[RD] Why Men Need to be Involved in the #MeToo Movement

This is because knowingly and with plausible deniability pushing boundaries and wearing down resistance is a very common dating/seduction "script". A man-boundary pushing and trying to force one's way past a woman's disinterest, discomfort or reluctance is literally one of the main heterosexual sexual encounter "scripts" taught to young men by and it's terrible. It's a "script" that's responsible for a significant amount of rape and other suffering. And of course even in other cases, as the target it's basically impossible to tell whether it's going to turn violent this time. It's exactly why we talk about enthusiastic consent.
May be it's a cultural thing, but some women consider that proper man's behavior is to be active in pursuing and to "conquer" them. And that enthusiastic consent makes her look like "easy-obtainable" (not sure what's the proper English word for that). This is probably the same seduction script you've just described. Personally, I don't like it too, but this type of behavior is what sometimes expected by a woman.
 
Since it was published I've seen heaps of people genuinely buy into the "oh I misread things" defence and be all "oh women are sooo mysterious" which has me side-eyeing veerry strongly.
 
Since it was published I've seen heaps of people genuinely buy into the "oh I misread things" defence and be all "oh women are sooo mysterious" which has me side-eyeing veerry strongly.
Speaking of clues - she followed him to his place after some kissing and groping, she got undressed and they exchanged oral sex. I don't know about you, but I generally don't do that with people I don't intend to have sex with. This is not to say she was not allowed to change her mind - she obviously was, but telling that, rather than mumbling, proved to be a good idea.
I'm not sure anyone thinks it's okay. Just not sexual assault/rape. There is a spectrum in offense, and being persistent doesn't rank highly on the scale of egregious crimes.
Ditto. I said he was foolish and boorish... as he evidently was, because he somehow managed to turn a girl who was originally rather interested into pretty disinterested one.
However, being left with blue balls seems like an adequate punishment for that.
 
Well... yes, men have power over women in patriarchal society. This is not so much an assumption as a fact.
"Power" can be used as an adjective or as a noun, but in that case an abstract idea. In either case, this can't possibly be a fact.

edit: To add more to it, "patriarchal society" in and of itself is an abstract concept and whether or not we are living in one is another. Anyone who isn't authoritarian and is capable of free-thinking will realize this.
If you are a man, you definitely have power over women
Does a homeless man on the streets (a solid majority of homeless are male btw) have power over Angela Merkel?




There is literally no value whatsoever of saying “hey I never raped anybody”. Like what do they want, a cookie?
The only time to say it is if you've been falsely accused. Which I agree that it's a rare occurrence, but that doesn't mean that statement will always literally have no value.
 
The question is IMO whether the movement welcomes all normal people who feels sympathy to rape victims. Thousands of men could help, at the very least by spreading the word about it. My impression from what I'm getting from this thread, is that I will be rather treated with suspicion, as a potential abuser. Which makes me feel like I'm "on the other side of the barricade" and the movement is quite radical and fringe one. May be movement activists are ok with alienating people who generally understand their goals and agree with them, but I think it doesn't help their cause.
 
I don't know how people can read that Ansari piece and think that's okay behaviour by him. There's just zero chance he "misread" anything or "missed" signals. He knew exactly what he was doing - ignoring signs of lack of interest and resistance for as long as he felt he could get away with.

This is because knowingly and with plausible deniability pushing boundaries and wearing down resistance is a very common dating/seduction "script". A man-boundary pushing and trying to force one's way past a woman's disinterest, discomfort or reluctance is literally one of the main heterosexual sexual encounter "scripts" taught to young men by and it's terrible. It's a "script" that's responsible for a significant amount of rape and other suffering. And of course even in other cases, as the target it's basically impossible to tell whether it's going to turn violent this time. It's exactly why we talk about enthusiastic consent.

It is also really just deeply unerotic, that article is like one long cold shiver.
Ansari sounds a bit creepy but he didn't commit assault. When she said stop he stopped.
 
Aziz is a piece of ****, not a criminal.
 
Does a homeless man on the streets (a solid majority of homeless are male btw) have power over Angela Merkel?

No sir

The question is IMO whether the movement welcomes all normal people who feels sympathy to rape victims. Thousands of men could help, at the very least by spreading the word about it. My impression from what I'm getting from this thread, is that I will be rather treated with suspicion, as a potential abuser. Which makes me feel like I'm "on the other side of the barricade" and the movement is quite radical and fringe one. May be movement activists are ok with alienating people who generally understand their goals and agree with them, but I think it doesn't help their cause.

