.)
Society is almost always patriarchal or male-dominated in feminism, and more often than not all I see when 'rape culture' is mentioned is men. Take the Eve Bit First blog, for example. I know that woman's regarded by virtually everyone as a fruitcake, but note that her use of 'men' as opposed to 'society' is never something that comes in for criticism. It's pretty much the same across the board, at least in the media. I'm not so sure about academic feminist texts. Beyond the compulsory ones for my philosophy lectures, I've never been tempted to pick one up.
My comments are not intended to advocate disrespect to women. Apologies if I wasn't clear. I simply wanted to point out that expecting individual women to deal with the problem of sexual harassment using violence isn't a particularly good idea in my opinion. In fact, I don't know that we do tolerate cat calls any longer or at least not to the same extent. I see and hear much less of it wandering around the cities in Scotland than I used to. I think it's just not as socially acceptable as it used to be and isn't happening so much. Probably because of the things you outline - banning from areas, losing of jobs etc. No need for mace and no need to put the responsibility to act to stop what is an institutional problem onto individual women. Also - while these sorts of thoughts may not be openly expressed, racist and inappropriate sexual thoughts about children are all around us. Otherwise organisations like this wouldn't exist http://www.ecpat.org.uk/content/working-against-child-trafficking And political parties like this wouldn't be gaining so much support: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ugly-face-ukip-sunday-mirror-1531879 T
Here's some pretty useful info about it: So you're tired of hearing about rape culture. There are instances like, calling a woman who says it's not the woman's job to keep men from raping her 'stupid' in public, taking being friendzoned as an excuse for a boy to sexually assault a girl, and of course, women having to modify their behavior and appearance so as to keep horny jerks off their back. etc. I don't find it particularly feminazi-sh. Sorry, I don't think I quite got this. Isn't the reason why we usually try not to act like a bunch of buttmonkeys because we don't want to bother people? To me it looks like the main reason why you don't do this is because it's stupid and could make the woman feel annoyed... bothered? Like when I ride a bus, I don't fart with abandon or scream to my cellphone because I don't want to annoy people. I'm aware of how my behavior can be taken by the others, so I try to be polite and respectful (let's not go to the extremes though. I still flip the bird at cat-callers 'cause I'm not comfortable with them howling after my butt no matter how fabulous it is, and I know it's not polite of me, but why be polite towards jerks...) How can anyone define that term in a dictionary? As shown even here, to different people it means different things. But to me it's not about holding all men responsible, because women can rape too, and they do. To me it's more about strange acceptance of rape in our culture, about symphatizing with the rapists, putting blame on the victim (she was drunk and dressed in a miniskirt. She asked for it. He's a guy, guys can't be raped. Sure, he was half passed-out, but I yanked his crank and he was game! I did nothing wrong!), sweeping incidents under the rug, bribing the victims to keep their mouths shut, etc. If there's downsizing present, it should be -- and often is -- about downsizing the perpetrator regardless the sex. I don't think it's a bad thing you guys were hesitant to laugh, and just because in her presence it's okay, it's not very likely it will be okay in someone else's presence, so it's still good to be sensitive. What if there had been another girl there with a baggage of her own? Just because it's a girl who cracks the joke, doesn't mean it couldn't hurt someone, make her feel like "yeah, I should just laugh at this. No biggie, this is just a part of being a woman." Or maybe there was a guy who had been sexually assaulted. He could feel even more inclined to just shrug it away because "that's what's expected of men. Men must be tough. I can always take a chill-pill and then it'll be okay." But of course, a lot depends on who you are hanging with. Among friends it's better to crack jokes that may help the person to deal with whatever baggage they got (drug addiction and depression jokes seem pretty prevalent in my circle of friends), but dropping a bomb like that when lunching with co-workers could earn a "what-a-tool" stamp on the joker -- regardless the sex. We're not friends anymore, and I have no idea what he's doing and where nowadays, but if I'll be sure to send your greetings if I ever come face-to-face with him again
And this is what I've been saying all along. Words, by themselves, are not threatening - the situation/circumstances under which they are spoken makes them either dangerous or obnoxious. Obnoxious is better off ignored, because that's all the reaction it deserves.
Sure, I murdered him, but he was shot at 1.2miles with a .50 cal sniper rifle... He, at no point, felt threatened... In fact, he was rather enjoying a Burrito.
