The problem
Oct. 16th, 2017 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livSexual violence against women and girls is endemic. There's an absolute mountain of evidence that this is the case, from the experiences of my friends to any number of posts on social media to rigorous studies. A big part of the reason I decided to identify as a feminist is because women are routinely denied bodily autonomy and feminism seems to be the only political movement that cares about this.
I didn't know who Harvey Weinstein was until this week, but I'm not at all surprised that yet another powerful male celebrity abused women. I've read some important but deeply depressing stuff about the how society routinely fails women, all the factors commonly called 'rape culture' that constantly put women in situations where they can be attacked, and let men get away with attacking them.
It shouldn't be news but it needs to be repeated. We have to warn little girls to take precautions against men who will try to hurt them. People keep making excuses for known rapists.
Actually the article says men make excuses; my impression is that the problem is much less gendered. I think everybody finds it too hard to drop a friend who has been accused of rape. Women do the whispernet thing, the missing stair thing, but they – we – don't actually cease interacting with people previously considered friends. There's always some uncertainty about whether he really did it, or whether it was just a one off and he's changed now, and that uncertainty is always enough of a chink to keep the person around.
But even knowing all this, it's also the case that sexual violence is not part of my life. I feel really weird when I see campaigns like #YesAllWomen, or its latest incarnation, #MeToo.miss_s_b linked to Why I’m not surprised when I hear that powerful men are fucking creeps, a horrifying, and horrifyingly common, litany of Rohatensky's experiences of sexual violence. Rohatensky is NB, as it happens, but miss_s_b comments that miss_s_b doesn't know me, we just read eachothers' DWs. But I, unlike apparently every woman she knows, don't have 'a version of this story'. There has been no incident in my life where a man touched me in a sexual way without my full and willing cooperation.
I don't have a lot of experience of ongoing background microaggressions either. I don't get catcalled; I can think of less than a handful of occasions when men have shouted at me in the street, usually indistinctly but let's assume it's sexist comments. It's no worse than the experiences of most men, very occasional vaguely aggressive strangers. I can't relate to descriptions I've often read of this happening frequently enough to be emotionally draining. I don't get harassed, either when I'm out in public or at work. I mean, I can think of a few males who have persisted more than I'd like after I said I wasn't interested, but they've persisted in asking, not pressuring and certainly not overriding a no. I sometimes get importuned by chuggers or evangelists, too, which I assume is also a common experience for any gender, and it's never been more annoying or more scary than that. The experience of being pursued by over-persistent men became a bit more frequent when I lived in Sweden, but still way less than what is often reported as a 'universal' women's experience, about once a year I think, and never seriously scary.
As a result, I don't much take the precautions that 'all' women take. I don't worry about being out in public or after dark or in a dodgy area. I don't weigh up the chances that a given male acquaintance might be a Schroedinger's rapist. I mean, I know the stats, I know that between 1 in 20 and 1 in 6 men will cheerfully admit to researchers that they'd rape someone given the opportunity. It's basically a certainty that several men I trust and consider friends have in fact sexually assaulted someone. But it doesn't feel emotionally real; it's not a fear that actually affects my life any more than the statistical chance that I might be in an accident on the road.
I absolutely believe everybody else's experiences, people I know and strangers writing brave, brave columns and blog posts. I am just a total outlier, and I really shouldn't be. So I'm signal boosting others' accounts, because I know that I needed to be made aware of the scale of the problem, and perhaps some other people reading this could also use the information.
I didn't know who Harvey Weinstein was until this week, but I'm not at all surprised that yet another powerful male celebrity abused women. I've read some important but deeply depressing stuff about the how society routinely fails women, all the factors commonly called 'rape culture' that constantly put women in situations where they can be attacked, and let men get away with attacking them.
It shouldn't be news but it needs to be repeated. We have to warn little girls to take precautions against men who will try to hurt them. People keep making excuses for known rapists.
Actually the article says men make excuses; my impression is that the problem is much less gendered. I think everybody finds it too hard to drop a friend who has been accused of rape. Women do the whispernet thing, the missing stair thing, but they – we – don't actually cease interacting with people previously considered friends. There's always some uncertainty about whether he really did it, or whether it was just a one off and he's changed now, and that uncertainty is always enough of a chink to keep the person around.
But even knowing all this, it's also the case that sexual violence is not part of my life. I feel really weird when I see campaigns like #YesAllWomen, or its latest incarnation, #MeToo.
miss_s_b linked to Why I’m not surprised when I hear that powerful men are fucking creeps, a horrifying, and horrifyingly common, litany of Rohatensky's experiences of sexual violence. Rohatensky is NB, as it happens, but miss_s_b comments that I don't know a single woman who doesn't have a version of this story.. I was really thrown by that. That's not a story about men being rude and a nuisance, or even a story about plausibly deniable groping or pushing things a bit too far sexually. That's a story about multiple incidents of major sexual violence including rape. Now,
miss_s_b doesn't know me, we just read eachothers' DWs. But I, unlike apparently every woman she knows, don't have 'a version of this story'. There has been no incident in my life where a man touched me in a sexual way without my full and willing cooperation. I don't have a lot of experience of ongoing background microaggressions either. I don't get catcalled; I can think of less than a handful of occasions when men have shouted at me in the street, usually indistinctly but let's assume it's sexist comments. It's no worse than the experiences of most men, very occasional vaguely aggressive strangers. I can't relate to descriptions I've often read of this happening frequently enough to be emotionally draining. I don't get harassed, either when I'm out in public or at work. I mean, I can think of a few males who have persisted more than I'd like after I said I wasn't interested, but they've persisted in asking, not pressuring and certainly not overriding a no. I sometimes get importuned by chuggers or evangelists, too, which I assume is also a common experience for any gender, and it's never been more annoying or more scary than that. The experience of being pursued by over-persistent men became a bit more frequent when I lived in Sweden, but still way less than what is often reported as a 'universal' women's experience, about once a year I think, and never seriously scary.
As a result, I don't much take the precautions that 'all' women take. I don't worry about being out in public or after dark or in a dodgy area. I don't weigh up the chances that a given male acquaintance might be a Schroedinger's rapist. I mean, I know the stats, I know that between 1 in 20 and 1 in 6 men will cheerfully admit to researchers that they'd rape someone given the opportunity. It's basically a certainty that several men I trust and consider friends have in fact sexually assaulted someone. But it doesn't feel emotionally real; it's not a fear that actually affects my life any more than the statistical chance that I might be in an accident on the road.
I absolutely believe everybody else's experiences, people I know and strangers writing brave, brave columns and blog posts. I am just a total outlier, and I really shouldn't be. So I'm signal boosting others' accounts, because I know that I needed to be made aware of the scale of the problem, and perhaps some other people reading this could also use the information.
