"A woman's opinion is the miniskirt of the internet"

[HedleyLamarr]

I posted this in Feminism [brave emoticon], and someone has suggested putting it in AIBU.

So, I was sent a link to this article in the Independent. Your thoughts/ideas are much appreciated .

Catgirl, i remember it. vaguely. but it's one of very few targeted at men that I remember. for every one targeted at men, there's several aimed at women.

Here is thecurrent main internet campaign about safe drinking aimed at young people. It looks pretty equitable in its advice in terms of male / female and does not seem to give different advice. It is run by drinkaware

www.facebook.com/goodtimes?sk=wall

Every distinct group has its own way of being targetted. No one can deny that. The question is whether for groups other than the dominant one (i.e. white males) the nature of those threats make them more powerful in terms of effect and whether or not they are considered more acceptable.

Even after anti-slavery legislation in the US, for example, a black man had very good reason to fear threats such as "we'll string you up" from white men purely because he was black. The level of fear threats such as those would generate is not comparable to one white male threatening to beat up another because of history and difference in status.

The same can be argued for women's status today. It is more equal than it's ever been, but it's not completely equal to that of men's yet, and only 20 years ago it was legal for a man to rape his wife.

Even today, for every man killed by a current or former partner, there are 4x as many women. Domestic violence still has an overwhelming number of female victims in comparison to men (even allowing for the fact that male victims are massively under-represented). Rape is only prosecuted at a rate of 6% despite the fact that only 6% are false claims.

Only today there was an article about an 18-year-old woman who was tortured by her 37-year-old boyfriend, for which he received a 16-month sentence, despite being well-known for abusing several other previous girlfriends. Unless DV results in hospitalisation, most men are given a caution only.

Men are still getting away with rape and violence against women. Therefore when a woman receives a threat of rape or violence, she has much more reason to fear it than if a man received a threat to "cut off his balls" from another man. Statistically speaking, the woman is much more likely to actually be on the receiving end of the threat being carried out, and once carried out, there is a very good chance that her rapist/attacker won't even be prosecuted.

Fortunately, things are improving. Only a minority of sad (albeit dangerous) individuals go around threatening others on the basis of their skin colour, gender or sexuality. Unfortunately, however, whereas decent people will call others about racist or homophobic insults/threats, that is far less likely to happen with threats/insults based on gender.

Forkful... Yep thought so. As you and (no doubt many others on this thread) don't agree with a campaign/activities designed to tackle Violence Against Women you're hardly likely to agree that there is a specific gendered issued with threats of sexual violence against female journalists/bloggers.

Do you really think that any woman would be against a campaign to tackle violence against them? What the hell are these activities supposed to comprise of? Electronically tag all the men? Round them up and put them under curfew? Seminars, workshops, what?

Men are 3x more likely to be assaulted or mugged than women.

Young men aged between 16-25 are the demographic group at greatest risk of violent crime.

In 2008/2009 13.2% of ALL young men aged between 16 - 24 experienced serious violent assualt. (Compared to 5.5% of women)

Men are 3x more likely to be assaulted or mugged than women.

Young men aged between 16-25 are the demographic group at greatest risk of violent crime.

Could that be because there are more lone males out on the streets than lone women?. That could explain the statistics very easily. It would also mean that women are taking notice of the dangers, and by doing so are the minority group.

According to Crimestoppers women alone are most likely to be victims of violence - but men in groups are at greater risk.

Lying - I believe that many women disagree with the concept of VAWG being specifically targetted. eg catgirl said " I do not think separating out violence by gender is useful or has value in terms of tackling it."

Personally I take the reactions of many women posting on this thread to mean that they do not support VAWG initiatives.

Home Office Info

Action Plan

The UN declaration on violence against women
(1993) defines such violence as any act of genderbased
violence that results in, or is likely to result in,
physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to
women, including threats of such acts, coercion or
arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in
public or in private life. The vast majority of these
violent acts are perpetrated by men on women
and girls and includes domestic violence, sexual
assault, stalking, so-called ?honour based violence?,
female genital mutilation and forced marriage

What the OP of this thread is about is VAWG (threats of such acts - see above).

Guiding principle: Prevent violence against women and girls from happening
in the first place by challenging the attitudes and behaviours which foster it
and intervening early where possible to prevent it.
Through our work to prevent violence, we will:
? change the attitudes, behaviours and practices which contribute to VAWG by means of appropriate and targeted challenge;
? increase public understanding of VAWG by putting in place focussed awareness-raising initiatives which include looking at its root causes, hidden nature and economic cost to society;
? strengthen understanding of the unacceptability of VAWG by ensuring our frontline partners can intervene early to challenge acceptability; and
? protect vulnerable children by working with frontline partners to make them aware of the tools and systems available to them to ensure the right first response.

