Wednesday 17 August 2011

Again? Sigh...

Again Schrodinger's Rapist, and yet another attempt to point out all that is wrong with men with respect to how they don't respect women's fears, and another pointless exercise in trying to explain to men that this is somehow not bigotry.

It opens:

Schrodinger’s Rapist is not about “all men are rapists.”
It is not even about “all men are potential rapists.” All men are, in fact, potential rapists, in much the same sense as all women are potential rapists, and all brunettes are potential rapists. All people are potential rapists, because rape is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they rape people.
It is about “a very significant proportion of women will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Asshole...”

Okay. So far, so good. But let's reword things a little here, substituting "men" for another largely villified and demonized group:


Schrodinger’s Gangsta is not about “all black people are criminals.”
It is not even about “all black people are potential criminals.” All blacks are, in fact, potential criminals, in much the same sense as all whites are potential criminals, and all Asians are potential criminals. All people are potential criminals, because crime is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they commit crimes.
It is about “a very significant proportion of whites will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Thug...”

Sounds a little different when put that way, don't it? And if someone, some blogger, some woman, some man, even some black person, were to follow that intro up with this:

...and it is in your best interest to ensure their conclusion is not that you are.”

...no one would have any problem whatsoever calling out their racist ass. It is not up to black people to bend over backwards to prove to white people that they are not criminals, any more than it is up to men to bend over backwards to prove to women that they are not rapists.

But wait! There's more. Here's a goodie:

That Asshole makes up only a tiny percentage of men. However, he has poisoned the well for everyone else.
I think a lot of men underestimate the fear most women have around rape. For instance, I am the happiest little slut you could ever hope to meet. However, I would never have sex with a man whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because he might kidnap, rape and murder me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting murdered because of Craigslist Casual Encounters W4M is about as likely as me getting hit by lightning. However, on the emotional level, my brain associates “sex with men I don’t know” with “getting murdered.”
Uh huh. Let's look at it this way:

That Thug makes up only a tiny percentage of black people. However, he has poisoned the well for everyone else.
I think a lot of black people underestimate the fear most white people have around violent crime. For instance, I have lots of black friends. However, I would never associate with with a black person whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because they might assault, rob and murder me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting beaten up because I talked to a black person at the bus stop is about as likely as me getting hit by lightning. However, on the emotional level, my brain associates “being around black people I don’t know” with “getting assaulted.”

In other words, "Please understand that I'm bigoted against people like you, simply because of your biology and my own inability to judge people as individuals, understand that I have cause to be this way, and you're just going to have to accept the fact that this is YOUR problem, not mine. I acknowledge that my fears are essentially groundless, since I know, as I stated in my first paragraph, that other groups of people commit crimes, and only a small percentage of people in your group commit crimes, but it is up to YOU to prove to ME that you are not a criminal before I will treat you as a human being worthy of interaction with me."

I'm disgusted. Absolutely disgusted. Whatever prejudices and fears--rational or otherwise--people may hold in the privacy of their own thoughts, no one could ever get away with talking in this way about Jews, or Muslims, or black people, or Asians, or Hispanics. Yet this...this is not only an accepted way of thinking about men, it is defended, over and over, when the identifiable group involved is men.

How about we reword it again? Let's try this:


Schrodinger’s Maneater is not about “all women are evil.”
It is not even about “all women are potentially evil.” All women are, in fact, potentially evil, in much the same sense as all men are potentially evil, and all brunettes are potentially evil. All people are potentially evil, because evil is not a function of anything about a person except the fact that they do evil things.
It is about “a very significant proportion of men will, when you approach them, be assessing whether you are going to be That Crazy Bitch...”

...That Crazy Bitch makes up only a tiny percentage of women. However, she has poisoned the well for everyone else.
I think a lot of women underestimate the fear most men have around relationships of any kind. For instance, I am the happiest little stud you could ever hope to meet. However, I would never date or have sex with a woman whom a friend, or a friend of a friend, didn’t vouch for, because she might lie about being on birth control and ding me for 18 years paying for a child I didn't want, or cry rape the next morning when her boyfriend demands to know where she was all night, or only be after my wallet, or take me for everything I have or care about--including my kids--when she's done with me. On a rational level, I know the chance of me getting screwed over in some way because I slept with or entered a relationship with a woman is about as likely as me...well, actually, it's getting likelier all the time. Huh. I mean, on an emotional level, I want intimacy with a woman, but my powers of observation and sense of self-preservation associates "sexual involvement with women, whether I know them or not", with "getting fucked over, maybe for life.”

