Reports are coming in as we speak…
It has been announced that the 23 year old woman who was raped and molested with a foreign object damaging much of her internal organs has died in Singapore.
Words cannot express how much rage I feel and how embarrassed I am to be Indian, however… I have a job to do. And I will do it.
I am set to provide medical support for a protest march tomorrow. The hope is the eyes of foreign aid workers will stop a repeat of the violence in Delhi.
This is no longer rape… it’s also murder.
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Stacy
December 29, 2012 at 4:19 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Thank you, Avicenna, for working in support of the protesters. I know that it is not a risk-free thing you’ve undertaken.
Stay safe. I hope there is no violence at the protest.
Alverant
December 29, 2012 at 4:22 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Be safe.
Rodney Nelson
December 29, 2012 at 4:59 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Be careful.
Ophelia Benson
December 29, 2012 at 5:18 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Be safe and careful and safe. And take pictures.
Jennie
December 29, 2012 at 5:29 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
The more I hear about the evil that men do, the more my blood boils..I am so angry and hurt than men keep doing these unspeakable things to my sisters all over the world. They simply cannot CONTROL their behaviour as men? They claim women cannot “hold it together” during menstruation-oh sure, we just love to grab a random man and shove a baseball bat up his anus for fun! Or, maybe we’ll kick a little boy in the face while walking down the street “just for kicks!” This is not just a problem in Indian-it’s worldwide. Here in the USA, things are awful as well. I try not to read the local paper anymore (I live in NYC) because of all of the violence that women endure at the hands of “their men,” let alone the murders. Read the NY POST or DAILY NEWS sometime if you dare. THAT is the reality of my surroundings as a woman. I must stay alert at all times, every single day of my life to stay alive. It’s not just in NYC, but everywhere a woman or girl ventures..What is the answer? For all women to be armed with machine guns while doing our daily errands and going to work?!
Flonkbob
December 29, 2012 at 5:40 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I am sure there are overwhelming millions of good-hearted people in India; but I can assure you that my desire to visit the country, and my respect for its moral condition is exactly nil.
Not to give the wrong idea, I have the same level of respect for my own country…and any society that looks back to religious belief and patriarchal thought as a useful system.
Gregory in Seattle
December 29, 2012 at 5:50 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
@Jennie #5 – Please do not fall into the “all men are rapists” accusation: very few of us are. And keep in mind that there are women justifying this kind of shit, so it is not just men.
leni
December 29, 2012 at 5:53 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Jennie- Sadly not even being an armed police officer is enough. Especially when the people who are most likely to hurt you know you, and sometimes even live with you.
Stay safe Avicenna and thank you for joining the protests. I hope that no one needs your services.
(My link looks weird in the preview. Not sure why, but apologies if it stays that way after I submit it.)
Julie Stahlhut
December 29, 2012 at 7:42 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Avicenna, thanks for being there and taking a stand on behalf of women. Not just the women of India, but of the whole world. In fact — thanks for being there on behalf of humanity.
left0ver1under
December 29, 2012 at 9:07 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Gregory (#5) -
Make sure you don’t fall into the statement that “some men are incapable of rape”.
Any man can. It just takes the right amount of groupthink, brainwashing, or simply a lack of accountability.
Incidents like sexual assaults at concerts and sporting events, or mass rapes by armies have been committed by men (or rarely, women) with no history of rape or assault. It just took the right environment to incite them, the sense of peer pressure and obedience of authority, and/or the anonymity that comes with participation in a group.
Avicenna
December 29, 2012 at 9:14 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
It looks like it’s being called off. is too heavy and the rough sea is making people worry. Waiting on organisers but it’s nearly over with a whimper. There is a token human chain planned later but that’s also probably rained off…
Camera is out, and most of the pictures are rain soaked. Say what you will but its hard to protest in a storm….
mikmik
December 29, 2012 at 4:30 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
“Any man can.”
Bullshit. How do you know that every man present -
participates, or even wants to.
That’s a fucking insult, left0ver1under. What is your point, exactly?
It seems to me that you insist on believing that every guy is evil, he just hasn’t been in the right circumstances. Fuck you.