You are a potential abuser. So am I. You and I will be treated as though it is squarely our respective responsibilities to make sure we don’t become abusers, which is the truth. And frankly if this concept is alienating to you then you do not understand or agree with the goals.
 
In regards to your "newer example", what do you think it's saying? It's remarkably sparse on detail.
Unproven - and in this case anonymous - allegations have had an immediate negative effect on a person who denied the accusations, but had no discourse against them.

A clear example of a person where your previous claim: "The people who lost a step or lost 'everything' either admitted to it or disappeared in the face of overwhelming evidence." does not fit, neither is there overwhelming evidence against him - quite the opposite, it's as weak as it gets - nor does he admit to having done anything.
 
You are a potential abuser. So am I. You and I will be treated as though it is squarely our respective responsibilities to make sure we don’t become abusers, which is the truth. And frankly if this concept is alienating to you then you do not understand or agree with the goals.
I'm a potential abuser only as much as members of the movement are potential thieves and murderers. My responsibility is not doing bad things to other people, men or women, and I expect the same attitude from them. And I don't believe that women should have privileged position in this sense, I think they should "re-evaluate" and "self-crit" no less than me.
 
Disclaimer:
This is largely intended to give @Lemon Merchant the "reaction" she asked for.
The remarks not directly addressed to her partially serve that purpose in a diagonal fashion.
I could have answered questions i may feel should have been asked. But i didn't.
I'm not here to debate at any significant length.

Does a homeless man on the streets (a solid majority of homeless are male btw) have power over Angela Merkel?

You remember that NYC catcalling video from fall 2014?
Well, that "helped".
In summer '15 an elderly homeless man, sitting on the ground, catcalled a passing woman, which was immediatly punished by that woman's cousin beating said homeless man.
To his death.

In the early hours of December 25 2017 (in some flyover state) a couple beat up a homeless man they'd been drinking with that night. Their excuse: The man supposedly threatened to roofie the woman's drink and rape her. That's one story. They have roughly 8 of them, all fishy.
The other man beat the homeless guy with a baseball bat - for an hour. To his death.

Aleathea Gillard and company all plead guilty last month (or January?). In 2015 her son came home, reporting that one middle aged homeless man had called him a slur.
Gillard gathered a bunch of friends (largely African American alpha womenfolk) drove with them in her mini-van to said homeless man, where they proceeded to brutally beat the man. To a coma lasting 7 months and, ultimately, his death.

And of course the problem-glassed Katie Quackenbush is being charged with attempted murder after a middle-aged homeless man complained about the noise and exhaust fumes of her Porsche.
She reacted by asking him if he wanted to die that night and shooting him repeatedly.
Since the man is as far as i know still in medical care and Miss Q has a history of violence, her father - who is of course an attorney - has so far failed to convince anybody of the most transparently dubious self-defense argument since 2013.

And these are just off the top of my head.
Point being:
Homeless guys in the US sure have trouble with women; but Merkel is the least of their problems.

Btw one of the actual comments of Miss Quackenbush's father (and attorney):
"I know there has been a problem in Nashville, so I've read, with the homeless attacking, raping and killing people."
Well, there you have it.

Why Men Need to be Involved in the #MeToo Movement
No. They don't.
"Toxic Masculinity"
Oh, that again.
This is basically a joke term by now, somewhere between "legitimate rape", "clean coal" and "anchor babies".

I deem basically the entirety of this article uninteresting. It's largely a self-therapeutic exercise in which the author tries to reconcile her humanist sentiment with her "feminist" ideology.
At which she - inevitably - fails.

However, i do make a habit of subjecting the first paragraphs of articles to, you know, actual awareness:
"I’ve spent the past three years embedded in the worlds of boys — a rather unexpected place for a middle-aged lesbian, who came of age in the Third Wave feminist, Riot Grrrl 1990s, to have found herself. Researching and reporting my forthcoming book on modern boyhood and masculinity was a project both professional and personal. I’m the mother of a now teenaged son, a swaggering, sports-and-video-game-loving boy who ranks high on the bro-scale, and who is also impossibly tender and affectionate."
So, she opens with her identity, covering all the bases (the "i am allowed to speak because identity" bases).
"Just as my friends who are parents of girls grew anxious over their daughters’ princess obsessions and a world that blunted their strength and ambition, I worried about the messages my son and other boys received about their worth and value as men."
Note the language here. Blunted. Worrysome messages.
"Sociologists often use the metaphor of “the man box” to describe the social rules of masculinity: In order to be a “real man,” a guy has to be stoic, aggressive, financially successful, sexually rapacious, physically courageous, muscle-bound, risk-taking, tough and in control."
And finally we have arrived at our garden vatriety naked appeal to semi-scientific authority.
Unusually late.

