feminism shouldn't just be about rape

[tvmum1976]

controversial topic. I've written a blog about it and wonder what people think?

GB, Reclaim the Night comes up as the fifth result even if you just google feminist groups uk, though.

'I think it's hard to talk from a position of strength when you don't have one tbh'

Exactly. And pretending women do have one is just another way to keep us quiet.

Blogging and advertising your blog without doing even the most cursory amount of research.

1/10

Dittany: what research do you think I should have done that I haven't?

Garlic: Thanks for the support!

I think blogging research is a lot about defining your message/sphere of interest against what else is out there.

So,if I had a 'feminist' blog, I think I'd start out by googling other feminist groups/blogs and seeing what their interests and viewpoints were. It wouldn't make sense to blog without knowing what other people were talking about - especially big, high-profile things like Reclaim the Night. Could you do that?

Then you'd want to know the basic arguments for and against what you're blogging about from various feminist/non-feminist viewpoints, again so you could locate yourself with regard to them.

I am not a well-educated person in terms of feminism (!). I mean, really I'm not. But some arguments are quite simple and come up frequently - like the rape being a gendered crime. I was chuffed you agreed with me on that one, but - sorry if this sounds harsh - I was also shocked you hadn't seen it before/worked it out from first principles. You don't necessarily need to read loads of books to work this stuff out. I bet it helps but I wouldn't really know. You do need to listen to people and see which arguments come up again and again, I think. Unless your blog is very, very obviously marketed as 'this is about me learning to be a feminist', I think these things would be necessary as research.

Hope that makes sense.

Hi LRD,
thanks for replying. If you read the blog, you will see that obviously I did know about both reclaim the night and the london feminist network at the time of writing (and had been aware of RTN for many years)- my point in the blog was that i had heard about LFN by name for the first time through Vanessa Engle's documentary a year ago. The point I was making by saying that, was that I thought that their message wasn't punching through strongly enough to the mainstream, except regarding their work on the subject of rape.

I am also of course aware of the feminist position on rape as a)a gendered crime and b)a hate crime (I have done an MA in a related subject...). But being aware is not the same as agreeing. However, I thought your point, that women don't rape, was an excellent one- I had always seen this argument in terms of who the victims of rape were, rather than the perpetrators, so I found your argument convincing, was glad to have this forum to discuss it and hear your views. I am still not fully convinced about the hate crime argument, despite having read quite a bit on the subject, which is why I asked a pp to talk me through their rationale for believing this. I don't know if you agree, but I often find that I can find an argument unconvincing when I read about it, but then hearing it argued by a person who holds the belief strongly and gives reasons or examples can convince me. Which is why I wanted to hear from a pp why she was so convinced that rape is a systematic hate crime.

For the record, I also think it is a shame that although (I assume) we are all in agreement that the media does not cover feminist issues enough, or take them seriously enough, but yet, here I am, a journalist, writing about feminist issues, making the effort to discuss my ideas with feminist activists here and still coming in for quite so much criticism for doing so.

Hi Prince: fair point. I am very happy to have my ideas challenged and think this is a good and interesting forum. I was more objecting to the various comments that I hadn't done my research, which really isn't true.
And for the record, I believe that raising awareness of the issue of rape is, of course, valuable. I was concerned that it seems taht this has become the dominant issue of the feminist movement- for eg, over half the threads on this forum are about rape in some form.

Yes, I agree PH - tv I do know it feels quite stressful when everyone is talking to you about things you've said, and it gets hectic. But it is the ideas, not you.

I take your point about awareness of ideas not being the same as agreement - it's just that it does seem odd to me that you wouldn't have heard of such a simple argument. As far as I've seen, that's how it's always framed, rape being a gendered crime because women cannot rape. But of course, it may be I'm the one who's had an odd experience in having seen this everywhere, I don't know.

I totally agree with you it's great to talk things over and get a discussion going. I think it's very tricky with rape though.

Imagine if we heard a news report that i, one in four men were victims of a violent crime, only 1 in 20 perpetrators were convinced, while many of the victims were told it was their fault by the media, and told by lawyers that their case would be too hard to prove because men tend to lie about a tenuously-related and legal activity, and this will make juries assume they really welcomed the violent crime.