Matt Penfold
December 29, 2012 at 7:42 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Can you explain why you are unaware of the Milgram experiments ? I would normally offer a link to an explanation, but to be honest, they are something you should already be aware of.
mikmik
December 29, 2012 at 8:48 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Let’s set the stage. It took me five seconds, literally, to find an article:
That’s from a re-production of the experiments, which basically got they same results as Milgram
Here, Milgram found that when a subjects danger increased to threatening levels:
So now, we have; 1 – it is WOMEN that are compliant with the gang mentality, not men so much, and 2 – that the more severe the subject was threatened. the LESS the subject allowed group pressure to persuade their decisions, and obedience decreased
You see, , just like I said, not all men commit atrocious acts under group pressure. Not even necessarily a Majority.
Why do you insist on holding on to the idea that all men are capable of rape? Why, when you obviously could have checked up on your recollection?
And found this:
NOT EVEN MILGRAM WAS HONEST!
I also call bullshit on your excuse that you couldn’t find your link that supposedly verifies your ‘recollections.’
you know?.
(Hint – top one)
Do you know why your claims are so fucking insulting to men??? Prejudicial???? Not only is it ~ 30% – a minority, including both sexes, that means that only 10% of men, and 20% of women follow the lead of the group, voluntarily!
Do you know why I said “Fuck you?”
crowepps
December 30, 2012 at 3:16 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Got all the way to comment #7 before we hit Don’t Hurt The Menz Feelings — sigh.
While I agree with Gregory in Seattle that not all men are rapists, and with mikmik that many men aren’t *capable* of being rapists, unfortunately far too many men look the other way while other men practice rapey behavior, nod along when they hear victim blaming because they believe the woman’s behavior contributed to the rape happening, or suggest that the responsibility to prevent rape requires women to avoid rapists while avoiding being overly suspicious and unfairly hurting the feelings of innocent men whose hitting on them should be considered a *complement*.
I have an idea. Why don’t those men who disapprove of rape, and who are insulted by all men being included in the stereotype, put some effort into convincing other men that rape jokes are out of bounds, and that reducing women to sex objects when you talk about them is adolescent, and that harassment of women on the street, at work and in social situations is something grownups just don’t do? That would isolate the rapists, remove the cover that allows them to hunt from the cover of the group, and be much more useful than scolding people who are expressing their outage about the latest of what seems like an endless stream of women killed for being female.
lilandra
December 30, 2012 at 3:52 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I was going to comment but I don’t want to participate on the derailing here to talk about men who don’t rape. I do want to blog about why this particular rape especially can’t be discussed without it being effectively minimized with men’s rights arguments.
mikmik
December 30, 2012 at 4:12 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
“OH, WOE IS ME – THERE THE GO THE MAN_BOYZ ACTING ALL STEROTYPICAL AGAIN, sob sob.
You put the sexist fucks to shame, crowepps.
Can I say that all women are whores, and secretly want it? Then, when you get choked, sigh, “there go the feminazis getting all flustered. Doesn’t take them long, sigh.”
Here’s a fucking concept, quit acting like like a pathetic man hating bigot, and hypocrite, one that gives credence to the claims, by ‘privileged white males’ (or whatever the stereotype of choice is these days), that all women feminists have a personal vendetta against half the people in the population, the ones that happen to be male.
If I said that all women are potential sluts, wouldn’t you, and everyone else, shit your drawers at my cruel audacity for saying that in public?
You would fucking flip, yet it’s alright to belittle ME for not liking being paint brushed as a potential rapist?
What the fuck do you think I do in those situations? Did the thought ever enter your blindered thoughts that that is exactly what I do, and that I decided that already – all by my wittow self?
Take it easy, Dworkin, I don’t do well with condescension, or hypocrisy. And most of all, I won’t stand for defamation. People like you set back the fight for equality twenty years.
Also, how does not putting up with objectifying shit from the men around me isolate the rapists? Hey?
Oh, I forgot, all men that say these things do it on purpose. There’s no way they could be unaware of what they are doing, or innocently following along relating to their buddies the way most dudes seem to do. Fuck.
In case you haven’t been able to penetrate the fog of paranoia long enough to notice, every situation I’ve been in, well most, there is no way that that type of talk, racist, sexist, bigoted, or what have you, goes by without other guys objecting and telling the offender that that talk will not be tolerated. Even when I’ve been sitting around with a group of drunks and junkies, in very early recovery, people won’t let that stuff pass unchallenged.
I have an idea. Why don’t you double check your attitude instead of expecting everyone else to fight your battles for you, for fu*ck’s sake.
