Below is an e-mail message. It seems to refer to a comment (or two) that I did not see, perhaps because they got sent to the spam-box, which I never check. I approve all comments that I see and that are not ads, mysterious links, or obscenity-laden threats. That does not mean that I approve of all comments, just that I don't mind posting things like this. I think they make a dramatic point, though perhaps not the one the author intends.
Dear Female Science Professor:
I notice you haven't published my latest comment. Some months ago you failed to publish another of my comments which I also thought brought the issues into sharp relief by reversing the roles.
My apologies, the first sentence in paragraph five should read:
"By that same logic, the majority of top scientists, especially in the mathematical sciences have been and should continue to be men."
Do you deny that, with few exceptions (ultra-long-distance swimming being one), the top men are better than the top women at sports? How can you when the score-sheet says otherwise? By the same token, how can you deny that the most intelligent men are generally smarter than the most intelligent women, especially when it comes to the maths?
I remember when I was younger watching sports on TV and thinking how unfair it was for the women. As I grew older, I realized that life was just as unfair to men, only in different ways. This is why I suggest you read Norah Vincent's book "Self Made Man." Here is someone who has seen it from both sides and firmly decides that she prefers to be a woman, a conclusion that does not surprise me in the slightest.
As I have been burned by what I now realize is a strong sexual double standard in academia (and not in favour of men) I am not the person to argue these things objectively. I am still quite filled with rage. There is, however, a woman on Youtube who argues many of the points I would like to touch on in a way that is very rational and objective. Her channel is "girlwriteswhat":
https://www.youtube.com/user/
I would suggest you check it out as well as Norah Vincent's book.
Kind regards,
Peter
Dear Female Science Professor:
I notice you haven't published my latest comment. Some months ago you failed to publish another of my comments which I also thought brought the issues into sharp relief by reversing the roles.
My apologies, the first sentence in paragraph five should read:
"By that same logic, the majority of top scientists, especially in the mathematical sciences have been and should continue to be men."
Do you deny that, with few exceptions (ultra-long-distance swimming being one), the top men are better than the top women at sports? How can you when the score-sheet says otherwise? By the same token, how can you deny that the most intelligent men are generally smarter than the most intelligent women, especially when it comes to the maths?
I remember when I was younger watching sports on TV and thinking how unfair it was for the women. As I grew older, I realized that life was just as unfair to men, only in different ways. This is why I suggest you read Norah Vincent's book "Self Made Man." Here is someone who has seen it from both sides and firmly decides that she prefers to be a woman, a conclusion that does not surprise me in the slightest.
As I have been burned by what I now realize is a strong sexual double standard in academia (and not in favour of men) I am not the person to argue these things objectively. I am still quite filled with rage. There is, however, a woman on Youtube who argues many of the points I would like to touch on in a way that is very rational and objective. Her channel is "girlwriteswhat":
https://www.youtube.com/user/
I would suggest you check it out as well as Norah Vincent's book.
Kind regards,
Peter
79 comments:
Might I also recommend Deirdre McCloskey's book, "Crossing: A Memoir"?
One thing she notes is how she finally knew she was being accepted as a woman when she started being treated in a sexist manner. "It got old quick," she says. She had a great lecture on gender discrimination that she called "Notes from a Novice."
Here is the original (edited) comment, in case anyone is interested split into two since it doesn't fit the character limit in its current form:
Regarding post number 3--there is the suggestion that this reflects current lingering sexism. Yes the fact that it is a true statement reflects widespread sexism, both in academia and in society at large. I wish I could find it so I could provide the exact quote, but those who disagree should read "Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent, who is a feminist lesbian. It's a book about her adventures as a man--yes you heard that correctly, she actually dresses up and pretends to be a man. Her final conclusion was that Ned, the man she had been playing, could "fit in her pocket." In other words, the range of acceptable behaviour for a man was only a small subset of that for a woman.
"She is often talked over and ignored in department-wide events"
"constantly being interrupted when speaking in faculty meetings, constantly having the comments I am able to say be blatantly put down in faculty meetings, body gestures that are either harassing or disdainful"
etc.
The problem with such complaints is that there are countless men who could complain about similar things. And unless the man is black or some other "visible" minority, there is nothing else that he can blame other than his own low status and it has been drilled in him from birth that this is no one else's fault but his own and that only he can do anything about it. I am not saying they are not the result of sexism. They may well be. But as always, I suggest a very simple exercise: reverse the roles and see what happens.