I think the world would go beserk! No-one would dare to say 'are we talking too much about this' or 'do we focus on this crime too much'. It's only when it's women, that the issue can be sidelined.

'For the record, I also think it is a shame that although (I assume) we are all in agreement that the media does not cover feminist issues enough, or take them seriously enough, but yet, here I am, a journalist, writing about feminist issues, making the effort to discuss my ideas with feminist activists here and still coming in for quite so much criticism for doing so.'

oh ffs. I think it is a shame that although (I assume) we are all in agreement that the media does not cover feminist issues enough, or take them seriously enough, here you are as a feminist writing a blog post full of ill-informed and bitchy slagging off of an active and productive feminist organisation.

If you write bitchy things about feminists you will come in for criticism from other feminists for doing so and if you show ignorance of basic points about the gendered nature of rape as a hate crime you will get people saying you don't seem to know very much.

you cannot write stuff of dubious quality (and I think the naivety with which your blog post approached the documentary does count as dubious quality) with which large numbers of people disagree and expect us to be all grateful to you for merely deigning as a mighty journalist to mention feminism. It doesn't work like that.

you cannot write stuff of dubious quality (and I think the naivety with which your blog post approached the documentary does count as dubious quality) with which large numbers of people disagree and expect us to be all grateful to you for merely deigning as a mighty journalist to mention feminism. It doesn't work like that.

now THAT is bitchy!

yes, it is, I've given up on being polite to you. I'm leaving the thread I think, good luck with the blog.

Can I just ask, when you say you're a journalist, is that separate from the blog?

hi LRD, yes, that is my day job. it is very hard to get stuff of a feminist bent commissioned, so i started the blog to write about those kinds of things amongst others. i posted here to a)try and build a readership, partly as a way of showing that people are interested in these topics and b)to discuss the ideas. i am very sorry if that came across as offensive to anyone. it certainly wasn't meant to be.

I see. Thanks for apologizing.

I'm possibly wrong here, but reading your blog I am confused as to why what you're writing would be difficult to 'get commissioned'. It looks very similar to the kind of 'feminist-lite' critiques of current news stories that appear in most of the papers to me, I'm afraid.

Sorry, to clarify - I'm not in the least suggesting you didn't have a struggle when you tried to get these articles published in the mainstream press, but what I'm saying is, it's not immediately obvious that was because their content was 'too feminist'.

Hi LRD- not these articles specifically- it's not that i pitched all these particular ideas and had them turned down, just that in general when I have tried to get editors interested in feminist topics they have not been keen. Recent eg, I was working on development for a tv project about injustices in modern britain, and suggested female/male inequality as a huge topic- but was turned down point blank!
Prolesworth: social and political science.

What would you want to see written about on a blog of this type?

TVmum, if you're really interested in this stuff, can I offer you some friendly advice to hang around and read stuff, and then you can get a feel for what is going on in contemporary feminism and this could give you ideas for your blog? I responded briefly, to a couple of your points. However only briefly as I'm not going to expend effort on something where I'm not sure quite where it is headed. But I can post stacks when it's part of a discussion that feels like it's developing, ideas are evolving, people are building on what each other have said, critiquing one another etc. To me this thread does not feel like it's on equal terms, it feels like an interview - I'm a researcher, and when I interview people I don't give much back so I don't steer it. But that isn't the best way to get all types of info. Imo you'll get more from people if you engage more.

PS - I just counted up the threads on the first page of the feminist boards. 40 were not about rape, 9 were possibly about rape. (Anything I didn't know off the top of my head or from the name I gave to the rape count, so that will in all likelihood be over) That's about just shy of 20%, nothing like the over half you mention.

tv - personally, if a blog is (like yours) a place for sharing opinions that aren't groundbreaking, I'd like to see more about individual experience, but that is just my preference. I think that although blogs are nice, forums are better for feminism because it so important for people to discuss and not feel there's one 'Feminist Viewpoint' being put forward.

Alternatively, if you were very knowledgeable about a specific area - especially law - that would be a great subject for a feminist blog. It'd be wonderful to have more good, carefully explained, solid information out there.