Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
I think most people share this view, men and women but that statement and similar ones always feel to me like women blaming all men rather than blaming ther perpatrator. You might not be intending to say this but this is how I read it.
I get frusterated in these types of discussions when men as a gender are blamed for rape and rape culture. Men as a gender arent to blame for rape. Rapists are to blame for rape.
|
I'm definitely not blaming the gender. But I think so much of the discussion is around women "protecting" themselves from rape. Like, don't walk alone at night. Don't have too much to drink. And don't you dare wear revealing clothes, while walking alone at night, after having one too many drinks. On and on it goes. And our children too. Don't talk to strangers. Don't walk home alone. Learn about your private parts when you're 3 years old so that if someone assaults you, you can correctly identify anatomy to a police officer (and for those of you without children, this is seriously what parents are instructed to do now to help reduce your child's vulnerability to being sexually abused).
But much of the discussion needs to start with WHY is rape happening in the first place? It's rapists. (as you say yourself) And that leads me, at least, to the larger questions of what is happening in our society to lead
some men down the path of being violent and/or committing sexual assault. Women have these messages about how to "protect" themselves drilled into their heads from a very young age. Fine. But the way to stop rape is for rapists to stop raping people. I'm not sure what the messaging needs to be or how to start the change, but women are doing basically as much as they can to protect themselves and the statistics on sexual assault are not going down.
And whoever said my views were ridiculous well... I'm truly sorry you feel that way. I do believe that an 8 year old being raped in park in NW Calgary has a much bigger impact on that young girls life, and on her family's life, than a false rape accusation does on a grown man's life and his family's life. I just do. Maybe because I'm a woman. Maybe because I'm a mother. Probably both combined. Maybe nobody was really equating the false accusations with rape and I misinterpreted things entirely.
Flameswin - I did retract my "shove it" because really... I don't feel that way. And I know it's a dumb thing to say. I just get really upset about issues of violence and rape perpetrated against women, children, gay men, straight men. Everybody. Why do people have to do these things? I just don't understand. And it makes me sad and angry.