Posts by Danielle
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i think that the status quo does that already
It does. I think the interesting thing about the way in which this conversation has played out is that because most women are hammered with messages constantly and most men aren't, there are these two perspectives that (unless carefully elaborated upon) can end up talking past each other. "But this is going to make us feel so persecuted!" vs "But we feel we are already BEING persecuted!" Understanding the latter perspective can really help with the former, though.
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Hard News: The Crazy Gang Nation, in reply to Paul Brown,
I just posted these figures as a Facebook status update and one of my many Republican relatives responded with "it's about to get worse". AS IF THAT'S POSSIBLE. Honestly, it couldn't be harder to get through to these people if they were actually enclosed in brick walls.
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All of my private reactions to your post were really sad and very shouty, so I will spare you those, Helen, but... I'm sorry. You are so brave.
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Madge knew what she was about when she nicked a bit of this.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Because while men are overwhelmingly committing these crimes, some women do too.
That’s true. I have been expressing things that way as a useful shorthand but it’s a bit eraser-ish. Sorry.
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Dylan has three sons. He doesn’t want them to be lumped into the rapists group.
I have two sons. Isabel has two sons. Jolisa has two sons. Russell has two sons. It's not like we're all angling for them to have "I have rape potential" tattooed on their foreheads.
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There shall be no dissing of ABBA on my watch, young man. I am quite stern on this issue.
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I think perhaps where Dylan and... others... are talking at cross-purposes is that he doesn't think rape and sexual assault are "normal" things, and we all think that they totally are. Shit, *I* was sexually assaulted when I was 12 - by a member of my own family, winningly - and although it wasn't a particularly extreme case and doesn't cause me a great deal of personal trauma 27 years later, I would, you know, much prefer it hadn't happened. If it seems to be everywhere, all the time - as it *does*, to women as a class - then it seems kind of crack-smokingly bizarre to assert that an education campaign about consent would "normalise" rape. You GUYS. We're soaking in it.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
that all men are “potential rapists” (as in every man has within him the potential to be a rapist, not that a given man within a group may do)
OK, that is not, in fact, what anyone has said, or what any of these campaigns say. The "potential" for women is not that we think you all could, or do; it's that until we know you really well, we *don't know that you won't*, so assuming any given one of you won't is a bit dangerous for us. The campaign *would* have to be broad because, well, how do you narrow it down? But they're not saying "all men if given the opportunity will rape someone". That's what the "asking for it with a short skirt" brigade is saying!
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
did it make a difference?
I believe domestic violence rates went "up" as a result of increased reporting (but someone else probably knows more about it than me). So yes. Things percolating around in the culture - issues being discussed or reframed when they were ignored before - actually *do* make a difference. Otherwise what would be the point of any education campaign at all? You say "I don’t think there’s anyone that thinks rape is okay" but that seems kind of... obtuse when rates of sexual assault are so high and convictions are so low! It's clear that a significant percentage of people think it IS OK in certain circumstances.
telling the entire male population
You know, there's an entire female population being told what they should be doing or not doing to prevent this shit, and since THEY ARE GENERALLY NOT THE ONES DOING IT (with certain exceptions) AND ARE NOT ABLE TO PREVENT IT, perhaps we could concentrate on the other half of the equation for a while? Is that so totally batshit crazy?