Lauren Southern speaks to Feminists at "SlutWalk".

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Fox12

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inmunitas said:
That's true. I suppose it depends on what someone means by "rape culture," since it seems like a somewhat nebulous term. If someone means that rape is accepted or propagated in society, then very few societies in history would qualify. America, Canada, and most Western nations would not qualify. Even most third world countries don't accept rape.

When I use it, I tend to mean the atmosphere that victims can potentially face in these situations. Denial, abuse, harassment, ect. I think people are willing to make allowances for people that they like. If you're best friend was accused of rape, then you'd probably be disinclined to believe it. Unfortunately, this means that someone with enough popular support can get away with rape. Of course, such people have also gotten away with murder, so that's not a surprise to anyone.

I think your definition is more concrete, though, so maybe I'll use the term denial from now on.
 

Smooth Operator

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Looney Toon protest meets Looney Toon anti-protest... it's a hoot that one.
This is such a waste of everyone's time, if you enjoy being offended this much then go right ahead and enjoy yourself but just so we are clear no sane person can take you seriously when you act so bonkers, no matter if your agenda is serious or not.
 
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Raesvelg said:
The Almighty Aardvark said:
There's more recent surveys that indicate that you still have very similar attitudes regarding it:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/11/3610327/college-men-forcible-sex-study/
This is beside my point, but I'll respond anyway.

The poll you quote falls into issue of semantics, and while they're important issues, to be sure, the fact that there's such an enormous contradiction between the rates of men who would "force" vs men who would "rape" raises more questions to me about the exact verbiage of the poll, and since the actual source is behind a pretty hefty paywall, I can't give it the sort of weight you seem to.

I can, however, do a quick search of the title and discover that the study had a sample size of 73, which makes its validity highly questionable.
Looking into it further, it describes itself as a preliminary study.

The paywall thing is ridiculous though, I did some searching yesterday, and couldn't find any studies that weren't hidden behind it. It seems really counterproductive, given that this is a contentious social issue and it's valuable to actually have people able to read your work. I'll check to see if I have access to any of them once I'm on my university network.

Aside from articles, I really only have personal experience and stories from others. Several of my friends have been raped, it's always been someone close to them, or someone they were flirting or having fun with. Basically it's always someone that they think is a good person, and this aspect at least is backed up by statistics. It seems to me either the majority of rapists are psychopathic monsters who can effortlessly don the facade of a decent person, gaining someone's trust, before raping them, or they're mostly normal people who just don't consider what they're doing to be something bad.

Hell, just yesterday I found out that a friend of mine had done something awfully "rapey" (to say the least) to another friend. She didn't consider it rape, but she didn't want to have sex and he basically said that didn't matter. I doubt he even registered the occasion, but she felt very unsettled by it, and let him partially because she was worried what he'd do if she didn't.

So yeah, it's not exactly like my experience can justify it to you, but from what I've heard it's really not an uncommon one.
 

Zeljkia the Orc

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what I've gotten form this thread: "it's okay to harass a woman, call her a ***** and reduce her to tears because she doesn't think the way women should think".

Fucking disgusting, I'll try to hold my laughter that it seems it's primarily male posters here with that line of thought.
 

Ishal

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Zeljkia the Orc said:
what I've gotten form this thread: "it's okay to harass a woman, call her a ***** and reduce her to tears because she doesn't think the way women should think".

Fucking disgusting, I'll try to hold my laughter that it seems it's primarily male posters here with that line of thought.
Male posters, who happen to be male feminists. Just putting that out there.

You hold back your laughter, but I won't be holding back mine.
 

Silvanus

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Zeljkia the Orc said:
what I've gotten form this thread: "it's okay to harass a woman, call her a ***** and reduce her to tears because she doesn't think the way women should think".

Fucking disgusting, I'll try to hold my laughter that it seems it's primarily male posters here with that line of thought.
Did anyone actually say that, or anything to that effect?

Often, what someone "gets from" a thread isn't necessarily what the thread actually contains.
 

Zeljkia the Orc

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Silvanus said:
Zeljkia the Orc said:
what I've gotten form this thread: "it's okay to harass a woman, call her a ***** and reduce her to tears because she doesn't think the way women should think".

Fucking disgusting, I'll try to hold my laughter that it seems it's primarily male posters here with that line of thought.
Did anyone actually say that, or anything to that effect?

Often, what someone "gets from" a thread isn't necessarily what the thread actually contains.
From what I've read, blatant victim blaming in the first few pages, people outright going "pics or it didn't happen" with the sign or her cameraman being assaulted (yes, even a push can be considered an assault), and even some people calling Lauren Southern an idiot?

Yes, I suggest reading through the 8 pages of so-called feminists attacking a woman who dares to have a different opinion.

But like one guy said on page 1, "what did she expect going to a protest" she's just a woman after all, and we women need men to tell us how to do things it seems.
 

Lil devils x_v1legacy

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Zeljkia the Orc said:
Silvanus said:
Zeljkia the Orc said:
what I've gotten form this thread: "it's okay to harass a woman, call her a ***** and reduce her to tears because she doesn't think the way women should think".

Fucking disgusting, I'll try to hold my laughter that it seems it's primarily male posters here with that line of thought.
Did anyone actually say that, or anything to that effect?

Often, what someone "gets from" a thread isn't necessarily what the thread actually contains.
From what I've read, blatant victim blaming in the first few pages, people outright going "pics or it didn't happen" with the sign or her cameraman being assaulted (yes, even a push can be considered an assault), and even some people calling Lauren Southern an idiot?