I remember attending a talk by a woman cyclist who was campaigning for equal prize money for male and female cyclists, even though the women perform at a much lower level. I asked her why, if in other fields like say scientist or concert pianist, you have to be at the top of your field at an absolute level to get the top billing, does it not apply in sports? Her compatriot (there two in the talk) replied that women have different physiology. By that logic, I should be getting the same in endorsements and prize money as Lance Armstrong (after all, I'm a cyclist too) since there is no way, even if I was doped to the gills, that I could perform at the same level!
By similar logic, it should come as no surprise that the majority of top scientists, especially in the maths, have been and should continue to be men. It is well known that there are far more highly intelligent men than women, although by the same token, there are also more highly stupid men. That is, unless feminism manages to change biology and I suspect it will, but not by producing more female geniuses (as well as retards)--rather there will soon be fewer male geniuses.
So, the women complain that they "aren't being taken seriously" I complain that I have to worry about losing my job if I happen to say something that offends a woman's tender sensibilities. Unfortunately, I don't think that either of these things can be treated in isolation. There is a much broader social context to take into account and it's clear from this broader context that men and women are not equal because their biology is different and because their biology is different they may never be truly equal. Try this simple experiment: take a look at the personals section of any want ads. There will always be more "men seeking women" than "women seeking men," especially if you look under "intimate encounters." So right there, just by default, is one area where women are almost always better off.
While this might seem a trivial and unrelated example it's not. When men seek employment, especially in white collar careers like science, it is almost always a status-seeking activity the final goal of which is to attract a mate. It is not that for a woman--a good job actually decreases her chances of finding a mate. I'm not saying it's right, that's just the way it is. And that's where and why things truly get complicated...
I find the title of this post interesting: life is, of course, unfair to just about everyone. But am I to understand that the tone is mocking? That's rich, considering the pity party that was the previous post. There you have it folks. The sexual double-standard in action...
As a long-time physical science professor (male) my best students are almost always female. End of discussion as far as I'm concerned.
Another interesting read, that many people may have seen, is the story of Dr Barres. He was born a woman and was a successful scientist, then at age 42 had a sex change operation. He speaks of the way he was treated differently afterwards.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201883.html
How is it even relevant who is better at sports or long-distance swimming?! What does that have to do with anything?
In college I took a class called "Interdisciplinary Perspectives of Gender." One day in class we were talking about how the fear of being assaulted/raped is something that men don't and maybe can't understand about women. One of the men in the class said that yes that may be true, but men open doors for women, so they had advantages as well. I think the class universally exploded at that moment with disgust/horror/shock. And that's pretty much what this email reminds me of.
1. Marks mean nothing. I took a quantum mechanics course in which we were allowed three cheat sheets. Every other student except me copied the entirety of the curriculum in tiny, tiny letters onto the cheat sheet. They got good grades and I didn't. And here I thought the exam was supposed to test understanding and not your microscopic scripting abilities. So much for that theory.
2. Losing one's job for what is, in the end, an entirely subjective evaluation ("it offends me") is entirely comparable with sexual assault. Moreover, I'm not convinced the level of sexual violence committed by men is any higher than that committed by women. Certainly the rates of child abuse are similar and probably higher in the case of women. Just that the latter are under-reported.
As far as I know, most women's ultimate sexual fantasy is still essentially a rape fantasy. How else do you explain the popularity of "50 Shades?" Bondage is just simulated rape. I think in many cases judging whether a "date rape" was actually rape is ambiguous at best. Yet the courts rule overwhelmingly in favour of women.
Which brings me to my final point:
- Men are far more likely to be on the receiving end of violence, whether from a man or a woman.
- Men are far more likely to be incarcerated than women and receive harsher sentences for equivalent crimes
- Men are far more likely to die on the job.
Men are stereotyped just as much as women. I am sick and tired of hearing that men are promiscuous (they are, but no more so than women) more violent (possibly, but more likely they engage in different forms of violence). The worst is: "every man is a potential rapist." This is hate propaganda at it's worst. I would suggest (see above) that more women desire to be raped than men desire to rape. Is this the feminists projecting their own fantasies onto men?
The incidence of rape in the U.S.A. is actually as a high for men as it is for women once you account for the prison population. The "reported incidence of consensual sexual activity" by male prisoners was highest with prison staff and 2/3 was with women. Legally, this is rape since prison staff aren't allowed to be with prisoners.