The big difference between what Ozymandias wrote, and my rewrite, is that my rewrite is not based on sexism. My rewrite acknowledges that only a tiny percentage of women commit the wrongs I described above, and does not hold all women somehow responsible for the behavior of a few. What my rewrite does, however, is address the reality that should a woman turn out to be That Crazy Bitch, she will be aided and abetted by the legal system--both family and criminal--in her wrongdoings.

I used to think it was only the system that was broken--a system that has effectively ignored, dismissed and trampled the rights of men in favor of women's interests. But now, after reading blog after blog and comment after comment from women who've succumbed to rape hysteria, patriarchal oppression hysteria, domestic terrorist hysteria...I'm finding that more and more, it is women who are broken. They've been broken by a system that panders to their interests in the most negative way possible--by sacrificing men and masculinity on the altar of "equality".

I'm not afraid of men, and I never have been, not even after my assault. And I suppose there may come a time when I end up getting seriously burned by that lack of fear. But the possibility of being burned *isn't worth the price of living my whole life in fear*, of rape, of men, of sex, of relationships, of meeting people, of experiencing intimacy, of *living*.

The women who fear Schrodinger's Rapist are living in a cage made of their own prejudice and fear. That is THEIR problem, not men's, and it's up to THEM to climb the fuck out of there, not up to men or to the ever decreasing numbers of sane women to climb in there with them.

It is not men's responsibility to pander to and indulge women's irrational fears, Ozymandias. Women's irrational fears of rape are their own fucking problem, and they need to deal with it.

20 comments:

  1. I keep on having to defend NSWATM to an extent because of the r/masculism project. Ozy may not be involved butNSWATM is to an extent (we have their support and two authors-one who hasnt written since the beginning and is hardly active and most of the people involved dislike the blog already)

    She isn't making this any easier for me

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  2. The Zeta Male.

    Why are you complaining about having to defend feminists that are trying to make a male feminist that knows little to nothing about mens rights a leader of the "Real Mens Movement"?

    You put yourself in the position, by choice.

    "She isn't making it easier for me" - easier to what exactly, help nswatm co-opt the mens movement?

    Sorry to barge in like this, and great blog entry GirlWritsWhat.

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  3. Awesome post - I'm adding you to my feed reader.

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  4. acatalogueoflies-where are you getting that from? Godlessaltruist seems to have almost no background whatsoever-lets not forget how many MRAs started as feminists too

    there is endorsement from NSWATM but not everyone there (in fact almost no one there) is involved with the project, but people seem to insist that it is just an expansion and another attempt to co-opt because of them. Any article like this is just going to be used to say "see! look at what r/masculism is about!" even if the author has no involvement in the project whatsoever.

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  5. Hmm.
    This post conflates things almost as badly as the original Schroedingers Rapist post does.

    Some fears are rational, I'd submit its perfectly reasonable for a female to feel scared in an enclosed isolated space or late at night, that sort of thing. Though such fears are not the exclusive domain of females of course.

    So the real question is how to balance the two issues. Clearly men should never feel ashamed of their sexuality and if one makes a polite approach and is rebuffed rudely or the approachee freaks out due to issues in her past that response is NOT on the male but on the female.

    Clarence

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  6. Hi, Zeta. I'm aware of the r/masculism thing. My bf asked me what I thought he should do if they offered him mod, and I said, "Just be careful, that's all."

    And yeah, Ozy is making the job of defending the project more difficult. I think for most women who are feminists, they're trained to look at issues *as women*. It can be very difficult to fully pull away from that.

    Oh well. :)

    And thanks, acol and EasilyE. :)

    I'm not sure what I'm conflating here, Clarence. The fear of Schrodinger's rapist IS an irrational one. If, as feminists are well aware, most women who are raped are raped by someone they know, then it is the men in whom they've placed their trust whom they should be more wary of, not the men they don't know. If violent stranger rape is the rarest type of rape, then women should be less fearful of men they don't know than of men they do.

    And while it is simply common courtesy to not go out of one's way to make anyone feel uncomfortable or threatened, I really want to live in a world where women are taken seriously. I've said in the past that if a woman cannot withstand a polite pass in an elevator, where a man did not press his case or push the issue but took an equally polite no for an answer, without it descending into a discussion of how all women are fearful of men...all this does is convince me that women as a group do not have the necessary mettle to be out and about unaccompanied by bodyguards (who would actually be more likely to rape them than strangers would, heh), let alone be in positions of power and influence.