Yes, I suggest reading through the 8 pages of so-called feminists attacking a woman who dares to have a different opinion.

But like one guy said on page 1, "what did she expect going to a protest" she's just a woman after all, and we women need men to tell us how to do things it seems.
Her being an idiot is not necessarily related to her encounter with the people here, it is related to the way she processes data. It is not about "opinion vs opinion" it is about comprehension, and her lack of it. I am not seeing anyone condoning any confrontation she may have had, they are addressing the content of what she is stating. Her being ignorant is not necessarily related to her confrontational " gotcha" attempt at journalism, those are separate. She is being weighed by her content, not by her being a woman.

"Willful ignorance is the state and practice of ignoring any sensory input that appears to contradict one?s inner model of reality. At heart, it is almost certainly driven by confirmation bias."
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Willful_ignorance

You should consider many of the people at that protest are rape survivors, and what she did was go to an anti rape protest and tell the rape victims that rape isn't a problem they should be concerned about. That would make her Brilliant? Rape denial, rape apologists, and rape defenders are all part of the problem that allows for Rapist to continue raping and not be prosecuted.

Her willful ignorance to maintain her inner fictional perception of " I live in a safe world where all the bad guys go to jail" is not based in reality.
 

Silvanus

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Zeljkia the Orc said:
From what I've read, blatant victim blaming in the first few pages, people outright going "pics or it didn't happen" with the sign or her cameraman being assaulted (yes, even a push can be considered an assault), and even some people calling Lauren Southern an idiot?

Yes, I suggest reading through the 8 pages of so-called feminists attacking a woman who dares to have a different opinion.
Certainly, her treatment wasn't right.

Nobody is attacking her for "having a different opinion", as far as I can see, though. People have criticised her for editing out her opponents' responses in the video, and for engaging in "gotcha" reporting, but not simply for what she believes.
 

BloatedGuppy

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Zeljkia the Orc said:
Yes, I suggest reading through the 8 pages of so-called feminists attacking a woman who dares to have a different opinion.
Who, exactly, is "attacking her for her opinion"? Ostensibly "8 pages" of it? Quotes?

Is Southern above criticism because of said "different opinion"? Shall we presume all criticism of her is ideologically motivated?
 

Gorrath

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Fox12 said:
Furthermore, I'd argue that there is rape culture. I know, because I've seen it. It's not that people support rape, or that it's institutionalized. Almost no culture in history really supports rape.
I don't know that I agree. Rape Culture seems to be rather loose in its definition but I can certainly see where the term might find purchase. As a phenomenon in western culture, rape culture seems, if it does exist, to be something much more benign (as a matter of comparison) to what we might call rape culture in the Middle East, or Asia or Africa. This is partially why I have trouble accepting the term's usefulness as it is described for western culture. I've read several sources, and all of them lump jokes, objectification of women's bodies and normalization of male violence as being part of rape culture. If mere sexual objectification is rape culture in the west, what is institutionalized rape-as-justice in the Middle East and Asia? If mere sex jokes are rape culture in the west, what is the legal sex trade in other countries? If western culture is rape culture, what culture isn't rape culture?

To be clear though, I'm not against combating rape issues in our culture. It's easy to demonstrate that we have a cultural problem with rape, violence and other crimes. The only reason I object to the claims of rape culture is that parts of what are claimed as being rape culture are trivial compared to real problems, especially those outside of western culture and some of what gets called rape culture are symptoms of larger cultural issues (like celebrity worship.) I don't think it's useful way to address the wider cultural issues or even the rape-specific issues when they are trivialized by associating them with mere jokes or a TV spot or literally ANY media that the viewer decides is objectifying of women.
 

Gorrath

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thaluikhain said:
Gorrath said:
I've no idea where you derive that claim from considering rapists are considered some of the lowest form of scum in western society.
In theory. In a vague, nebulous, sense, yes, if you ask someone "what do you think about rapists?", you'll get an answer like that.

In reality however, things tend to be rather different. Lots of people that think rapists are scum in the general hypothetical sense are still fans of people like Mike Tyson, Roman Polanski and so on. Hell, there were celebrity activists campaigning to end rape that would happily work with Polanski. He's had a long and successful career after raping a 14 year old. Likewise, I'm certain that if you asked the town of Steubenville what they thought about rape before the much publicised rape, more or less everyone, rapists included, would have said that rape was wrong, and meant it. When it actual mattered, however, things were very different.

In part I believe that it's because rapists are considered scum (at least nominally). Only, the logic goes, "he's not scum, therefore he's not a rapist" rather than "he's a rapist, therefore he's scum". People keep being shocked when it's not some scary looking bloke lurking in alleyways committing rapes against strangers, because that's the way it should happen. People can keep hating rapists, but denying each individual is a rapist for some reason or other.
Thanks for replying, I like hammering these things out. Firstly I'd say that there are lots (and i do mean LOTS) of people who think Polanski and Tyson are scum. You mention that there are people still willing to work with them but that doesn't demonstrate much. People still work with convicted and suspected criminals of all types; should rapists be a specific category of scum that no one will ever work with again? There are still people who work with OJ Simpson, and he's a murderer.

