How to respond to a ‘what about teh menz’?

[Bloopbleep]

First post in feminism chat please excuse me if I lack the proper board etiquette.

A man responded to a fab post of mine discussing Me Too

''especially as it is widely recognised that former victims are more likely to become oppressers in turn.”

Its a myth that abused children grow up into abusive adults. Its based on the fact that a high percentage of convicted offenders were abused as children.
It does not take into account the large numbers of children who grow up with a strong sense of justice and dont abuse - they join law enforcement, or become advocates for children.

Women are permitted to talk about their experiences without being silenced.

He sounds as if he struggles with appropriate behaviour. I wouldnt engage with him and I'd delete his posts.

So I admit I’m naive about the behaviour of other humans. I undertook a stealthy recon mission of his profile and he seems very ‘woke’ about social justice issues but there is no mention of women or men’s rights. I just don’t understand how someone can be a sjw (not an insult!) and not consider women’s rights as part of that.

He cannot be into rights for one group and not everyone. He isnt alerting you to competing rights; your right to safety doesnt harm his.

Beware the wolf in sheeps clothing - just block him and move on.

perfectpenguins in this instance I said as someone upthread suggested and highlighted we were talking about women’s experiences under me too and not Csa in this instance.

I’m uncomfortable with never questioning someone’s opinion being dismissive of women’s experiences because they hint at having been abused as a child (although he could just as easily be hinting at having been the abuser - I only posted an excerpt of his post) The place was not appropriate to hijack the existing discussion to address each of his points but that’s what he was looking for. I’d put money on him wanting to fight over men’s rights with regard to sexual assault and it’s an important discussion needing had but not as others have mentioned when women are trying to speak out and be heard.

Apologies for poor grammar and punctuation gry No to wrangle 4mo and 4 yapping dogs

DJ you’re absolutely right. Morbid fascination has stopped me from blocking right away. He’s not on my friends list so I’ve never interacted before and won’t be doing so again.

DJ it’s not a myth as it does happen. He is a victim and may or may not be living with the lasting effects and struggling with that we don’t know I just think it’s better to be cautious as we don’t know the person behind the screen

To be fair to DJ she did say it happens, as studies have found that many men who have abused were themselves abused as children. But that's not likely to be a representative cross section of abused children as a whole. And there is no excuse for being a perpetrator of abuse on others.

We do not know whether someone is a victim or not, we can only take what they say at face value.
If they act in an abusive way now, their past is irrelevant. You act to protect yourself from their current behaviour. You dont need to make allowances for strangers. You dont need to be nice or even polite, you do need to be your own advocate and put yourself first.

Bloopbleep I get what you mean about engaging from a distance to learn from someone. Learning about behaviour can be really useful for your own safety. As you say, theres at least on red flag in his post - he excuses current abusive behaviour based on past experience.
I recommend you go to Amazon and treat yourself to Gavin de Beckers book the Gift of Fear.

If they act in an abusive way now, their past is irrelevant. You act to protect yourself from their current behaviour. You dont need to make allowances for strangers.

I agree. Too often women (and it is mainly women) are expected to do this). Both their past and current circumstances are not an excuse for abusive behaviour. It's what we so often see with transactivists, and MRA types take this attitude too.

So my brief response was ignored. I bowed out by reiterating the point on what metoo was about and left him to it. But before I went he left this:

^“Is it? (My thoughts were about young men/boys, depending on your definition, by the way. I suspect - without ever looking into it, I admit - that single-sex schools encourage the attitude that anything goes in social relations where there is some attraction involved. The primacy of the English "public" schools in UK power suggests that to me, but I know nothing about the USA's social structure.)

Xxxxx xxxxx’s comment below seems relevant. My impression is that it's a social problem, rather than a gender-specific one.”^

More needs done to address the problems of and support for male survivors of sexual violence. My own partner is a survivor but he would never respond as this guy has done. As someone noted above men need to be addressing the problem themselves rather than hijacking women’s campaigns. Men are predominantly the aggressors and the harrasers and surely with that knowledge men should be able to self police?

As someone noted above men need to be addressing the problem themselves rather than hijacking women’s campaigns

Yes, exactly. They don't grasp this though. They won't raise these issues themselves or set up their own programmes. They think women's campaigns should be used for the benefit of men because we should pretend there is gender parity in rape, DV etc and we should want "equal treatment" otherwise we're awful feminazis.

