Sigh. I've been deleted and blocked by yet another feminist page on Facebook....

Surely society expects women to view men as potential rapists. If I was sexually assaulted by a woman people would question her behaviour as some how odd. They would be questioning her mental health, previous criminal behaviour, if she was acting in partnership with a man or being influenced by one etc. If I got raped or sexually assaulted by a man, people would be questioning what I wore, said to him, was doing etc. So their assumption is that I should be viewing and responding to all men as people who might rape or sexually assault me.

Yes, I thought that after I hit post, PQW.

Sorry I know I am being the tedious old bore at the party, and the conversation has moved on now, but I still don't see what Annie said that got her blocked. She said she just wanted to debate but she also significantly misrepresented what they said and we don't know in what terms she offered a "debate" on it. She also said "yet again" in the OP.
When things happen to me again and again I have to take some responsibility for them.
Sorry if I am being annoying pedantic and forensic but I have to admit I am very curious about what has happened here because Annie is presenting this - on a very busy and popular site - as a failure, in fact a typical failure, by feminists to engage reasonably, and I think this is potentially damaging

Thank you Garlic, my point is and was the same as yours.

Is the statement "all women are potential rape victims" the same as "all men are potential rapists"?

(not being combative, just don't have the philosophical vocabulary to put it any better)

Red, this argument goes in circles:-

The only common characteristic is that rapists are male. Therefore, as women are exhorted to prevent their own rape and blamed for not avoiding rape, I ask the question of how?

Why not ask the question of why rapists are not exhorted to prevent rape?

The only way for any woman to ensure 100% that she will not be raped is to avoid being alone with a man.

Yes, and that would be ridiculous. This ridiculousness stems from the idea that any man could rape any woman at any time. It's not a solution because the problem has been incorrectly framed.

I get incredibly frustrated when women are blamed, quite often by men, for failing to avoid being raped. Hence, the "all men are potential rapists".

When you argue that all men are potential rapists, you're forced to concede that any woman risks rape by being in the vicinity of men. You have fundamentally agreed that the only way she can stay safe is by avoiding men, thus giving women the burden of avoiding rape.

I need to preface this reply with a statement that I have learned to live with 'class' statements wrt gender issues, because I want to be able to discuss those issues and acceptance of the 'men as a class' formula is required.

It makes me uncomfortable. There are myriad adequate, and more accurate, ways to make those points without the lazy and - to my mind - prejudicial use of "men". It takes two or three more words. We have the gift of language; it pains me when it is purposely debased.

In natural language and in mathematics, "men are rapists" has a different meaning from "rapists are men".

The first, despite my learned silence on the matter, is offensive to - yes, to men as a class. The second is a statement of fact, inoffensive to all but the odd female or cross-gender rapist.

I wish feminists wouldn't do this. When misogynists use "women" to mean something unpleasant about women-as-a-class, they're rightly accused of stereotyping. Likewise, "blacks" or "whites" (as an aside, ref an earlier post, I have been personally vilified for oppressions perpetrated by my white-ancestors-as-a-class; it felt most undeserved.) There's really no excuse for it, unless it really is intended to piss people off and make feminists sound like man-haters. I don't understand why it's deemed necessary.

Interesting possibility. I don't know, but I don't think so. I've no evidence for that, I just don't believe there is anything innate in men that makes them rape.

I wouldn't be able to be a feminist (ie., wanting equality) if I did think so. Personally.

I didn't think you were minimizing the impact, btw. I would hope education can help both the unthinking and the deliberate. If nothing else, educating society to condemn the unthinking might stigmatize the deliberate more.

I think doctrine is right that there are probably people out there who think that way about rights and wrongs.

It's horribly sad, isn't it, this conversation? (Like, duh, I know ... but it does feel bleak)

I am not defending the sub-set or minimising the impact, but suggesting that education can help the unthinking, but not the deliberate.
Malenky interesting point on evil - are evil people born or made or a combination - there is a lot of research that certain medical conditions are genetic but only if triggered by environmental factors - is it the same with evil?

To clarify, I don't think of that subset of rapists not thinking they were in the wrong, but wrong in the same way as, say, coming in drunk at 3am and turning all the lights on, or watching the grand prix for 11 hours straight on her birthday or something. Like it's inconsiderate or rude or bad relationship behaviour but not like it's the serious crime that it is.

Which I think is rooted in the marital rape point, and the Galloway bullshit about if you've consented in the past it's not so bad etc.