Later, Andrea.
mikmik
December 30, 2012 at 4:45 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
???
Who is making men’s rights arguments here? See, that is the kind of shit that I don’t let my buddies get away with. I tell them that all the little flip remarks perpetuate the idea that women aren’t quite to be taken as seriously as us.
So I hope you recognize that women do the same thing, to us, at least in the case of this discussion.
Where did this get effectively minimized by turning into a men’s rights argument? [citation needed]
I’ve tried to say it before, and politely and non-accusatory, that most of us, male and female, don’t realize how littered all our language is with these seemingly trivial remarks.
Again, I fight to illuminate why this discussion headed in that direction, and it sure as heck wasn’t any men here.
The whole world is in an uproar, about this rape and sodomy so egregious that she suffered fatal injury. You have the miscreants minimizing her death by saying she died peacefully, FFS, but you the police and government succumbing to international, and internal, pressure, and finally arresting and charging the men responsible.
That has to be seen as a great victory in light of the fact that everyone has seen how corrupt the system is in that country. Problem is, that it will all be ancient history by the media’s standards, by the new year.
Avicena, I would imagine that there is still grave danger confronting this in your country. What started as one murder can become a campaign of terror, under the radar.
That’s the shite that needs to be reported on, and emphasized, now and the next while, until people realize that this isn’t an isolated incident, it is an ongoing event at every level of West Asian society.
I certainly don’t need to explain anything to you, of course, and I hope to hear of your successes.
Markita Lynda—threadrupt
December 30, 2012 at 7:41 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I don’t know about ‘molested with a foreign object’ but the victim of this crime was beaten severely about the head with an iron bar, causing brain damage, before she was thrown off the bus. Her internal injuries might have come from beating on the body.
crowepps
December 30, 2012 at 7:49 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Markita Lynda—threadrupt
December 30, 2012 at 8:07 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Once again the MRAs get their feelings hurt because you can’t tell who is a rapist and because rape is a widespread activity in some situations. In Vietnam, “the chaplain was a little odd because he didn’t take part [in rape/murder parties]” — sound familiar? It’s from Men, Women, and Rape. And yet, you probably lock your car because you can’t know that there are know car thieves around. You count your change. You check your bills for items you didn’t order. You cast a wary eye at your fellow pedestrians, because you don’t know who’s a robber. You take drive-safe courses and use double caution because you can’t know who’s careless or drunk. That doesn’t mean that all drivers are drunks. It just means that you can’t be sure. Untwist your knickers and start using your brain.
Markita Lynda—threadrupt
December 30, 2012 at 8:08 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Sorry, “can’t know that there are no….”
Markita Lynda—threadrupt
December 30, 2012 at 8:10 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Crowepps: “Ouch!” I sit corrected.
crowepps
December 30, 2012 at 9:03 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Also:
Francisco Bacopa
December 30, 2012 at 9:08 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
One note on protesting. You have to make a credible threat to HARM the target of the protest. But you have to be careful. You have to inflict this harm in such a way that you seem sympathetic so that when the violent response comes (and if it doesn’t come, you aren’t trying hard enough) the media will make the target look like the bad guys.
lilandra
December 30, 2012 at 9:51 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
@Mik Mik You are calling people Feminazis and insulting for suggesting that a any man “can”and the wrong circumstances commit rape. Notice the commenter did not say any man “will’” commit rape. Your remarks are insensitive in a thread about how a woman was brutally raped, and died from the rape and beating.
This rape did not spring out of nowhere. The place this happened is a male dominated society in which women are treated as second class citizens. Women are expected to be chaste and conform to strict societal standards for their behavior, and men are often given a pass violating sexual boundaries. Women are subjected to harassment, and often called prostitutes for being alone with an unrelated male or being out after a certain hour. The harassment and even rape are often blamed on perceived female behavior provoking it.
It is not just that way over there. Ideas about how women and men should behave very much contribute to rape in the U.S and the Western hemisphere as well. Most rapes go unreported, and many go unpunished when they are reported. The best thing to do after an incident like this is for a society to reflect on what can be done to prevent rapes and societal attitudes that contribute to the problem.
lilandra
December 30, 2012 at 9:54 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
*edit change – that a any man “can”and the wrong circumstances commit rape.
to
that any man “can” under the wrong circumstances commit rape.
bobo
December 30, 2012 at 9:59 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Crowepps: that is awful and it makes me sick to my stomach
SallyStrange: Elite Femi-Fascist Genius
December 30, 2012 at 10:12 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
You could, but it’s not analogous to noting that being capable of rape is pretty much a universal condition. Technically women are capable of rape but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by men. And it’s male-dominated societies and male-run judicial systems that allow rapists to rape over and over again without ever being arrested and convicted.
