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The difference between “all men are rapists” and “a woman cannot tell by looking at a man whether he is a rapist” is vast and readily discerned. And I am really tired of reading rape apologists conflate the two, as if they are easily confused. Failing to distinguish between the two is not a mistake; it’s an agenda.
—Melissa McEwan
(Source: shakesville.com)
So, I joined a forum where women share creepy messages they’ve gotten on OkCupid, Facebook, via text, etc. and I knew I had some doozies, so I decided to have a look through my FB message history to find some to post.
I consider myself fairly lucky in that I am a) not conventionally attractive and b) somewhat authoritative/intimidating (according to some folks) so I’ve never been a major target of harassment from men seeking sex or intimacy. That’s not to say that it hasn’t happened – just that it seems to happen to me less often than it does to many of my female friends.
However, even though that’s true, it’s still shocking to look at all the ridiculous messages I’ve received over the past few years. Particularly those where I had the gall to tell off some guy for whatever appalling sexual comment he had made about me and he reacted by calling me a bitch, stupid, etc. This seems to happen just about every time I express any kind of opposition to creepy male attention.
Who are these guys? Why are their egos so swollen that they think they are entitled to favorable sexual attention from women, and when they don’t get it, they react like a 3-year-old? What person or experience has taught them that this is acceptable behavior?
If a woman says no to your unwanted advances, she’s not denying you a right that you’ve earned, she’s not being harsh or mean, she’s not being stupid – she’s protecting herself and exercising her right to make decisions about what she will and won’t tolerate in her life. These are behaviors which, in men, are lauded as intelligence and self-sufficiency, but in women, are called “bitchiness” or “frigidity.”
Ugh. Fuckin’ patriarchy.
It’s not too much to ask men and boys to “look, but don’t touch.” A young woman who wants to be noticed, even desired, without being assaulted isn’t making an unreasonable request. She’s not defying the facts of biology. She’s asking to be watched, appreciated, and left unharmed. Saying that she’s asking to be raped is like saying that a talented actor who portrays an unsympathetic villain particularly well on screen is asking to be attacked by an outraged member of the movie-going public. There’s a difference between a performance and an invitation, and it’s not that hard—really, it’s not—to distinguish the two.
—Sexy Halloween Costumes for Girls Don’t Cause Rape — The Good Men Project
Melissa McEwan’s take on Todd Akin. This is my favorite part:
Listen, buster: You don’t get to claim that you’ve got empathy for women who are raped while also denying them the right to terminate a pregnancy resulting from rape. You’re a woman-hating nightmare who uses inflammatory language like “attacking the child” to describe terminating an unwanted pregnancy, and you clearly have about as much empathy for survivors as the fuckheads who raped us in the first place.
And if Representative Akin doesn’t enjoy being compared to a rapist, then perhaps he shouldn’t be publicly and repeatedly defending his desire to force women to use our bodies the way he wants us to use them, irrespective of our consent.
What a woman wears does not make her responsible for someone else’s bullshit, sexist, and/or violent & criminal behavior.
—Misty @ Shakesville
(Source: shakesville.com)
Today Shakesville reports even more ridiculous shit about Daniel Tosh and his total lack of respect for the necessity of consent and the seriousness of rape.
This shit needs to stop. Here’s Viacom’s contact page so you can file a complaint and announce your boycott.
FYI to anyone who might be experiencing a craving to write in my ask box defending Tosh: if you defend him, you’re defending rape culture and its enforcers, and I don’t take that kind of stance seriously because it’s a misinformed and misogynistic one. So please don’t bother, because I’ll just block you. I don’t want or need that kind of idiocy in my life.
This is the letter I just wrote to Comedy Central:
Hi, folks at CC,
I’m writing to let you know that, as I’m sure you’re aware by now, Daniel Tosh is a disgusting, misogynist rape-endorser.
In a recent incident, he incited people at a comedy club to rape a woman who rightfully protested his usage of rape jokes in his set. And there’s currently an article circling the blogosphere about an episode of his show last year in which he featured a video of a teenage boy being raped with a dildo, and laughed about it, apparently not caring about the immense trauma involved with rape.
I’m sure you can understand why I won’t be watching Comedy Central anymore until this revolting rape apologist’s show is taken off the air, and I’ve already informed my friends and the readers of my blog that they should take the same stance.
Please stand up for feminism and for those of us who don’t think rape is funny (i.e. all decent people), and do the right thing: get rid of Tosh. He has no place being successful. He doesn’t deserve it, not even a little bit.
Kate
If comics are unhappy that someone might get triggered by a rape [joke], they can take that up with rapists, not survivors.
—Melissa McEwan
(Source: shakesville.com)
And in other helpful stereotypes, all a person needs to do is fight really hard and they can stop rapes. ALSO GOOD TO KNOW! Wait, actually not good to know at all—just another dangerous myth of the rape culture, one which ignores the reality wherein those who “fight back” are likely to be framed as aggressors, and where those who choose not to resist as a survival strategy (or for whom physical resistance just isn’t feasible for whatever reason) are liars who really wanted it.
—Aphra Behn, “Today in Misogyny: Geek Culture Edition”
(Source: shakesville.com)
