Not all women

Yes exactly Charlie.

Strict Muslims believe that women cannot travel more than 48 miles without a chaperone (for their own protection, of course)...

I really think that female rape apologists mainly do it because they want to believe that it only happens if you take stupid avoidable risks I think they want to believe you can stop yourself being raped - but they only can believe that through internalised misogyny. As soon as you understand that nothing you do can stop you being raped, only rapists can stop raping, then you can't be a rape apologist.

Mind you, the sort of person who says women are "asking for it" doesn't say that to the actual victims. They say it to others. They talk behind the backs of victims.

That's very true and I've never thought about it before. Perhaps they wouldn't be so sure of themselves if they were confronted by a sobbing victim. 'Deserving it' would suddenly look as wrong and revolting as it is.

If anyone had the brass neck to suggest that I was inviting rape by travelling I'd probably shout at them, which is very unusual. Who on earth buys tickets to get themself attacked?

Mind you, the sort of person who says women are "asking for it" doesn't say that to the actual victims. They say it to others. They talk behind the backs of victims.

Sadly I think they would Prawn. I have travelled loads as a solo female and people have thought I was indulging in very risky behaviour. I was generally careful but some risk is unavoidable. And I've been lucky, so far. I bet I'd have been judged if I hadn't been.

"There was an utterly ridiculous comment on a recent thread along the lines that all men will go bad but a few, not all can be trained."

Yup. The comment was from someone I hadn't seen on FWR before.

I've been encouraged by the number of women who have popped up after lurking on trans threads and declared themselves feminists. The Spartacus business back in the summer was truly exhilarating.

That's a good point, Venus. Both times I was raped I was travelling, and it was that which made me vulnerable. You can hardly claim that women shouldn't travel. Or perhaps some people would...

I wonder if some women feel safer in conventional relationships even when they are far from equal.

I think it's fairly easy and safe. And, of course, it's a deliberate choice for a lot of women.

I'm still learning a lot about feminism. And it's the history of women's rights that really got me hooked. There is so much that all women take for granted today but is only recently won and was a massive uphill struggle.

I was dipping my toe in the feminism waters when the trans ideology kicked off and that's what really nailed it for me. I could see everything being swept away because men.

And I don't think I'm alone. Lots of women are suddenly questioning their rights, status, lives. And because the misogyny is so stark it's an eye opener. This kind of self congratulating, ego-centric misogyny is not something that people tend to encounter in their day-to-day lives.

I really think that female rape apologists mainly do it because they want to believe that it only happens if you take stupid avoidable risks. And others have experienced it and downplay it as it helps them process it. With male rape apologists you see the misogyny and contempt they have for women.

I've been thinking about it for a few days. Not that I haven't thought about it before, but this time. It was this thread and the Fawcett one that started me off. I became a feminist in my early teens, but if I hadn't it might have been easy while secure in a happy marriage to assume that anyone who objected to male dominance was just making a fuss. As a wife I was never oppressed in any way.

But when I consider it, no. That wouldn't have happened because my life experience taught me that NAMALT but quite enough of them are exactly like that to make feminism necessary.

I wonder if some women feel safer in conventional relationships even when they are far from equal. Some women definitely do marry for material benefit. I look at bloody annoying John Cleese with his Alimony Tour bitching about his expensive divorce and think that blokes who choose trophy wives have only themselves to blame.

I don't know. There are so many possible causes and explanations that I could ramble on ad infinitum.

Olennas

because it's easier to hold onto the coat-tails of power than create power for oneself?

I'm sure it's partly this and partly that roles are so ingrained it's viewed as the natural order of things. The Mars/Venus thing makes a lot of sense to many woman because that is how they live. It's sexism in giftwrap.

And, of course, it's exhausting sometimes.

Yy, Prawn and Datun!

Why is that, do you think? Is it "just" internalised misogyny? Or is it (subconsciously, in most cases) following the male lead in how things are viewed, because it's easier to hold onto the coat-tails of power than create power for oneself?

Well, Datun, as a feminist I find it depressing how many women are only too keen to enforce patriarchal views on other women. Even on MN I've seen threads talking about how some woman has trapped their son/brother by getting pregnant all by herself.

It's a real issue. It's far too common. It troubles me. Perhaps because I haven't got a sister I have always felt a strong sense that women are my sisters When women say that a short skirt invites rape it really upsets me.

Xeno, did you say "and another thing" in a Columbo accent?

Of course!

I thought of starting a thread on the topic. Women beware women, it's the title of a play.

That will set the fireworks off!

We don't get it here, it's a lot more mellow, but Reddit groups are bigger and you get a lot of posters who are very outspoken against all men. Real deep hatred. There seem to be lots of feminists who have had appalling childhoods with abusive fathers and later, growing up as damaged young women, they have entered into a string of horrible abusive relationships. They have never known a good man, and hate the whole sex.

My own view is that if men are irredeemable, immutable, then feminism is a bit of a lost cause. They will never allow us to achieve our ends. But I think there are enough men who like and respect women for us to make strides. These men don't have to do anything particularly, just to support women when they call for specific changes. I think most emotionally stable men feel as revolted by sex and violent crime as women do.

Then there's the whole other issue of the women who support male oppression. I think it's only a sad 10% of women identify as feminist, whereas about a third of the women questioned by the Fawcett society thought that a woman who was drunk and wearing a short skirt was inviting rape. And FGM is done by women, and it is women who refuse to change their traditional mutilation. Women are often all too keen on enforcing the patriarchy.

I thought of starting a thread on the topic. Women beware women, it's the title of a play.

When I was a teenager a girlfriend and I used to go to a bar in a hotel a lot of business travellers used. We'd sit there demurely accepting drinks until we were well away, then slope off to meet our penniless boyfriends in the music pub.

We reckoned they had it coming, trying to pick up girls 20 years younger, but we were pretty naughty ourselves.

I don't know how we live with ourselves.

So in the absence of data we don't talk about our anecdotes, Lass?

Unless you have proof about who NAMALTs in real life?

I know men commit crimes against women and that the statistics show us that there are a depressingly high percentage of them. I currently know two men who have been guilty of DV and EA because their ex-wives are my friends. Over the course of my life I have mixed with a very wide variety of people. When I was drinking (I'm long term sober through AA) I hung round with some fairly dodgy types, and for 18 months I was in a violent relationship myself. It couldn't happen again but I learned a lot. I ran into a lot of men I didn't entirely trust and was sexually assaulted more times than I can be sure of.

I suppose the whimper that is NAMALT stems from knowing men who, for example, couldn't under any circumstances force sex on anyone. If the men you are really close to wouldn't dream of DV, let alone rape, it's hard not to feel an urge to spring to their defence. But it's a given - or should be - so I try to button my lip.

Definitely, YetAnother!

In other words, it's that Margaret Atwood quote that “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them [or humiliate or trick them]. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

OlennasWimple

I wish the focus would shift from it being the sole responsibility and therefore the fault of women.

Like the 'don't drink and drive' campaign. I wish police stations and clubs had posters saying 'men! Use a condom' or 'wrap it' or something. Just to subtly shift the focus to where it ought to be.