Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be sick of victim blaming on MN?

252 replies

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 08/08/2017 09:37

I'm sick to the back teeth of reading victim blaming comments on here. Am I the only one who's noticed the tides turning on MN recently?

Heaven forbid women who've been through a trauma wear clothes from their actual wardrobe and don't buy a "victim outfit" to wear in public. It appears they're not a real victim unless they adhere to a certain set of behaviours.

That's just one thread today. I've seen comments recently about what sexual assault victims wear, how drunk they are. Yesterday people were equating raping a woman with a woman lying about taking a contraceptive pill (someone even said this was the same as rape) and not too long ago someone commented that it was Amber Heard's own fault that she got hit by the phone Jonny Depp threw at her because she didn't duck.

If you challenge these comments then you're often called a feminazi, an idiot or a man-hater.

I know this is kind of a TAAT (or several threads) but I'm beyond disappointed that a website predominantly for women would have so many people letting the side down and believing that other women are either lying until they can prove otherwise or that they deserve the abuse they get from men. And if that woman has ever displayed any sexual behaviour ever, then it's even worse.

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 08/08/2017 17:57

Fascinating that such a skilled critical thinker doesn't appear to understand that choices are generally not made in a vacuum and that being unconsciously influenced by internalized societal attitudes is not the same as being "unthinking". But hey ho.

Mumof56 · 08/08/2017 18:05

@Bert "unthinking" was used several times in the other thread to describe women

Now tell us why do you post here? Boredom?

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 08/08/2017 18:11

I find it strange how, when these threads go the same way as they have now, people always proclaim they just want to raise awareness for men's issues. I haven't seen a single post giving factual information or raising awareness for men, I don't even know what, according to these posters, the key men's issues are. It seems that 'raising awareness' is aka insisting women are worse than what the facts tell us, and saying NAMALT. Hardly smacks of critical thinking to me.

OP posts:
araiwa · 08/08/2017 18:14

I still dont really understand what a 'culture of rape' is or means. Can someone explain

MargaretTwatyer · 08/08/2017 18:15

Although, only minimally, given you are more likely to be raped by someone you know

Why do warnings only have to be about stranger rape? I would tell a daughter not to accept lifts, walks home or offers of a place to crash unless it was someone she knew well and trusted implicitly.

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 08/08/2017 18:21

araiwa this is quite helpful in explaining it www.wavaw.ca/what-is-rape-culture/

OP posts:
araiwa · 08/08/2017 18:25

Thanks for the link

I read it. It seems a bit over the top to me

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 08/08/2017 18:26

Which bits specifically araiwa?

OP posts:
CherriesInTheSnow · 08/08/2017 18:38

"Over the top" :(

It is a thing, for sure, presenting itself in different ways in different societies.

We might be too progressive to live in a culture where a woman has to dress "modestly" by law, but it's naive with insidious consequences to think that in western society there is not still a huge underlying message, contributed to by many sources and based on hundreds (thousands) of years of female oppression and commodification, and it's sad that women who live in those societies can feel that it is over the top or silly or not real or worth thinking about.

That's not a personal attack, it genuinely makes me sad.

araiwa · 08/08/2017 18:41

normalized male sexual violence.
It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent
A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm . . . In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable . . .

Just a few statements i dont think are true or are overreaching

Datun · 08/08/2017 18:47

MargaretTwatyer

I completely agree. Although I knew the statistics about rape, it certainly came as a shock to me to find out that only 10% are committed by strangers.

Bizarrely, it means walking home by yourself, rather than accept a lift from, say a friend of a friend, means you are safer!

Although, it was rather brutally born out by a thread on here where women were talking about sexual assault, and indeed, most women's experience was of someone they knew, either vaguely or quite well.

Chilling.

emilybrontescorset · 08/08/2017 18:54

The media always portray stranger rape, they don't necessarily report on rapes committed by family/friends.
Women and children are far more likely to be murdered by someone close than someone they don't or hardly know.
The same isn't true for men they are at danger from strangers. However society doesn't constantly tell men and boys not to walk home alone.
I didn't see any newspaper reports of a local woman who was murdered by her ex, her child was murdered too. Her ex had been in prison for attacking her before.
Yet if someone whom she hardly knew or didn't know had broken into her home and killed her Im guessing, it would have been all over the media.