"LucyStoneSun"

"Boney, why are people more worried about being accused of being a rape apologist than the rape culture we live in?"

just because people have a differing view does not give people the right to call people names etc. which brings us nicely back to the OP.

"forkful"

I asked a question, it hasn't been answered, jump to which ever conclusion you like. If the "stalking" refers to different posters then fair enough.

Leningrad, is it proportional representation?

There are almost always more males out on their own at night than women.

Esta, I can believe that. Men in groups, coming up against other men in groups, quite often leads to a scuffle if there is any bad blood between one member of the group with another.

JuliaScurr, I wasn't trying to undermine feminism at all, I was trying to point out that threats to rape are disgusting and should be labelled hate crimes.

Forkful, I originally put this in the Feminism section, as I was torn between there, here, and In The News. Someone suggested I post here so I did. If you read the OP I make it very clear, heck, I even provided a link to the original thread. I'm still reasonably new here, and am still learning my way around.

catgirl not on facebook but was able to find the drinkaware website.

Deadweight - All men
Telling a Joke - mixed but drunk person is male
A night you can't remember - All women
Laughing with you- mixed but drunk person is female
Epic night - mixed but drunk person is male
Dancefloor - mixed but drunk person is female
Cathching Up- All women

So out of 7 posters 2 are aimed at all female groups and 1 is aimed at all male groups; and 2 posters feature a drunk male in a mixed group and 2 posters feature a drunk female in a mixed group. So still an imbalance albeit slight in terms of who the posters are aimed at: 4 aimed at women, 3 aimed at men.

Doesn't really bear out your comment of: "There are loads of posters where I am urging young men not too drink too much. None aimed at girls though. I will try and find some for you. "

But thanks for finding at least some that are aimed at young men though, even though the none aimed at girls young women now seems a pretty baseless assertion.

When you actually get into analysing the current campaigns (Dorset police campaign that I found and your Drinkaware campaign too) it starts to show that double standards are alive and kicking and advice is given very much based on gender.

Not so much this:

"There is no difference between the safety advice given to men and women as far as I can see. Maybe it used to be (and I am sure it was) but not now. Perhaps those saying "oh girls are told not to drink too much and walk alone through dodgy areas but boys are not" are just older and going off what used to happen?

All I see is the same advice being given regardless of gender. I have never been told anything that a male counterpart hasn't. This "double standard" advice doesn't exist anymore as far as I can tell."

What the hell are these activities supposed to comprise of? Electronically tag all the men? Round them up and put them under curfew? Seminars, workshops, what?

1. Deliver a cross-government VAWG Communications Strategy.

1. Launch a youth prevention campaign to tackle

teenage relationship violence.

1. Develop education and awareness-raising

campaigns on rape and sexual assault.

1. Improve understanding of the incidence and

reporting of false allegations of rape.

1. Improve the reporting on the number of

successful rape prosecutions in the UK.

1. Take action to protect children from excessive

commercialisation and premature sexualisation.

1. Hold a forum between the VAWG interministerial

group and representatives from the media and music industries.

1. Work with the National Union of Journalists to

produce guidance for journalists reporting on issues relating to VAWG

1. Explore the prevalence and effects of VAWG on

vulnerable groups, including BME communities, and work to raise awareness of VAWG both within these groups and with frontline practitioners and local decision makers.

10. Raise awareness of forced marriage and challenge
    attitudes which condone this practice through media
    activities, training events and community
    engagement.

11. Support community engagement work to tackle
    female genital mutilation (FGM).

12. Raise awareness of VAWG within the Armed
    Forces.

13. Update the British Crime Survey (BCS) to
    improve understanding of attitudes towards VAWG.

14. Meet with the major supermarkets and relevant
    business organisations to discuss how to promote
    personal safety for lone workers.

15. Work with the EHRC to promote the new
    Equality Duty and produce guidance covering issues
    in relation to gender equality for local areas.

16. Establish an independent VAWG Advisory Group
    to advise the Department for Education.

17. Run a national campaign to support and help
    turn around the lives of families with multiple
    problems.

18. Develop training for health visitors to provide
    support to families when they suspect violence
    against women or children may be a factor.

