Not all men

[AskBasil]

Interesting article here

"It really does not matter if someone says muslims are terrorists or some muslims are terrorists, both are equally racist comments if made with no context or within a wider racist statement."

So why is it not sexist to do the same with "men are [x]" statements?

Kins, most men, white people, wealthy people, straight people etc are nice people. It underpins left wing thought that people are fundamentally good. That doesn't stop them exhibiting harmful behaviour under societal structures. Being a good person doesn't make me or anyone else perfect; if I needed to believe myself to be absolutely free of all negative behaviour, that would make me very defensive.

"Do feminists on this thread only know a handful of nice men?"

The sad truth is, kins, that apart from a VERY small group of men with whom we spend a lot of time, such as our husbands and immediate family, we cannot possibly know if they are nice or not. We cannot know how they behave towards the women in their lives behind closed doors. We cannot know whether they make sexist jokes while out with the lads. We can, however, be fairly sure that they laugh along with these sexist jokes and be doubtful that they would stand up for women by denouncing these jokes. We cannot know whether they would continue to push a drunk women for sex even if she is clearly incapable of clear consent.

And even then, we might be wrong. Our DH, our brother, our uncle, could well turn out to be an abuser or an ignorant rapist ("of course it wasn't rape, she was too drunk to say no! And she was all over me earlier in the evening").

It comes back to the basic fear that women have of men. We have this fear for a reason. Because we never truly can know if a man is "nice" or not.

No, it isn't just structural oppression. Statements that men or some men are X can be sexist in certain contexts.

"I'm sorry but, remind me why we should be tying ourselves in verbal knots in order to make our oppressors feel that they can wriggle out of responsibly again?"

This.

Because maybe you might get your oppressors to actually listen rather than get defensive. And getting your oppressors to listen is important.

No. the first job seems to be to make sure that the oppressed understand their oppression. Plus, the question that springs into my mind whenever anyone gets horribly defensive about male violence is.... what do they have to hide.

And once again, women are expected to take responsibility for men's feeling and emotions. Jesus, this is depressing.

Finally RTFT, phew.

I'm with Buffy LRD and chibi - any man who finds the statement 'men do not respect women' for example provocative, and whose solution to that provocation is to change the syntax, can kiss my ass. Talk about revealing your true colours. I might find a way to slip it into conversations as a sort of canary/ mine tactic.

Kim, you keep asking the same question. It is cumbersome and reduces how understadable an argument is if people write out long winded sentences within a larger body of text when the meaning of a shorter sentence can be made clear within the context.

People know this. It is why straw men are built on taking statements out of context on purpose.

Of course it's about men's feelings!

You want us to all prefix every class analysis with the word some, so that men feel better about themselves and willing to engage.

It's ALL about men's feelings!

Kim, i meant that writing out some men's violence towards some women etc is cumbersome, not that your posts are! Just thought I should clarify.