TrophyEyes
People's experiences colour how they think. It depends entirely on the angle you come at things from. In answer to what you said, I'll post my personal POV in an attempt to try and explain the angle I come from.
How do you think victim blaming helps women's rights?
I explained about how I felt about victim blaming as a tag. I find it unconstructive at times. If there are common patterns, they need to be looked at and explored without blame placed anywhere as controversial as that may be. I do feel that blame all round in certain situations doesn't necessarily resolve things. I think there is a certain element to DV where abusers are themselves victims or have been victims. If the focus is on pinning blame rather than taking a wider social responsibility and finding out why something is happening and continues to happen, you have lost sight of what the real issue is.
I've mentioned before about how the IRA bombing my town in the early nineties has had a profound effect on my life. My 'hero' as such is a guy called Colin Parry, for his work in bridging communities between the UK and NI. Instead of looking at the blame for who was responsible for his son's murder, which would be so understandable, he looked at the problems underlying it all and how you broke the cycle.
Its made me try and look at other sides to things, even unpleasant ones. Because sometimes you have to, to make things better. Uncomfortable truths need to be heard.
How do you think minimising domestic abuse and rape helps women's rights?
Minimising domestic abuse doesn't help anyones rights as far as I am concerned. You can leave the women part out of it.
How do you think refocusing the lens on the smaller number of male victims helps women's rights?
Because the issue is about violence in society in general. The issue isn't just about women's rights to me. I stopped going to a certain town for a night out, because it has a reputation for violence, which to me seemed based on a certain amount of substance. The violence wasn't just male on male drunkenness but also women glassing other women. I think its part of a wider issue about how violence happens and why is acceptable in society. And where it originates from.
BasilFoulEggs, I think we are marginalised not just because of others but because of ourselves too, now. I think by clinging to the idea of the patriarchy we are often giving ourselves a good excuse not to succeed.
I look at the context of wider society in 2012, and there is a very wide disenchantment with the establishment and unfair distribution of power. Its shared by men and women. Social mobility has decreased for everyone in the last two decades, and thats massively important and shouldn't be ignored in the context of everything else. White working class men are turning to the BNP as 'job are going to immigrants' but there is evidence to suggest the problem also has been caused by stereotyping accompanied by a lack of traditional opportunities which has also effected work ethics and confidence, and it is creating a vicious cycle. How do you break that? I think it also has important lessons for how you approach any further erosion of male roles in society and how that might cause conflict, tension and resentment. Men shouldn't just be 'sucking it up'. There also needs to be a real effort to prove that hard work across the board reaps rewards. If the erosion of privilege isn't at the expense of those at the top, but only further down the chain and doesn't allow working class men and women to also be part of the advancement, you are saving up a whole bunch of new problems there. We have the foresight to see this is a potential problem so we should be doing things to reassure men, and to show that any changes to society have benefit to it as a whole. (And now I sound like a raving socialist which I am not!).
I do feel women are somewhat guilty of the same thing to a degree, with regard to blame. I think a lot of women don't feel able to achieve for whatever reason, and have a lack of self confidence which feeds the system. I do think its a hangover, which is distorting the problem and we have more opportunity than we realise and more doors are open to us than we perhaps think. The perception is very negative ad there is an underlying attitude that you are not the master of your own destiny. I think there is too much of a negative attitude that we can't achieve, which leads to less women trying in the first place, which is down to us, rather than the men around us.
I certainly did find it very interesting the range of reactions I got when deciding to go around the world alone. My male friends thought it was great. They were really supportive. My female friends questioned it or said they wouldn't do it. My plan was for westernised countries only, with exception of thailand which was my last stop (and I ended up missing it out in the end anyway). When I was travelling, the guys never batted an eyelid about me being a lone female, and they tended to travel alone. It was the girls who were in pairs and did everything together. I could understand the lack of support and fair questioning if I had been going somewhere more exotic, but it was very 'safe'.
I honestly think that self-confidence and the importance it has can't be underestimated. I wish I had a lot more of it.
gah.... essay... sorry.