The issues in Steubenville aren't simply ones of rape apology. If those same boys had been caught doing almost any other criminal act, the same apologists would have come out in their defense. The whole reason Steubenville is so notable was because of the rape apology at work. If they had been caught stealing, this almost certainly would not have been a national drama, partially because theft is a much less serious crime and partially because no one would care about theft apology for football stars. I would argue that the whole reason why Steubenville got so much attention was because almost everyone not from there found the rape apology appalling. This suggests to me that the people doing the apologetics were entrenched in the larger cultural issue of athlete worship and that most people not engaged in that hero worship found the whole thing disgusting. That's not what I'd expect from rape culture, depending on how you define it, of course.

I like your last point though. It's one people certainly overlook. But again, that's something that happens with all sorts of crime. That nice looking guy who works at the homeless shelter? NO way he's a rapist, rapists are scum! Nor is he a thief, a bully, a drug addict ect. ect. None of the things you describe seem to be a particular facet of issues that relate to rape but rather most any criminality one could imagine. I do not say this to downplay those problems either, I promise. We do have significant cultural issues that need to be addressed, some of which people would consider rape culture. I find that addressing those issues under that banner breeds contempt for the fight against those issues and serves to trivialize them by likening sexual assault to jokes.


Gorrath said:
Bigotry based in fear is still bigotry no matter who you level it at.
Well, if you are going to phrase it like that, I guess so.

However, the reasons for that fear are very different. Women are afraid of men, in large part because they are repeatedly told to be, including by men. When rape prevention is more or less solely down to victims, when the victim more or less inevitably gets blamed, it boils down to saying that men are just inherently prone to rape, and nothing can, should or will be done. I don't see black people going round telling white people "You should be careful around us, we tend to be thugs and won't stop". [/quote]

As for the first part of your reply, you word this as if absolutely nothing is ever done about rape. There are some cultures where this actually is almost a reality and I would open to calling those, "cultures of rape." (See: Rape-as-justice in some places) Rape prevention is not solely down to victims. We accept all crime as inevitable to some degree and we fight that crime through our justice system (which has many problems, some of which are specific to rape and many of which are not.) However you can't claim that rape prevention is more or less solely down to the victims unless you say the same of just about all criminal activity. We incarcerate rapists just like we do murderers, thieves ect. You seem to be suggesting we just don't do anything ever about rape except blame the victim, as if it isn't even against the law or never gets prosecuted.

Lastly, I don't know how you make the last claim that you do. Take the phrase, "We tend to be thugs and won't stop," word it a bit more viciously, and you've got the title of a 100 or so rap songs. You have to be joking or else ignoring a good 3/4 of hip-hop culture to say what you did there. I am addicted to hip-hop and grew up with it as one of my favorite genres of music. There is simply no way you can say that it isn't full of exactly that message.

Gorrath said:
Can you demonstrate anything you say here? Can you show that victim blaming is more prevalent with rapes? Can you show that under normal circumstances, the ONLY response a rape victim gets is blame? I can't take those assertions seriously without some evidence to back them up; they seem like hyperbole.
Not off the top of my head, though lil devils X has been posting a lot of links around the issue. [/quote]

I read the links but none of them I've seen demonstrates these claims. They serve as terrible examples of what not-to-do, of what horrible, ignorant and misguided morons do and say. They don't demonstrate that victim blaming is more or less prevalent with rape than any other crime. They don't demonstrate that victim blaming is almost the only thing anyone does in cases of claimed rape. I more had a problem with your verbiage than your sentiment though.

Gorrath said:
Hell, if some guy gets shot down by a pier known for being a hotbed of drug activity, do you think there won't be a bunch of victim blaming going on? Questions about whether he was a user or seller? This demonstrates a cultural proclivity for victim blaming not rape culture specifically.
I disagree. Sure, I'd not be surprised if the victim was blamed in that case. But I'd also not be surprised if there were calls to do something about guns on the street, clamp downs on illegal gangs, drugs laws, questions about what the police are doing and so on. Normally they'd not get past victim blaming in cases of rape.

In both cases there might be victim blaming, but it'd likely be it and nothing else for rape. [/quote]

I don't see how you demonstrate this to be true. As I've posted numerous other times, the conversion rates for rape are on par with or slightly above other crimes. This in no way suggests that what you say here is true. If it was really true that we treated rape as reprehensible but claims of rape with victim blaming almost all of the time, you'd expect the conversion rate for rape claims to be disproportionately low compared to other crimes. Since this is not the case, by what measure do you make that claim? And I don't mean "point out an example of it happening," I mean, "provide some series of facts and figures which at least suggests what you're saying is backed by evidence."

Gorrath said:
If we live in an every kind of harassment culture, then I see a need to combat harassment
Certainly, but there are different forms of it, and they work in different ways.[/quote]

That I totally agree with you on. Sexual harassment is actually one of the few that gets very specific attention in how it is handled in any organization I've ever been a part of. Lots of other forms of harassment don't get near the same level of attention despite the fact that they can be just as damaging. If we really do so little about rape and its associated evils, why the emphasis on sexual harassment over almost any other kind?

In any case, I want to make it clear that I am not downplaying the seriousness of rape or other issues associated with it. I simply feel that the way rape culture is presented is not only not a useful way of dealing with these issues, it's actually harmful. It seems to pretend that certain cultural problems are in some way specific to rape when they are not and trivializes serious issues specific to rape/sexual assault/harassment by lumping them together with sex jokes and depictions in art. I don't think it's useful for enacting change, which I imagine is what we of the progressive mindset actually want.

As always, I appreciate your time and attention.
 