So fuck off, okay, mikmik. Just fuck off.
mikmik
December 30, 2012 at 5:10 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Sally, my point was the insult. I get told to fuck off, yet it is alright for people to lump me into a group by insinuating I am capable of fucking evil, and the only thing that prevents this from happening is that I haven’t found myself in the right circumstances?
Sure, that means I now support the systematic corruption of a sick violent society that condones rape, mutilation, and terrorization? I am fucking complicit just because I am a man? Yes, you make my point for me, Sally.
Let’s get to this locking your car analogy here. It isn’t locked because I think that you, personally, could be a thief, it is that there are thieves among us, and to fucking imply that you are a potential thief, and that’s why I am paranoid and have right to imply that you cannot be trusted, because all people are capable of stealing under the right circumstances, and that includes you?
Why do you see my analogy in the terms of rape? I was talking about insulting individuals by stereotyping and de-individualizing even the people present. You do not like being treated as a subsection of a group, feminazis, do you? That is my point. NOBODY LIKES IT> I was just pointing out that lumping all men into one, ONE!, category of potentially violent creeps, is like lumping all women into a group based on the perception that there are a lot of women who prostitute themselves, or are promiscuous.
It may seem like there are a lot of women like this, but obviously that is a very good example of confirmation bias. Just like saying all women are ‘feminazis, whatever that means, because of a vocal few.
I fucking never classify any person at fucking all into any group, ever. I don’t classify all men as potential rapists, because that is fucking bullshit in the extreme, just as classiffying all women as potential sluts.
Doesn’t that sound depraved, and ignorant in the extreme, to say something like that? Do you really think I, or any man here, and almost everywhere, would claim such rubbish about you because you are a woman that likes to fuck?
So how do you think I feel when I show up to discuss the basic gendercide going on in these countries, specifically India, and I get this fucking “all men are potential sadistic despots, or supporters of such”?
I don’t fucking like this any more than you do, this systematically enshrined voilence towards women, and the practice of terror and rape to subjugate them????
So why do you(general – the people here that are doing it) fucking decide that to tell me(the men here) that we are guilty of this shit by implication????? Why the fuck do I have to be subject to a generalized defamation – all men are capable of this, it’s always men that do it – applied personally? Why the fuck should I put up with this any more than you should put up with being lumped in with gold diggers and black widows.
No one would do that to you, not me or the men here, so why do we get treated in an analogous manner? And when I try to point this out, a perfectly valid concern, I get more dehumanizing shit – there’s the menz up at it again, getting all touchy and defending their rights. Hey?
I briefly went through a stage where I thought all women were cruel bitches, and never to be trusted, because they hurt you, FFS, because one woman hurt me? There is no shortage of men that have this view, so am I justified in developing, and holding on to, corrosive belief?
Of course not, it is fucked up, and the reason I figured this out was by using math sets. There as the set ‘all women’, W, but that set is made up of subsets, w₁ + w₂ + W₃ + … individuals that are all different in varying ways.
Then I was able to see that I got hurt by ONE women that is but a minor member of the set ‘women,’ and thus I got over my tendency to prejudice against EVERY woman.
I am am member of the set M, which is made up of m₁ + m₂ + …
Now do you see why it is wrong to say that “all men are potential rapists” because it insinuates that “all men that are present are potential rapists, and therefore, me, and therefore, somehow complicit.
So, it is not all right for me to say that all women just want a sugar daddy, or that all men are rapists. There may even be equal numbers of both, but both are wrong, even in principle!
This has been a concern of mine for a while now, a part of my maturation(veiled insult, but not intended as such) to to realize that I am frequently guilty of this pigeon-holing behavior, and that it is wrong.
It is wrong for me to do, and it is wrong for me to be subject to.
And it is wrong to classify all men as potential rapists and imply that I am guilty, by proxy, of the disgusting outrage the OP is about.
