Was anyone else outraged by the clerics comments on Question Time last night?

[mrsruffallo]

All the blame was focused on the victims involved in the recently reported grooming case. Apparently the way the girls were dressed and the fact they were out at night was the causen for them being repeatedly gang raped.
And what on earth were the comments about 'having sex for a packet of crisps'??
I am appalled.

Didn't see the prog - who was the cleric (which religion? Guessing CofE?) and who is odone (sorry not very good at this stuff).

I might watch it late but I'm not sure my blood pressure can take it!

Also wanted to say how disgusting that people come onto a thread about gang raping children to say... What? "Boohoo not all men are rapists" No of course they bloody aren't you idiot but the men we are talking about ARE RAPISTS OF CHILDREN and there are plenty more out there making life hell for children so can we talk about that HMMM? Or NOT should we all just shut the fuck up about adult fucking men who like to rape underage girls.

FFS some people are just idiots.

possibly had one whisky too many last night and was feeling a little defensive

as for derailing, i think we are all in agreement about the rapists, that means there is enevitably little so say about them and naturally the thread will evolve onto other issues around this case.

i objected to one comment, thats all, diddnt mean to 'make it all about me' but i had to keep banging on about it for the simple fact that i was being made to appear like i was blaming the victims. you all object to plenty that i say but you dont get called whinny.

i have just watched the programm again and it seemed to me that the preacher guy looked really upset like he was about to start crying, i think he chose he words badly but he shouldnt be pilloried for that.

Oh I feel so sorry for that cleric chairmanmeow, poor thing, starting to cry was he? Of course no one should expect a person in authority who is on tv to talk about a very sensitive case to choose his words carefully and actually think about what he was going to say in advance. I mean we all know grown men need to be protected from silly sexual abuse victims who try to make him feel bad. Those silly abuse victims should just accept people throwing around ill-though out and offensive comments and suck it up, ffs, what on earth do they have to cry about?

"he chose his words badly"

Yes, he did. He chose to use words that focused on victims. He could have chosen others that focused on the rapists, but he didn't. If he (or anyone else on the panel) wanted to widen the debate, they could have done so by speaking about male violence and particularly about that against women and girls. But he didn't. I wonder why. What will it take to get people other than feminists having that discussion?

cailian, that is just absurd, i tell you what, you find the most ill-informed sexist pig you can and ask him/her

"do you think those girls put themselves in harms way in order to make a vicar sad?".

Okkkaaaayyyy! That'll teach me to try and get some sleep.

Of course all men aren't rapists. I neither said that nor meant it. What a silly conclusion to reach. It is just a wilful and deliberate misinterpretation to say that I did.

Rape has been used systematically as a tool for the oppression of women for thousands of years. I would just like it to stop now. I don't think that is unreasonable nor too much to ask.

"The only way to stop rape is for men to stop raping"

thats what you said abigail. can you see how it sounds?

anyway glad to hear you dont think all men are rapists..

((Rape has been used systematically as a tool for the oppression of women for thousands of years))

do you mean in war zones ?

I can see why you interpreted it in the way you wanted to, yes. But it still isn't what I said.

However I am not engaging with you any more. I don't like your victim blaming (which you have now done on 3 separate threads).

i have not once blamed a victim, on any thread, that is simply how you have willfully misinterpreted me

I was being sarcastic chairmanmeow but you didn't seem to understand at all.

That was my problem with the show. I'm sure the vicar and the other speakers most certainly did have the best interests of the victims at heart but they are all looking in the wrong place for the answers.

They kept asking the question "what kind of culture makes girls so vulnerable to sexual predators?".

What they really should ask is "what kind of culture teaches men it's ok to do this?"

The "othering" these men practiced to justify their actions happens in every culture. It's that attitude that needs to be tackled. The idea that women who dress/act a certain way are somehow less worthy.

Over time I've come to see that there is a general attitude that some men are going to try to get sex whatever way they can, it's inevitable and we can't do anything about it. To an extent it's almost a joke - men manipulating women for sex or just using them for sex often features in comedies. When the idea that some men will get sex whatever way possible, including rape, is accepted as a given then the onus is put on women to "keep themselves safe." The extent to which this attitude is ingrained is shown in the way people compare rape to road accidents - as if it's just "one of those things," an inevitable part of everyday life.