Thaluikhain

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Gorrath said:
Thanks for replying, I like hammering these things out. Firstly I'd say that there are lots (and i do mean LOTS) of people who think Polanski and Tyson are scum. You mention that there are people still willing to work with them but that doesn't demonstrate much. People still work with convicted and suspected criminals of all types; should rapists be a specific category of scum that no one will ever work with again? There are still people who work with OJ Simpson, and he's a murderer.
Oh, certainly, there are people who hate them. I don't mean to say that rapists should be considered a special kind of scum, more that, while people claim that they are, this attitude tends to disappear if it should become inconvenient.

Whether or not people should work with rapists, it's not true to say that they are generally considered to be the lowest kind of scum if so many people do, without it ending their careers.

Gorrath said:
I like your last point though. It's one people certainly overlook. But again, that's something that happens with all sorts of crime. That nice looking guy who works at the homeless shelter? NO way he's a rapist, rapists are scum! Nor is he a thief, a bully, a drug addict ect. ect. None of the things you describe seem to be a particular facet of issues that relate to rape but rather most any criminality one could imagine.
Certainly, yes, however it does seem to be more common and more powerful with rape than most crimes.

Gorrath said:
I do not say this to downplay those problems either, I promise. We do have significant cultural issues that need to be addressed, some of which people would consider rape culture. I find that addressing those issues under that banner breeds contempt for the fight against those issues and serves to trivialize them by likening sexual assault to jokes.
You've brought this point up a few times, I don't agree that people are, on the whole doing this. Now, yes, jokes are often part of rape culture, just as actual rape are, but only in the same way that racist jokes are part of racism just as hate crimes are. They are, in of themselves, a very minor part, but reflect or reinforce attitudes that lead to the major parts. I can't think of anyone of the top of my head that would say they are of equal concern.

Gorrath said:
As for the first part of your reply, you word this as if absolutely nothing is ever done about rape. There are some cultures where this actually is almost a reality and I would open to calling those, "cultures of rape." (See: Rape-as-justice in some places) Rape prevention is not solely down to victims. We accept all crime as inevitable to some degree and we fight that crime through our justice system (which has many problems, some of which are specific to rape and many of which are not.) However you can't claim that rape prevention is more or less solely down to the victims unless you say the same of just about all criminal activity. We incarcerate rapists just like we do murderers, thieves ect. You seem to be suggesting we just don't do anything ever about rape except blame the victim, as if it isn't even against the law or never gets prosecuted.
The conviction rate for rape is tiny, significantly less than for other serious crimes. Sure, plenty of rapists get prosecuted, but the overwhelming majority of rapes don't end in a conviction. Now, true, if a rape actually gets to a trial there is a decent chance of a conviction, but for that to happen the crime must first be reported (which is very rare, for various reasons, including the justified fear of victim blaming) and for the accusation to be taken seriously enough for it to warrant a trial (which is also rare, for various reasons, including victim blaming).

Gorrath said:
Lastly, I don't know how you make the last claim that you do. Take the phrase, "We tend to be thugs and won't stop," word it a bit more viciously, and you've got the title of a 100 or so rap songs. You have to be joking or else ignoring a good 3/4 of hip-hop culture to say what you did there. I am addicted to hip-hop and grew up with it as one of my favorite genres of music. There is simply no way you can say that it isn't full of exactly that message.
Ah, yes, I'd totally overlooked that, that's not really my scene. However, I'd argue that there are significant differences. Firstly, there is a fairly specific target audience in mind for that, and secondly, the people performing that are a rather small niche of limited social power. If significant political and religious leaders and members of the police force started releasing songs about how great drugs and random shootings are, I'd imagine people would be worried, and not for no reason.

Gorrath said:
I don't see how you demonstrate this to be true. As I've posted numerous other times, the conversion rates for rape are on par with or slightly above other crimes. This in no way suggests that what you say here is true. If it was really true that we treated rape as reprehensible but claims of rape with victim blaming almost all of the time, you'd expect the conversion rate for rape claims to be disproportionately low compared to other crimes. Since this is not the case, by what measure do you make that claim? And I don't mean "point out an example of it happening," I mean, "provide some series of facts and figures which at least suggests what you're saying is backed by evidence."
Sorry, conversion rates?

Gorrath said:
Sexual harassment is actually one of the few that gets very specific attention in how it is handled in any organization I've ever been a part of. Lots of other forms of harassment don't get near the same level of attention despite the fact that they can be just as damaging. If we really do so little about rape and its associated evils, why the emphasis on sexual harassment over almost any other kind?
I'm not seeing this myself, in my experience sexual harassment is part of a long list of harassments, including ones for religion, race, sexuality etc. In any case, an emphasis on a problem is not the same as doing something to actually help the problem, or actually caring enough to seriously try to do so.
 

Gorrath

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thaluikhain said:
Gorrath said:
Thanks for replying, I like hammering these things out. Firstly I'd say that there are lots (and i do mean LOTS) of people who think Polanski and Tyson are scum. You mention that there are people still willing to work with them but that doesn't demonstrate much. People still work with convicted and suspected criminals of all types; should rapists be a specific category of scum that no one will ever work with again? There are still people who work with OJ Simpson, and he's a murderer.
Oh, certainly, there are people who hate them. I don't mean to say that rapists should be considered a special kind of scum, more that, while people claim that they are, this attitude tends to disappear if it should become inconvenient.

Whether or not people should work with rapists, it's not true to say that they are generally considered to be the lowest kind of scum if so many people do, without it ending their careers.
I'm not sure there are a lot of people who can commit rape, have it come out and be secure in their career. We're talking about celebrities here, who have a certain career immunity to almost any crime. Hence why I brought up OJ. Being an outed rapist can have quite the impact on your career choices for anyone not already rich/famous. I think the general sentiment about rape is that people feel a particular aversion to rapists that they wouldn't feel for most other crimes. This in and of itself speaks to a cultural feeling about rape that goes against rape culture.

