Comment

Comment by greyfoot on May 15, 2013 at 4:39pm

*Became in the hands of many purported feminists a vehicle for hatred and paranoia, is what I meant to say.

Comment by greyfoot on May 15, 2013 at 4:35pm

Karim,

I posted this over at ThinkAtheist, and to my genuine surprise, received many sentiments that echoed yours. And they weren't just from men. I say I'm genuinely surprised because I fully expected a site that is comprised mostly of left wing liberal-leaning members to jump on the ultra-feminist bandwagon, but that, thankfully, is not the case. I do not follow the liberal, conservative, or libertarian ideologies. I point this out because it's important to make a distinction: I do espouse aspects of all three of those philosophies. To philosophize is to question everything, even one's own motivations. Ideology, however is the crystallization of philosophy; ideologues don't ask questions, and they don't seek truth, they blindly follow their pundits or cult leaders. And the insidious thing about ideology is that it can be made out of anything, any social movement or concept. This is what happened to such a worthwhile cause as feminism, which was supposed to be about conscientious respect and equal opportunity, but became in the hands of many (though certainly not all) purported feminists.

The sad thing here is that actually wasn't even the focus of my disagreement. The author was indicting the whole culture as condoning and suborning rape. I find that notion offensive. I've been seeing that baseless phrase, "rape culture," being thrown around a lot lately, and I find that people latch onto it with such ease disturbing, if not surprising. It would be easy to blame "the media" for this, but that just detracts from the real problem, which is...us. We who consume the media. People read/watch/hear about three sexual assaults in a week, then that means every person (woman) you know is going to get raped. Media is not an accurate representation of the facts, and was never meant to be. People need to CAREFULLY study the statistical analysis of such phenomena before snapping to such a judgment. Don't get me wrong, no rational person denies women are at risk. But that's an inescapable fact of life, just as it has been since the dawn of our species. As a progressive society, though, we acknowledge that fact and make the necessary adjustments in the best way that we can, and I think the evidence very strongly suggests we've done that. Therefore, I think dubbing us as a "rape culture" is grossly misleading.

Comment by Karim R. on May 14, 2013 at 9:22pm

The article itself was turgid, self-indulgent and poorly reasoned. Apparently, the author felt that it is not meant to be critical of men at all, despite prefacing her argument with:

The best analogy I can make is the conversation you inevitably end up having with your male colleague about sexual harassment.  He objects to laws protecting against it because, he says, how will men ever be able to make a pass at women?

Notice that the conversation is "inevitable". That is, the problem is not just certain men, but all men; every man is Barney from How I Met Your Mother. Yet as someone who has trained hundreds of people on sexual harassment policy, I can't think of one instance where a man did not take it seriously. And in only one instance have I ever had to discipline a man for making passes at a co-worker, and that "man" was only seventeen.

Despite your warning, I did take a look at the comments. I saw the author complain about your "toxic" comments - which you owe her an apology for! - and I thought: "oh boy, what kind of foul, sexist remarks is greyfoot tossing around?" Then I scrolled up and read your thoughtful comments and was disappointed. You were simply making points which did not fit her worldview and it was easier to attack than respond.