So don't be so quick to conclude from one (again subjective) idea--"oh, I might be raped" --that men have it better off. Realistically, what are your chances of actually getting raped? And I don't buy the "1 in 4" statistic.
I take it that "strung out cyclist" is the same person who sent in this original email? If so, not a wise move to reveal yourself, sir. Your blog has pictures of you on it. I'm not sure that this sort of statement is something an employer would be thrilled to see:
"As far as I know, most women's ultimate sexual fantasy is still essentially a rape fantasy. How else do you explain the popularity of "50 Shades?" Bondage is just simulated rape. I think in many cases judging whether a "date rape" was actually rape is ambiguous at best. Yet the courts rule overwhelmingly in favour of women."
I don't even know where to start with all of that.
It's sort of funny but not really when men whine about how great women have it. Just look at all those women's studies department at universities! What more proof do you need?
While I respect FSPs decision to post comments that span the spectrum of views, when we moved into the commenter's discussion of "rape fantasies" we left the normal spectrum. Perhaps that is the point FSP is trying to make but I think its made now and we can terminate this discussion. As the parent of two daughters, and an faculty member where the discussion of our campus' response to sexual violence is currently a serious issue, I am not comfortable with this person being given a platform for these views.
Mark P
Colleen: this was a decision I made quite recently. I am not going to hide behind a screen of anonymity since I perceive this to be a genuine injustice--I don't believe any sane person can reasonably argue that men still have it better than women.
I have complained about the anonymity of reviewers in the peer review process. If we as scientists are to arrive at truth, we must be held accountable. Therefore, I must stand behind my words and if they do not hold up under scrutiny, I must retract them. Do the research (in other words, get your head out of your a**)--have I said anything that is not factual?
Also:
- men are far more likely to end up homeless
- men are subject to the draft
Have I listed enough for you? Because it goes on...
If just one of the facts I quoted was true of women as it is for men, women's groups would be up in arms. Instead, men sit silently and take it, as they have been taught to do for so many years. Well, it's time to break the silence, Goddamnit.
I think "Strung our cyclist" is not alone in how he feels, certainly in the internet world but also in the real world. I think he is just more out-spoken because of how such ideas are generally not treated positively or are "censored" but the "PC police" in many academic circles. Because he is not isolated, but one of many, I don't know if we can afford to ignore these ideas or respond in ways the rely on just our personal experience or saying things like "duh, everyone knows about unfair discrimination," we need to learn to engage in a meaningful dialog.
To us, the readers of this blog, it is just in the water that there is unfair discrimination against women in science, and that it holds back both the individual lives of those women and the progress of science in general. But how many of us have really examined those ideas and know how to defend them articulately? Although I have studied those assumptions academically, and the outcome is actually worse (for women) than you think, I still do not know how to argue and assert these points to someone who was not just intellectually born to these ideas. As an evolutionary biologist I have the same problem dealing with those who believe in intelligent design, I can't break down my own beliefs because they are so ingrained and essential to everything I do.
I would be keen on any tips and ideas the readers here have on how to have a productive dialog on the points that "Strung our cyclist" raised. He seems like an intelligent and educated person who has had some bad personal experiences, which we have no right to deny. And I think maybe he is a perfect candidate for us to communicate with and create a dialog on the topic. Although he may seem extreme in his ideas and methods (e.g. basing most of his ideas on extrapolations from his own experiences that do not seem to be representative of the larger situation), I think he voices the same ideas that many men (and some women) hold in science. We all base our prejudices on what we believe are our own experiences. -- what we forget is how it also works the other way, our experiences become filters by our pre-existing prejudices. Helping him and others can only help our own interests in the end.
Thanks!
2X Body Problem: I'm not at all interested in having a dialog with someone who thinks that women want to be raped. That's just sick.
For strung out cyclist to read: http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/07-12-12-14-37-the-best-response-weve-heard-to-daniel-toshs-misquoted-rape-jokes/
Finally, how, how is one to have open dialogue about these issues when anything even mildly offensive (no matter how factual) ends with--you could lose your job?? Especially considering the ugly vitriol that so many radical and even not so radical feminists have been throwing our way, without any fear of reprisal. I gave just one example, but you know as well as I do that there are others...