    I have long advocated personal responsibility for women--that it is all well and good to want the world to change and become safer, but in the meantime women should take steps to keep themselves safe from all harm and not expect society to protect them, or rapists not to rape them. For this, I'm accused of misogyny. But at the same time, pieces like Schrodinger's Rapist cast women as helpless objects that things simply happen to, and justify walking around in perpetual terror based on hysteria and bigotry rather than being empowered within their own lives.

    Blame sexism, blame discrimination, blame patriarchy, blame society, blame rapists, blame men, for every single problem women have. And then they wonder why women are walking around in fear? If nothing that happens to you is ever because of your own choices and actions, but always due to other factors, that means you have NO power over anything, not even your own life. And Schrodinger's Rapist places blame for women's absolutely irrational fears on the small percentage of men who've "poisoned the well" for every other man, discouraging women yet again from looking inside themselves at how their own ways of thinking and looking at the world are shortchanging them, limiting them, and keeping them in a cage of their own fucking making.

    I did a lot of internet dating before I met my current boyfriend, also through the internet. I was never fearful of those first dates, and never fearful of sex on those first dates. I've never been fearful of even weird, socially awkward or "creepy" men, either. Yet Ozymandias, on an emotional level, associates sex with a man she doesn't know with being raped and murdered, even knowing, as she stated, that the likelihood of it is the equivalent of being struck by lightning.

    So you tell me. Who's the one with the problem? Whose responsibility is it to deal with that problem? Women like Ozymandias need therapy, not more feminism.

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  7. GWW:

    First as to your argument about whether strangers are more dangerous than intimates: it fails. It fails because that is not the context or question being asked here which is : what can a woman do in public areas to reduce her risk there? Whether you like it or not, that will inevitably involve profiling and some form of situational awareness. Which means, yes, be wary of groups of people more known to perpetrate, stay near crowded/lit areas, avoid enclosed spaces if you can, etc. This is what I use, as a man, to defend myself on the streets of Baltimore,I'll be dammned if I'm going to deny females the same right, esp. since someone very close to me was the victim of a violent stranger rape that put her in the hospital for 2 days.

    That being said, we both clearly know the limitations (and heck downright insulting assumptions) behind the original SR post. Clearly not all fear is rational, and its obvious that some in the feminist community not only place all the onus on men to police their interactions with women, but also seem to want us to assure that no woman is ever discomfited by any approaches. This is an impossible standard; it's also morally insulting and yes, infantalizing of women. I have no truck with the original SR post, and while I can agree with SOME of what Ozy said (for a little 19 year old feminist she is very admirable in trying to see both sides and sticking up for men - trust me, I've been on the internet since 1996, and Ozy is one of less than 5 self-proclaimed feminists who ever given so much as a shit about men so excuse me if I stick up for her a little)I fully agree she shouldn't have linked to that evil post. She should have stuck to what she and Holly have said, which, while not perfect, is at least something one can work with.

    Now I find it interesting you bring up Elevator Guy. I wrote pretty extensively on that and will pop you a link if you request it. I will state that Rebecca Watsons initial video that mentioned the EG incident (it was a brief period halfway through the video) was understandable and not overstated by very much - had she later clarified that she wasn't speaking of all men or making absolute proscriptions she might have avoided the whole mess that ensued. But she didn't, instead she dug in her heels, eventually embellished her story a bit, and is now firmly ensconced in the victim- feminist camp.

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  8. I myself was irked by RW's, "Guys, don't do that," bit, and it was only when those defending her position took it from, "It made me uncomfortable and I'd rather guys didn't do that" to "Because...RAPE. You privileged males just don't realize how fearful women are of sexual assault, how much it weighs on our minds, blah blah blah" to "we wouldn't feel this way about rape if men stopped raping, and if people believed us when we were raped, and if rape trials were a cakewalk, and if there was no victim-blaming, and if [insert anti-patriarchy rant here]!"

    There is something inherently wrong with feminism when it has become so obsessed with proving patriarchy theory that it will overstate statistics on sex crimes and domestic violence (though understate those that reflect male victimhood). Feminism would have no reason to exist if women weren't terrified of rape or angry at men, would it? And who's telling women they won't be believed? I rarely ever hear that sort of thing from the police or from men--most of the time I hear nothing but, "PLEASE report your rapes!" from those people. I only ever hear "you won't be believed" from feminists.

    I can only conclude that feminism wants women to be more scared and angry than they need to be or are justified in being.

