Some men really hate women being single don't they?

[solidgoldbrass]

inspired by a couple of other threads including the separatism one. Have you ever noticed that if a man you don't like or know or fancy is trying to persuade you to date him or spend time with him or even just talk to him, the only really effective way to make him fuck off is to tell him that you are another man's property. Just saying No, leave me alone, no thanks, actually I am having a conversation with my female friend and am not interested in talking to you, never seems to work until you throw in My Boyfriend or My Husband.

" just because a man talks to you and thinks it OK, does not mean to say he feels entitled to rape you "

Ah what a simplistic reading of my post that is and how dull and predictable that simplistic reading is.

I am talking about the attitude of male entitlement. A man who believes that he has the right to talk to you whether you want him to talk to you or not, has an over-developed sense of entitlement.

"so what?" I suppose is your response.

My response is, that if we can get men to understand that they don't have the right to infringe on women's spaces in small matters, they are more likely to understand that they don't have the right to infringe on women's spaces in big matters.

The two are connected. Things connect together. People who deny that things are connected are generally incoherent and not very credible.

And you still haven't answered my question about whether men are entitled to do this to other men and whether other men are duty-bound to just put up with it.

Okay, so these are the issues, as I see them.

Women goes to a bar/club - which a woman is legally entitled to do, and should socially be entitled to do, without harassment (but apparently this is expecting too much).
Man comes and talks to woman. Woman politely says she's not interested. Her body language says she's not interested. Man takes this as a "challenge" and continues to talk at/to her despite the woman repeatedly telling him verbally, and using body language, that she's not interested. The only method that appears to work is to say that she is unavailable - that another man has laid his claim, so she's off the market so to speak.

These are the problems with this-

1. surely every person in a free democracy has the right to go where they please, without fear of harassment? Sexual or otherwise? Examples have been given not just in clubs which tend to be more pick-up places, but pubs, in the street, in a youth hostel - areas which are not traditionally "meat markets".
2. Surely a woman's right to say no should be respected; it shouldn't be that she has to repeatedly say no, and get rude
3. There's something wrong that the only way a woman merits not being harassed is by saying that she's not single. So, it would appear that it is not good enough for a woman to be single and happy with it. This implies that no woman is happy, or no woman should be free from male harassment, unless she has a male paramour.

nobody's said it's as bad as rape or domestic violence - no, but there are similarities in society's view that somehow a woman has brought this on herself; that her (the victim's) behaviour should be questioned, not the perpetrator's. I've never heard of anyone asking what a murder victim wore before being killed, e.g. that by wearing a red jumper they "brought it on themselves", as is so often said in relation to victims of sexual attack.

And actually, someone does not need to perform a physical act in order for a crime to be permitted - the crime of assault is "the creation of the apprehension of immediate violence" (interpreted very widely).

Ok, so you automatically think of all men as dickheads, that's so open-minded of you. My point here is that feminism is supposed to be about equal rights for women, yes? Therefore, we encourage the view that says we have an open mind about someone until such time as they demonstrate their charatcer through what they say and do. However, what happens in reality is that many supposed feminists start from a position of "men are....".

No society hasn't. Society expects you to be polite to someone talking to you - and I completely support that. Very occasionally in life, someone is put in front of you who is a complete bore and we have to learn to deal with that; that's the same for everyone.

I don't think there is a difference between us unless you have read something into what I have said (experince on MN tells me you probably have...Lord knows what you think I mean). My demonstration is that we guard ourselves againt automatically thinking and acting in a racist way because we know it's wrong. In the thought process of the blog, however, this is not happening. I parody:

I know, you're a nice guy. You like to wear a hoody and a cap and you hang around street corners with your mates because there's nothing much else to do of an evening sometimes. But, x in x nice ladies like me get mugged by black men like you and so you have to remove your cap and avert your eyes when I walk past so I can feel comfortable. Thank you.

