posted March 30, 2012 12:40 AM            

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We were discussing homosexuality because of an allusion to it in the book we were reading, and several boys made comments such as, “That’s disgusting.” We got into the debate and eventually a boy admitted that he was terrified/disgusted when he was once sharing a taxi and the other male passenger made a pass at him.

The lightbulb went off. “Oh,” I said. “I get it. See, you are afraid, because for the first time in your life you have found yourself a victim of unwanted sexual advances by someone who has the physical ability to use force against you.” The boy nodded and shuddered visibly.

“But,” I continued. “As a woman, you learn to live with that from the time you are fourteen, and it never stops. We live with that fear every day of our lives. Every man walking through the parking garage the same time you are is either just a harmless stranger or a potential rapist. Every time.”

The girls in the room nodded, agreeing. The boys seemed genuinely shocked.

“So think about that the next time you hit on a girl. Maybe, like you in the taxi, she doesn’t actually want you to.”

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Source

posted March 30, 2012 09:27 AM            

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The girls in the room nodded, agreeing. The boys seemed genuinely shocked.

“So think about that the next time you hit on a girl. Maybe, like you in the taxi, she doesn’t actually want you to.”

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Teaching our young men this will make for a better future for all.

posted March 30, 2012 04:17 PM            

But interesting enough I knew this guy online who hated both gays and any form of feminism. He hated feminism because he believed the message was "men are evil" (basically he confused mainstream feminism with the more radical kinds) but at the same time he hated all gays because he'd been molested by a man as a little boy. I asked him why he didn't sympathize with the women (feminist and otherwise) who believe all men (including him) to be vile perverts deserving of cruel deaths for having molested them growing up as he believed all gays deserved over a single man having molested him once but he wouldn't answer. (He also wouldn't answer if he included lesbians in the "deserve to die" category.)

posted March 31, 2012 02:23 AM            

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The thing about patriarchy is that individual men, gay and straight, are often really wonderful people who you love deeply, but they have internalized some really poisonous sh!t . So every once in a while they say or do something that really shakes you because you’re no longer totally certain they see you as a human being, and you feel totally disempowered to explain that to them.

SOURCE

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I cannot express in words the truth of this statement for I have experienced it myself.

Three years ago, my best friend - who was a man and one of the kindest and most inspiring man I've ever known - and I got into a discussion. It wasn't even a discussion really, just he was telling me about this incident that happened to him and his friends.

They were a group of 4-5 guys standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus and there was this girl standing next to them, alone, also waiting for the bus. One of the guys in the group passed a comment to her and the girl got agitated and called up her bf to tell her a sufficiently bad swear word to throw at the guy.

My friend's exact words were, "Is she crazy? It's not like he was gonna do anything to her! It was just a compliment!"

I was shocked, stunned for a few moments before I told him that the guy was at fault. That a group of 4-5 guys standing next to her at a nearly deserted bus stop would make her feel incredibly threatened if one of them made a move on her and the others just stood in assent. We bantered over it for 5 minutes before I had to put the phone down because I didn't want to get in an argument with my best friend, still in shock at his seemingly callous attitude. And his wasn't some stupid perv or jackass, but my best friend who helped me overcome my depression hence why I didn't want bad blood between us.

posted March 31, 2012 07:38 PM            

I've often worked with tween girls and I know just how easy it is for them to label another girl a **** , even for just showing too much skin or holding hands with a boy. It's even easier than back in my day (though even then it was all too easy). And everyone knows that ***** can't be raped, or if they can then it's their own fault anyway.

This is so bad that both boys and girls called a little girl a **** for having been sexually molested (forcibly, not seductively) by an adult.

And interesting enough I find that women are even more likely than men to blame a female for any sexual misconduct. As a short & simple example quite a few women were angry at a character in White Oleander, who at 14 had an affair with the boyfriend of a foster mother. It's true that she set out to seduce him, but the fact that she's still a child and he's an adult did not factor in their mind, it was all HER fault, with NO fault on the man. I've noticed that male audience members, while sometimes sympathetic to him, were more likely to put at least half (and often more) blame on him than her (though there were exceptions) whereas a surprising number of women thought most to all the blame was the 14-year-old girl's.

Likewise, parents tend to treat their daughters different when they're dating: mothers tend to focus on the girl's behavior while fathers tend to worry more about the boy's (at least if it's in regards to his daughter).