The âstop saying not all menâ statement is completely disconnected and strange to attach to these crimes. The issue isnât men or being male, or even men holding one another accountable. The issue is we live in a corrupt society where some people feel entitled and protected to commit heinous crimes.
And Iâve already pushed the assaulters and gropers out of my life and called them out and no one gave a damn, so how do i as a man affect this at all, other than trying to be a good influence?
Every woman who I have met in real life that says âall menâ does not attribute that to me. Hell they donât even treat stranger men in a negative way, they just donât give them the time of day. Dudes who get upset at it need to really just look at themselves and think about why âall menâ is even a saying.
If as a man youâre more upset at a woman saying âall menâ rather than the reason why they are saying it, then you gotta reevaluate.
Edit: For all the men replying upset about the use of âall menâ you are exactly who I am talking about lol Instead of using your energy to police the men who are the reason for âall menâ existing you rather get mad at the use of âall menâ. Reevaluate.
The problem exists when it's the only acceptable instance of sweeping generalization. If we held all Indian men accountable for the actions of bad Indian men. We'd be racist as fuck.
Your sister is going to India. She tells you she's going to ride public transportation and go out at night alone. You tell her "India has a known rape problem, that's not a good idea".
Have you unfairly generalized all the men in India? Or simply acknowledged a real problem that endangers women in India?
If you said "Indian men are rapists" would you still think it's not racist? Word choice and phrasing matter. The words "yes All Men" are inplied to be followed with "... are dangerous/rapists/murderers/etc" if you didn't want to specify that you think mem are the issue, you just just say "rapists are bad" instead the choice to say "men are bad" makes it sexist
But no one's saying "all men are rapists". They're saying all men are complicit in rape culture and it's a problem.
It's not just "rapists are bad" - the men who cheered outside the bathroom while a woman got raped weren't rapists, they just helped make it safer and easier for the rape to happen. That's the part we need to be honest about.
And yes, men absolutely do that for each other, it's extremely normal. They think they don't, bc they think "stopping a rape" means they'd hear a woman screaming in an alley and step in or call the cops. But every man who's quietly watched a guy take a half unconscious woman into a bedroom, every man who's heard a story about a guy pestering and harassing a woman and stayed silent, every man who's watched someone plow a woman with alcohol, have made rape easy and normal to commit. Not all men are rapists, but every man has stayed silent or made excuses while the rapists remained free. That is what the end of the "all men" sentence is.
There is a difference between "any man could" and "all men are." I 100% understand and encourage women to take whatever precautions they need to because generally speaking shitty men do not visibly distinguish themselves from the rest of us. Most of the men a woman interacts with in her daily life will not harm her, but the ones who will often do their best to blend into the crowd because it gives them access to more victims.
I think of it like defensive driving. I don't actually think that everyone else on the road is blind and aggressive and doesn't know how turn signals work, but I am much safer if I act as though they are because then when an asshole does show up I am prepared to react. I am fine with women acting as though any man she meets may try to hurt her because unfortunately that is kind of warranted at the moment. I wish it weren't, but we prepare for the world we have not the world we want.
I'm not okay with those women saying or believing that every single man wants to hurt them and is just waiting for an opportunity to do so. That isn't true, it's not good for the mental health of the women, it's not good for the mental health of the men hearing it, and it's not good for society as a whole.
The issue isn't that all men are rapists. The men who blocked the door and cheered while a woman was being raped in the bathroom aren't rapists themselves. The 50 men in the Cornell group chat who didn't say anything while the 7 gang raped Jane Doe aren't rapists. They just made it easy and safe for rape to happen.
That's the issue - at some point, every man has kept secrets, made excuses, said nothing, and made it possible for a rapist to think they've done nothing wrong.
Not every man would block the door and cheer. Not every man would protect a rapist. Plenty of women protect rapists.
No one in that group chat spoke up because any men who would either never joined in the first place because we don't want to associate ourselves with the kind of men who do that or were already removed for being a "buzzkill" long before this took place. The group chat of a bunch of rapists is not a random sampling of men. It is a group of men who choose to associate with rapists.
There are very real issues here. "All men" doesn't address any of them. It only distracts from those issues. It just makes the young, impressionable men who most need to be taught to be allies that women will never trust them no matter what they do because they're men and "all men" are bad.
If the message that "all men are responsible for shutting down rape culture" is enough to alienate some men and turn them away from being allies, just imagine how women feel when they're told they'd better stop saying that or they might not get any help in the future.
You think this ends at the 50 men in the group chat? You acknowledge that fraternities are hotbeds of sexual assault, you say that all men know this to be true and only the rapists join.