2X Body Problem: finally someone who gets it. I mean how can you expect to have an open dialogue if, whenever the waters start to get a little rough or muddy, the final response is: you could lose your job? That's great, I don't think what I've said comes even close to some of the vitriol spouted by even respected academic feminists. I gave there just one example. Many men feel as I do, they are simply scared stiff...
This is why I recommended the particular youtube channel since her material always comes across as very well reasoned and neutral. I have a tendency to fly off the handle...
@Strung out cyclist. There are of course often situations when a person is unfairly treated, sometimes due to their gender. However, on top of the general, more or less random, unfairness which could happen to anyone their is substantial data showing that there exist a systematic bias in academia (and in many other fields) favouring men. My favorit study demonstrating this is this one: http://advancingwomen.org/files/7/127.pdf (from Nature, there are plenty of others). As long as these biases exist, blaming the gender differencesoin biological differences seems like a cop-out.
Secondly, I find your assumption on womens sex fantasies highly questionable as long as you can't show better data than the sale of a book (which, while suprisingly popular, still probably only have been read by a minority of all women). And even if your assumption would be correct I would like to point out that rape fantasies and consentual bondage have about as much in common with rape as the enjoyment of horror movies have in common to an actual wish of being hunted by a murderer.
I just saw a talk by a feminist researcher who said she would love it if we could move beyond "women do X better" and "men do Y better" into "women and men do X and Y differently." Why do gender differences need to turn into value statements about which gender does something "better"?
Am I missing something - as a scientist I am legitimately asking - where is the research saying that there are more men of high IQ than women?
"And even if your assumption would be correct I would like to point out that rape fantasies and consentual bondage have about as much in common with rape as the enjoyment of horror movies have in common to an actual wish of being hunted by a murderer."
THANK YOU, Geologist!
I am currently a female undergraduate in math and computer science, and spent a summer at an REU absolutely miserable because of my gender. Basically, I was ignored and treated like I was invisible all summer, and made to feel like I wasn't really a person or that I wasn't really there. Do I KNOW this was because I am female? No, of course not. I can observe, however, that I was the only woman in the program and that the guys got a long really well and were fast friends by the end of the summer. And I also can observe that by the end of the summer I was the subject of some inside jokes that were definitely related to gender.
Do I think that no man has ever been ostracized from a group of people? No, of course not, and having been in that situation, I am very sorry for anyone who has been made to feel like they don't belong to a group, regardless of their gender. However, just because a problem is not wholly specific to a single group of people doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it better in anyway we can.
Good lord. The "cutting your dick off" analogy is by no means valid. It is so far off I have trouble grasping how anyone could mistake it for such. There is no way you could mistake physical mutilation for a consensual act. Moreover, the sexual act (for both sexes BTW) can range across a continuum from fully consensual to fully coerced. Since women, do, indeed have a sex drive, how can you tell if the woman wanted it, if she wanted it at first and enticed the man then changed her mind (but by this time he was fully committed) or perhaps she changed her mind in the middle or ten minutes afterward? In cases like these, I don't see how the man can bear the full brunt of responsibility. There is, as always, a larger social context to take into account, that somehow feminists always miss. (i.e. it's always the man's fault) Take for instance Ffyona Campbell the woman who walked around the world yet was distressed by men who assaulted her in N. Africa. Yet it was women like her who invaded a highly sexually conservative culture and had relations with the natives who caused this. I know because I dated just such a woman.
Have you heard the humour of Sarah Silverman BTW? She is the queen of rape jokes yet never gets called out for it. Once again the sexual double standard rears its ugly head.
As for the rape fantasy, it is pretty well documented. Sorry, but once you've let that cat out of the bag it's pretty hard to put back in. I think it was Master's and Johnson who first documented it, but since then it's been replicated plenty of times, just with varying frequency. It's not something I ever wanting to know--it intruded on my consciousness and after seeing how most women behaved and the types of men they tended to associate with, seemed quite likely...
I'm also sick and tired of feminists throwing the "rape" card at men. Do women honestly think they are the only ones who have been sexually victimized? Plenty of men have, at the very least, been abused as children, frequently, I would say, by a trusted female caretaker. Maybe a certain sense of honour prevents them from speaking of it.
You can't look at one person who has had a sex-change and say "there it is, they said it was easier being a man (or woman)". It depends completely on the personality traits that you have, but it certainly could be the case that many men and women would be better off in the world (with their personalities, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, level of attractiveness, etc.) as the opposite gender.
