I wish the ânot all menâ crowd could self-police as effectively as the No Kings protestors. I remember seeing a few videos where the protestors were peacefully doing their thing until one dude tried to incite violence or vandalism, at which point the rest of the protestors turned on that dude, called him out, kicked him out of the group and turned him over to police.
The best way to prove that âIâm not like thatâ and keep your own identity distinct from the bad actors you want to avoid being associated with is to shut that kind of shit down immediately upon recognition.
How do you expect your average man on the street to shut down this behavior?
I am a 40 year old man and not anywhere near dorms or fraternities. When I was in college, I was often the young woman getting raped so I am hardly blind the fact that these are common occurrences. However, as a middle aged queer trans social worker, I am not involved with men engaging in this behavior.
Or, to paraphrase someone more articulate than me, if there are good men, they are not going to be in the group chat about raping women. Those groups have already self selected those men out of their social organizing. And I am happy to have been selected out of such peer groups.
"How do you expect your average man on the street to shut down this behavior?"
My best friend's nephew just beat the snot out of his now ex-friend when he walked into their dorm room & found him raping a young woman, afterwards he called the cops who arrested the rapist & no charges were filed on the nephew, he's lost no friend's except the rapist.
My boyfriend is perfectly happy to shut down misogynistic jokes & behavior in his friend group, the only friends he's lost are a few assholes...what's that phrase đ¤ "if you see something, say something"
I a tiny 5'2 120 lb woman have confronted men to protect women, thankfully it never came to physical blows but that's why I keep a taser & a gun in my purse...it's not that hard to figure out my guy, just stop laughing at the jokes & shut it down when men around you are saying sexist crap, most of the little piss babies who participate in that behavior are starved for male attention anyway & they default to the male authority-PRETEND you're that male authority.
I am not around men who make rape jokes or misogynistic jokes because I donât find them funny and donât tolerate them. That whole last paragraph about social groups and self selection? Itâs about that.
I also just have a hard time accepting âoh, it doesnât happen around meâ from anyone.
1 in 3 women globally have experienced sexual violence. This statistic has been mostly unchanged for the past two and a half decades. Basically my whole life.
The statement âit does not happen around meâ or âI donât see itâ does not make me clear you. It makes me think the only thing youâre looking for is a walking in on a woman screaming ânoâ while this happening and nothing else.
And this is coming off of seeing so many men claim the Cornell 7 case is not rape which only strengthens that point of view.
1/3 women being victims of sexual assault, doesn't mean 1/3 men are perpetrators. Also usually sexual assault takes place in private areas. Women aren't getting raped at the town square, with hundreds of witnesses.
Never claimed or implied that 1/3 perpetrators were men. Why are you so defensive? 1/3 woman globally experience sexual violence and stating that fact offends you?
However, the statistics do show the 93%_99% of perpetrators are male. However, just so you donât get offended, a large portion are serial offenders.
The Cornell 7 case title IX investigation had over 50 interviewed and 32 unique witnesses and yet it still happened. On top of that you had 50 members in the fraternity group chat that knew what happened and did not reported. And how many millions of men have heard what happened and said âoh itâs not r***
So sorry not sorry, itcould happen in town square and I I believe they would sooner arrest them for âpublic indecencyâ than arrest the men for raping the woman.
I doubt that 93-99% of rapists are male, that's likely because female rapists are very rarely accused. In many places it's legally impossible for a woman to even commit rape.
âWomenâs safety is importantâ and yet, here is another example of you making disregarding womenâs safety because you would rather argue with the fact that 93%-99% of sexual assault perpetrators that the U.S Sentencing commission is from men. This is of what we know and can prove.
I cannot do anything with unreported sexual assault. The only thing anyone can do is fight for a world where perpetrators of sexual assault actually face justice when it is reported so that victims know theyâre assaulter will actually face justice and not go free and be able to continue to harm them.
Except we donât live in that world. We live in a world where Cornell 7 happened and millions of men say âitâs not rape.â We live in a world where Jane doe had police sent to her house to harass her for coming forward and constantly gets death threats.
Every single person you have responded to wants to create a world where perpetrators (man or woman) faces justice. Yet, here we are arguing with you instead because youâre offended by specific language or wording. You donât like the fact that we live in a society where men donât report sexual assault yet here you are passively keeping that culture afloat.
If youâve already isolated yourself away from that environment, then the next step is to find ways to support women. Whether itâs verbally or something as simple as keeping an eye out at the grocery store, or supporting women in the workplace, or whatever. This behavior stems from a fundamental lack of respect for women.