It looks bad on women that very quickly begin to state that ‘men’ are the problem, when it is ‘these men’, no matter how systemic it might be.
I fucking know quite well that it is almost always men that institute and deploy these practices. That doesn’t mean that only men, and I like this quote:
Quit fucking equating ‘it’s always men that do it’ to ‘all men could do it, already. Fucking quit it. It shows latent sexism, at the least.
Maureen Brian
December 30, 2012 at 6:01 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Explain, mikmik, but do you really believe that your hurt feelings count for more than the pain of being gang-raped, then beaten, then eviscerated with an iron rod?
Sorry, matey, you don’t merit a footnote in that comparison.
That you have the gall to do this on Avicenna’s blog while he’s out providing medical support to those campaigning for justice suggests that they just don’t sell a sense of proportion wherever you live.
mikmik
December 30, 2012 at 6:02 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I guess my point is that I immediately feel unwelcome when someone starts in on the
Alienating people unjustly does not promote a good reputation, it undermines your cause. If you want to learn from that, it would be good for attracting support more universally, and I don’t only mean men. I wish some people would spend a little more time considering what may be valid criticism, and less on putting up barriers, and jumping on the defensive as a matter of course to any challenge. No one likes to have words put into their mouths, or having their motives automatically questioned.
mikmik
December 30, 2012 at 6:15 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Oh well, Maureen. My opinion doesn’t count because you have suffered. That makes sense.
I never fucking said my hurt feelings fucking count more than anyone. But if you want to continue with your bullshit fallacious argument, then YOUR opinion doesn’t fucking count, nor anyone elses, because they wouldn’t be here, because they also would be dead from “the pain of being gang-raped, then beaten, then eviscerated with an iron rod”
So that’s it , folks. Maureen says that your opinion doesn’t count unless you, personally, haven’t been subject to the pain, and subsequent demise, of being ‘gang-raped, then beaten, then eviscerated with an iron rod’
I do believe that is an appeal to emotion.
-1
This isn’t about me, it’s about how we treat people. YOU are belittling me, a personal attack, all the while fighting against the (violent)belittlement of women.
I don’t know what your fucking problem is, Maureen, but if it’s me, then spit is out so we can resolve it. And don’t give me any crap about importance, or lack there-of, because you sure seem to have the time to partake in a wild goose chase.
mikmik
December 30, 2012 at 6:19 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I also resent you assuming what I have, or have not, been through. Your prejudice is showing, so fuck with the ad hominum already.
Maureen Brian
December 30, 2012 at 6:20 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Diddums!
I tell you what – you switch off your poor, intimidated willy and switch on your fucking brain because none of us has said any such thing.
You are making it all up. Why?
mikmik
December 30, 2012 at 6:30 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
[citation needed]
Give a person enough rope, and they will hand themselves. Got any more gendered insults?
I also notice that you have criticized any of my specific points zero times, so far. I am not the making this about personality. I use myself as an example because it is me that it is happening to. I am talking principles.
Maureen Brian
December 30, 2012 at 6:41 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
A google scholar search on “rape prevalence prevention” and the first thing up is chapter 7 of this …
http://www.amazon.com/Sourcebook-Violence-Against-Claire-Renzetti/dp/1412971667
In other words so much work has been done on the how, why, when and where of rape that there are huge, expensive books put together to introduce the newbie to the topic.
My own experience, which not been especially hairy, may be what first had me asking questions but that was 50-odd years ago. What has kept me interested is the perception that this is a harm which can be mitigated, an action which is definitely affected by social norms, gender stereotypes and the carefully constructed myths around rape.
That and, of course, intellectual curiosity. Oh, I forgot! Women don’t have intellectual curiosity, they just run on emotion. Don’t they, you patronising arsehole?
Maureen Brian
December 30, 2012 at 6:45 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I apologise for the gendered slur. I regret I do not have the patience to count up how many mikmik himself has used.