Gonegonegone · 08/08/2017 19:05

The implication often is that the only 'real' rape is stranger rape and that all of us raped by a trusted person weren't really violated in the same way.

Marital rape was legal until relatively recently and clearly many people are still confused about what constitutes rape judging by many threads on here asking if an assault was really an assault or similar.

Datun as a teen girl I fantasised about my male teachers, so I'm sure teenage boys do fantasise about their female ones (or male) but that doesn't mean they want anything to happen in real life. I would have been horrified if my teacher ever came onto me despite crushing on him for years, many teens fantasise without ever wanting anything to happen in reality.

Datun · 08/08/2017 19:12

The reason why there is such a divide sometimes in feminism is because words like patriarchy conjure up some kind of secret conspiracy. Whereas the word chauvinism, which is essentially the same, not so much.

Patriarchy, oppression, liberation, as concepts are entirely understandable in the context of the history of women's rights and the academic study attached to them.

But they fire people up. Whereas words like chauvinism, sexism, freedom from stereotypical gender roles, sounds much more accessible. But they essentially mean exactly the same.

The concept of what is sometimes called Liberal Feminism tends to mean that women's choices are valid purely because they are a choice. Something has been denied women for centuries. The freedom to be able to make your own decisions, on your own terms.

The slight disconnect arises when you apply radical/4th wave feminism. But only because they put the framework of 'choices' into an historical context.

So the disagreement might arise over, say prostitution.

Liberal feminists will see it is a woman's choice to do what she wants with her body and that she has full body autonomy to make her own decisions.

Radical feminism will see as a commodification of women, historically something that disadvantaged women, and of only real benefit to the customers (men).
The fact that women make money from it, is criticised, not because they are earning a salary from selling their bodies, but that there should be other options available to women so they don't have to resort to it. That it is controlled by, driven by and of benefit to men, not women.

There often then follows a bit of a bunfight about people who know high class/happy hookers who love their jobs, and other people saying how can you love a job where you have a panic button in the room and have to have sex with a stream of grubby strangers.

So most of the disagreements come about because making a choice is deemed feminist and necessary, but some choices have knock on effects. But sometimes only if you see it in a wider context and with an historical perspective.

It really goes down the drain when people talk about stay at home mums.

The truth is, we live in a, and I'm going to say it, patriarchal society.

Some people actively don't want to swim upstream, others do as best they can and don't always succeed, and many don't notice that the stream is flowing in the wrong direction.

But whether you agree with it or not, feminism will, has, and continues to open up the world for women. To protect women's rights to biological autonomy, to give them as much chance as they can to succeed in a world that is often stacked against them. To insist that unpaid work like raising children and house work is valued more than it is. Because it's ludicrous to that half the population do one of the most important jobs mankind has been given, but it's so undervalued. Whilst the other half to get to make all the decisions about the world is run. Including those that directly affect the first half.

Feminism is for women, about women and by women.

There is nothing weak about conceding points, acknowledging difficulties and appreciating situations.

And the ironic thing is men will benefit from feminism every bit as much as women.

Datun · 08/08/2017 19:20

Gonegonegone

I completely agree. When I was 15 we had builders at our school and all the girls were vying with each other to phwoar.

If that are translated into me actually being required to have sex with one of them, it would have been a nightmare.

Datun · 08/08/2017 19:20

*had, not are

CherriesInTheSnow · 08/08/2017 19:29

And the ironic thing is men will benefit from feminism every bit as much as women.

Great post Datun, and I cant agree more with the above.

DamnDeDoubtanceIsSpartacus · 08/08/2017 19:55

I've certainly seen an increase in victim blaming. There is thread running about the woman pushed in front of the bus and the first answering post states that she had tried to trip him up, she hadn't. It is very clear footage of a man running past a man and towards a woman and pushing her under the bus but still people are trying to make excuses for his action, it's quite breathtaking really.