I suppose I donât understand what you mean. Nearly every woman in here is saying they need men to be advocates. Not a knight, not a rescuer - an ally and an advocate. How exactly are women telling you âno, we donât want that?â
Heâs never advocated for anyone. Heâs just making up a straw man. Hidden profile and all their comments that arenât hidden are shitting on women.
A good step would be to confront other men on Reddit in this thread who donât believe there is a problem. Lots of opportunity for you there, not just as a trans man, but also as an older person potentially speaking to younger people on Reddit.
I just think there's no way people are actually going to accept any sort of real solution. Make binge drinking a social taboo and change how we value confidence and assertiveness in men.
I think here's the thing. Who is going to step in and stop your boyfriend? Because on the outside, we have no clue if your relationship is actually consensual. Could be motivated by fear, by economic need...or frankly, some people would argue that consent is impossible in the context of a patriarchal society. We can't even take your word for it.
This might seem harsh...but I also think it's accurate to what the problem is.
And I mean, just shutting down jokes, I'm sorry does nothing. Because some of the worst people I know in this regard do not make those type of jokes. Progressive aesthetics do not prevent abuse. Certainly as hell doesn't prevent people assuming consent.
This isn't to defend this behavior. But I feel like just straight across the board we have this idea of mustache-twirling villains when in reality, much more often it's just people assuming consent at face value.
However, as a middle aged queer trans social worker, I am not involved with men engaging in this behavior.
There is absolutely no way in fuck you're a trans social worker and don't observe/have to be involved with men engaging in this behavior. No idea why you are telling such obvious lies, but I suggest therapy. Also, the hidden posts are a dead giveaway that you are lying. You hid them so we can't look at your other posts and see where you're a 29 year old woman supporting Trump, or an 21 year old man afraid of false accusations.
This is low-key part of why nobody wants to ever agree with us, because even when other men say that they do exactly what you say they should do, your response is still "go to therapy" It feels like you don't want actionable change and just wanna shit on men, rather than make men better so that women are safer.
If you want to believe someone that hasn't been honest at any point, you can go ahead.
But when someone is in social work and claims they aren't seeing this behavior? Honey, I work with children. That means I work with social workers, cops, and the families of those children every day. Cops are some of the worst offenders, a third of social workers are no better, and don't even get me started on the families.
So if he's claiming he is a trans social worker and not seeing it?
He's lying.
I don't know what his motive is, and I don't care.
Ah, yes, the joy of a well made rape joke. Why would a bunch of women need to wet blanket my sense of humor? My laughter is more important to the universe than your screams. AmIRite?
The irony of these comments is watching the same accounts say we should be able to tell rape jokes while also saying they've never actually heard a rape joke being told, nor ever met a woman whose been assaulted, and have met a man whose been falsely accused, while also acutely knowing the statics say quite the opposite in reality outside of reddit.
If you are interrupting laughter with screams then go see a psychiatrist and get that fixed. Do not impose your trauma on the world, don't spread misery.
None of that is going to stop rape, you are just going to ruin the moment for everyone. Make them tiptoe around your feelings.
Acting like only bad men go to college parties is crazy but so is denying the fact that it didnt stay in that group chat, a LOT of men who did nothing knew what was going on in that party. And you know it.
No one helped the girls when they were assualting her friend in the bathroom and the dudes blocked their way to help her. You can't honestly believe there weren't other men around just letting that happen.
I'm a man. You are too. We need to own this shit, there are a lot of cowards out there and you're doing nothing to help by being "but im not one of them"
that's the sort of mentality that allows this to happen.
Where did i say only bad men go to college parties?
I said I donât go to college parties. Which is true. I donât. The only parties I go to are generally dinner parties hosted by my friends. Sex doesnât happen at those.
The assumption that this is just how every man lives his life is part of the problem. I go to work, go grocery shopping, make dinner, and go to bed. I see my friends a couple of times a month and the doctors a lot more. I donât engage with men who make sex jokes and I spend more time writing and making art.
I mean if you're going to openly admit that you are 40 and are impotent to all the things happening outside in the world right now than expect women to continue to move away from men as providers and protectors. I mean, if you are the standard of the average man at 40, then the average man is impotent. A chump. Worthless. Powerless. Unable to inact any change in his world.
Ok. I guess as a woman who actually works in a field that makes a difference in the world daily, I expect more from the men in my life. You can down vote me for that, but honestly as a 40 year old man...weak.
I donât think men are âproviders and protectors.â I believe in egalitarianism. I am a third wave feminist.