Avicenna
December 30, 2012 at 7:11 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Mikmik – It’s a society where rape has been normalised to the point where many things we consider rape are simply ignored and victim blaming is rife… Honestly if you cannot grasp that then you really are daft. And I don’t like the implications that all men are potential rapists but that’s how women see us because of the prevalence of rape. That’s their view, they are entitled to it even if they are wrong about us.
blondeintokyo
December 30, 2012 at 7:15 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I arrived in Dehli on Dec 24th on my way south to Kerala and watched coverage of the protests on the tv in the airport. . Now I’m watching coverage otiber death in my hotel in Trivandrum. It makes me cry. I love India, I’ve been here three times and plan to come back again. But as I was walking on the street today a man purposefully bumped into me so that he could rub his arm on my breast. It’s not the first time that has happened to me here, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I know he did that not for the erotic thrill but to try to scare or humiliate me. It’s very sad that this beautiful country is marred by men with such hatred towards women. I’ll come back to India again. I won’t hold all it’s citizens responsible for the actions of a few. But I am hoping that the attitudes here will change. I hope the government will fulfill the promises I hear them making on the news talk shows. As a foreigner I feel helpless.
Is there a fund for her, does anyone know? I’d like to at least donate to a woman’s group if I can’t do anything else.
Avicenna
December 30, 2012 at 7:39 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
A fair few Indians were stunned when I pointed out that nearly every guide to India mentions the sexual harassment of tourists as nearly universal amongst women.
crowepps
December 30, 2012 at 10:14 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
I don’t think all men are potentially rapists/capable of rape, a view which incidentally was *never* asserted in any opinion on this thread, but instead agree with a more accurate explication of Jennie’s post at #5: *some* men are rapists and *some* men are capable of rape and there is no way for any women to be *confident* of her safety with any *specific* man with whom she is interacting and therefore she must act as though all of them potentially could be a rapist.
When 35% of the men with whom a woman is interacting are dissuaded from raping her only by the fear that they might be caught and punished, the fact that 65% of men would never rape is not particularly important in her risk assessment, because she has no way of surely sorting the two types of men into safe and unsafe.
When almost 1 out of 20 of the men with whom a woman is interacting uses force to obtain sex and can therefore can accurately be described as a rapist, the fact that the other 19 men would not isn’t particularly important in her risk assessment, and instead it is perfectly reasonable for her to feel “THAT is the reality of my surroundings as a woman. I must stay alert at all times, every single day of my life to stay alive.”
Personally, my suggestion would be that a good first step would be for the activists and media in India to campaign to get rid of the disgusting phrase ‘Eve-teasing’ because it normalizes and whitewashes the seriousness of sexual assault. Those men are not ‘teasing’, they are *testing* to see what they will be allowed to get away with, and at this point society responds to that test with ‘whatever you want is okay, nobody cares because she’s just a woman.’
Nepenthe
December 31, 2012 at 6:18 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
@crowepps
It’s probably worth noting in an international conversation that these numbers are for US college students. Similar studies done in other countries have found different numbers. For example, 25% of South African men admit to having actually raped someone.
And also that ~5% does not include the much more common drug-aided rape.
crowepps
December 31, 2012 at 11:29 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Thanks, Nepenthe — you make a good point.
nimuae
December 31, 2012 at 11:17 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
It is also important to remember that most rapes occur by people the woman knows or her family. I’m sure my ex who raped me at knifepoint then stalked me would NEVER think he was a rapist. After all, we’d ‘done it’ before.
Mattir
January 1, 2013 at 5:50 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Mikmik, you are being maliciously ignorant.
I am a mother. I know that given the right circumstances (mental illness, religious indoctrination, lack of appropriate social support and medical care, having seven children), I could be Andrea Yates, the woman in Texas who drowned her seven children in the bathtub in the early 2000s. I understand that much of my behavior is shaped as much or more by social and environmental factors than by some intangible Moral Self. You know what I do with that knowledge? I try to shape my environment so as to support ethical and non-violent behavior. I want children to be cared for, educated, fed. I vote for and contribute financially to institutions that form a social safety net. I offer social support to parents and other caregivers in my social network. I do not just look at myself in the mirror and congratulate myself for being completely different from Andrea Yates and whine about how most mothers could never under any circumstances whatsoever murder their children.
When I hear about crimes like the New Delhi rape/murder, I remind myself to work for education, that social safety net, a culture in which men do not learn that violence against women is acceptable. I challenge rape jokes and victim blaming when people around me make them. I point out instances of rape culture when I recognize them. I teach children in my care that no means no, that enthusiastic consent is a requirement, not an option, that confronting rape culture and intervening/supporting rape victims is required in order to be a good person, Most of all, I remember that violent criminals, including the men who committed this appalling crime, are human beings and that it is possibly that were I given their lives, I might commit the same crimes. That the only way to respond to this horrifying reality is to take responsibility for helping to create a world in which young men (like those in the Delhi rape case) or mothers (like Andrea Yates) do not become rapists or murderers.
