Sigh. I've been deleted and blocked by yet another feminist page on Facebook....

[AnnieLobeseder]

...for daring to disagree with them on something they've posted.

Are they really so bloody-minded that they can't handle debate on their philosophies? I realise they get a lot of nasty trolling spam, but there's a world of difference between MRA nastiness and another feminist wanting to debate feminism!!

Is it just me?

'The sweeping general statement of one "class" fits all'

No one has made that statement, leith.

Class based analysis is almost the opposite of saying 'we think one class fits all'. It's about saying, given that there are differences on an individual level and we get nowhere when we try to look at each individual in term, how's about looking at broad classes?

I find it helpful. If you don't, fair enough, but let's get straight what we're talking about.

Btw, I think I covered your other post with the word 'functioning', didn't I?

Misandrists shouldn't be justified in thinking that all men are horrible. They should be challenged.

I think a lot of misandrists these days hide under the umbrella of feminism, which in turn, puts real feminists away from feminism.

I'm so sorry, I'm triple posting which is terrible, but ...

why do you think homosexuals don't rape, leith?

I'm gobsmacked by that. How can you possibly criticize class analysis and then say that?

Misandrists shouldn't be justified in thinking that all men are horrible. They should be challenged. I think a lot of misandrists these days hide under the umbrella of feminism, which in turn, puts real feminists away from feminism

I keep reading things like this on the internet. I just never come across it in real life. It seems to be something trotted out in argument that is vanishingly rare in actuality. The women most disparaging of men that I meet (not many) are conservative women who reject feminism and don't identify as feminists.

nero - misandry doesn't exist, and real feminists aren't put off by such silliness, so there's no need to worry.

saying 'all men are potential rapists' makes as much sense as saying 'all people are potential child killers'.

we are all physically equipped to kill a child. That doesn't mean we are all going to do it.

neither is a good start to reasoned argument.

special - well, yes. It does make just as much sense.

And if one in four children were murdered, it might be very important to make that point, don't you think?!

prom, I think that's an interesting point - I don't feel informed enough to comment. The one thing I do think is (and this is horrible and sad) - people who get off on inflicting pain probably get off on this sort of thing.

I do also (sorry!) want to reiterate that these sorts of rapes are relatively rare, in the UK at least, and I think we get a skewed picture when we focus on them. I hope it's not insensitive to say that. I cannot begin to imagine how awful they are. But my impression is that we have a much bigger problem.

Btw, SP made a brilliant (I thought) point on another thread about how we should define rapists, which was simply: until the moment someone rapes, he is not a rapist.

I think that's important. People don't necessarily always have this tendency latent within them - they do this, actively. And as soon as they do it, there is a victim who needs help.

Yea I get a lot of that PQ. I take your point about nerve endings, and of course the "enjoyment" aspect must come as part of the act. I thought though the focus of power and control, or to use better phrasing perhaps, the ability to use a womens body as an act of entitlement was the motivating factor. Do you think that the motivation can be separated from the nerve endings, or is it all one and the same?

As Barry White said Drakon "Don't go changing, just to please me I love you just the way you are"

Sorry I know that this thread has gone off at various tangents along the way but I just wanted to go back to the point about "men view violent porn" and comparing it "women are moody" or similar statements. I think someone mentioned it was a false equivalence and I agree.

The former statement is describing a way in which men (as a group) oppress women. The latter is the type of statement which adds to women's oppression. Saying that men watch violent porn is not oppressing men, it is naming women's oppression. I think it is a crucial difference.

Also in feminist spaces it is essential to name the oppression and problems women face for what they are: male violence, men's exploitation of women through pornography and prostitution, the oppression of women through PIV etc.

Anyway sorry for the interruption. I think PromQueen's points about rape are interesting. I saw an online argument/discussion with a radfem and a male feminist ally which kind of ties in here. The male ally was arguing that rape was all about power and the radfem was saying no it's not just about that. Rapists get off and get aroused by raping women so there is a violent sexual element about it (if 'sexua'l is the right word).

YY, agree with that scallops. It is similar to the way that 'misandry' and 'misogyny' are not meaninful equivalents, or racism by white people is not quite the same as white supremacy/the Klan.