I know what you're getting at carol, but I think even in the second group, there is the potential for men to be educated - or pre-empted - our of that. I still don't believe the group B rapists who do it for power, have something evil inside them such that when they were babies you could have said 'this will be a rapist'.

Looking at it from a different perspective, is it helpful to split rapists into 2 groups? - those, such as the Victorian man mentioned above who does not view it as rape, but part of married life and those that know what they are doing is wrong. IMO, the first group are probably doing it for sexual enjoyment and can be educated out of the practice, whilst the second group it is more of a power thing and, like murder and other forms of assult, will always be with us.
I would argue all men have the potential for group A unless educated, but not group B

I think you are right MRD that not all men who have had sex with a woman without her consent consider themselves rapists.

slow - but how is class analysis generalization? Surely they are two very different things - almost opposites in fact?

Class analysis is saying, this is not trying to present an accurate picture of every individual, it is looking at the big picture. Whereas, generalizations are assuming you can look at one or two individuals and extrapolate from them.

This thread is very interesting, but unless I have missed it I can't see what Annie said to get blocked

• what was it?

If it was misunderstanding "this is what men search for" as "this is what all men search for" then I would have been annoyed too

I know this thread has moved on slightly from the origional post, but I do think class based analysis has flaws. I think you can be a feminist without subscribing to class analysis theories. I think making sweeping statements about men does invite others to make sweeping statements about women, which is something I think feminism and feminists should challenge. I think it is possible to explain ways in which men as a group opress women as a group do not have to be phrased this way.

I am also not convinced that the post the OP is refering to was actually meant in this way.

I do think statements such as "All rapists are men" are different.

I would say some rapists do "get off" on raping women. Some rape is about power, but to me, with many rapes, often those where the rapist is known to the victim, I am not at all sure that at least some of the motivation does not come from sexual desire and arousal.

In some ways, I feel the "rape is about power" arguement can be unhelpful, as it allows men to distance themselves from rapists (and women to distance themselves from those who commit sexual assult). If you make rapists into a homogenous group with a charactaristic, and you do not share that characteristic, it helps you convince yourself you could not possibly be a rapist.

Also, even if rape is about power, what is to say that the men commiting the rape do not gain sexual pleasure from that power?

I would suggest there are probably as many motivations for rape as there are rapists, and it is unlikely, given rape is a sexual act, that some of them do not have a motivation of sexual pleasure.

It makes victims (survivors?!) of rape seem very passive, doesn't it? If we never name the perpetrators, we're constantly seeing the passive phrase 'a woman was raped' or 'many women are raped every year'. If we then also claim that rape is about power, we are defining it in terms of what the perpetrator gets out of it. I am sure for many women it is about power being taken away from them, but we could put it like that.

I do take your point that it is much better than 'sex gone wrong', but it could be better again. We could say it's about violating people's bodies. That would be true.

"I think the problem with saying rape is all about power is that it defined rape according to what we think is going on in the perpetrator's head" Yes I agree. Very little discussion/depiction of rape is from the woman's perspective.

I also think that the the whole rape is about power thing originally was to get away from rape being sex 'gone wrong' or whatever victim-blaming/minimising views the media and law enforcers had/have.

YY, agree with that scallops. It is similar to the way that 'misandry' and 'misogyny' are not meaninful equivalents, or racism by white people is not quite the same as white supremacy/the Klan.

I think the problem with saying rape is all about power is that it defined rape according to what we think is going on in the perpetrator's head. For him it may be all about power. For some women it may have been all about power. But if some women feel it is a bodily assult they should be entitled to say so!

Sorry I know that this thread has gone off at various tangents along the way but I just wanted to go back to the point about "men view violent porn" and comparing it "women are moody" or similar statements. I think someone mentioned it was a false equivalence and I agree.

The former statement is describing a way in which men (as a group) oppress women. The latter is the type of statement which adds to women's oppression. Saying that men watch violent porn is not oppressing men, it is naming women's oppression. I think it is a crucial difference.

Also in feminist spaces it is essential to name the oppression and problems women face for what they are: male violence, men's exploitation of women through pornography and prostitution, the oppression of women through PIV etc.

Anyway sorry for the interruption. I think PromQueen's points about rape are interesting. I saw an online argument/discussion with a radfem and a male feminist ally which kind of ties in here. The male ally was arguing that rape was all about power and the radfem was saying no it's not just about that. Rapists get off and get aroused by raping women so there is a violent sexual element about it (if 'sexua'l is the right word).