You are so busy moaning that Not All Men Could Be Rapists™ that you have thoroughly missed the point. If your response to the case of a woman whose intestines were pulled out with an iron pole is to work really really hard to explain why you are totally different from those bad men, you are actually part of the problem that helps to create such criminals.
Congratulations.
mikmik
January 1, 2013 at 5:53 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Sure, whatever you say.
mikmik
January 1, 2013 at 8:02 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
They are entitled to it, but they sure as fuck are not entitled to use it like hate speech, and I am most certainly entitled to my reasoned out opinion, espec ially when I am being slandered.
You are a fucking liar. You are a fucking liar, and you cannot show one instance3 of me using a fucking gendered slur any fucking where on the internet. SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACE, ALREADY
If you do not provide any quotes or citations, you are a fucked up bully, and that is fucking slander. I reserve the right to tell anyone I please(which I would never do) that you fucking lie through your teeth, you ignorant pile of shit. SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU ARE WAY OVER THE LINE
I was just coming here to give this link that I left at A+ before this all hit the news, if you think I am such a pathetic excuse for a person:
http://www.causes.com/causes/74219-the-50-million-missing-a-campaign-against-india-s-female-genocide
They have a thread where they were asking for links and references for charities, and that was first on my list, I also give to Save The Children International and Oxfam, which I provided links for, and I also provided a link to a very huge database of disaster relief funds that also fight poverty and oppression against women and their children.
There are charities that I subscribe to that address the gendercide of female infants and embryos.
My mom, a doctor of psychology, the director of the Rape Crisis Center here when it was still fucking funded, she was very involved with the original movement, and I remember talking to her about the controversy of inviting Dworkin to speak at a conference. They also invited Alan Alda, but he declined.
She just retired from practice where she counseled abuse women after, and during, their abuses and rapes, and helped them cope with their children, and keep them safe.
She is a fucking FUCKING EXPERT that was teaching me these, and humanist morals sinse I can remember in the mid 60′s. She used to ask me to explain some of the turmoils that the women went through because of addiction, and what leads to addiction to cope. (I haven’t always been an addict, and I wasn’t practicing but for sporadic binges throughout my life. I’ve always been high functioning until the three or five years).
Now, it bothered me so much that the women on this thread were ignoring what I was saying, and going out of their way to avoid challenging anything I had said IN MY DEFENSE. That’s all I have been doing. I have not leveled an accu8sation at anyone here, or used implication or insinuation to suggest anything about anyone, nor leveled epithets, AT ANYONE
I did do it, actually, when I called someone by Andrea Dworkin’s name, but that was when someone had suggested the I need to go masturbate and perhaps be castrated.
I told my mom that I felt confused at the treatment I was getting, and I said that I worried that some people were acting in a manner that undermined their, and my, purposes.
So, she read this thread, and she said that at the beginning of the feminist movement, or any civil rights group, that that is when the power struggles happen, and that is when the radical element applies their influence as much as possible, because they are radical, and more ruthless.
She also agreed that it was unfortunate that I was being focused on and the object of much undeserved vitriol, and that I should just walk away, as she has learned in civil movements, her practice and purpose in life, and her tenure as a provincial politician.
I can see all the smug shit throwing that some one or two here will engage in over me saying this, and I don’t fucking care anymore. The advise I also got was that it is exactly a power struggle going on here, with either me, or men in general, and I am just the scapegoat, which was long ago plainly obvious.
Now, you fucking god’s gifts to the world of civil rights movements loudmouths, get your fucking head out of your asses, and READ THIS THREAD PROPERLY. Quit fucking acting like the bullies that you are – your hypocrisy runs deep.
I will say it again, you are wrecking the credibility of the feminism here at FTb, the credibility of atheists here, and I FUCKING CARE ABOUT THIS VERY MUCH.
These are my causes, too. These are things I care about very deeply, and I am not going to become a whipping post for some emotionally twisted behavior that is being displayed.
I haven’t even been here for a couple of days, or so, and I am still getting emails about there being responses here, which I must admit, might not have been about me, until I decided to look just an hour ago.