19. Implement findings from the independent Munro
    Review to improve child protection.

20. Encourage the teaching of sexual consent within
    the curriculum.

21. Reduce sexual and sexist bullying in schools.

22. Reduce access of children to harmful material on
    the internet.

23. Establish a working group of the Home
    Secretary?s Guns, Gangs and Knives Roundtable to
    develop proposals to address VAWG and female
    involvement in gangs.

24. Evaluate the police specialist unit approach to
    investigating rape.

25. Identify ways to improve communication with
    victims of sexual violence.

26. Learn from how the Fixated Threat Assessment
    Centre (FTAC) operates to see how its methods of
    investigation of stalking cases could be applied to
    mainstream policing.

27. Work with ACPO, the CPS and specialist
    organisations to ensure that best practice guidance
    on the investigation and prosecution of stalking case.

28. Coordinate a National Stalking Strategy Group
    to support the ACPO Stalking Working Group.

29. Learn from how police forces in other countries
    respond to VAWG and work with our police partners
    to consider how effective approaches might be applied
    in England and Wales.

30. Work with the National Institute for Health and
    Clinical Excellence (NICE) to produce public health
    guidance on preventing domestic violence.

31. Share with partners and local areas best practice
    in the use of integrated offender management (IOM)
    to tackle domestic violence related offending

32. Introduce VAWG training for health professionals
    who carry out Work Capability Assessments.

33. Introduce an automatic 13 week deferral period
    for victims of domestic violence who claim
    Jobseeker?s Allowance.

34. Work on the development of learning
    programmes for the Police on sexual and domestic
    violence, including FGM, forced marriage and
    honour-based violence (HBV).

35. Ensure that the CPS review of victim support
    commitments includes consideration of
    communication with, and support of, victims of VAW.

from here.

I think #26 would be applicable here.

But that's the thing. the term rape apologist rarely gets trotted out by the feminists on mn. unless we suspect we're dealing with a troll. you are in effect, through your posts, dragging us feminists through the mud. i was a victim of the stalking that went on over there, but even then it was to a lesser extent than some members who got bullied off the boards with claims of being man haters, crazy, you name it, we've been called it. we've had women accused of lying about their experiences, and reading posts telling them that they should have learnt how to protect themselves against rape. we've had people tell us they could rape us and get away with it, yet so many members of mn are more concerned with making US look like the villains.

OP I have no problem with thread being here. I just wonder whether it is the AIBU genre which then causes such dissent. I mean really who would think that any women would not agree with there being a terrible problem with rape threats against female bloggers and journalists etc!

LucyStone Wasn't there a comment made by one of the more aggressive trolls about raping posters in the feminist section (I think it was later rephrased as a 'joke' by the poster in question)?

Forkful... Thanks. I've read that plan and I notice of the four measures summarised, three of them are proposals to deal with the circumstances AFTER the event. The first measure of prevention seems very wooly indeed.

I've worked in strategy and policy for the best part of 15 years and I understand the limitations. I can see what the government is proposing 'ticks boxes'.

What is going to stop the violence? Only when the perpetrator has little chance of undetection and maximum probability of undesireable consequences for their actions. How that's achieveable, I don't know and I can't see it within the plan.

The thing is, you do have to wonder, when someone is not able to see what is before their eyes, how wilful and strong the desire to ignore or diminish what they don't want to see is? And why?

Partypooperz, there was indeed. he was vile...

forkful - oh come on now - I don't think anyone dismissed the vileness of the abuse.
People were simply pointing out that
a)the internet is a vipers' pit
b) abuse and death threats are not solely directed at women journos/writers.

By the way - I joined the women's movement circa 1972 and we quickly learnt that hectoring achieves fuck all - in truth it undermines your argument because all people hear is a wall of sound - cliches and barracking.
Try pleasant persuasion next time instead of crass insults - you might win a few more converts.
Goodnight.

Agent ZigZag To respond to your comment below: The 'joke' about raping posters on the feminist board and getting away with it was why there was discussion about locking down the Feminist Board (as has been done with the SN board). Fucking disgrace not to want to be threatened with rape over the internet isn't it! But then I guess this thread already establishes that yes, it is.

"'and then the fem board called for a locked space?'

The feminist board wanted to exclude anyone who didn't fit in with the general consensus of the board?

What a fucking disgrace."

hahahaha to asking nicely for rape to stop

what kind of monster is happy for women to keep on being attacked because a handful of internet feminists didn't ask for their support nicely and anodynely enough

i thought we had reached the apex of comedy with hypothermia but fuckles this tops it