Being raped is not comparable to being knocked down by a car, it's just not. Driving is a necessary and beneficial fact of modern life. It's dangerous and sometimes accidents happen but it's possible to limit those accidents through sensible behaviour. RAPE IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. A person goes out intending to rape someone, and it is not a sad fact of life that we have to put up with, it is unacceptable and frankly it's a shocking fact about our society that we have to actually point this out, even to women.

Cailin, it's ironic isn't it that feminism has a reputation for hating men? When really feminists are the only people fighting the "boys will be boys" mentality and the inevitability that men will resort to anything to get their leg over.

Chairman, like most words, phrases and sentences, "the only way to stop rape is for men to stop raping," can be interpreted in different ways, depending mostly on the listener's own attitudes and beliefs.

As a visibly white person, I could have chosen to take offence when Dianne Abbott sent the tweet, "''White people love playing 'divide & rule'," but I didn't. I understood from the context that she didn't mean all white people did this, but I recognise that some do (to deflect attention from their own racism, imho,) and that it benefits other white people who don't have to acknowledge their own white privilege if non-white people are just squabbling amongst themselves.

You chose to take offence to the statement about rape. You say you would prefer a re-phrasing to, "the only way to stop rape is for rapists to stop raping." But, what you're forgetting is that most men who rape don't see themselves as rapists. I'll bet the men convicted in Rochedale don't think they are "real" rapists, Ched Evans and his supporters don't believe he "really" raped. I'd wager few of the men who force women (or men, or children) to engage in sexual acts and aren't held accountable believe in a million years they are rapists. They think they are just "ordinary" men and there was some justification for what they did.

And THAT is why saying "rapists should stop raping," doesn't have the same impact. Even men who have raped can distance themselves from that sentence because they don't see themselves as rapists.

Also, other men who haven't or wouldn't rape can also exclude themselves from accountability. Maybe they have mates who have had sex with others without their consent, but they can still convince themselves that's not really rape. They can still discharge themselves from any responsibility as men for holding other men to account for raping-which-isn't-really-rape-if-you-convince-yourself-it-isn't.

It's putting your own discomfort and fear of being judged before the safety and welfare of those who are raped. It's refusing to own your privilege. And, because you enjoy male privilege, you know you CAN do that.

That is why folks here aren't exactly patting you on the head and saying, "oh, poor wee you" here Chairman.

I was watching "Big Bang Theory" yesterday (Leonard's surprise birthday) and at one point Penny named out her vulnerable friends to Howard and promised she would show him where they were (in the interests of "taking advantage" of them) in exchange for a favour. The fact that society considers it a joke for vulnerable women to be preyed upon by horny men goes some way towards explaining the horrendous attitudes some people have towards rape.

I saw that too Cailin and the fact that I was only instead of shows how common an attitude it is.

There are so many shows it happens in: Friends, Cougar Town, Happy Endings, How I Met Your Mother, to name a few, where a male character preys on vulnerable naive women and it is considered funny. The behavior is excused by portraying the discardable women as stupid. It's just another form of "othering".

What annoys me the most though is that these characters are always "rehabilitated". Their sexual past is never an impediment to them finding true love. But Monica sleeps with a bloke on the first night and the NBC president is having palpitations, and nearly refused to show it.... ridiculous

I didn't think that Abigail's post accused all men of being rapists at all.

It's not the most important aspect of this thread, and I suspect it's a tactic to avoid discussing moreimportant matters.

thank you for that kritiq i take your point, i'm sure most rapists dont consider themselves to be rapists

"white people love to play divide and rule" well, as a matter of fact i do find that offensive, divide and rule brings up images of things like the amrisar massacre and other crimes of empire, i'm not taking responsability for that.

another example ,( sorry dont mean to derail the thread, or avoid discussing more inportant matters , as i have said, we are all in agreement about the rapists so there is little to say about them)

a dutch sociologist recently said after a bunch of english foorball fans were playing havoc in holland " they are not civilised, it's just typical island mentality"

this is offensive not because the hooligans are civilised, it's because it hauls in a whole load of very nice civilised people who have nothing to do with it and tars them all with the same brush.

i dont think i know any men who would consider any form of non-consentual sex anything less than rape, but i take your point, there are some who wont see things this way.