    I believe you when you say Ozymandias is well-intentioned. But that doesn't mean I think men can count on her. Anyone who talks about male privilege and patriarchy...well, they have a specific way of looking at the world, and they'll likely help men exactly as far as they can before women are negatively impacted, and then that will be the end of their help. Embracing equality means letting go of feminist thought and theory. I really can't put it any more simply than that.

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  9. I myself was irked by RW's, "Guys, don't do that," bit, and it was only when those defending her position took it from, "It made me uncomfortable and I'd rather guys didn't do that" to "Because...RAPE. You privileged males just don't realize how fearful women are of sexual assault, how much it weighs on our minds, blah blah blah" to "we wouldn't feel this way about rape if men stopped raping, and if people believed us when we were raped, and if rape trials were a cakewalk, and if there was no victim-blaming, and if [insert anti-patriarchy rant here]!"

    We are in agreement on this. The gynocentric victim feminists took the SR post and ran with it to absurd heights. Heck , the very next step in their argument would have been that all PIV (penis in vagina) sex is rape ala the patriarchy.

    There is something inherently wrong with feminism when it has become so obsessed with proving patriarchy theory that it will overstate statistics on sex crimes and domestic violence (though understate those that reflect male victimhood). Feminism would have no reason to exist if women weren't terrified of rape or angry at men, would it? And who's telling women they won't be believed? I rarely ever hear that sort of thing from the police or from men--most of the time I hear nothing but, "PLEASE report your rapes!" from those people. I only ever hear "you won't be believed" from feminists.

    I can only conclude that feminism wants women to be more scared and angry than they need to be or are justified in being.


    Pierce Harlan, at False Rape Society has written extensively about the underreporting phenomenon and how it is intentionally played up. Undoubtedly, despite all the changes we've made to rape laws and how trials are conducted and how the media handles these things a significant amount of underreporting still exists. This occurs for many reasons: some women aren't educated on the current status of these laws, some don't want their partners punished for something THEY don't feel is as bad as a rape (whatever the legal definition), some are very traumatized from the experience and fear getting on the stand, etc. But that being said, some feminists very much do play up both the amount of under- reporting and the reasons for it.

    As for your second sentence, yes, the feminists currently in power want to use this fear for political purposes so they have every incentive to build it.

    As for Ozy, patriarchy and such: well, she is already far less comfortable using the word and uses it in a far more nuanced fashion than one would if one read "Finally Feminism 101" on the subject. She seems to want to gradually move to kyriarchy, at least that's how she has been trending. She doesn't deny female privilege as one example. But heck, how am I to know whether she can be counted on or not? I've known her less than a year and she is 19. LOL.Time will tell.

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  10. My God is it refreshing to read a sensible blog on gender issues in a blogosphere dominated by emotional hysterics.

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  11. Just found your blog today.

    I think I want to have your baby. ;-)

    Seriously, it is a breath of fresh air to hear some sanity for a change. Keep it up!

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  12. @ClarenceComments

    With regards to the under-reporting of rape: It strikes me as highly likely that the way feminism consistently tells women that the law won't believe them if they get raped and that the authorities will just ignore them and tell them to stop dressing like sluts might increase the number of rapes that go unreported. That is, feminism tells women that the way to deal with being raped is not to report it, but to entrench oneself further in a paranoid fear of men.

    It's a tragically paranoid vision that ends up reinforcing precisely what it (supposedly) hopes to end.

    When it comes to reporting rape, we may be dealing with Schrodinger's Misogynist Authority Figure.

    I used to be angry with feminists. More and more though, I just feel sorry for them and those they influence.

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  14. Girl Writes What bears a familiar mark. I'm not a conspiracy or UFO nut I'm serious about what I'm saying. I also know most will dismiss what I say a kookery which is understandable. It is my strong suspicion that this woman has genes of human parrallels. Such genes have been on earth for a very long time and sometimes present like this. I suspect that the reasion she sees the world as she does is because she isn't entirly human at least not this earths idea of a human. I have experience with what I'm saying.

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  15. Not likely you would have known, and I may be wrong but you seem like other people I know like that your reasioning processes your take on things the whole way of looking at the world the way they trip out on you they thats what the genes do they make you resemble other takes on a human being.

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  16. I believe that A plus control your Twitter account. I received a tweet from 'you' that directed me to a fake site. If you fell fro the same scam they control your account.

    richard.ford@rocketmail.com

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    Replies
    1. How long ago did they message you? A lot of people have been hacked, and I changed my password as soon as I noticed.

      Delete

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