Prepare for a mammoth post: Pretty much all guys I'm closer with are into martial arts/self-defense/combat sports. And of course they fall (I did mention tripping one of them while he was running past me), but the difference between them and the average joe is that they know how to fall without getting killed and are able to implement that skill by keeping an eye on their surroundings. Honest answer: I'd be very upset, of course, but if I somehow found out what happened and learned the girl was honestly afraid for her safety, I'd understand that it was a shitty situation and that this time shit just happened to me/someone I care about. Like if she was looking the other way while driving through an intersection, the guy was crossing the street at the same instant, and the girl ended up running him over: it was her fault, but she didn't sit behind the wheel looking to kill someone. And about domestic violence: yeah, the things I suggested are difficult to make work, but they're just crutches anyway. The only solution to domestic violence is that one party leaves. Permanently. Kids aren't a reason to stay together, because it's better for kids to have divorced parents and a safe growing environment than having both parents under the same roof and constant exposure to emotional/physical violence (even if the kids aren't the objects of said violence, it always affects them deeply in one way or another). House, shared assets, money, those things are a distant second in importance. A bitch to deal with, but still a distant second. I kinda guessed that, so let's close the book on that one since neither of us will change his views regardless of what the other says. Except I want to answer to this since you asked: I do train martial arts. But no matter how tough you are, if there are more guys than one, you're in trouble, and your survival is down to pure luck (maybe the other guys happen to be very weak/sucky fighters or they slip on a banana peel, or a cop comes along, whatever), and I don't like to gamble with my safety or that of my loved ones. Do you? Already I've been to situations (broad daylight, sober, good neighborhood, just got unlucky) where, had I been even less lucky, I would've ended up dead simply because the odds were stacked so high against me. I do know of plenty of incidents where the one guy or couple weren't as lucky (as I've been, in a way), and things ended badly for them. Nobody can survive alone against, say, three guys who are bigger, stronger, better fighters etc. They might even carry weapons illegally since they're breaking the law already by attacking you. I don't care if you're an MMA champion, a Shaolin monk, a ninja, a Navy SEAL, one against multiples is always one big clusterfuck and every passing second diminishes your chances of survival exponentially. Oh, and if you're a lone girl against a bunch of guys looking for some "fun"... how's that for odds? Or what do you propose one should do in a situation like that? Especially if you can't run away (you're cornered/your leg is broken/your missus is wearing heels/you got your three small kids with you/whatever). If you got a solution, I bet it'd make the front page of every martial arts magazine out there. It's very common not to pay any attention to your surroundings, but that doesn't make it a good idea. I assure you, keeping an eye on what goes on around you does pay off in more ways than one in the long run. You don't need to jump at shadows and go all ninja about it either: just maintaining a general awareness is enough, like you do when driving a car (is there a car behind you, is one passing you, is one driving strangely slow/fast/keeps swerving from side to side etc). Nah, men should just pull their heads out of their asses and actually be considerate (towards everyone, mind), and women should be granted the capacity to defend themselves more effectively esp. if they aren't 6'4/300lbs Amazon warriors. He's a guy, you're a guy. If you've done your homework (mental and physical training that prepares for confrontations), you have a much better chance to get home safely than a girl half your size. Sure, she could train too, but unfortunately when it comes to fighting, size/strength matters quite a bit (it's not everything, but it counts for a lot). Of course I'd like to see some legislation that would make it possible to e.g. fine men who harass women, but I'd also like to see women given more tools (figuratively and literally) to protect themselves from harassment (defined by the aforementioned legislation) when the police can't make it to the scene (which would likely be most of the time since they have too few resources as it is). I just get the impression that people are much less tolerant about racist or sexual remarks (when the latter is aimed at children) than they are of harassment of women. I know some women can hear "I wanna pound your ass so hard, you won't walk for a week" on an empty street or in the subway at a quiet hour and just shrug it off, but some can be very disturbed by such an incident. But, hey, that's their problem, right? Ought to get over themselves, the guy was just having a bit of fun, is all... My sister was pretty creeped out when some guy "catcalled" after her when she was around 13-14 and a couple of years later when a 40-50-something, seemingly sober guy in a suit whispered some sexual suggestion in broad daylight in a busy shopping mall. She didn't even dress slutty and was just minding her own business when the incidents took place. Neither happened in a secluded alley either. I, for one, believe both guys would have deserved at least fines (best if we forget mace for the sake of everyone's mental health). I guess that's one way of looking at it. Personally I think it's a good idea to measure the level of your violent retaliation in accordance to who did and what to you. If a girl maced/punched/kicked/whatevered me on a dark street, my self-defense policy would be to run away and let her be. But that's just me. If a guy did the same, I'd put up a fight, mostly to take advantage of a chance to vent some