Depressing

[kittycat37]

This is probably totally not the done MN thing but please, get over to this thread and put some sense onto it. Such a depressing read

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1115088-but-that-doesnt-stop-you-sorting-me-out-does-it

I know from lurking in the feminism section that loads of you are a million times more articulate than me.

Moondog has infuriated me beyond belief.

I can't do links but it about someone's husband basically trying to pressure them into a sex act they don't want.

It's really disturbing - friends of mine who regard themselves as assertive women talk like this about their relationships - one told me her husband pressurises her into sex everyday and if she doesn't go along with it he has massive epic sulks that wear her down. I tried to gently point out to her that that behaviour is abusive but she went on about it being to do with his 'physical needs'. It runs very deep, that sort of conditioning. My friend is honestly at the point where I think she's been brainwashed and actually cannot connect with what she wants any more. And men are made to feel that it's legitimate to behave like this by so much of the distorted cultural discourse out there - so in the case of my friend's husband I think it's as though he's rationalised his own behaviour as normal whilst in actual fact it's tantamount to rape.

It is heartening. But I think it's within long term relationships and attitudes to marriage that attitudes are still incredibly screwed up and distorted.

What I mean is that in the case of the former Israeli prime minister it was a relatively clear cut case, presumably, and 3 women came forward.

Yet within long term relationships, especially marriages, women themselves sometimes seem to be unclear about their own rights to determine what happens to their bodies: behaviour that would be seen as clearly abusive in other contexts becomes (at least partly) legitimised.

Given that it was only the 1970s that 'rape within marriage' was recognised as a possible crime, I guess that's not necessarily suprising.