men –
we are the problem. all of the problems. and not just some of us – all of us. we are bullies, rapists, murderers and we live off the sweat and pain of anyone we can. you may not have raped or stolen land but you sure as hell dine off the privilege of being a member of the rape and murder class.
and the biggest problem are those of us who say nothing. we are the grease for the machine. we are cowards because we don’t want the brutality of other men to be focused on us. we are taught as children to play along with the rape and murder class rules or be punished.
so we keep our mouths shut when we should protest. we laugh at sexist jokes. or racist jokes. or we just slink away and say “I’m not like that”.
well guess what assholes – we are like that.
all of us.
so, if you’re not throwing yourself and every other man you see under the bus – you’re just another chickenshit rapist happy to skate by while others do the raping and live the fat life that buys you.
we don’t know 10% of how shitty it is to have to listen to the crap that comes out of our mouths every day. street or office harassment, stupid jokes at the dinner table, loss of money or healthcare or whatever simple autonomy we enjoy being denied to women, queers and people with less money or darker skin.
at every injustice of bloodshed and starvation, there is a man causing pain to someone else.
it’s a man’s world alright – and all this shit is man’s fault.
silence is consent motherfuckers. this shit doesn’t end so long as you stay quiet (and saying “I’m not like that” or “men get hurt too”…by men, btw – doesn’t count.)
speak up cowards. act up. yeah, and your life will be harder. you will lose shit. but that’s shit you stole – it ain’t yours. so buck up and make the term “act like a man” mean something other than rape or murder or violence.
Men –
As a woman, I am begging you not to engage in such embarrassing self-flaggelation. You aren’t oppressive for existing. It’s your actions that matter. Oppressive men are the problem. Men as a whole are not. By all means, acknowledge and speak out against oppression and misogyny, but don’t throw yourselves under the bus like this. It’s more counterproductive than anything. In fact, it makes me wonder how sincere you truly are when you make posts like this.
Every time I see/hear a guy talk like this, I wonder to what extent he’s trying to use feminist rhetoric to either get laid or to be the gay guy with the most hags. It’s suspicious af to me.
I have absolutely no idea whether or not this is a troll.
That said, in my LJ days there was a guy who had a blog and talked like this.
He was caught filming himself touching an unconscious woman’s breasts.
I do not trust people who talk like this at all.
*This* is what I mean by toxic masculinity.
Male identity that has misogyny and rape and abuse of power built into what it means to be a man.
That is not inevitable. Not all men are like that. You don’t have to be like that to be a man or to be masculine.
But a hell of a lot of ideologies seem to say that you do.
That terrifies me.
Tag: rape mention
Today I was chatting with a coworker who I knew had been in an abusive relationship in the past. She was laughing as she told me and another coworker about how her ex never let her leave the house. Like she was for real cracking jokes about his jealous rages and how she wasn’t allowed to so much as set foot outside their door if he wasn’t with her, and the way she was telling it was funny, so we laughed along. “That’s why I enjoy doing the little things now, like taking the bus and going to the bank,” she said, and we all giggled because who likes public transportation and doing errands, right?
Then she got serious for the first time since the conversation started, it lasted only for a few moments, but I will never forget the one sentence that she said without smiling: “I’m going to die before I let that happen to me again.”
There was also this one rape victim whom a relative of mine represented in court. The rapist’s lawyer tried to discredit her by pointing out that she’d laughed while giving her testimony. She was eighteen years old on the witness stand, telling a judge and a room full of people about what had been done to her. She giggled because she was embarrassed about having to describe the graphic sex acts, and she nearly lost her case because of that.
I have classmates who laughed while telling me about old men who stole kisses from them. Who made jokes out of stories about their boyfriends screening their messages and forcing them to do things they didn’t want to do. I have known girls who were molested and manipulated for years, who shake their heads and snicker at their own past selves, how could I have let him do that to me, I was so naive, hahaha. This one woman reenacted for me, complete with dramatic gestures and voice impersonations, how her ex-husband who was under a Temporary Restraining Order scaled the gate of her house with a gun, and how she’d locked herself in her bedroom and screamed at the police over the phone to come NOW. Both of us were in stitches at the end of her tale, clutching our stomachs in mirth.
Just because they laugh doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
I can laugh about my abusive ex now because I’m not with him and will never have to let him near me again. I also sometimes wake in a cold sweat because I dreamed that I didn’t leave him. Laughing about trauma is an odd coping skill, but it is super common because it helps people stay sane in the face of awful things. We laugh to keep from crying.
People laughing at something that causes a stress response is normal. It’s literally your brain trying cope and survive by trying to make you less afraid of the stressor. Don’t ever doubt yourself about what you’ve experience, just because you laughed. Laughing is a completely valid response to something horrible, and your experience is just as valid whether you laugh or cry (or sometimes both at the same time) about it, and don’t let anybody try to tell you otherwise.
Today I was chatting with a coworker who I knew had been in an abusive relationship in the past. She was laughing as she told me and another coworker about how her ex never let her leave the house. Like she was for real cracking jokes about his jealous rages and how she wasn’t allowed to so much as set foot outside their door if he wasn’t with her, and the way she was telling it was funny, so we laughed along. “That’s why I enjoy doing the little things now, like taking the bus and going to the bank,” she said, and we all giggled because who likes public transportation and doing errands, right?
Then she got serious for the first time since the conversation started, it lasted only for a few moments, but I will never forget the one sentence that she said without smiling: “I’m going to die before I let that happen to me again.”
There was also this one rape victim whom a relative of mine represented in court. The rapist’s lawyer tried to discredit her by pointing out that she’d laughed while giving her testimony. She was eighteen years old on the witness stand, telling a judge and a room full of people about what had been done to her. She giggled because she was embarrassed about having to describe the graphic sex acts, and she nearly lost her case because of that.
I have classmates who laughed while telling me about old men who stole kisses from them. Who made jokes out of stories about their boyfriends screening their messages and forcing them to do things they didn’t want to do. I have known girls who were molested and manipulated for years, who shake their heads and snicker at their own past selves, how could I have let him do that to me, I was so naive, hahaha. This one woman reenacted for me, complete with dramatic gestures and voice impersonations, how her ex-husband who was under a Temporary Restraining Order scaled the gate of her house with a gun, and how she’d locked herself in her bedroom and screamed at the police over the phone to come NOW. Both of us were in stitches at the end of her tale, clutching our stomachs in mirth.
Just because they laugh doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
I can laugh about my abusive ex now because I’m not with him and will never have to let him near me again. I also sometimes wake in a cold sweat because I dreamed that I didn’t leave him. Laughing about trauma is an odd coping skill, but it is super common because it helps people stay sane in the face of awful things. We laugh to keep from crying.
Women have been drugged and raped by men for centuries. This medieval woman fought back — and won.
From @vox:
In southwest England in 1292, Isabella Plomet brings a legal complaint against Ralph de Worgan, a local physician. She alleges that he abused his medical position to drug and rape her.
…
How could a 13th-century jury understand what some Americans today fail to grasp?
Scumbag. Throw her out on the 8th.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 