So all men know that on every college campus there are houses committed to protecting rapists, yet there's no movement among men to shut those frats down. Men who don't rape don't join frats, they just look the other way and don't create issues for the frats.
If the message that "all men are responsible for shutting down rape culture"
That's not what this discussion is about and you know it. That's not what "all men" means. Don't start being dishonest.
Everyone is responsible for changing rape culture. That's how culture works. But it's not men who protect those institutions. It's power. Schools protect athletes and fraternities who assault women because they would rather avoid scandal and take the money those fraternities and athletics programs bring in than protect their students.
Yet there's no movement among men to shut those frats down.
Your ignorance of something does not stop it from existing. A simple Google search could have shown you that people (men and women) have been petitioning for the abolishment of Greek life as a whole and specific problematic fraternities for at least 20 years. The problem is that petitions don't close fraternities. University administrations do. And university administrations generally care more about the money and connections that fraternities bring in than they do about the safety of the students. That's why they collect bad actors. Institutions which are insulated from consequences will attract people who want to misbehave because they know they'll be able to get away with it.
If you want a personal example, when I was in college there was a frat that was known for hosting parties and chartering buses to bring over women from the nearby women's college only to stop that shuttle service halfway through the party so that twomen would be stranded and have to sleep there. Everyone knew this was happening, it was not a secret, but the university president (a woman, mind you) chose to ignore it and do nothing about the frat because she made a business decision that letting it go on would be better for the university than calling attention to it and shutting it down. There were protests and demands for that fraternity to be shut down. They were ignored. What exactly was I or any other student supposed to do?
That's not what this discussion is about and you know it. That's not what "all men" means. Don't start being dishonest.
Yes, it is. All men are complicit in rape culture, all men are responsible for changing that and shutting down rape culture. It's that simple. You think it's not bc you feel attacked when men are called to do something or it's pointed out that men know and do nothing.
it's not men who protect those institutions. It's power.
This isn't a dichotomy. Men protect those institutions when they hear about it, know about it, and stay silent. Systems protect those institutions when they silence victims. Women protect those institutions when they disparage victims to gain favor with men.
We're all responsible. The difference is that women are policing each other and the systems and institutions in a way men aren't, the culture of women's relationships has evolved as rape culture became common knowledge.
Don't believe me? Google who's leading the groups fighting to shut down sororities. Or send a woman into a room full of other women and have her call an absent woman a "whore". Then send a man into a room full of men and have him recount the time he got a woman drunk on purpose bc he knew it'd be easier to fuck her that way. See which gets a bigger, louder, more boisterous negative response.
A simple Google search could have shown you that people (men and women) have been petitioning for the abolishment of Greek life as a whole and specific problematic fraternities for at least 20 years.
Keep googling. It's women's groups fighting back against it, it always has been. Men signing their petition and going to their protests just means if women do the work, men will sometimes show up.
You should also look into the breakdown there while you're at it, the ratio of women to men in these movements - you don't want to be lumped in with rapists, but you feel just fine lumping all men in with the very sparse minority of men who are activists. Nope, no work for men to do here, a handful are already doing it for the rest of us! How dare you say "all men", it's just a handful!
What exactly was I or any other student supposed to do?
Join the protests, advocate to admin, report to the police, provide a statement to police to bolster the case against them, organize a student transportation team to save the stranded victims, ostracize the frat responsible, report it to the women's college, help victims find legal help to sue the university. All the things women's activist groups have done and continue to do to fight back against rapists.
The main issue in India isn't just rape, it's a culture and justice system that allows rapists to walk free and feel confident committing their crimes.
Knowing what I know about how our culture and justice system deals with rapists, I would insist any large migration of men from India be vetted as tracked by social workers before entry and for several years after migration..
Also, why is it that men are obsessed with saying women "screech"? What, you think if you find the right word to belittle and shame our rage we'll be silenced into submission?
Do you know why banshees screech? In the legends, they are harbingers, they warn of death and doom on its way to claim their victims. If you ignore or dismiss their cries, only you can be blamed for the consequences.
All men in India are complicit in rape bc they know there's a rape problem but do nothing to push for harsher punishments for the rapists or try to change the culture. Any clearer for you now?
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u/Known-Exam-9820 3h ago
The âstop saying not all menâ statement is completely disconnected and strange to attach to these crimes. The issue isnât men or being male, or even men holding one another accountable. The issue is we live in a corrupt society where some people feel entitled and protected to commit heinous crimes.
And Iâve already pushed the assaulters and gropers out of my life and called them out and no one gave a damn, so how do i as a man affect this at all, other than trying to be a good influence?