Not all men

[AskBasil]

Interesting article here

That was an expression of exasperation not that feminism targets Jesus, obviously. Although we might get further by doing that!

kins You were the one suggesting upthread about whether feminists actually want to do anything about oppression or just want to debate it. You seem to be the one not engaging with it and treating it as some kind of marketing exercise. Women are affected by the issues we discuss and the activism we engage in. These are real people who are affected by men's oppression. This isn't some kind of academic debate.

Huh?

I'm sorry, maybe I am misunderstanding something here - is it that you think all women are naturally feminist, so millions of women being actively feminist isn't a big deal? I sort of get that, but it's not the case. There are lots of countries in the world where it is a huge deal to be feminist.

And there are also, you have to remember, men who are feminist and neither 'twattish' nor MRAs.

You're only thinking about the most oppressive subset of the population - but you think they are the default.

This is why it becomes offensive when you start suggesting feminists are making unreasonable generalizations with class analysis.

I acknowledge you're saying you know you don't know things, so please don't take this as me criticizing that. I'm just trying to be clear.

I've posted on here a little while now. I don't know if I'm doing it wrong, but if there is a discussion about imbalances in power dynamics between men and women and the word "men" comes up in a negative light I'm making the assumptions that:

a) It's not about me personally, and after all why should it? The world doesn't revolve around one person.
b) If a statement isn't preceded with "some" I guess I imagine it's there, cos after all we all know generalisations are precisely that. If someone wants to make a point and insult my gender they would say "all", just to underline it. I'm sure maybe some wouldn't but 99% of the time we all understand the nuance.

Language and communication only works if we give each other the benefit of the doubt and actually make the effort to understand what someone means. Sure if I really don't like someone I might get all anally retentive and tear apart the minutiae of the language they use (I feel the need to do this less as I get older), but at that point communication has gone out the window anyway and it's about egos and not truth.

In fact widening the scope here a little aren't we just seeing the same mentality as angry blokes in pub beating seven shades of shit out of each other so one gets to feel like the top dog and hence more important than the rest? What I tend to see is the same attitude just applied to the domain of words and discussion, instead of fists and muscles.

What I'd like to see is one of these "some men" droppers be faced by emotive language. For example "In this world it really does feel like men have been putting me down and crushing me and my spirits my whole life." Essentially although rarely expressed explicitly that's what it feels like you lot have been saying, and yeah if I wanted to I could try to deconstruct a statement here or what appears to be an invalid argument there, but you know what it wouldn't really address that underlying truth would it?

If I was being charitable to those who drop in the "some men" line I suspect facing the emotive reality is harder for a number of reasons, because facing an emotional truth saying "well I don't hit women" does precisely fuck and all in so much as it doesn't magically heal even so much as a single bruise, or single broken bone that some woman in the world has right now given to them by a man. So yeah saying it in that context seems like a supreme irrelevance. It's much easier to attack the language that you use than its actual meaning.

Very true Buffy

But debates within feminism are around women's lived experiences debated by those affected. Not some theoretical debate for those not interested in engaging and not affected by the issues.

That is the beauty of feminism it has vocalised women's experiences and made the systematic nature of oppression visible.

Yes! Thank you!

(My last was actually to dervel but I'd repeat it to scallops. ).

I enjoyed the funny. But I didn't want to acknowledge it cos, y'know, educational privilege.

Oh I know you were Buffy

I was just getting carried away!

I do find it sad.

Here we've got the New Statesman publishing a whole series on second-wave writers by some of the most prominent feminist journalists we've got, and there's a thread on here about it. We've got projects like Everyday Sexism made into a book. My mate who blogs about radical feminism can get thousands of views in a day, quite routinely. But people still seem to discount the idea that we might actually matter as examples of how feminism made life better. Feminism has made my life better in very concrete ways. Including class analysis.

Is that the reality, kim? I'm turning into a cynic but I feel it is hard to know. You seem sure. But 1 in 4 women are raped. How many is 'most men'?

The problem with well-meaning statements like 'most men are not rapists' is that all it does is reassures us that we are unlikely to meet a rapist. This isn't true. We are pretty likely to meet a rapist.

I feel the same way as everyone else does when I apply this to my own life. I feel revolted by the idea that my dad, or my brothers, or my husband, might be rapists. I automatically want to deny the very possibility. And if that means saying that some faceless woman I've never met - the 1 in 4 - is a liar, then so be it.

Except, it's not really like that. I know women who've been raped. I know women who've told me how lovely their blokes are, who're now thanking god they got away. My dad was married to my mum before marital rape was criminalized. I have to be realistic.

I don't know how many men are rapists, but I don't think it helps anyone to go with platitudes.

Ah, ok, I'll do me best.

@buffy. I have not previously posted; however, I have been reading with great interest. My wife and I believe in freedom of speech. You might call it the first Marxist principle (Marx, is in fact, the originator of modern feminism including Germaine Greer and many others). You seek a feminine dialectic and I applaud your intent. However I am stymied by your failure you acknowledge the vital importance of free choice and free speech - a feminist principle I think you will agree. Can man be free if woman co-opts half the voice of the socialist man? I look forward to your response.

I think an awful lot of men are violent. I think it is minimised and ignored and even not recognised in some cases. But there is an undercurrent that men are violent and that is perpetuated by society, not feminists, society.

The whole insistence on policing what women wear when out, where they go, who they are with, how much they drink is to counteract male violence and that men can't control their violence.

In this survey 30% of men thought it was OK to rape a woman and 25% admitted sexually assaulting women.

That's a lot of men.

kim, you have been on threads like this long enough to know that the comparison there is bollocks.

Oh sorry x-post with LRD's eloquent speech

Bleugh, that's disturbing, scallops.

Thing is ... some men, and I accept this really is hard to do, but some men acknowledge this stuff, too. We must all know loads of couples who were married before laws about marital rape came in. There are men out there who acknowledge that what they did before the law changed would be seen as rape now.

It is not that men like this are incredibly rare, it's that our culture tells me that the default way to be a man is to oppress women.

It was my best shot at satirising.

DH's grammar is (marginally) better than that. I hope.