This sentiment isn't universal though. There are parts of the world where you could travel that raping a woman might only net you a stern talking to and raping a man might get you a laugh. In our culture, it makes you scum, which as you rightly point out is why some people will do backflips to protect people they like/have an interest in from being labelled that way. It is precisely because we revile rape in our culture so much that people resist being labelled a rapist and labeling others they like as rapists.

Gorrath said:
I like your last point though. It's one people certainly overlook. But again, that's something that happens with all sorts of crime. That nice looking guy who works at the homeless shelter? NO way he's a rapist, rapists are scum! Nor is he a thief, a bully, a drug addict ect. ect. None of the things you describe seem to be a particular facet of issues that relate to rape but rather most any criminality one could imagine.
Certainly, yes, however it does seem to be more common and more powerful with rape than most crimes.
I can't say. Is it more common or powerful? How would we demonstrate this? I know I say that a lot, but it's because I don't tend to take claims about things like this off the cuff. I tend to be a stickler for evidence when the claims are phrased like that. Of course you used the caveat "seem" which may suggest that you are more sensitive to instances of it expressed that way than other ways. Hell, maybe we all are. As above, if someone downplays someone's past thievery, most people might just shrug. If someone downplays someone's past raping, that does tend to generate a lot more controversy.

Gorrath said:
I do not say this to downplay those problems either, I promise. We do have significant cultural issues that need to be addressed, some of which people would consider rape culture. I find that addressing those issues under that banner breeds contempt for the fight against those issues and serves to trivialize them by likening sexual assault to jokes.
You've brought this point up a few times, I don't agree that people are, on the whole doing this. Now, yes, jokes are often part of rape culture, just as actual rape are, but only in the same way that racist jokes are part of racism just as hate crimes are. They are, in of themselves, a very minor part, but reflect or reinforce attitudes that lead to the major parts. I can't think of anyone of the top of my head that would say they are of equal concern.
It's not about equality of concern but the way they are packaged. If you look at lildevil's post about defining rape culture, any sexually explicit joke is considered part of that. You might convince someone that Stuebenville is a prime example of why we need to stomp on rape apology whenever it rears its ugly head. You're far less likely to do so when you also tell them that the dick joke they told this morning also falls under the rape culture umbrella. It's not that the dick joke is a less serious issue, it's that it isn't an issue at all (context allowing of course.) Trying to smuggle in censorship of art/humor as part of fighting rape culture is going to get you a lot of detractors, the least of whom is myself.

Gorrath said:
As for the first part of your reply, you word this as if absolutely nothing is ever done about rape. There are some cultures where this actually is almost a reality and I would open to calling those, "cultures of rape." (See: Rape-as-justice in some places) Rape prevention is not solely down to victims. We accept all crime as inevitable to some degree and we fight that crime through our justice system (which has many problems, some of which are specific to rape and many of which are not.) However you can't claim that rape prevention is more or less solely down to the victims unless you say the same of just about all criminal activity. We incarcerate rapists just like we do murderers, thieves ect. You seem to be suggesting we just don't do anything ever about rape except blame the victim, as if it isn't even against the law or never gets prosecuted.
The conviction rate for rape is tiny, significantly less than for other serious crimes. Sure, plenty of rapists get prosecuted, but the overwhelming majority of rapes don't end in a conviction. Now, true, if a rape actually gets to a trial there is a decent chance of a conviction, but for that to happen the crime must first be reported (which is very rare, for various reasons, including the justified fear of victim blaming) and for the accusation to be taken seriously enough for it to warrant a trial (which is also rare, for various reasons, including victim blaming).
The conviction rate of accused rapists is on-par with that of other crimes. You may not recall, but you and I have been over that point before. You ask about "conversion rates" below. Conversion rates refer to the rate at which crime is reported vs. the rate of conviction. Rape has the same if not higher rates of conversion from report-conviction of other violent crime. It is a low rate but all violent crime has a low conversion rate. I've not seen anyone propose a convincing argument as to why rape should have a higher conversion rate than other violent crime.

Gorrath said:
Lastly, I don't know how you make the last claim that you do. Take the phrase, "We tend to be thugs and won't stop," word it a bit more viciously, and you've got the title of a 100 or so rap songs. You have to be joking or else ignoring a good 3/4 of hip-hop culture to say what you did there. I am addicted to hip-hop and grew up with it as one of my favorite genres of music. There is simply no way you can say that it isn't full of exactly that message.
Ah, yes, I'd totally overlooked that, that's not really my scene. However, I'd argue that there are significant differences. Firstly, there is a fairly specific target audience in mind for that, and secondly, the people performing that are a rather small niche of limited social power. If significant political and religious leaders and members of the police force started releasing songs about how great drugs and random shootings are, I'd imagine people would be worried, and not for no reason.
Well, I don't mean to be intentionally confrontational, but you are dead wrong in your estimation here. Hip-hop is hardly niche and to call it, "of limited social power" is such a powerful underestimation of its impact that I'm a bit baffled by the claim. Hip-hop has been one of, if not THE most culturally significant and powerful musical movement in the past 30 years. It may not really be in your wheel house but can you really contend that hip-hop isn't a social juggernaught? Especially in the late 80s- early 90s, a lot of popular rap had a pretty powerful almost singular message, "Fear us!" And it worked. People used the messages in hip-hop precisely to defend and reinforce already existing racist beliefs.

