I can't get this quote out of my head

[Destinysdaughter]

It was on the thread about the woman who's put up with years of infidelity from her husband and it was, 'Women are fundamentally evil but men are unintentionally just a bit crap' . Apologies to the brilliant poster who wrote this but since I read it, I've just been seeing it everywhere. It seems so sum up so well how men and women are perceived on so many levels, including DV, rape, popular culture, especially crap American Romcoms. It makes me feel fucking furious but seems to be so entrenched into the culture I don't know how we fight this. How did this come about and how can we counter this?

Or is it just me...?

Think it was Bathtime Funkster!

Isn't Women are fundamentally evil but men are unintentionally just a bit crap essentially the slogan for the Adam and Eve story? I'm not saying the poor treatment of women is a uniquely Christian problem (although they've not helped, let's be honest). But it seems very rooted in our distant past. There's some evidence that our very earliest societies were more egalitarian (see Amanda Foreman's great series The Ascent of Woman) but she dates the oppression of women to our first farming settlements (although without really explaining why this should be the case, I have the phrase 'owning the means of production' going round in my head).

I think it's just a manifestation of the 'othering' - because humans are, by default, male (I know they aren't but according to popular culture) the other is dangerous, unknown, certainly not 'just a bit crap'. See also: all other groups marginalised by othering.

How to counter it in media - I like Geena Davies' idea. Just before you cast a movie, change half of the male parts to female ones. So instead of being 'the girl' (see: Julia Roberts in Ocean's Eleven) you see a range of women just doing stuff that isn't about them being women. I have no idea why some of Ocean's Eleven couldn't be women.

Yup. It is bloody everywhere.

Adam Johnson has made a mistake, but his victim knew what she was doing apparently.

We wouldn't even be having this conversation if he had groomed and sexually exploited a 15 year old boy. Johnson would be a pariah and nobody would be saying that the 15 year old boy had manipulated him.

Can you imagine if Ched Evans had raped a man? Absolutely nobody would be supporting him. Evans would have got out of prison, had to move away from his family, change his name and appearance and would have kept an exceptionally low profile (like his victim has had to do).

But if you only sexually assault and rape girls and women then you'll have a lot of supporters, it seems.

Thanks for that tripbot. Interesting how far back this idea goes. If you look at ancient, pre agrarian societies, it seems that goddess worship was very much the thing, as women were seen to be the beater of life and therefore revered. However, somewhere along the way, this got a bit fucked up and women became the possessions of men and something to be both owned and controlled. Not quite sure how that happened but it seems to be a common theme in many societies.

And thanks for taking me seriously!

Kidnapped - good point if the victims had been male.

• bearer of life, not beater!!

But of course the worship is also a form of othering. Because we can do something normal people (men) can't do, we can be revered and/or feared. But not just be regular people. (That's why I like a pantheon of gods if you're going to go in for that sort of thing).