To say that the UK is not a Rape Culture?

[PatriarchyPersonified]

So I have had an argument with a lady I work with today that has ended with her calling me the "Patriarchy Personified", hence the name.

She claimed that the UK was a Rape Culture. I completely disagree and it feels like this is more creeping 'third wave' bullshit.

If you look at the definition of Rape Culture which is:

a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.

Then it's clear that she is wrong. I don't disagree that there are elements of UK society that I would argue probably are characterised in this way, but you can not describe the whole UK in those terms.

She was extremely unhappy to be challenged, I work with her on a weekly basis and I've got a feeling I'm not going to have heard the last of this!

I lost interested in this thread as soon as I read “I am a man by the way”. It was obvious at that point that none of us were going to get anywhere.

However, I’ve returned out of idle curiosity and MrsTerryPratchett made me laugh with this:
“If you grow as a person as a result of this I'm a tiny unicorn named Fred.”

Thank God for intelligent women, eh. I’m sure we outnumber idiot men in real life as well as on Mumsnet.

(Also, I admire the OP’s colleague’s professionalism for calling him nothing worse than “patriarchy personified”. Frankly, that was a compliment.)

Go fuck yourself...repeatedly...with a chair!

How's that for personal attacks?

Your analogy about parrots and pirates is ludicrous. A better comparison would be pirate flags and pirates. Sexism and physical assault are flags for rape culture. If you see the former, you can be pretty fucking sure the latter is nearby.

“Really good discussion”

OP thinks he is a facilitator and he can call time on his little debate, but he is a bog standard banal opiner if unoriginal thoughts. This is not an interesting discussion, it is playing with women’s deepest darkest experiences

He just won't acknowledge fact that all women have been affected by rape and sexual assault. It's not an academic discussion fgs! Women who haven't suffered sexual assault invariably know someone who has been, hence the anger.

I pity his colleague, I doubt he's apologised to her.

The fact that you consider rape and sexual assault to be a topic for 'debate' rather than the real, lived experiences of some people, suggests you feel so removed from the threat of it that you are simply insensitive to rape culture.

He's breathtakingly obtuse, bless him. I have learned something new- I hadn't heard of 'sealion', which op has brilliantly demonstrated here.

It's quite funny how badly he missed the point, if you can get past the dangers he refuses to recognise.

Yeah I don’t think many women on this thread have learnt anything. Men like the OP and his opinions are ten-a-penny, banal, bog-standard. You hear this shit all the time, it’s not new

a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.

Yup, that sounds like the UK to me.

I think it was very obvious from early on there was and never will be anything said by anyone that he would accept. This was never about discussion or ‘growing’, just, ‘I believe something and I’m going to argue my point whatever anyone says.’

Man: I don’t think rape culture exists in the UK.

Women: It absolutely does as we live it, breathe it and experience it everyday as part of our very existence.

Man: You are all wrong because the ONS statistics on one of the most undereported crimes says so. 😂

Or even better, Man: The risks of women being raped are very very low’

Women: No, actually more than half of women we know have been raped but very few women we know have ever reported it. It’s endemic.

Man: No. Because statistics.

This thread goes very well with the mansplaining thread and the near miss thread.

HTH

For those who are interested I spoke to the lady I had the initial disagreement with and we resolved things amicably today

Course you did....

And i agree with her and street, and many others on the thread

Major, I've found the mansplaining thread, what is the near miss thread?

It hasn't been a really good discussion at all. It's been a man repeatedly telling women that they are wrong in the face of overwhelming evidence.

And i missed this...definitely this

Youre a patronising twonk

I love how he's tried to take the last refuge of the sexist, by characterising posters' arguments as emotional. Whereas in fact posters have shown much patience in calmly and rationally explaining the precise extent to which he is talking out of his behind.

Meanwhile he is emotionally wedded to his firm denial that rape is any kind of problem.

One thing I would say response to this:

Some of the stuff has been pretty extreme in terms of personal abuse

is are you having a laugh. I've been threatened with rape and gang rape online, with being 'slit open from my gash to my face', I've been called a whore, a slut, slag, cunt. This is because we live in a rape culture.

Good morning sea lion
Tell me about when you were raped. How did it feel?
I will be back later.
Carry on.

I agree with you op

I haven't read the whole thread but attacks on women are never classified as "hate crimes" and I wonder why that is. If demeaning women verbally and grabbing their bodies, let alone rape was hate crime the numbers would be massive.

Ignorant and arrogant. Regular as clockwork. Every two weeks. OP you are just the latest in a long line of foolish men asking exactly the same on here.

Like that twitter exchange when a man earnestly asked why all the women had waited so long to report sexual harassment. And the answer was because we’re not believed. And he quite genuinely said I’m sorry I find that difficult to believe.

I was coming to that, Penn, once he'd got rid of the capital letters. Baby steps.........

Pengggwn
Yeah I pointed that out on about page 2. I think pretty much everyone ignored it including the OP of course.

Don't agree about sub-culture at all - essentially a group within a group whose beliefs/ideology is at variance with mainstream culture. Rape culture is mainstream, it's pervasive, it's everywhere. You can't really get away from it.