Itâs interesting though that you use charged and gendered language, labeling me impotent. I am a trans man and by definition, I cannot produce semen. As a survivor of ovarian cancer, I canât reproduce at all. So yes, in this sense I am impotent.
And if reproduction is the only worth someone has, you are reproducing the same harmful rhetoric that is used against women.
I'm a 30yo trans man and a feminist and I think your views fall very flat. There is always, always, always something we can do. I shut it down when I hear men my age or men younger than me or men older than me degrade women, slut-shame, victim-blame, etc. When other men are blase about women's issues, when my peers denigrate their wives, when I hear that there are inequitible expectations for the finances/reproductive labour divide in their relationships, I speak up.
I've worked with male.youth, and steered them away from manosphere bullshit, have made sure they understand consent, have chewed them out for regurgitating the sexist bullshit they hear from other men.
I have reframed situations for married 40-somethings and vehemently defended the labour their wives put in. I have chewed them out for the attitude that "I'm the one out working so all of the money is mine and I have a final say" (which is an issue for a number of economic reality reasons I don't have the time or energy to get into here).
I act like it is weird when men are weird about women, I call out sexual harassment, I try to educate and empower boys and male youth to do the same.
I'm 5'4, pregnant, gay, and "passing" only goes so far, so keep yourself safe. But when I know that I am being perceived as a man, cis or not, I know that my voice has weight with other men, and I fucking use it. This doesn't start or end at a fraternity. It is endemic in so many parts of our cultures and societies, and there is always something we can say or do to remind other men that they are not mindless animals, and that women are fully human in the exact same way that they are. Always.
Why do you have friends who think that degrading women and victim blaming is cool? Why do you continue to engage with men who engage in financial abuse?
do you think open abusers are the only men perpetuating rape culture? are you aware people often have to interact with people they donât like? i think you might be in the wrong career if these two concepts are new for you
Do you think that interacting with people professionally and interacting socially are the same thing?
Do you think that when acting professionally I might not need to follow professional guidelines and rules?
Or are you stupid? I do not confuse my social life and my professional life. When I am acting within my job, I follow professional guidelines and ethics. I am bound by them.
And when I am in my social sphere, I have no obligation to continue to engage with abusive individuals.
Did I say they were friends? Social nets extend beyond friends. Colleagues, acquaintances, family of friends, family of the kids I've worked with, partners of women I consider friends...? Why are you being intentionally obtuse? You asked how to stand up, and I told you.
This, and, sometimes cutting contact and refusing to associate at all with men who have shitty attitudes means they are only ever exposed to other men who reinforce those shitty values. Sometimes you don't have the option to completely personalize and perfectly cater your social networks.
So you choose to continue to socialize and engage with these men who enact violence and you defend that on the basis that they arenât your friends they are just your social network?
That sounds like endorsing violence to me. You still engage. You still support.
Okay have fun completely missing the point and twisting what I said to make yourself feel better. Congrats on never ever being in a room with or having a coworker or stopping in at a friend's family member's house or running into them at a grocery store, on never ever being in a position where you interact with any man who has ever or will ever say something stupid or do something horrible, on never being at a large social gathering with people you do not know, on never running into anyone you usually avoid by chance, on having no women who are friends who have shitty spouses/partners, on not having problematic family members yourself, on never being introduced to someone who starts spouting off, who are pieces of shit.
It is almost magical, your ability to never be in a situation ever where you interact with anyone who does or says anything non-problematic, thereby keeping yourself totally morally pure, unlike those gross misogynist-apologists who leave their houses and meet people sometimes. Thank god, because speaking up in such a situation is such a hard and incomprehensible thing to you!
40 years old and you sound like you've never fucking been outside.
If you don't want an answer, don't ask a question. Joke's on me, I guess, because I knew you were being a disingenuous asshat right from the get-go.
How do you expect your average man on the street to shut down this behavior?
I am a 40 year old man and not anywhere near dorms or fraternities. When I was in college, I was often the young woman getting raped so I am hardly blind the fact that these are common occurrences. However, as a middle aged queer trans social worker, I am not involved with men engaging in this behavior.
Or, to paraphrase someone more articulate than me, if there are good men, they are not going to be in the group chat about raping women. Those groups have already self selected those men out of their social organizing. And I am happy to have been selected out of such peer groups. "
Please don't waste your time engaging with this circular firing squad of purity tests. Just wanted to say I appreciate your comments and hope you have a great day.
Yeah, he specifically said he don't know what he should do. You proceeded to call him impotent for that. Ok, whatever. But he literally admited not knowing in the first comment.Â
Starting a question with âHow do you expectâŚâ then moving on to âexcuse blah blah excuse blah blahâ is not an open and honest inquiry.