Herbex - I see you just cracked on with 'male entitlement...' and went for the rehearsed argument. Can you not leave the pages of your textbooks?

Do you understand the Schrodinger reference?

ADC Can you point me to the bit in this thread where someone has said that there aren't a few wankers around who will act in such an unacceptable way... or where they said that actually it was acceptable. Even Warmster hasn't said this as far as I can see (although they have tried to provide mitigation for it). Otherwise, I'm not sure I see what there is in you post that anyone would disagree with?

Ok, your first sentence makes me think you dont understand the 'Schroedinger's' bit of the blog title. Their is no automatic assumoption in the concept.

If you dont agree that society socialises women differently to men then we are not going to agree on very much. But I guess from your posting name (and, to be fair, other posts) that you like to see yourself as the lone truth teller, bravely posting against a world (hahahaha!) of militant feminists.

What do you fear will happen if men are required to act, well, a little more 'politely', by being made aware of their privilege? Or if women are encouraged not to override their instinctive reactions for fear of hurting a man's feelings, or of provoking a violent or humilating reaction?

jenny the point is that we are not calling all men rapists/ dickheads, only that we can?t be sure that they?re not rapist/ dickheads until they start to act like rapists/dickheads. I?m happy to have an open mind, but I won?t stop being wary.

Colour is not really the issue here, in my experience I am wary of any man I meet when I am on my own whether I?m in public or not. I don?t expect them to whip off their hats (I?d be more worried if they did) but neither will I lower my guard. It?s nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with past experience, which have all been white men may I add.

"Therefore, we encourage the view that says we have an open mind about someone until such time as they demonstrate their charatcer through what they say and do"

A man who refuses to acknowledge that a woman doesn't want his company, is demonstrating his character through what he is saying and doing.

He is saying very clearly, that he thinks he has the right to over-ride a woman's wishes.

I'd treat him with some caution.

Er, jenny, no-one has said that they think all men are dickheads. Posters have given examples of specific dickhead men and located their dickheaded behaviour in a culture of entitlement. Several other posters have given examples of non-dickhead men, and stated how happy they are to engage with them. But, y'know, don't let that stop you...

HerBex - so true! As they say on the Relationships board 'When a man tells you what he's like, listen!'.

Charitygirl - why are you changing the subject?

I am talking about the dialogue in the blog. You now want to expand that away from the actual tone of what was written.

I am talking about how some of the assumptions made by MN posters (take Herbex for another example in the posts above) are no different from the assumptions made by male sexists or racists or whomever. You want to talk about how society treats men and women differently (of course it does, they are different!).

You then add in a couple more assumptions - male privilige etc - a bit of rhetoric about me personally (brave loner haha) and those who disagree with the 'cause' ("fear") and we have classic avoidance.

Here's my question then, so we can be clear. If you sit around all day talking about male entitlement, male privilige, the patriarchy etc etc etc are you not building a negative presumption of all men (all 3bn of them) that then colours the way you deal with everyday scenarios. Is this not more or less the same thing that feminism should be/is fighting against?

If you start talking about the historical subjugation of women then you have missed the point and I'll explain it again.

Ha this is interesting, having some poster hostile to feminism talking about my assumptions about all men.

What assumptions then Jenny and where is your proof that I have assumptions about all men?

It is always so funny the way sexist men assume you are talking about ALL men when you refer to sexist behaviour.

Just because you might be a sexist tosser, doesn't mean all men are.

I think feminist conscious raising is an incredibly useful thing actually. Taking your feminist consciousness into your daily interactions, helps you not to take things personally. That man isn't just a knob, he's a victim of his mistaken patriarchal thinking. It helps you feel more kindly to the knobs you come across.

But Herbex, you're saying male entitlement as if that's part and parcel of being a man. No one is disputing that someone who acts like a dickhead is a dickhead. I'm saying wait until they act like a dickhead - with your head full of male entitlement, you are prejudiced against the approaching man before he's opened his mouth. Just as KateHarding is in the blog.