I think much of the complaints from females stem from the fact that they are fighting against the grain in the typically male-dominated industry that is academia. Papers have been written about gender and race privilege, which often go unnoticed because it's in the best interest of those privileged to keep it silent (not that they're even aware of it most of the time, they've just been taught from a young age to ignore it).
It's a hard thing to discuss, but I think it's fair to say life can be a hard thing for anybody, it's just harder for some than others.
Not sure if this one will make it through, the last two didn't. The last one was important. "women and men do X and Y differently" that's exactly my point. The tips and tails of the IQ distribution for men are "fat" in other words, the average is roughly the same, but there are more highly intelligent men and more highly stupid men. (In the past they were called "idiots" and "imbeciles", but PC being what it is today, we're supposed to call them "challenged" but I can guarantee you that this is now a term of abuse as well. Ain't life great?) It's well known. Look it up. That's what google is for. And of those men who are highly intelligent, most of them specialize in the maths. Let me ask you this: can you name a single major discovery in math or physics that was authored by a woman? I know I can't.
So if women can hack it in math and physics (I'm sure some of them can) why don't they produce at least one law to prove their worth? Honestly, there is nothing holding any woman back. If you find that university departments are oppressive (most of them are, regardless of which sex you belong to) then do your own research and publish on your own. I've done it. All it takes is a computer and an internet connection.
Instead, we get harassment policies, "conflict management and human rights offices" whatever the fuck that is I think it used to have the word ethics in it, but they rightly took it out, take back the night walks, hiring quotas etc. etc. In the end, a whole bunch of wasted energy--so you want to fight discrimination, with--wait for it--more discrimination?
It's been less than two generations since women attained full legal equality--which is what "feminism" used to mean, but for some reason they decided to tack a whole bunch of extra baggage on top. Do you think change will happen in an instant? When I was in D.C. I was astounded at the number of coloured ghettos--something that rarely happens in Canada. It would be silly to expect anything less--the U.S was an apartheid state until well into the '50s. And this is only exacerbated by the lack of decent public schools down South--which of course is caused by the bullshit capitalist rhetoric. And they're bringing U.S.-style right-wing politics up North. Jesus. (Honestly, living in the U.S. it often felt like a third world country...)
I can't let this one go. Just google "Noether's theorem", one of the cornerstones in theoretical physics and then who Noether was.
Alright, I'll give you that one. Funny I was just reading about it, though the articles didn't state it by name. It strikes me as very fundamental.
Germain's theorem, Cauchy-Kovaleskaya's theorem, The first, second, and third isomorphism's theorem (and subtantial part of modern algebra) have been discovered by Noether, Lutz-Nagell theorem, the strong perfect graph theorem, Green-Tao-Ziegler's theorem, the three-distance theorem, the DPRM theorem,...
FSP: You're right. It certainly DOES make a point!
Have females sexually victimized men? Yes, but this makes me sick. It doesn't make me say, "well men have those fantasies" or "maybe the men changed their mind partway through." And I believe it was a man who first brought up sexual violence in this thread, not it being thrown by the crazy feminists. And NO ONE thinks that child sex abuse is acceptable by either gender towards either gender.
To anon@5:41:
You said,
"You can't look at one person who has had a sex-change and say "there it is, they said it was easier being a man (or woman)". "
I assume this is a reference back to the comment from Experimental Methods Professor about Dr. Barres? Actually, this is a perfect case where we can take one person and see what the outcome is. In particular: the most fascinating/depressing thing I've read from Dr. Barres was when he overheard someone talking about the new male him vs. the old female him, and assuming that the old female him was the sister of the new male him. The person was quoted as saying something like 'Dr. Barres does so much better work than his sister.' No, actually, he was doing THE EXACT SAME WORK as himself, but with a sex change. So, it is immaterial what Dr. Barres thought of his new situation - his work was being judged differently solely because of his gender.
The experiences of a larger sample set of transgender men and women are consistent with greater respect being accorded to men at work, even when the individuals in question stay in the same job:
http://gas.sagepub.com/content/20/4/465.short
http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=osu1335824794
Also, I have read the book "Self-Made Man". It is indeed a fascinating and very illuminating read, although of course it is still only one personal account. Since the woman who wrote it did not identify herself as male, it is not surprising that in the end, she found she preferred to be female. She describes how she suffered from the strain of pretending to be something other than what she was. It is not clear that this has anything to do with things being harder for men or for women, just the strain of acting inauthentically was apparently overwhelming.