They still do in fact. Fear is one of the most powerful motivations for bigotry and I will never accept that fear is a good reason to ignore/be apologetic of bigotry. And neither does any other progressive I've ever seen. Until women's fear of men comes up, then we tend to all jump on the bandwagon. Unless of course it's a white woman fearing a black man, then the progressive camp gets all anxious because women fearing men because of what some men do is a-ok and totally expected, but white women fearing a black man because of what some black men do, well that might be bigotry. It exemplifies just what's wrong with the general direction of thinking in contemporary progressivism. I'm proud to be a progressive myself but sometimes our thinking is all kinds of whack.

Last bit on this part since I'm waxing verbose; I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence. There are significant religious/political/police leaders who release songs about how rape is great? I'm confused.

Gorrath said:
I don't see how you demonstrate this to be true. As I've posted numerous other times, the conversion rates for rape are on par with or slightly above other crimes. This in no way suggests that what you say here is true. If it was really true that we treated rape as reprehensible but claims of rape with victim blaming almost all of the time, you'd expect the conversion rate for rape claims to be disproportionately low compared to other crimes. Since this is not the case, by what measure do you make that claim? And I don't mean "point out an example of it happening," I mean, "provide some series of facts and figures which at least suggests what you're saying is backed by evidence."
Sorry, conversion rates?
As above, rate of convictions of a crime compared to reports of said crime. Yes, rape is under reported for a bevy of reasons but when it is reported, the general consensus isn't to sweep it under the carpet. If that were true, the conversion rate for rape would not be the same as other violent crime. This is the only hard data I've seen and it just does not support the idea that our culture is failing rape victims compared to victims of any other violent crime. As before, we have significant issues with our justice system but bias against rape victims simply is not one of them.

Gorrath said:
Sexual harassment is actually one of the few that gets very specific attention in how it is handled in any organization I've ever been a part of. Lots of other forms of harassment don't get near the same level of attention despite the fact that they can be just as damaging. If we really do so little about rape and its associated evils, why the emphasis on sexual harassment over almost any other kind?
I'm not seeing this myself, in my experience sexual harassment is part of a long list of harassments, including ones for religion, race, sexuality etc. In any case, an emphasis on a problem is not the same as doing something to actually help the problem, or actually caring enough to seriously try to do so.
Well, the list of harassments that get the most attention do tend to be sexual, religious, race/ethnicity. I've usually seen the list of usual suspects either come together or sexual harassment taught as a specific case and the rest as "sensitivity training." There's a long list of other harassment that's basically ignored. In any case, sexual harassment training is at least on par with regards to training, which does not speak to any kind of general dismissal of the problem. When I referenced it as being "among the few" those few are the ones you mention.

Cheers mate.
 

Thaluikhain

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Gorrath said:
I'm not sure there are a lot of people who can commit rape, have it come out and be secure in their career. We're talking about celebrities here, who have a certain career immunity to almost any crime. Hence why I brought up OJ. Being an outed rapist can have quite the impact on your career choices for anyone not already rich/famous. I think the general sentiment about rape is that people feel a particular aversion to rapists that they wouldn't feel for most other crimes. This in and of itself speaks to a cultural feeling about rape that goes against rape culture.

This sentiment isn't universal though. There are parts of the world where you could travel that raping a woman might only net you a stern talking to and raping a man might get you a laugh. In our culture, it makes you scum, which as you rightly point out is why some people will do backflips to protect people they like/have an interest in from being labelled that way. It is precisely because we revile rape in our culture so much that people resist being labelled a rapist and labeling others they like as rapists.
While that's true, I think that's missing the point, and I feel it's an important one.

It doesn't really matter what people think of rapists in the hypothetical if they keep coming up with reasons why actual rapists in reality shouldn't be considered rapists. You keep saying that rapists are considered scum, and while this is true in theory, it only holds true if they are considered rapists.

Gorrath said:
I can't say. Is it more common or powerful? How would we demonstrate this? I know I say that a lot, but it's because I don't tend to take claims about things like this off the cuff. I tend to be a stickler for evidence when the claims are phrased like that. Of course you used the caveat "seem" which may suggest that you are more sensitive to instances of it expressed that way than other ways. Hell, maybe we all are. As above, if someone downplays someone's past thievery, most people might just shrug. If someone downplays someone's past raping, that does tend to generate a lot more controversy.
I'm not able to demonstrate this with any stats, I'm afraid, this is just from my experience. However, the narrative for rape seems (against, seems) to be much more restrictive than that of other crimes. We expect the upper class to commit white collar crime, for people of power to take inducements from other people of power for one reason or another. It is not shocking to many people when someone from a good family embezzles from their company. It is when they rape, because people from good families don't do that.

Gorrath said:
It's not about equality of concern but the way they are packaged. If you look at lildevil's post about defining rape culture, any sexually explicit joke is considered part of that. You might convince someone that Stuebenville is a prime example of why we need to stomp on rape apology whenever it rears its ugly head. You're far less likely to do so when you also tell them that the dick joke they told this morning also falls under the rape culture umbrella. It's not that the dick joke is a less serious issue, it's that it isn't an issue at all (context allowing of course.) Trying to smuggle in censorship of art/humor as part of fighting rape culture is going to get you a lot of detractors, the least of whom is myself.
I'm not sure why this should be much of an issue. Is it not accepted that racist jokes are part of racism? Why does this not apply to rape culture?