The guy who raped me certainly didn't consider himself to be a rapist, and thought I was overreacting to what he did. In his mind, rape is what other people do.

But white people do play divide and rule. Not all white people, but white people on a whole. The backlash over Diane Abbott's tweet was a result of white people being asked to take a long, hard look at themselves and instead of accepting they enable, or even partake in, racism. Instead, they decide to try and silence her. Suddenly, she became the "racist". She wasn't. She made an observation; something that's usually more obvious to the oppressed than the oppressor. No one likes to think of themselves as the oppressor, or belonging to the "oppressive" group.

Just out of curiousity, how many black people are there in Parliament?

Anyway. Back on topic to accusing Abigail of saying all men are rapists... That's not what Abigail said at all. Asking men to stop raping encourages men to take an introspective look. "Have I raped someone?" Misogynists aside, I've yet to meet a man who has taken offence at the "men should stop raping" quote. I'll link to the document I'm reading in a moment. The stats we've seen regularly stated on MN suggests that 1 in 10 women has been raped in her lifetime. A survey of adults living in women found that 23% of women had been in a position where they'd been made to have sex when they didn't want to. This suggests that a large number of women are being raped (sex with someone who doesn't want it is rape) yet they aren't identifying it as such. This isn't going to be any different with men... There are going to be men who are raping, that don't "identify" what they're doing as rape. This is down to the male sense of entitlement; after all, women "owe" them sex if they do x, y or z.

As a further note, 1 in 5 respondents to the survey didn't know if it was rape if, in a committed relationship, a man makes his partner have sex they don't want. 1 in 10 didn't believe it was rape.

So, we need to keep saying "Men need to stop raping" because people aren't recognising rape as rape. "Men need to stop raping" actively requires the observer of the statement to consider what they're doing with regards to sex, and whether it is, in fact, rape. It is not a woman's responsibility to stop being raped. It's a man's responsibility to make sure what he does in regards to sex isn't, in fact, rape.

The report linked can be found here. Trigger warning for rape myths and victim blaming

Oh frothy, poor you.

With regards to the original question (Sorry, got completely sidetracked)

Outraged sounds a bit too mild for the reaction I felt. But it wasn't just him... Even Mary Beard's "I'd be teaching my daughters not to..." had me spitting feathers. No one, as pointed out by someone on Twitter, says "I'd be teaching my sons not to" or "I'd be teaching my sons to"... The onus always falls on the potential victim to take these magic steps that don't protect in most cases of rape. When did we get to the point we were making excuses for men raping underage girls? :(

dammit, I've done it again - posted before I meant to - don't you see that 'white people play divide and rule' is in itself a divide and rule tactic designed to emphasise rivalry in order for diane to capture black votes and you have been a bit taken in by that tactic.

SHE is playing divide and rule here. All races, creeds, genders use 'divide and rule' as one type of power play.

Divide and rule is used by those with power, WorriedBetty... explained here It prevents smaller groups from gaining power.

Not sure it works if being "used" by one black woman.

Again. Take an introverted look. I used to live in a big city centre. In every job I had, the most senior positions were held by white people. We've yet to have a prime minister who isn't white. Even the TV channels we watch, the films we watch are white male dominated.

I'm still with Diane Abbott on this one. We, as white people, are dividing, and we are ruling.

I agree with you regarding Mary Beard; I was seething too and I am actually still angry about many comments on question Time, even though I have had two days to calm down.

I couldn't disagree more regarding Diane Abbott, who represents amny poor black and white people in her constituency, many people in mixed relationships, and also many poor disadvantaged teenagers such as the victims in the grooming case. That's why it was such an ignorant comment-it was describing an us and them scenario which is completely out of touch with how her constituents are living.

Anyway, this belongs to another discussion, and there has been enough sidetracking on this thread.

I posted this in the Feminist topic becuase I believe it is about time they start hearing us, once and for all, as a united force against the casual mysogyny displayed in the coverage of the grooming case. It is also a class issue of course, becuase the girls were not wealthy and well educated but 'hanging outside kebab shops at night', 'dressed skimpily' 'in their early teens'. Which means of course that they deserved what they got, or that they were willing to ' have sex for a bag of crisps' asPeter Oborne kept repeating