Try asking âHow can I, a 40 yr old man, stop ignoring or contributing to rape culture?â
My answer would be to stop protecting yourself with excuses, stop acting like your history should abscond you from how youâre currently perceived, treat all women â even invisible women â with respect, call out abusive behavior when you see it, shut down offensive jokes and make sure people know that jokes that punch down are not OK. This is enough. You can use your life experience to add to the list.
Itâs quite the bold statement to say that I am either ignoring or contributing to rape culture when the only things you know about me are my age, my profession, the fact that I am trans, and that I am a rape survivor myself.
I donât tolerate rape jokes or misogynistic jokes. I have led professional trainings on DV and sexual violence and I take them very seriously. This is what I meant when I said men will be cut out of social groups that engage in that behavior - I am quite aware that men who do make âjokesâ about violence are not including me in their group texts and I am more than okay with that.
Pardon me: when did writing a comment on reddit become an interrogation?
If you donât want to reply to me, you can keep scrolling. I am not holding anyone hostage.
I donât particularly think going, âThatâs not funny, I will choose not to associate with you,â is what women mean when they tell men to shut down rape behavior.
Certainly, your hostility and anger in this exchange is a good example of that. I wrote about social groups self selecting around this and you still wrote that I am ignoring and condoning rape culture solely on the basis of my masculinity.
Either you believe in some kind of gender essentialism where masculinity is sexual violence (in which case, I do consider TERFs and their ilk to be a hate group) or there are greater actions men can be taking other than not socializing with men who behave this way.
So what you're saying is that men who are not a rapist have no part I'm fixing the issue and you're only asking men who are rapists to fix the issue? Men who aren't should just ignore the entire discourse?
Right & obviously IS taking action "what can I do"- all the things you're already doing sound awesome, now get other men to do those things, if your group of dude bros is already doing all of that already then pat yourself on the back for being a part of the solution instead of the whole problem
It will never be shut down. People will stay out of it because of the guilty until proven innocent that happens. As soon as you step in you are now involved. There needs to be the other side for women as well that lie with no repercussions and completely fuck over people's lives
If you can't realize that most men already do shut down this behavior when they encounter it, I'm not sure you are equipped to have this conversation.
In 42 years, I have had ONE interaction where an acquaintance made a SA joke. One, and we have found it heinous and chewed him out.This isn't some thing that normally occurs.
I personally have been falsely accused once, and another time had a roommate claim we were intimate to try and get me on the hook for her child support.
Notice how I don't blame all women for this shitty behavior though? Just the 2 who actually did anything to me.
Blaming all men won't convince the shitty ones and just turns the neutral ones against you.
Because in a conversation where we're already being told we're not doing enough, you listed things we're already doing. We do these things and you're blind to it, so it obviously isn't good enough for you.
"shut down offensive jokes and make sure people know that jokes that punch down are not OK" And of course you are the arbiter of what is considered offensive or up and down. It is this delusion that creates splinter groups of abusive men. If you didn't start invading our spaces and policing our communication we could keep the wanderers from going astray. We don't ask you to stop gossiping and ruining people's social life, which you often do. Stay the in your lane and maybe things would go smoother.
Gross. Have you never told anyone âwhoah, too far, too farâ when theyâve told an offensive joke? No, then yeah, youâre the piece of shit who is part of the problem. You have to be stupid if you think thatâs âpolicing behaviorâ.
That's just interaction bait at the end of a valid point. Because it seems without the ability to victimize yourself in some way, you don't engage at all.
If you've already had a reason to be pushed out of those groups, it just sounds like you're already doing the sort of thing that would make for effective shunning if more were doing it with you. It only consistently works as a cohesive group effort, which is what those protesters made such a good example of. (Protests where only one or two people try to stop escalation just.. escalate.)
As a social worker, you're not in a terrible position to urge others to be part of that, or to dissuade people you see developing dangerous habits, even mental ones. Every baby step along the way can help potential victims, even if there will be more and more until more people care to stand in the way.
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u/wasted-degrees 10h ago
I wish the ânot all menâ crowd could self-police as effectively as the No Kings protestors. I remember seeing a few videos where the protestors were peacefully doing their thing until one dude tried to incite violence or vandalism, at which point the rest of the protestors turned on that dude, called him out, kicked him out of the group and turned him over to police.
The best way to prove that âIâm not like thatâ and keep your own identity distinct from the bad actors you want to avoid being associated with is to shut that kind of shit down immediately upon recognition.