A man raped me, another tried to. They were not animals. They were men

[UglyCathKidstonBag]

What an incredibly brave piece from Amy Remeikis in The Guardian today

“A friend told me it’s because he thought they were not men. That they were animals. “How do you even begin to reason with an animal like that?”

But he’s wrong. They are men.

They are sons and brothers, and fathers and boyfriends and husbands and friends and co-workers and the guys around you in the cafe.”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/05/a-man-raped-me-another-tried-to-they-were-not-animals-they-were-men

''These toxic behaviours don’t manifest one day out of nowhere. They are cultivated.”''

They are men, not monsters

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/19/eurydice-dixon-death-male-rage-australia-women-men-attitudes

A very brave article. Sickening stuff but people absolutely need to hear it.

that article is so brave but it made me so sad
We are still being blamed for men's actions. They decide to attack us to sexually assault us, to rape us but somehow its our fault.

and then when we try to talk about rape culture or toxic masculinity we hear Not All Men

Yes not all men but too many fucking women
Too many women are attacked
Too many women are groped
Too many women are raped

but not all men
Not all men challenge rape jokes and rape culture
not all men stand up for women
not all men challenge steroptypes
not all men challenge the assumption that its women's fault when they are attacked.

But a lot of men have there feelings hurt when women talk about this
they try to derail by saying other women are worse off, that it happens to men too and of course not all men. Or if they do they act like they should get a bloody medal for it

I for one am sick of hearing these responses from men. Support should be a given thing with no expectation of a reward. So if your a man and you want to use not all men or any other of these derailing tactics then don't talk to me because I no longer care

OK

Yep, many men don't like the reality that some of them are brutes - animal-like.

I'm not sure about the author's distinction tbh because I believe there are some men who are nearer apes than human - I get her point in not making them out to be bogeymen - however until more men get on board with there are some guys who like trashing women and their spaces, that get off on the power and control they exert - until more men acknowledge that I'm unsure what change will occur - because men and teen-boys only listen to other men and the key to change is other men stepping up and challenging these guys.

Some men don’t want to hear it, they just don’t. They don’t want to hear what other members of their sex are up to. They are complicit.

Are you mixing men up with the Borg by any chance ?

Way to prove the point sawdust

I’m praising a woman for calling a spade a spade. People who rape are men.

Thanks

The "like animals" analogy in relation to any violent act is sheer nonsense.

Human beings are rational- they have the ability to make a choice between good and evil. That is not a theological statement but a statement of fact.

Animals react by instinct as to what is best for their species and the individual animal. Some animals can be trained to do things but no animal can make an individual choice between good and evil.

Not sure I like normalising rapists.

This is the way Trump is addressed by the likes of Jessica Valenti in The Guardian; going on about him being perfectly normal, nothing unusual about his behaviour, move along, nothing-to-see.

I'd like to think that males-who-rape are an aberration, a mutation. That society should identify a cancer, and then isolate it, deal with it, prevent it occurring again. I know the narrative is that rapists are men, but how is that 'presenting' itself? That sounds horribly close to the myth that feminists say 'all men are rapists'.

What is being achieved? To appear to decry all men, to try to appeal to them by pointing-out that rapists are just like them (not sure how that works). Why not try a different route; rapists aren't men, don't condone them, don't apologise for them, because if you do, then you too, aren't a man.

Trying to what, embarrass men by normalising rapists just doesn't seem like a cutting-edge message.

I don’t think it can be treated as a pathology. These men aren’t ‘other’. They are (mostly) men who have been very badly damaged by shit parents and/or toxic masculinity.

It's not 'normalising' rapists. It's not allowing other men to claim that rapists are a different species, or not part of human society. Women need good men's engagement and help to combat bad men.

“How do you even begin to reason with an animal like that?”
You certainly don't begin by saying they're an animal and distancing yourself. Begin where you like, chaps, but do begin.

*“How do you even begin to reason with an animal like that?”

And that is exactly my point. You cannot reason with any animal. You can train some animals; you can do things to calm a frightened or distresed animal but you cannot reason with an animal.

Rapists, criminals and evil men are men. They made a choice to behave the way they do.

I may have been wound up today, but would it help if the rapists were called people rather than men or animals . Does the subsetting help ( because it is always men) more than it hinders ( because there are a lot of good men who get defensive)

Like - They don't deserve to be called men so rather than animal something still human

Not in crime statistics of course, more in discussions

I am trying to get to "how can we fix this" and if it makes men more keen to fight because they can distance themselves from rapists .. " a real man would not rape"

But real men do rape. Good men don't. I'd hope good men would be indignant on behalf of women, not defensive. What are they most concerned about, the crime committed on a woman or a perceived slight against men?

I suppose something like 'disgraces to manhood' might serve, separating from good men without maligning animals.

Disgrace to manhood sounds good

The "real men don't" propaganda seems to be an effort to absolve men as a class of the responsibility to address the aggrieved entitlement and male dominance displays that they celebrate and support.
Dworkin told us years ago that “Pornography is the theory and rape is the practice”

I am really struggling to see the distinction Midge is making. Why should good men get defensive?

I've heard my husband say occasionally about the actions of other men that he is ashamed to be a man but I don't actually think he needs to say that. I don't expect him to take the blame for what other men do.

I don't really like women being treated as a class ( except when it is necessary) so I also understand that there limitations in treating men as a class

. I am not trying to absolve men, I want them to understand that we don't blame them individually, personally, so that they can identify a difference to themselves that makes it easier for them to despise rapists and perverts and creeps. Because it's easier for people to fight other than to improve themselves?

For too long, men have absolved themselves as a class of sexual crimes by blaming it all on “predators” - not regular men, a rare twisted breed that are nothing like them. This means they dont have to question the times they’ve pushed past a woman’s boundaries, coerced a sex act, harassed a woman, guilted a teenage girlfriend... because they’re nothing like the actual rapists. They’re removing the connection between rape and the “low level” sexual assault of which most men have been guilty at least once if they’re honest with themselves.

But blame it on the predators, and they don’t have to do that.

Because people do get defensive or react in unexpected ways if they feel they are lumped together with others. And whilst men with more critical thinking skills will manage to differentiate, many people will react instinctively

if you run a campaign that says loads of people are littering and it's bad, you won't solve the litter problem. It gets worse. It gets normalised across the Population.

you need to make littering people seem to be some small obnoxious "other" because "other" is a strong concept in affecting people behaviours( them and us ) and "small" because the bigger team is safer, more likely to win

So what is the equaivlent with rape? Yes animal implies no choice, but saying man will not lead to men changing behaviour, so what terminology will?

Actually I should have said saying man will lead to changes behaviour, it is more likely to lead to increased levels of sexual misconduct

Human beings are rational- they have the ability to make a choice between good and evil. That is not a theological statement but a statement of fact.

Human beings are capable of rationality, certainly.

I suspect some people’s brains are not well wired for empathy and impulse control etc. from the get-go and I’m certain some people are terribly, sometimes irreparably, damaged by their life experiences, so I don’t think ‘choice’ is as comfortingly clear cut as all that.

I don’t believe in good and evil and that allows me some hope that things can get better.