Fucking idiots

[LadyOfTheManor]

I am extremely pissed off by the attitudes on this thread;

Here

Some women need a good clout around the head.

And I think you'll find LOTM that I never once said any woman should ever have to take precautions against or accept an ounce of blame for the decisions of an attacker.

My position all along was that it wasn't about gender. That I know for a fact that exactly the same line would be delivered to a lone male.

I do not deny patriarchy. I do not deny a long history of fighting against it and a distance yet to go. You don't know me at all, that much is clear. I suspect we'd meet on another thread another day and emphatically agree.

I never, ever, ever once suggested that any woman is to blame for the decision a rapist takes or that she is duty bound in any way, shape or form to change her behaviour or temper her decisions through any framework of patriarchy whatsoever. I suggested that a police officer approaching a person on a deserted road may be no more, no less that the remit of the job be you a man or a woman.

I didn't say that you did. Now can you please make it clear that I didn't say such things about your dh, who in all fairness isn't here and therefore I don't particularly care for him.

You said on the thread I had an 'apologist' attitude which I categorically do not. You have entitled this thread 'fucking idiots'. I asked you directly on here if you meant me in that grouping. You answered 'SOH I referred to idiots (pl) not idiot (singular)'. That is neither denial nor affirmation.

So if it isn't confirmation there's no evidence to say I said anything.

I said you had an apologetic attitude, I didn't say toward RAPE or your dh (whose name has to keep coming into this).

So there was no confirmation, nothing direct and nothing said to you.

Right I have to dash.

LOTM - and I literally cannot believe I am about to say what I am saying: I note that you are very young, and I infer from your ambition to 'stay home and have babies' that your life experience is rather limited. And I am therefore going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that once you are a little older, have perhaps more experience of the world and others, and are better able to temper your arguments and your reasoning, you will be more useful to the debate.

I willingly own up to my ignorance and lack of intelligence on the subject: you may do well do to similar. We all have a great deal to learn, and we would all benefit from not only relying on others to challenge or inform what we have said, but to challenge it ourselves.

At present, however, I am not sure you are worth corresponding with, and Show you may find it better suits your blood pressure to do the same.

You seem pretty sure that the only reason a police officer would say 'be careful' is because it's a woman to whom he is talking (you say it wouldn't happen to a man, despite my knowledge and others' that it does) and it's part of a larger patriarchal issue with placing culpability at the door of women?

If you don't include all police officers in that, then feel free to deny it. At the same time you have to admit that the police officer in the op of the other thread might not have meant what you assert. Either it only happened because of misogyny and this is only ever the case (my dh is guilty by association) or it's not that simple and the situation in the thread we're discussing isn't necessarily representative of the very real problem that we probably should be focussing on.

Oh bloofer, how patronising of you. Yes I have a child and am pregnant with the next while killing myself doing my phd on the side.

I clearly have no ambition.

Apologetic attitude about what then?

And I do know that it's not about me or dh but when you live this life, when you know a side of the police that is not theoretical or general then of course my views are tempered though that. Thank goodness.

SOH, my brother and BIL are police officers I am aware of how it works. I really must go now I shall be back tomorrow some point.

I prefer matronising myself... Meh. You may wish to work on your ability to form and defend a coherent argument before submitting your thesis.

Bloofer, fancy coming to dh's next work function? When I find myself saying things during a lighthearted discussion and I can hear that tone in my voice that means I'm descending into something serious when everybody else is just trying to enjoy a canapé, I could do with an ally to just nod and understand. I hear the other wives/husbands say 'ah it's only a job' and sometimes I think 'well, no, not really is it?'

computermouse, it means a rousing chorus of 'fuck you, I won't do what you tell me'. I saw somebody play that on a ukelele once.

Har har, count me in! I do sometimes wonder what other policewives think of all this. Many of my DH's colleagues are far too young and wet behind the ears to have wives.

and no, it is most emphatically not only a job! Mine is only a PC as he has no ambition but it is a whole mode of being. And, actually, he is a tireder sadder man because of it .

I think those women who died would find your attitude of entitlement to do as she pleases shameful.

No one is entitled to do as they please. No one is entitled to to be disrespectful. And if you don't consider starting a thread calling an anonymous number of women "fucking idiots" then you should perhaps acquaint yourself with the notion of common decency and general politeness.

You've made yourself look like a right idiot from the thread title and OP alone. So whatever you have to say about the subject is lost before you've started. Shame that.

Only a PC. No such thing. I'm married to only a pc too. His colleagues are an interesting mix of young, free and single and shacked up with other officers (sometimes after marriage breakdowns). Not convenience I now know, but the sure certainty that at least they 'get it'. They were taught about this during their training. The gravitation to those that understand you and the struggles of maintaining relationships outside of that where there is always the potential for conflict. It's not easy at all.

towards those even.

[tired]

"Any woman who thinks a woman should have to take precautions to prevent herself getting attacked implies that she is to blame should the precautions not have been taken and she is attacked. Yes, I think you are stupid if you think otherwise". LOTM

I'm not quite sure I understand this and I didn't on the other thread either. Do you mean in this real world or an ideal world?

Of course a woman should never have to take precautions to avoid being attacked, the attacker shouldn't be doing the attacking. But as I have no sway over any potential attackers and their decisions to attack, then surely I would take precautions to stay out of their way?

I am (currently) in no danger of any abuse in my home so therefore the only abuse I need to fear is from a stranger. If most stranger muggings/rapes happen at night in lonely places then I would choose not to walk there because I don't want to be attacked (however slim the chance). Obviously it should be the case that there are no attackers, but as there are...

I have a feeling Im missing the point, but I cant work it out. Genuinely and new to this although been lurking for a while.

Dittany a) that's not entirely what it has turned into, and b) it stemmed from a perfectly reasonable development of thought; ie, that some of us struggle between the desire to understand and pursue a cause, and the demands of the empirical evidence presented by one's life experience. The two things are often not compatible, and Show and I have very similar experiences in that regard.

Hope that explains it satisfactorily.

"The more sanctimonious posts about this thread being inexcusable, shameful or whatever and that you should be apologetic for ever more LOTM the more I think maybe you did the right thing or at least not totally the wrong thing."

What?! Are you saying that the more a thread is challenged and the more offence it causes, the more serious and more worthy of applause it is? And thus that one's standpoint or opinion is of no intrinsic value, but that it should be judged largely on the reactions to it?!

What an absolutely extraordinary thing to say! I'm going to have to think about this one...

When there is no room in the other thread for the police officer in question to be acting according to anything other than patriarchal moulding.

I am allowed to challenge sweeping statements about how a pc would never say the same thing to a man, that it was only ever done because it was a woman, that it means xyz because of these assumptions.

And I suspect I speak for bloofer too when I say we're very used to having these generalisations and accusations levelled at these 'men we love' by token of the uniform they wear. And it's impossible not respond personally to that.

Indeed you do speak for me, Show: and it is endless, tiring, sad, and ultimately rather dull.

it is also why I so passionately espouse and return to the need to shape one's ideology by life experience.