IdoHaveAName · 08/08/2017 19:59

Have skimmed this thread since I last posted. Fuck! Mens' issues? This is a rare little corner of the internet normally not invaded by men.
Men rape. They rape women.

If you haven't yet been raped, how does that make you feel?
If you haven't yet been raped, you're lucky.
I have been raped (stranger violent rape - he is now serving time in Wandsworth prison)
I like to come here because it's called MUMSNET.

Why does it always have to be about men? When men don't even count in the discussion?

CherryChasingDotMuncher · 08/08/2017 20:11

IDo I agree, it wasn't why I started the thread but I do get sick of trying to talk about women's issues without someone piping up "men get assaulted too", usually followed by a "those statistics are wrong". They don't actually go off and create a separate discussion thread, they're not interested in actually raising awareness of men's issues, they simply want to silence us and deny facts about male violence. I'm not saying men don't have their own separate issues, but why do we have to talk about them in relation to women's issues? Like I said before it'd be like silencing black lives matters campaigners with "but white people are victims too". Happens every time and I get sick of it.

OP posts:
DamnDeDoubtanceIsSpartacus · 08/08/2017 20:13

Do you think people hound the RSPCA because they aren't focusing on fracking?

IdoHaveAName · 08/08/2017 20:28

It's because MNHQ have DoveMen or Gillette potentially advertising on here. Or similar.
It used to be a woman's place. It's not any more. Too commercial.

Anyway.
The last word I have on the issue is that A WOMAN CAN'T EVEN PISS IN PEACE.

Scaredycat3000 · 08/08/2017 21:15

Well I was coming on here to say YANBU MN is being ruined by victim blaming. I could really have done with some MN style help this year, I had some serious MIL issues. But if I had posted I would have ripped to shreds, as happens with all IL threads, it would have made matters much worse, my MH gave up as it was. There are posters that trawl the boards looking for certain subjects just to scream at victims, you see the same names again and again. And parking neighbour one, got quite unpleasant briefly, it affected the OP unnecessarily. It is all over most threads where the OP is a victim on any level. It's really turning me off MN, I'm finding new places, one where I can feel safe, which is not here anymore. There is one thing offering advise, but if you clearly don't understand the situation, why post anything, especially blaming the OP?
You have reminded me of a BF over 20 years ago, he lost his virginity to his GF when she raped him, he was 5foot1, his GF was on top, they had been messing about, he didn't want to have penetrative sex but couldn't move. I don't find that hard to accept or understand.
As for that story something stinks, but remember watching a programme about Abi Titmuss a few years after everything had calmed down. In it said she never wanted to be a in the public eye as she was. The newspaper had the first story, they phoned her up and said we're printing this story and your life will never be the same, talk to us, we will pay you and be sympathetic, don't talk to us and we will destroy you. She talked, she couldn't return to her job, or any normal job, she was stuck in a cycle of glamour shots that also meant she couldn't return to normal. She made a very good job out of a very bad situation. I'm not going to pass judgement on the current story, we clearly don't have enough information.

CannucktheCrow · 08/08/2017 21:19

Canadian courts have actually ruled on the question of whether lying about the contraceptive pill equates to a sexual assault (the Supreme Court of Canada having previously found that 'stealthing' was a sexual assault).

They agreed with Cherry. The difference between the two being that the man, in the case of the woman lying about contraception, was not exposed to the risk of serious bodily harm (precisely Cherry's argument).

thewalrus.ca/is-it-illegal-to-lie-about-using-contraception/

Bahhhhhumbug · 08/08/2017 21:32

I agree with Morris l was accused of being a victim blamed, abuser apologist or whatever when as an ex long term victim of DV l said that l watched a video wishing and willing the woman to just get out and run like hell from the imminent danger and then afterwards from a place of safety take the man to task/ divorce him/ leave him/ call the police/ whatever. Being someone who had regularly been in that awful situation where you could be seriously hurt or even worse when your partner had lost it that was my knee jerk reaction watching it and yes l was probably projecting what l always did or tried to do onto the victim. But no apparently l was victim blaming. I too stick to parking wars etc now on here usually.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.