And thus the terms have been established.
One paragraph.
Later she highlights extensively, that, yes, she actually talks to men.
She really does.

Btw: What the heck is this Chatelaine thing?
It looks like a "women's magazine" complete with female coded hobbies (gardening, cooking and whatnot), royalty Trudeau fawning, petty trite "feminism" and everything.
Oh...
So this is Canada's most successful magazine? And it's considered "news" in the wider sense?
Well. That doesn't help with my prejudices.
I am currently watching Ms. Giese talk about sex education. For boys specifically, who she feels have been neglected in that regard. That sounds like a nice enough sentiment.
The problem remains though, that the degree to which people, mostly of one gender, feel comfortable debating public policy regarding editing the sexuality of another gender for the sake of virtue, social convenience, "health", "their own best interest" is remarkably akin to the reverse of old.

From her other articles i take it as increasingly obvious that this woman is a raging hateful sexist incapable of offering men any meaningful empathy, despite her conscious and deliberate efforts.
It doesn't look like tactical behavior. Apparently she just can't help it.
Count me as the 12% bored.
(I also stopped reading there, so don't ask me about that second article).

I have significant sympathy for the women exposing the Casting Couch in Hollywood.
I also have significant sympathy for victims of the rape factory that is graduate studies in North America, a sympathy not that relevant since this is very much not a focus of the "movement".
Never mind the victims among agricultural workers, whose plight i repeatedly tried to plug on this board recently.

But as it stands the "movement", such as it is, likely will achieve little to no tangible gains in the fight against rape and is mostly an exercise in ideology and various ill motives on a personal level, decorated with the occasional - increasingly drowned out - victim of rape.
police report ASAP whenever it occurs.
This is normal in large parts of Europe btw.
Arguably even a matter of (informal) duty.
There certainly is "Toxic Femininity" out there. Attend any radical feminist gathering for prime examples. I'm perfectly aware that there are toxic individuals on both sides.
In the words of one Puerto Rican likely Clinton voter mra alt-right white supremacist, let me preface:
Having no love for the term...
...there's more to "toxic feminity". It's not about screaming radical "feminists", albeit they provide ideological cover for "toxic" everyday behaviors.
which just adds to their newly discovered insecurities.
The above usage of the term "insecurities" strikes me as condescending and enforcing a certain frame essentially presupposing that men are to blame.
And newly discovered?
An analogy involving Columbus and the Taino begins to form.
Margaret Atwood was lambasted on social media because she brought up the reminder that conviction on social media is the wrong way to conclude these cases - due process, evidence, etc. are still necessary. That shocked some of the people who expected her to blindly go along with any accusation - since she's one of the most famous feminists in the country.
I'm not surprised at all.
Millenial "feminists" are obsessed with the recent adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale...
...ignoring that the Tale is also a sharp critique of organised religion, of fertility fetishism, of dogmatism, and of utopianism*.
Hardly an endorsement of contemporary popular "feminism".

*I was about to write "murderous utopianism". Then i figured that was largely redundant and a waste of everybodies time.
 
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I'm not surprised at all.
Millenial "feminists" are obsessed with the recent adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale...
...ignoring that the Tale is also a sharp critique of organised religion, of fertility fetishism, of dogmatism, and of utopianism*.
Hardly an endorsement of contemporary popular "feminism".

*I was about to write "murderous utopianism". Then i figured that was largely redundant and a waste of everybodies time.
:dubious:

While I don't consider myself a "millenial feminist" (I assume that means a millennial who is also a feminist? I'm several generations removed from that), I do consider myself a feminist who understands that The Handmaid's Tale is very definitely a critique of organized religion, fertility fetishism, and dogmatism.

I have no idea where you're going with the word "utopianism." Gilead is not a utopia for anyone but the Commanders, who run everything and are above the law unless they do something egregious that can't be overlooked, such as the Commander whose hand is cut off for the crime of adultery with his Handmaid. Oh, and speaking of that, he gets off lightly. She tries to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. When she survives that, she is sentenced to be stoned to death by the other Handmaids.

And yeah, I'm looking forward to the second season, which starts in April. Season 1 was an adaptation of the novel. Season 2 is new material that Atwood didn't write.
 
I have no idea where you're going with the word "utopianism." Gilead is not a utopia for anyone but the Commanders,
Yeah, that's my point.
No utopia is ever all that great for anyone but the group who came up with the hare-brained scheme.
I mean utopianism in a wide sense here. Basically any attempt to design a society (usually derivative of some grandious "theory" or another) and implement it by way of revolutionary change.
Theoretically there's nothing to prevent this from working. Chance has it that humans have tried this, like a lot, and it reliable turned out to be one fecal mess or another.
 
