Joanna Lumley is terrified for men

[QuentinSummers]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43884163
Can't decide if her quote has been blown out of all proportion by the BBC or if she's genuinely terrified for men's egos, the poor lambs.

I also can't believe this is news.

I'd agree not raping women is not morally praiseworthy it's morally neutral, preventing an actual rape or advocating for positive change would be the only virtuous position here. However by not not making this the hill you choose to die on is also morally neutral. There is plenty that is wrong with the world, and not everybody has the time/resources/energy to devote to absolutely each and every inequity in the world.

It's a rhetorical trick to try and leverage a guilt response in your audience to prioritise this or that particular issue over all the others, but what it ends up doing is paralysing huge sections of the population who through being made to feel guilt/responsibility about each and everythin into apathy and inaction. The best you get is a little lip service and fuck all else.

The other problem I have with class analysis is it is not universally applied. Like if I were to ask for a class analysis on these Rotherham/Telford rape gangs I'd be a racist. What people also don't realise is that personal responsibility is half of the equation of Liberty. By assigning white men in particular so much responsibility for the worlds problems you are in fact reinforcing and shoring up their privilege.

If you did, then the answer to your question is there.

It really isn't though.

I don't know any men who are "pro rape", rapists or who condone violence to women.

But I assume that as they don't continually walk around shouting "don't rape" at other men that they're still complicit in the eyes of some of you??

preventing an actual rape or advocating for positive change would be the only virtuous position here

I think most men would actively love to prevent a rape, it feeds into the classic heroic narrative.

Unfortunately, if that's the yard stick you're measuring men by then you're putting them all in a shitty barrel because the chances of most men to be in a position to do that are zero....

That's the thing there are three (possibly four) states on the moral spectrum. Moral, immoral or morally neutral. If in moral philosophy you conflate what is both immoral and morally neutral we all end up in a state of perpetual moral infraction which furthermore doesn't reflect reality. As in truth as time goes less violence occurs, humanity progresses and greater advancements are achieved.

A moral principle is either universal or it's not a moral principle, so a class analysis that focuses on exclusively men, but not universally applied to to women falls down. I mean have as much class analysis as you want, have it with bells on, but any class analysis of women is howled at for being sexist. Take the gender pay gap when anyone tries to raise the spectre of women's choices that's howled at for taking away from all the evil sexist men.

Now for what it's worth I do believe there are sexist men and workplaces out there, but I don't actually credit them with the power to trully hold women down as to do so hands them more power than they actually posses. Women can and have broken through spectacularly in many fields like medicine, law etc and they will continue to do so as time goes on.

In a way my fear is a lot of modern feminist thought delivers the keys to the bloody kingdom of female power directly into the hands of patriarchs.

I think most men would actively love to prevent a rape, it feeds into the classic heroic narrative

Pretty much damned all ways then.

Rapists and violent men- bad

Non rapists and non- violent men who do nothing to police other men- bad and complicit

Men who do something positive - virtue signalling would be heroes.

Oh and CritEqual I agree with you re the problems of class analysis.

What does NAMALT mean?

CritEqual I believe that your view is actually consistent with modern feminism: it sounds like (my understanding of) the standard libfem position, which is that talking about structures of power is harmful to women because it entrenches them, and therefore any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice. I can see the point, but I basically disagree that we ever make a free choice and prefer what I see as a reality-based perspective, not one that thinks we can conjure up the world we want by pretending it already exists. I also agree about class analysis - I think it should be applied everywhere and there are some ways in which women benefit from the patriarchy (e.g. closer relationships with children)

JustOne there’s no need to be offended. My dh would prioritise the welfare of his family above all else, but as an individual man he benefits from women in general being pushed down. He may not want to benefit, but he does.

As a class, men also benefit from women's awareness of their violence. That background noise is behind every woman who goes out of her way to be Nice to the guy who won't leave her alone, it means women restrain our words and behaviour because we know what could happen. In these ways, class Man is rewarded for the rapes, the revenge stalking crimes, the domestic violence etc.

I don't know any men who are "pro rape", rapists or who condone violence to women.

I hope I don't know any personally, but you only have to look at comments on social media and under news articles to know that there are a heck of a lot of pro-rapist men out there. Look at the Ulster rugby trial where a woman was left with severe internal injuries but was still called a lying slut. Or alternatively, look at all the supposedly righteous lefty men who slaver over the imagery of punching women as long as they're terfs.

Stripy NAMALT means Not All Men Are Like That. It's usually used when people are talking about stuff like male violence or rape culture and someone usually comes up with 'but my DH/dad/DS/neighbour/dog is lovely and you're just being a man-hater'.

I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with choosy choice feminism either. Women's destiny is still collective incredibly proscribed, and I think culturally discouraged from being fully engaged 100% in society. I also don't think we give female achievement anything like it's due, and I am starting to think that's the way foward. However this constant boxing in of women as being perpetual victims of men at all times diminished this message and reinforces the position of women as lesser.