Yes, thank you VG, don't let me stop you from just sticking a quick boot in will you? If you can't understand the nuance I'm getting at, it's not my problem. 'We can't be sure he's not a dickhead....' = 'We can't be sure he's not a rapist' = equals 'we can't be sure that black guy with the hoody isn't going to mug me...' It's all the same prejudicial assumptions...

With respect jenny this topic isn't about that blog, it was simply a link used to expand on a point. That particular blog has been discuss on several topics since I started lurking on this board and probably several times before. This topic is about men who don't respect your space, they are proven dickheads by their behaviour.

Who is talking about all men? You might want to read the thread, there's a particular word that crops up a lot, you may have heard of it, here's a dictionary definition to aid you if you haven't

"some [suhm; unstressed suhm] adjective

1. being an undetermined or unspecified one: Some person may object.
2. of a certain unspecified number, amount, degree, etc.: to some extent."

HTH

Of course I believe that the behaviour of 'men as a group' which I observe colours the way I deal with everyday scenarios with men. The onus is not on me to 'wipe the slate clean', when ongoing (not historical) outrages occur every day.

But I'm sure I've seen you post that you don't believe in the concept of 'men as a group' etc so, well, we're going to differ on that.

PS I absolutely don't believe that the different ways society treates men and women are based (entirely, or even very much) on biological sex differnces. What differences were you thinking of?

Er, no that's not what I'm sayinga t all Jenny and if you read my posts properly you'd know that.

I'm saying that entitlement shouldn't be part and parcel of being a man and doesn't need to be part and parcel of being a man. That therefore, when a man is told that a woman doesn't want him to talk to her, it's Good Practice and Non-Entitled of him to respect that.

And lots of men do. Only men who don't, vociferously argue that there's no problem with men imposing their company on women who don't want it. Sensible men think men who do that, are nobs. (Or is it knobs? I never know.)

Just as I think more kindly of you Herbex knowing that you are just a victim of thirty years of unchallenged feminist ideology. That is not to say that feminism is wrong (because I believe very strongly in equal rights for all people, 50% of whom happen to be women), that is to say that it is very difficult to be intellectually rigorous about such political issues and, as a consequence, a whole lot of dubious doctrine is accepted as fact along with all the perfectly valid stuff. Unfortunately, the only people to challenge much of this is those men who really are sexist. Consequently, people come to believe (and who can blame them?) that those who challange feminism are sexist men or naive/brainwashed women (an assumption I think you just made actually).

If you want a comparable assumption, look at how the issue of immigration gets brushed under the carpet. The only people who speak out about the changing face of british culture are thick-as-two-short-plank bigots and so the issue is not debated rigorously enough by politicians for fear of being thought racist.

"I'm saying that entitlement shouldn't be part and parcel of being a man and doesn't need to be part and parcel of being a man. That therefore, when a man is told that a woman doesn't want him to talk to her, it's Good Practice and Non-Entitled of him to respect that." I agree with this, but, no, that isn't what you said first time around at all.

The difference is to what extent you think that sense of entitlement exists.

So charitygirl when you meet a man, you have a list of assumptions in your mind as to what sort of person he is. The behaviour of other men (agreed, plenty of outrage) colours your perception of how this man will behave.

You think this is perfectly acceptable, I think it is no different whatsoever from any other sort of prejudice and that feminism should be against it.

'30 years of unchallenged feminist ideology'

rolls on floor clutching sides

I was reiterating the argument.

Wamster has implied in her posts that:

• Women should expect to be harassed/hit on in nightclubs, as these are "meat markets". If you don't like it don't go. In fact, she even said that the "delicate flowers" on this thread should go live in a nunnery
• that women shouldn't complain about being harassed. They should complain if it leads to sexual or physical violence, or any other sort of crime, but otherwise just suck it up and not complain in case the man is lonely, or is severely socially inadequate.