frustrations. Yeah, I'm a sexist bastard since I have double standards when it comes to violence against a man or a woman. I think it should be legal to respond to rude and obnoxious behavior with more of the same (if you happen to feel like it at the moment). Most times turning the other cheek is the right solution, but, as people wiser than me have said before, in order for people to understand you, you need to speak their language, and rude, obnoxious jackasses only understand rude, obnoxious jackassery. Then again, none of this would be necessary if parents took the time to make their kids understand that doing dumb shit can get you hurt. Maybe I'm too young/old to live in a world where we should sympathize with all kinds of poor, misunderstood miscreants. I don't know, maybe I am being unreasonable about this, but for some reason it just makes me sick when someone physically stronger abuses someone (physically) weaker, be it man vs. woman, woman vs. child, child vs. puppy, whatever. I've no idea why I have a hard time feeling the same way about someone hurting a man. Maybe it's some form of misandry because most of the cruel things I've witnessed firsthand have been committed by men (perhaps I just project the negative memories on all of my sex). Those who make catcalls because of peer pressure don't deserve consideration. The decision to go along with peer pressure lays the fault directly on them, so it would be only fair they suffer the consequences (e.g. being ridiculed/shunned by their peers) instead of forcing innocent bystanders to take the heat for them just so they could feel better about their sorry selves. As for the first part, nobody gets sick or injured because they don't act rude. When I'm stuck in traffic, for example, I get all kinds of less pleasant ideas and feelings, but projecting them out on others to make myself feel better is selfish and weak. Condoning bad manners like that is like saying others should be held responsible for my bad/good mood just because they happen to be there. The long and short of it is that while in itself catcalling probably never killed anybody, it is a nuisance the society could do without, but as long as we do nothing about it and stand aside quietly while they pour their crap down someone's neck who has done nothing to deserve it is just as bad as openly condoning it because by doing nothing about it, we ensure the obnoxious idiot gets no negative feedback, gets his kicks, and hence feels better = he'll repeat his offense. And what you say is a door that swings both ways: if the offender never gets negative feedback and gets to enjoy his pleasure derived from imposing his will on others, he might eventually start to try the limits, the kicks he gets from catcalling might not be enough anymore, so next he gropes a woman. He gets away with it, eventually it gets boring, he doesn't get the rush from it anymore, so next he rapes a woman, and so on and so forth. How about that? To quote Monsignor from Boondock Saints: "Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men." If that applied to things like slavery (if nobody had spoken against it, acted to stop it, would it have been stopped?), racism (what would've happened if nobody had stepped in when ze vegetarian was building his Third Reich?), treating diseases (after all, they don't cure themselves and medicines/treatments aren't discovered without effort), and so, so many other things, why wouldn't it apply in (sexual) harassment too?
First, it is legal to respond to rude/obnoxious behavior with the same. Typically not the smart move to make, and really only puts the responder down on the same level as the offender. I see no point to it - a reaction is what they want, and giving it to them doesn't seem productive. And I'm not sympathizing with the offenders (where that came from I have no idea) - I'm simply stating that taking physical or legal recourse against rudeness is over-reacting. I also wish you would quit equating women with being physically weaker (like children) - particularly with so many women taking self-defense courses and being in the military, the 'weaker sex' is really out-dated. And physical characteristics really have nothing to do with whether or not someone is verbally rude, obnoxious, abusive, whatever.
Sorry, women are still physically weaker. What has changed is the value of strength. Women in the military do not often become as strong (physically) as men, but they can obviously perform the same mental tasks, which would be the majority of tasks in both civilian society and the mechanized military.
Women in the military and who have taken self-defense courses know how to protect themselves. In the military, they are expected to be able to handle the same physical tasks and requirements as the men. And one cannot really say that all women are physically weaker than all men, especially nowadays, after all the years of women participating in sports and men sitting in front of computers all day.
I don't know where you got that, but at least I never said any such thing. What I did talk about was that, generally speaking, women tend to be at a disadvantage when it comes to physical strength simply because they are usually smaller, and when it comes to muscles, bigger just happens to be stronger (not an opinion, just physics). The same applies to men: smaller men with less muscle mass are weaker than bigger men with more muscle mass. That's why there are weight classes in so many sports (especially combat sports) and why, e.g. in the UFC light-weight (meaning the weight class) women aren't pitted against heavy-weight men. If I had to fight a guy 100lbs heavier than me, with all other factors (skill, conditioning etc) being equal, I'd want some kind of a weapon. That's all. As for the part about sympathizing, I was speaking generally. Not sure if sympathizing is even the right word, I was thinking about trying to rationalize some dickwad's actions, justifying them, since in this thread there has been talk about how some men supposedly need this outlet to keep them from raping women etc.