I think the problem with saying rape is all about power is that it defined rape according to what we think is going on in the perpetrator's head. For him it may be all about power. For some women it may have been all about power. But if some women feel it is a bodily assult they should be entitled to say so!

"I think the problem with saying rape is all about power is that it defined rape according to what we think is going on in the perpetrator's head" Yes I agree. Very little discussion/depiction of rape is from the woman's perspective.

I also think that the the whole rape is about power thing originally was to get away from rape being sex 'gone wrong' or whatever victim-blaming/minimising views the media and law enforcers had/have.

It makes victims (survivors?!) of rape seem very passive, doesn't it? If we never name the perpetrators, we're constantly seeing the passive phrase 'a woman was raped' or 'many women are raped every year'. If we then also claim that rape is about power, we are defining it in terms of what the perpetrator gets out of it. I am sure for many women it is about power being taken away from them, but we could put it like that.

I do take your point that it is much better than 'sex gone wrong', but it could be better again. We could say it's about violating people's bodies. That would be true.

I know this thread has moved on slightly from the origional post, but I do think class based analysis has flaws. I think you can be a feminist without subscribing to class analysis theories. I think making sweeping statements about men does invite others to make sweeping statements about women, which is something I think feminism and feminists should challenge. I think it is possible to explain ways in which men as a group opress women as a group do not have to be phrased this way.

I am also not convinced that the post the OP is refering to was actually meant in this way.

I do think statements such as "All rapists are men" are different.

I would say some rapists do "get off" on raping women. Some rape is about power, but to me, with many rapes, often those where the rapist is known to the victim, I am not at all sure that at least some of the motivation does not come from sexual desire and arousal.

In some ways, I feel the "rape is about power" arguement can be unhelpful, as it allows men to distance themselves from rapists (and women to distance themselves from those who commit sexual assult). If you make rapists into a homogenous group with a charactaristic, and you do not share that characteristic, it helps you convince yourself you could not possibly be a rapist.

Also, even if rape is about power, what is to say that the men commiting the rape do not gain sexual pleasure from that power?

I would suggest there are probably as many motivations for rape as there are rapists, and it is unlikely, given rape is a sexual act, that some of them do not have a motivation of sexual pleasure.

This thread is very interesting, but unless I have missed it I can't see what Annie said to get blocked

• what was it?

If it was misunderstanding "this is what men search for" as "this is what all men search for" then I would have been annoyed too

slow - but how is class analysis generalization? Surely they are two very different things - almost opposites in fact?

Class analysis is saying, this is not trying to present an accurate picture of every individual, it is looking at the big picture. Whereas, generalizations are assuming you can look at one or two individuals and extrapolate from them.

I think you are right MRD that not all men who have had sex with a woman without her consent consider themselves rapists.

Looking at it from a different perspective, is it helpful to split rapists into 2 groups? - those, such as the Victorian man mentioned above who does not view it as rape, but part of married life and those that know what they are doing is wrong. IMO, the first group are probably doing it for sexual enjoyment and can be educated out of the practice, whilst the second group it is more of a power thing and, like murder and other forms of assult, will always be with us.
I would argue all men have the potential for group A unless educated, but not group B

I know what you're getting at carol, but I think even in the second group, there is the potential for men to be educated - or pre-empted - our of that. I still don't believe the group B rapists who do it for power, have something evil inside them such that when they were babies you could have said 'this will be a rapist'.

To clarify, I don't think of that subset of rapists not thinking they were in the wrong, but wrong in the same way as, say, coming in drunk at 3am and turning all the lights on, or watching the grand prix for 11 hours straight on her birthday or something. Like it's inconsiderate or rude or bad relationship behaviour but not like it's the serious crime that it is.

Which I think is rooted in the marital rape point, and the Galloway bullshit about if you've consented in the past it's not so bad etc.

I am not defending the sub-set or minimising the impact, but suggesting that education can help the unthinking, but not the deliberate.
Malenky interesting point on evil - are evil people born or made or a combination - there is a lot of research that certain medical conditions are genetic but only if triggered by environmental factors - is it the same with evil?