I suppose that’s where class analysis can be helpful: we can say that women as a group are oppressed by men as a group. This shouldn’t obscure the fact that many women have done brilliantly out of the patriarchy and many have done brilliantly despite it.

justone you’re missing the point. Obviously women and men both moderate their behaviour if there’s an immediate risk of violence. What is being said here is that due to widespread and systematic violence against women, they are conditioned to be wary, to pipe down, to squash themselves. They do this all the time, whether there is an immediate risk of violence or not. Clearly if half the population is piping down, the other half has more space to express itself.

Yes Fifi but half the population piping down robs us of 50% of the ideas, 50% of the output and 50% of the potential. Which ultimately is no use to anyone. Unless you happen to be ideaologically opposed to women's liberation in which case yeah I can see that there is a "benefit" but I think the notion that all men by default line up in that camp is a miscalculation.

Children can resist adults up to a certain point, but in the end adults will always have the upper hand over children because they are taller and stronger - at a push most adults can physically carry or subdue a child and children know that - they can only 'win' up to the point where it gets physical.

Men are, in general, taller and stronger than women. Men know that and women know that. It's not something that comes into play in most situations, but it bubbles under all the time. Women are only too aware that in a situation where it comes down to physical strength, they'll lose and I don't think men understand the low level psychological effect that has on a constant basis.

Here's a very widespread example for you: all men who watch porn (unless they are extremely, extremely picky about what they are viewing - and honestly I don't think there really is a way to be sufficiently picky) are benefiting from the rape of women, literally using it as entertainment.

If you watch porn and think that all the sexual acts you see are completely consensual, you're either ignorant or you are deluding yourself because it makes you feel more comfortable with your actions. The chances that you have witnessed a filmed rape are close to 100%.

I'm a woman and as soon as I realised this I felt disgusted by my own actions and the things I had seen. I will never watch porn again and I wish I had been educated about the reality of the 'industry' sooner rather than it being so normalised in our culture. The number of men I have met who feel the same way is absolutely minuscule. Most men will dismiss it as apparently they care more about their dicks than sexual violence against women. I once watched a documentary about some men with significant porn habits who were taken to see the reality behind the videos they were watching. It was horrifying. Did they stop watching porn? Did they fuck.

Yes but that particular fact isn't men's fault per se it's a fact of biology. Plus as I've argued above for men who would never use their physical size difference it is a distinct disadvantage as women won't be 100% honest and open with them.

Half of the population being unwilling to give them honest feedback is a distinct disadvantage

'Half of the population being unwilling to give them honest feedback is a distinct disadvantage'

In what way? And would you consider that disadvantage to be on a par with the disadvantage of being in danger of being one of the 85,000 women raped every year in the UK or one of the two women murdered every week by men?

'If I say "piss off dickhead" to someone who is being, well - a dickhead - then I would have every expectation of being punched - or ambushed later that evening.

That "confidence" that men display when walking in town at night? It's an act - the only people who might possibly feel safe at night are those likely to perpetrate an assault.'

JustOneMan, you're talking there in the context of a night out, shouting profanities at at a stranger. Women restrict their behaviour and words in a huge range of contexts - many of women for example aren't comfortable walking home from work at 5pm on a winter's evening because it tends to be dark then. Or they're reluctant to be in a store room with a creepy male colleague. Or they have a cousin who was sexually threatening in younger years so they avoid family parties. 90% of rapists are people the victim knows.

Having to be careful about shouting at people on a night out is an inconvenience, but a pretty small one.

RE rape:

4/10 guys feel nothing when women talk about sexual harassment

Re career females - the reality is that men dominate all the careers and fields they find valuable, and relegate women to doing the low status work. The instant men deem a career to be worthy and high status, women are pushed out, and when women move into a field men immediately consider it of lesser value (in Russia, for example, most doctors are female and medicine is a poorly paid low status job. The men didn’t want it, so downgraded the career’s value).

Finally there's a lot of whataboutery and re-centering the argument on men in this thread - it is not being a victim to describe the victimisation that one experiences at the hands of the systemic subjugation of women. To dismiss what women are describing and ask how does it benefit men is deliberate obfuscation and not a healthy nor appropriate response to an atrocity.

It's all in what isn't said and isn't done that the abuse can be seen. But hey, blame women again for their mistreatment and exploitation by men

I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with choosy choice feminism either. Women's destiny is still collective incredibly proscribed, and I think culturally discouraged from being fully engaged 100% in society. I also don't think we give female achievement anything like it's due, and I am starting to think that's the way foward. However this constant boxing in of women as being perpetual victims of men at all times diminished this message and reinforces the position of women as lesser

Absolutely. I don't get the impression you are a "choosy choice feminist" (which is itself just another example of tribalism which is being discussed on another thread- "the shut up you are doing feminism wrong" which is so often complained of on here)