Gorrath said:
The conviction rate of accused rapists is on-par with that of other crimes. You may not recall, but you and I have been over that point before. You ask about "conversion rates" below. Conversion rates refer to the rate at which crime is reported vs. the rate of conviction. Rape has the same if not higher rates of conversion from report-conviction of other violent crime. It is a low rate but all violent crime has a low conversion rate. I've not seen anyone propose a convincing argument as to why rape should have a higher conversion rate than other violent crime.
IIRC, there were decent rates if it reaches a trial, but poor rates for that happening.

Gorrath said:
Well, I don't mean to be intentionally confrontational, but you are dead wrong in your estimation here. Hip-hop is hardly niche and to call it, "of limited social power" is such a powerful underestimation of its impact that I'm a bit baffled by the claim. Hip-hop has been one of, if not THE most culturally significant and powerful musical movement in the past 30 years. It may not really be in your wheel house but can you really contend that hip-hop isn't a social juggernaught? Especially in the late 80s- early 90s, a lot of popular rap had a pretty powerful almost singular message, "Fear us!" And it worked. People used the messages in hip-hop precisely to defend and reinforce already existing racist beliefs.
Well, like I said, that's not really something I'm familiar with.

Gorrath said:
Last bit on this part since I'm waxing verbose; I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence. There are significant religious/political/police leaders who release songs about how rape is great? I'm confused.
What I meant is while the people releasing songs about being thugs are hip-hop artists (and I'll take your word on their importance), the people telling women they should be afraid of men are politicians, religious leaders, the police and so on, who have a great deal of direct influence over society, and of how rape is viewed. These are people who (nominally) represent our society, who are there to lead/guide/protect us. When these people, across the world are telling women they should fear men, and have been doing so for generations, I don't see why they should not be believed.
 

Gorrath

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thaluikhain said:
Gorrath said:
I'm not sure there are a lot of people who can commit rape, have it come out and be secure in their career. We're talking about celebrities here, who have a certain career immunity to almost any crime. Hence why I brought up OJ. Being an outed rapist can have quite the impact on your career choices for anyone not already rich/famous. I think the general sentiment about rape is that people feel a particular aversion to rapists that they wouldn't feel for most other crimes. This in and of itself speaks to a cultural feeling about rape that goes against rape culture.

This sentiment isn't universal though. There are parts of the world where you could travel that raping a woman might only net you a stern talking to and raping a man might get you a laugh. In our culture, it makes you scum, which as you rightly point out is why some people will do backflips to protect people they like/have an interest in from being labelled that way. It is precisely because we revile rape in our culture so much that people resist being labelled a rapist and labeling others they like as rapists.
While that's true, I think that's missing the point, and I feel it's an important one.

It doesn't really matter what people think of rapists in the hypothetical if they keep coming up with reasons why actual rapists in reality shouldn't be considered rapists. You keep saying that rapists are considered scum, and while this is true in theory, it only holds true if they are considered rapists.
I think it matters very much what people think of rapists in the hypothetical. IN a culture where rape really is considered no big deal, you won't even get convictions, arrests or even negative sentiment in the local community. The very fact that we revile rapists in the hypothetical and that no one wants to be labeled one suggests anything but a blase attitude. I understand what you mean when you point out that this has its own inherent problems but I contend that this aversion to being so much as accused of rape demonstrates a culture that is anything but okay with it. This doesn't suggest a culture of rape but one with an aversion to it, that's the point I'm driving at.

And again, this really does present its own issues with how we deal with rape. I'm not denying that at all. But to call a culture, "rape culture" when it presents an obvious aversion to rape is where people get all confused about the term. It's not a useful way of framing the problem if all it does is make people divisive over issues that really shouldn't be.

Gorrath said:
I can't say. Is it more common or powerful? How would we demonstrate this? I know I say that a lot, but it's because I don't tend to take claims about things like this off the cuff. I tend to be a stickler for evidence when the claims are phrased like that. Of course you used the caveat "seem" which may suggest that you are more sensitive to instances of it expressed that way than other ways. Hell, maybe we all are. As above, if someone downplays someone's past thievery, most people might just shrug. If someone downplays someone's past raping, that does tend to generate a lot more controversy.
I'm not able to demonstrate this with any stats, I'm afraid, this is just from my experience. However, the narrative for rape seems (against, seems) to be much more restrictive than that of other crimes. We expect the upper class to commit white collar crime, for people of power to take inducements from other people of power for one reason or another. It is not shocking to many people when someone from a good family embezzles from their company. It is when they rape, because people from good families don't do that.
Precisely! A culture that expects rape to occur regardless of social standing, supports it through legislation (eg. marital rape being okay), and which treats rape as a justified tool of justice might rightly be called a "rape culture." A culture that reviles rape to the point of expecting it to be the last thing anyone of any social standing would do (which is an ignorant assumption, it's true) stands in stark contrast to the one above (and those cultures do exist and are not uncommon.) But it's not only rape that we expect people of social standing to be immune to/from, as mentioned there is a bevy of crimes that we do this with. As I've asked others, if western culture is a rape culture, what culture isn't a rape culture?

