Radfem 2013 and the MRAs

I thought you were off for the night? Why don't you start up a new thread if you have questions about really really basic things like this? Have you not noticed that there is an interesting discussion going on around you that you are derailing with your eunochz nonsense and now these questions?

Apologies tunip, your explaination didn't coe up on the refresh.

'culture of violent masculinity'

Anybody fancy explaining this? I will listen (read).

Boys and girls (and men and women) are treated differently by society as a whole, and represented differently in culture. Examples of the way boys/men are encouraged to be violent might include, to give just a few examples:
-boys' clothes which are frequently decorated with images associated with violence (examples I saw while shopping today included pirates, Power Rangers and Vikings) while girls' clothes are more likely to have flowers and handbags
-carers tolerating violent behaviour from boys with comments like 'boys will be boys', while if girls behave in such a way they tend to get described as tomboys
-the preponderance of violence in the films and books aimed at men and boys
Thus the quality of masculinity to which boys are encouraged to aspire becomes associated with violence.
The losers in this situation are not just society as a whole which suffers from the violence of those men who are susceptible to this conditioning, but also those men who are uncomfortable with it and are made to feel less like real men as a result (something which happens to a varying degree in different groups of people/sections of society).

However, I note you are in a state of denial even about the fact that Saudi public space is designed for men, so I am certain you will find ways to pretend none of this happens.

If you genuinely want to learn, you could try Introducing Feminism or Feminism: A Very Short Introduction, for feminist thought in general, or for something more specific to the UK now, The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard.

Flora, my opinon is no more important than yours.

Men are no more conditioned towards violence than women

YES they are. This is why we should never assume to blame ALL men for the acts of others. This isn't about saying ALL men are violent, but all men are subject to the same messages and social process, all men are expected to perform "masculinity" because if they don't ascribe to this they are ninnies, softies, gay, ridiculed, attacked even.

Well that's it folks, discussion over, we have been told

Sorry BubblesOfBliss, not very specific in terms of time was I. I agree with you but I am still sticking to the point that in a class society men are socialised to behave in the "masculine" to carry out the violence on behalf of a ruling class. Too many men have died in wars and yet many more will sign up for this dubious privilege. I haven't read much about PTSD but a friend of mine has just escaped DV, her husband was left severely damaged and dangerous when he left the army. It's difficult to say, do we socialise men into callous people capable of rape and murder & torture to fulfil much the same need as at any other time in history, to protect the property rights of the elite. If you investigate the history of CIA involvement into Iraq, the Americans funded Sadam Hussain, they were best friends with him all the time he was using chemical weapons, the rift came when he refused to privatise the nations oil. All driven by the wealth of private individuals in the quest to appropriate the worlds resources. The biggest threat to all people is capitalism.

The one thing that can bring people together and undermine the social structures is the one thing that unites 90%. In the void we have the opportunity to shape society in a way that gives women equality. Have you read Zetkin or Lenin? very interesting, the changes to women's lives after the revolution were quick, because women's rights were already way up top on the agenda. They even had female pilots in WWII.

"There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war. Nearly 200,000 were decorated and 89 eventually received the Soviet Union?s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union. Some served as pilots, snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles" wiki

Nope Tunip, no hesitation though in "sort of freestyling it" ie blundering around in search of a clue in the middle of an intelligent discussion whilst espousing Very Important Opinion.

Tunip,

Explain it to me then.

LOL, you still haven't got a clue what a culture of violent masculinity means, have you?

But since you don't realise you don't understand it, I doubt you ever will.

Some women have been violent, some men have been violent.

Again you use the term 'violent masculinity'. Men are no more conditioned towards violence than women.

If we look through the ages warfare was once a men and women affair, through time men took on that role to the exclusion of women, but that doesn't mean women are not just as conditioned or capable (see friday and saturday night for details). Of particular concern could be the increased incidence of female gangs attacking weaker targets (male and female) or the apparent female controlled males attacking others.

Feminism doesn't claim the opposite, because by simply dumping violence in the 'masculine' pile (regardless of who commits it) they are free of the stigma.

This may be my last post tonight... sorry everyone, I'm halfway through a bottle of homebrew (elderberry and blackcurrant from 2010 - potent stuff).

Oh, we've been there often enough before Kim!

Some women are violent. This doesn't pose a particular challenge to feminism, because we've never claimed the opposite.
The vast majority of violence, however, is committed by men. Their victims are both men and women. The feminists I know believe the reason is cultural conditioning, rather than genetic predisposition.
We would like to see a world where violence from both sexes is a lot less, and given the preponderance of male rather than female violence, looking at the culture of violent masculinity would seem to be one useful way to proceed.

(Banning leaded petrol seems to have been another.)

As am I Tunip.

To thnk I didn't know anything about feminism at the beginning, and am just sort of freestyling it from there.

'MiniTheMinx Sun 28-Apr-13 18:02:22

If a man is attacked out alone, late at night similar blame is heaped upon him. I'll admit the 'dressed provocatively' angle is pretty much women only

Who is attacking these men?'

Please do not try to make out it is always a blue on blue.

We'll stop this line of discussion, as you can always google such things as female attacks on men or similar.

Perhaps the most infamous en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracie_Andrews

Just want to say I am really enjoying Bubbles, Mini, Julia etc's discussion on this & learning a lot from it.

JuliaScurr "the group with by far the most, if not only, possibility of changing the fundamental structure of society is the working class because they can organise on line of their own oppression and have the potential power to unite & overthrow the existing power structures & forming new ones"

But there is no guarantee these new power structures will benefit women or people with different ethnic heritage, etc.

Hi Mini I've been wondering about you saying this: "The violence involved in siezing the land or assets of others could be said to be "masculine" it was after all men who went to war. However it wasn't the men who lost their lives who benefited from this but the ruling elite."

You've panned out very far as a viewpoint here. I believe the establishment of a class system by seizure of assets is a gradual process of raids and regrouping which has the dual purpose of gathering a surplus for the 'overlords' and terrorising the raided population into submission so they freely give their goods to the raiders in taxation. In other words the original violent raiders were also the beneficiaries of the raids. Dying in wars for the benefit of the elite is a bit further down the road once the class system has already been established.

If a man is attacked out alone, late at night similar blame is heaped upon him. I'll admit the 'dressed provocatively' angle is pretty much women only

Who is attacking these men?

LOL Flora, I didn't think it was!

Cross post with Tunip. Not directed at you!

When I last looked at this thread it was very interesting and intelligent. Now it's descended to this tiresome rubbish.

No it doesn't, it derives from the Latin femina meaning woman.

If feminists reject gender... why do they use gender specific labels within their language?

The term 'feminist' itself descends from feminine.

Mooncup, yes, I have. I am aware of the female only malls.

Good news is, no wolf whistles at single women walking in Saudi streets...

The blame thing is funny. i hadd my car broken in to and my radio stolen. I mentoned it to someone and they indicated it was somehow my fault due to expense of the radio...

Victim fault seems to be a default. i should be able to leave my vehicle outside a house safe in the knowledge it wont be robbed.