One can, and one would be correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_Olympic_weightlifting
In fairness my girlfriend can nearly beat me in an arm wrestle, even though I'm pretty athletic; her brother on the other hand goes down like a stack of cards as soon as I mention sparring. It's okay to talk in generalities, as long as we realise that's what they are.
Firstly, skill in self-defense does not equal physical strength. Secondly, I never said "all" women are weaker than "all" men. I said that men are stronger than women; both of these terms are used in the general sense, meaning the typical man is stronger than the typical woman. This is fact. You however, seem unable to generalize. Sedantary lifestyles are chosen by both men and women. I doubt that more women participate in sports than men -- without any evidence, I'll assume it's equal. But that doesn't change the fact that even a woman participating in sports will have difficulty maintaining strength above the male average. Women can approach male strength in the lower body, but it requires a great deal more effort to get there. --- but this is all quite common knowledge and irrelevant in most gender issues.
Ah, the delusions of youth. 1. Every other average Joe is "into" martial arts/ self-defense/combat sports. Sooner or later, you will find that this most of those people are actually not so different (if at all) from anyone else in dangerous situations. 2. I don't think you'd actually be OK with your own father dying, no matter what you say now.
That is fair, but all things being equal, women are at a strength disadvantage over men. The average woman is weaker than the average man. It's not derogatory to point that out. That said, raw strength is far from the only deciding factor in any situation.
I don't care for generalizations - they're too much like stereotypes. I'm just tired of all the "oh, women need protecting!" in this thread. I see this "victim culture" to be as bad, if not worse, than the "rape culture".
Women do not "need protecting", true. But I don't care for the break-down of chivalry in its positive sense. In general, I think the code is beneficial to men; the message to protect those in physical danger when possible and to not bully people with one's strength counter-balances somewhat the rape-culture.
Everybody needs protecting. Crime affects everyone. But rape is a crime that we sometimes still hear excuses for, and that the victims are still often blamed for. This isn't about providing extra protection, it's about providing the same protection that we do with regard to other crimes. Is it a "victim culture" that a mugging victim doesn't have to prove that he didn't offer his money and that his failure to fight back and risk further injury doesn't signify that he _wanted_ his money to be taken?
I may sound conspiratorial, but I assure you that contention is not my intention when I write the following: This sounds somewhat like feminism baloney, or if not, it seems like someone trying to "buck the trend" in the wrong way. Consider a time in history where many people are writing about groups of friends. All are male. All party. Because someone wrote a book with these characters and was successful, hundreds of copycats began doing the same thing, until someone writes a "test" which states, "Your characters aren't realistic unless 1. There is only one male, with no male friends, and 2. he doesn't like to party." Well, sometimes, men have only male friends, and sometimes, all of these friends like to party. Likewise, sometimes there is only one female, sometimes she does not like talking to other females often, and sometimes, if she does talk to them, she only likes to talk about men. If this oddball scenario is the one you want, then it is likely your story will not be the first instance of this in the history of the world, however unlikely. Edit: Oh, um, am I interrupting something? *Glances at everyone awkwardly, considering scoping an exit through which to dash*
Nawe, your ethos in this debate is that women need to be catered to by men, not the other way around, so in very a polite way that is exactly what you are saying. Soft!
Yup. I've never been bothered by a man (or an older/bigger woman) "coddling" me or whatever, you know, acting like I need protection. They're being nice to me, and I will never ever be one of those girl-power women who go like "I'm fine on my own, thank you!" I love chivalry. It's nice when men hold doors open for me at work or help me out with heavy (or heavy-looking) burdens. Not sure if that makes me a man-abusing sexist. I doubt it 'cause men don't seem too bothered about helping me. Well said. I agree with this. I understand if people don't like "averages", "generalizations" or whatnot, but in that case they might want to steer clear of conversations in which such are a part of the discussion, especially when trying to explain certain types of behavior, decisions, etc. Knowing these people, I also know they aren't just 'into', they practice. (Good) women's self-defense classes take the size-and weight-differences into consideration. Just sayin'.
The different styles within each discipline are tailored to individual differences in height, weight, reach, speed, and even temperament. They weren't designed for men vs women, and in fact most of them date back to when only men were permitted to train. There are plenty of physically powerful, large kick-ass women, and also many small, quick men who wouldn't compete well in tests of strength. Gender is not a key attribute when it comes to self defense. Weaker sex, my ass. If ever there were an idea that needs a burial in a shallow, unmarked grave...