Gorrath said:
It's not about equality of concern but the way they are packaged. If you look at lildevil's post about defining rape culture, any sexually explicit joke is considered part of that. You might convince someone that Stuebenville is a prime example of why we need to stomp on rape apology whenever it rears its ugly head. You're far less likely to do so when you also tell them that the dick joke they told this morning also falls under the rape culture umbrella. It's not that the dick joke is a less serious issue, it's that it isn't an issue at all (context allowing of course.) Trying to smuggle in censorship of art/humor as part of fighting rape culture is going to get you a lot of detractors, the least of whom is myself.
I'm not sure why this should be much of an issue. Is it not accepted that racist jokes are part of racism? Why does this not apply to rape culture?[/quote]

It's not universally accepted that racist jokes are a part of racism (in the sense that they support racism.) Many would and do argue that comedy should be treated specially in regards to highlighting things in our culture. We could analyze this on several levels, from the touring comedian with a bit about racism (poking fun of stereotypes ect.) to the off-color jokes about prison rape. Quagmire is a terrible rapist in Family Guy and is rarely presented as being a bad person for it; that very presentation is what makes it humorous but that doesn't mean people laughing at the joke support rape or that the creators do either nor does the mere existence of the humor cause us to be more accepting that rape is a-ok, or at least I've never seen any evidence to suggest this. I don't see that making a joke about rape means we live in a culture that supports it. We make jokes about all sorts of things that we don't support. I find the attack on humor and art in the support of ANY cause to be misguided and I am not alone in that sentiment. We can still joke about rape, racist stereotypes, murder and the end of the universe and still be staunchly against all of those things.

Gorrath said:
The conviction rate of accused rapists is on-par with that of other crimes. You may not recall, but you and I have been over that point before. You ask about "conversion rates" below. Conversion rates refer to the rate at which crime is reported vs. the rate of conviction. Rape has the same if not higher rates of conversion from report-conviction of other violent crime. It is a low rate but all violent crime has a low conversion rate. I've not seen anyone propose a convincing argument as to why rape should have a higher conversion rate than other violent crime.
IIRC, there were decent rates if it reaches a trial, but poor rates for that happening.
Depends on where you're measuring from. If the incident is reported to police, it has the same chance of leading to conviction as any other violent crime (or slightly better.) There are issues with reporting it in the first place but that's not uncommon for many other crimes either. The biggest difference is the mechanisms that affect why people fail to report, some of which are almost unique to rape and are affected by social and cultural stigmas. Those things do need to be addressed, I just don't find the "rape culture" way of going about it to be useful for all the reasons mentioned.

Gorrath said:
Well, I don't mean to be intentionally confrontational, but you are dead wrong in your estimation here. Hip-hop is hardly niche and to call it, "of limited social power" is such a powerful underestimation of its impact that I'm a bit baffled by the claim. Hip-hop has been one of, if not THE most culturally significant and powerful musical movement in the past 30 years. It may not really be in your wheel house but can you really contend that hip-hop isn't a social juggernaught? Especially in the late 80s- early 90s, a lot of popular rap had a pretty powerful almost singular message, "Fear us!" And it worked. People used the messages in hip-hop precisely to defend and reinforce already existing racist beliefs.
Well, like I said, that's not really something I'm familiar with.
Fair enough, I don't mean to belabor you with an essay about it. I just want people to stop arguing that bigotry based in fear is a legitimate excuse. Especially if they wouldn't accept that argument in any other case.

Gorrath said:
Last bit on this part since I'm waxing verbose; I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence. There are significant religious/political/police leaders who release songs about how rape is great? I'm confused.
What I meant is while the people releasing songs about being thugs are hip-hop artists (and I'll take your word on their importance), the people telling women they should be afraid of men are politicians, religious leaders, the police and so on, who have a great deal of direct influence over society, and of how rape is viewed. These are people who (nominally) represent our society, who are there to lead/guide/protect us. When these people, across the world are telling women they should fear men, and have been doing so for generations, I don't see why they should not be believed.
I'm not sure what you mean exactly. I don't conflate warning women of the dangers of rape with teaching them to fear men. Making that leap is itself a bit of bigotry (not from you, from those that would argue in favor of that belief) because it suggests that men are the only ones to rape (they aren't even if its by far more common, though those stats are themselves terribly skewed) or that being a rapist/raping is something most men are/do. If someone highlights the neighborhoods I may want to avoid if I don't want all my money stolen and I leap to the conclusion that because it is a minority dominated neighborhood that I should fear minorities, I am being a bigot. When the cops warn me about a neighborhood, I don't assume they are telling me to fear black people.

As for black people not telling white people to fear them, I just used Hip-hop as an example. If you want something more salient, look at the new black panther party. That's a politically-minded group telling white people they do need to fear black people and encouraging black people to be violent towards white people. If someone looks at that group and decides black people are violent because this political/activist group encourages them to be while comparing that to rates of crime, they are still being a fearful bigot. We'd not give any credence to anyone claiming their fear of black people amounts to subordination, nor would we accept that that fear is justified, even in light of crime statistics. We should not accept this claim about women's subordination to men either. It may be true that some, or many or most women fear men but it'd be the same operating mechanism and it's not justified.
 

Someone Depressing

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Firstly, the obvious: the vast majority of rapes go immediately unreported, and then only ~50% of those rapists actually get charged with anything. The reasons for the other 50% going uncharged tend to vary, but all point to a system where rape goes unpunished in western society. So what she's saying is BS, pretty much, not that it means she isn't entitled to her opinion - which I'll elaborate on.

But I think that this video also shows the huge divide in feminism in general that leads to it being so vividly ridiculed and bashed. Her crew gets assaulted and she has slurs hurled at her and her team, by other feminists.

And that alone should speak for itself. Even if I disagree with her she at least aims for a better form of feminism, yet she gets attacked by people who claim to defend women using methods that are used to harm them.