Quote:
Originally Posted by ST20
The punishment fit the crime but the excessive comments on assault and blanket comments that imply ladies are fragile and need YOUR protection is a little much. Go speak to your wife, girlfriend or daughters. I guarantee you, they face things a million times things worst than this on one Saturday night out. And yes most of these incidents on a Saturday night out would fit the term assault. Would I be pissed that this specific incident happened to my wife? Yes. Do I think this specific incident, where no one was assaulted, requires a deeper analysis of society and a women's place in it? NO. There are far too many real women's issues to focus your time on than trying to make something more of a famous hockey player being an idiot.
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Not sure anyone is really saying any of this? The word assault has been thrown around a few times, mostly in statistics of how frequently women experience it. Assault has also been said a few times 'inaccurately' - though I think that has a lot to do with us having only a few words available (harassment, assault, and rape) to describe a broad range of realities. The fact that 'rape' is often euphamized down to the broader 'sexual assault' doesn't help matters.
The divergence here is that it's totally understandable (and IMO reasonable) that the security guard thought she was about to be raped...because that is just about the only logical reason a man or group of men would try to 'sneak' into an occupied car at 2am. I can also see how the bros thought they were just harassing her (not sexually harassing). To be clear, I think it's indisputable that they intended to make her [a little bit] uncomfortable, but they were too stupid to recognize how their actions would inevitably be received.
So where does that leave us? In what other cases do you we use a wrongdoer's lack of malicious intent to excuse the actual consequences of their actions for other people?
Is this not exactly the right time to be discussing the issues of gender dynamics? Too often, men are unaware of, or simply don't care about how our words/actions make women feel. It's certainly not a matter of women needing thicker skin - they've proven a pretty impressive ability to put up with bull####. Actually putting ourselves in this security guard's shoes would be a good start - even if it was only 10 seconds worth of fear, it sounds friggin awful - but it's not really enough, because we can't fully relate to the power imbalance or history of preceding experiences (even women who haven't directly experienced full blown creepiness themselves feel it through their friends who have).
I don't actually know what the answer is, but I think a lot of people could stand to do a little critical thinking. Is there actually a war on men right now? Or are we finally being collectively called out for our long history of collective BS? I can acknowledge that women continue to suffer from mens' malice and ignorance without feeling ashamed of my gender.
Even if you are unable to or don't want to empathize with this women, why not limit your comment to "Matthews is a moron." Period. End of sentence. No need for a "but, it's just typical drunk boy stuff" or "she's out for money", etc. Better yet, why not say nothing at all? Because these comments only prove one thing - that you're a jackass that can't begin to imagine how life happens differently for different people.