It’s not just men doing it. I posted something along the lines of letting women have this instead of making it all about men (again) and I had 2 women start ranting at me about how I was silencing Male victims

My response was along the lines of “nowhere did I even imply that”. Couldn’t be arsed to engage any further as quite frankly I’m exhausted by it all. They were quite young (18/19) according to their profiles so hopefully it’s just naivety and they come to their senses at some point but it’s so depressing how hard women have to battle to get their voices heard in the first place only for people to still insist that we should be thinking about men instead.

I wouldn’t have a problem with men using the #metoo hashtag to talk about their experience or show solidarity, unfortunately most seem to make such a such a song and dance about the fact they are men and men are victims too bla bla bla that it just comes across as an obnoxious attempt at silencing women yet again.

Entirely up to you if you want to incorporate male victims, but is it not possible to discuss both without diluting the class based analysis? In these sorts of discussions I can usually concede that it is a human tendency to exploit those with less power, something which both men and women can be guilty of.

However the question still remains why are women so consistently without power relative to men?

The numbers are interesting - 300,000 men worldwide according to the Telegraph, 30% of people in the UK using the hashtag.

I think Dervel nails it though - why are women so consistently without power relative to men?

Which is not to deny that men are subject to sexual violence - overwhelmingly from other men - when there is a power balance due to age. I remember a friend of mine saying of his public school days (I shall call the school St Custards for the sake of anonymity) "Of course I was buggered at Custards. We all were." The truly chilling thing was the utterly matter-of-fact manner in which he related this fact.

This guy totally gets it!

Yes, sexual assault is a horrific crime no matter who the victim is. But #MeToo was meant to highlight the structural oppression women face and the sexual violence that goes hand-in-hand with it. That is something that men, as a class, cannot possibly understand – even if we are sometimes the victims of sexual assault too (typically by other men). Women used the hashtag to talk about shared womanhood and girlhood, experiences I can never know as a man.

Awesome!

Entirely up to you if you want to incorporate male victims, but is it not possible to discuss both without diluting the class based analysis?

From a feminist perspective it generally does though Dervel. We have men on one side wanting to join in and ignoring the structural issues of misogyny and the specific reasons women as a class face sexual violence (overwhelmingly from men) and in effect saying but "women are just as bad" and on the other side they are saying notallmen feminazis! The discussion about how structural problems should be tackled is completely taken over and derailed. That is what always happens.

It is a bit #alllivesmatter #idontseerace don't you think?

My response was along the lines of “nowhere did I even imply that”.

I find that these short responses are quite effective. They give the impression that you understand, but that is absolutely not what you’re talking about. Without having to say it and get involved in a long and involved conversation.

So if someone says yes, but men get sexually harassed too.

I would say ‘correct’. And then carry on talking about women’s harassment.

It makes them come to you. Rather than you automatically going on the defensive.

Yes, exactly Datun. It’s kind of like not rising to it, just sort of acknowledging it and moving on.

Exactly. Because eventually, if I they have an agenda, they will expose themselves. (Their frustration in your refusal to engage can be an effective tool to leverage).

So if someone says yes, but men get sexually harassed too.

I would say ‘correct’. And then carry on talking about women’s harassment.

Excellent suggestion.

I was talking to dh about this and he observed that men who complain about the #metoo thing have probably not actually experienced genuine unwanted sexual harassment as a young adult or older man because if they had they'd just be nodding and saying let's stop this. We are not really talking about child sexual abuse are we, more the everyday horrifying incidents of minor or major severity endemic to our society perpetrated by men (usually).
Dh has been victim as a youth of catcalling in the street from gay men which he found intimidating and has a rather different attitude to wolf whistling etc than most other men it seems! They generally have been brought up to believe we are lucky to receive their pathetic advances and it amuses them to see us look nervous and harassed. This is something you see sexualized in manga and films too.

"Dh has been victim as a youth of catcalling in the street from gay men which he found intimidating and has a rather different attitude to wolf whistling etc than most other men it seems!"

That's very interesting, because I was wondering the other day whether there was any connection between my DDad's understanding of feminist issues and him once mentioning that as a young man he quite often got unwanted sexual approaches in public toilets (this would be in the 1950s when gay sex was still illegal, and it was quite common for men to try to pick up other men in toilets). I've also noticed that male friends I know who've been sexually assaulted seem instinctively to "get" feminism in a way other men often don't. (Including the friend I mentioned upthread, who was exactly the sort of guy - hooray henry type - I would have thought wouldn't have a clue, but was actually very sensitive and insightful.)

I would throw this back at him and simply ask if he believes gender based violence exists or not?

And take it from there.