Can you give an actual example of this happening?

All of the calculus changes when it comes to fame.

When it comes to the #MeToo for us muggles, there is a portion of it being zero-sum. Either women get shamed into not accusing (creating a trail of victims) or some men get falsely accused. There will always be a cohort of potential victims of whatever social policy we pursue.

When it comes to fame, numbers matter. There are a certain percentage of people that are, for lack of a better word, crazy. This means that if you're known to 10,000 people, a portion of the people who know of you will have dysfunctional cognition and thus are actually rather likely to make false accusations. When it comes to a public figure, we have to expect that there will always (always) be a low-boil of accusations that aren't true. And so we need to have a mechanism to percolate the good accusations upward to be properly considered. Sometimes, people's intuitions make them bad at this math. And we mistake the math we use with a friend than with a celebrity.

As a private man, my two risks are (a) a crazy woman (very rare) or (b) a sociopathic and vengeful woman (also rare). On the counter side, 25% of the women I know have experienced sexual assault, and the majority of them have been shamed into silence. I give up very little by encouraging #MeToo, and gain a massive level of protection for all of my female friends and loved ones.

As a public figure, both (a) and (b) become much more numerous. So, the specific threat to any individual public figure is much higher, and we need to just be more cautious when it comes to vetting accusers. Not because public figures are less likely to abuse power, but because they're more likely to be accused.

Let's look at Trump. I applied this reasoning, and we all knew that he would get an incredible number of accusations due to his simple status as a celebrity villain. That's why I focused so much on the Natasha Stoynoff case, because it fits every (pre-decided) marker of credibility that I could find. Some people used their intuitive math, because there were guaranteed to be so many false accusers, no cases needed to be examined for credibility. But it's the wrong way to look at things.
 
Yeah, that's my point.
No utopia is ever all that great for anyone but the group who came up with the hare-brained scheme.
I mean utopianism in a wide sense here. Basically any attempt to design a society (usually derivative of some grandious "theory" or another) and implement it by way of revolutionary change.
Theoretically there's nothing to prevent this from working. Chance has it that humans have tried this, like a lot, and it reliable turned out to be one fecal mess or another.
The show actually acknowledges this. There's a scene when Offred and the Commander are in his library and he tells her that he and his group created Gilead because they "wanted to make things better."

When she points out that her situation isn't better, he says, "Better never means better for everyone."
 
Yeah, that's my point.
No utopia is ever all that great for anyone but the group who came up with the hare-brained scheme.
I mean utopianism in a wide sense here. Basically any attempt to design a society (usually derivative of some grandious "theory" or another) and implement it by way of revolutionary change.
Theoretically there's nothing to prevent this from working. Chance has it that humans have tried this, like a lot, and it reliable turned out to be one fecal mess or another.

TIL every modern country on earth is a utopian society
 
el mac said:
As a private man, my two risks are (a) a crazy woman (very rare) or (b) a sociopathic and vengeful woman (also rare).
I used to feel that naive confidence. Not anymore. Women are as crazy as men, if you have your guard down you will get hurt. Not raped or beaten most likely but damaged in other ways.

Men who think women are the more noble sex have either had a charmed existence with women, are in denial or are still hoping for a woman to 'save them'. I'm not saying you necessaryily, I was definitely #2 and #3 tho
 
TIL every modern country on earth is a utopian society
No.
Every highly developed society "on earth" today is the result of incremental change, pragmatism, diplomacy and compromise.
The very things any garden vartiety SJW is utterly incapable of.
Your best case for an exception (hah! pun!) would have been the United States.
Which would have worked brilliantly (kinda, let's pretend) as an argument....until about 15 months ago.
 
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I used to feel that naive confidence. Not anymore. Women are as crazy as men, if you have your guard down you will get hurt. Not raped or beaten most likely but damaged in other ways.

Men who think women are the more noble sex have either had a charmed existence with women, are in denial or are still hoping for a woman to 'save them'. I'm not saying you necessaryily, I was definitely #2 and #3 tho


I don't think they're nobler. I said that the two conditions where #MeToo risks me are those two (rare) scenarios. There will be victims created in either social policy we allow. False accusation are one risk. Silenced accusers are another. A sexual assaulter can leave a trail of silenced victims in their wake. Not sure how many men a woman can accuse of being sexual assaulters before her social credit is used up.
 
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