Get it through your disturbed fucking minds that if you are so worried about the what’s happened to the 23 year old paramedic, and the culture that condones this, why the fuck do you keep harping on me!
What is your point of bullying and belittling anyone in the first fucking place, anyways? You should be worried about the other stuff that happens toi make it into the news
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/criminals-gang-raped-and-sodomized
What the fuck is so god awful important that you need to be getting so uptight about, and going out of your ways, it seems to me, to insult me and tell me I don’t have a right to be here and to go and masturbate, fuck off, and get castrated. Those are wildly unacceptable statements, and way the fuck over the line.
If you want to look like professionals and responsible adults, then you had better quit this type of acting out and ganging up and scapegoating and stereotyping people.
Even IF I fucking deserved it, which I know I don’t, you are making fools out yourselves.
@5
I should be aware of? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT I SHOULDBE AWARE OF??
See, thats an insult and put down, but the fucking funny thing is, THAT MATT DIDN”T KNIOW WTF HE WAS TALKING ABOUT. In fact, it showed only that 30% of people IN TOTAL were willing to follow orders, and that THE WOMEN OUTNUMBERED THE MEN 2 TO 1. IT WAS THE MEN THAT HAD THE TEMERITY TO NOT BE LED WHERE IT WAS IMMORAL TO GO.
NEXT UP WAS THIS UNSOLICITED BIGOTRY:
THEN THIS SHIT
THAT IS AN UN=ADULTERED SLAM AGAINST MEN.
Did I start this??
Yawn, more unfounded opinion, and mind reading. Everyone knows what an insult it is to be told by someone else what you are thinking, and MATTIR, SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACE. Still with the pole up the descending colon shit. But not only that, you somehow conclude that this excludes me from having a right to an opinion, but anyone else? I fucking pointed out two days ago that if I don’t, then no one here does, unless there is a surviving victim of such a vicious and malevolent attack.
IN FACT< THAT IS ONE OF THE STUPIDEST ARGUMENTS THAT ONE CAN MAKE. I used that against a woman on a thread at Pharyngula, and she said that even if women in Africa suffer way deeper brutality and oppression than here, it doesn't mean that she doesn't have the right to take care of herself and fight the injustice here!
So I apologized and said I was having a rough time and I shouldn't be taking it out on her, or anyone.
Then she accepted, and took some responsibility for her actions and admitted that she was going through almost the same thing I was – a death of someone close.
THAT WAS THE LAST TIME I EVER TRIED TO USE THAT EVER AGAIN< BECAUSE IT IS WRONG TO THINK THAT WAY.
You are going to have to go a long way to find any significant sexism by me anywhere on the internet, or in my life.
Ahem, you were saying?
Then you say something that is terribly close to what I do:
I AM A PACIFIST I HAVE NEVER HIT ANOTHER PERSON IN ANGER< IN MY LIFE. I ABHOR VIOLENCE SO MUCH THAT ONE OF MY TOP FAVORITE QUOTES IS Violence is the diplomacy of the of the incompetent.
Alright, I hope I’ve bored you to tears, and I will wait to see if Maureen is a liar, a slanderer and a liar, or she can fucking well show anyone where I have used a gendered slur intentionally, or after it has been explained that something I didn’t consider an insult did in fact hurt anyone.
I apologise for the gendered slur. I regret I do not have the patience to count up how many mikmik himself has used.
At least you made a disingenuous attempt, but it was purely for effect. That is not an apology, because you are too tiny of a person, something that most bullies are, to be able to honestly apologize without qualifiers or excuses.
Good hunting.
BTW, I bear no ill will towards anyone here, and I am not kidding. Sometimes you just have to set some boundaries is all.
crowepps
January 1, 2013 at 2:22 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
Your feelings were hurt and so you went and told your MOMMY we were being mean to you? Seriously?
There have been many threads I have participated in where somebody ignored the point of the original post and insisted all those commenting should allow them to discuss their own personal obsessions, but this has got to set some kind of a record for most bizarre derail ever into What About Me? What About *My* Feelings?
crowepps
January 2, 2013 at 11:35 PM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
A related post worth reading –
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4450220.html
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Age of Kali – The Embers Relight » A Million Gods
April 20, 2013 at 5:35 AM (UTC 5.5) Link to this comment
[...] I first wrote about the Delhi Rape case in January, I was preparing for an exam to get my temporary registration to move on to the big subjects as a [...]