One of the experiences that the author describes, however, is that she was treated with much greater respect and deference at work and on the street when dressed as a man. Since we are talking about work here (mostly), I am not sure how strungoutcyclist thinks this substantiates his argument.
Here is a completely different take on the matter. There is one obvious thing that a woman can do that a man can't.
Not only can she physically generate children, but she has the priviledge
of knowing that any child she sires is legitimately hers. So men compensate by siring children of a different kind: intellectual children. Before I heard about Noether, I had held out hope that there was at least one intellectual endeavour that at least some men could do better than all women. Just about every other field had fallen: most writers now are women, a lot of the best comedians are women, etc., etc.
There exist radical feminists who argue for the obsolescence of men. It's something I've contemplated for some time now, usually half in jest, but since a man's semen is no longer needed to sire a child, men are both literally and figuratively, obsolete. This might go a long way towards explaining the current state of maleness: boys now lag far behind girls in middle school and I believe they now lag in highschool as well and the universities are becoming increasingly dominated by women. Law and medicine are two once exclusively male fields that are now almost completely dominated by women.
And I'm sorry, whether you believe it or not, there seem to be a lot of
current policies and practices that seem deliberately anti-male, such as the
harassment policies in the universities.
The only comfort I can take from this situation is that even as the age
of woman has dawned, it will soon be superceded by the age of machines.
And yet another take on the matter.
I remember working with a female scientist that I perceived as bright.
She lacked, however, the qualities that I thought distinguish a great scientist
from a merely good one. I remember once we took an exam together and must have commented offhandedly about one of the problems. She took offence to my comment, which was merely, "it's really simple." ("It's not simple to me!")
Her marks were far better than mine.
A man, of course, (or at least not me) would almost never say that. Instead,
he might think, "well, if he (or she) thinks it's easy, then it must be easy.
What's the trick??"
I also remember her openly admiring my work. Once again, my masculine pride prevents me from doing that. I would rather either try to minimize the achievement or think to myself, "how can I use that?"
She also complained to me that her supervisor didn't give her the
assignments that she wanted. If I had an idea and wanted to do something, I almost never asked permission, I just went ahead and did it. Even if permission was denied, I usually did it anyway. In addition to generating just about all of my original papers such antics also almost always got me into trouble.
For much of my life, science has been the only thing it. I have been
pursuing it almost to the exclusion of all else. Few women possess that drive.
Well, look where I am today: I am nowhere. I look at my life and don't see a lot achievement, just a lot of dumb mistakes. Plenty of ambition, plenty of drive, but this drive just as often helped to destroy me as it did produce winners. Maybe you look at all the "top" men, and think, why can't I
achieve that? But for every successful man, how many have there been who, in trying to push their way up, have missed the mark entirely, crashing against the rocks instead?
Men are:
99.999% of American combat deaths and casualties (historically)
97%+ since the 1st Gulf War (DOD)
In contrast, women get every veteran’s benefit a man does, yet comprise less than 3% of combat deaths or casualties and a woman makes the cover of Time magazine (person of the year/2003 standing in front of two men.
Men are 93% of industrial deaths and accident (NIOSH)
76% of homicide victims – DOJ
80% of Suicide victims – CDC
“The other most common suicide victims are divorced and/or estranged fathers like Derrick Miller. In fact, a divorced father is ten times more likely to commit suicide than a divorced mother, and three times more likely to commit suicide than a married father.
Men are the overwhelming majority of rape victims.
Male rape has been called “The most closely guarded secret of American prisons.” (Weiss and Friar 1974)
There are estimated to be over 300,000 male rapes per year in American prisons and jails.
Meanwhile A United Nations statistical report compiled from government sources showed that more than 250,000 cases of male-female rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually. The reported data covered 65 countries.
According to the 2009 United States National Crime Victimization Survey estimates, only 55% of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law enforcement officials. When a male is raped, less than 10% are believed to be reported. Female-male and female-female rape are ignored altogether in this survey.
Other facts regarding men and rape:
* 2.1% of men reported forced vaginal sex compared to 1.6% of women in a relationship in the previous year. From: Predictors of Sexual Coersion. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID45-PR45.pdf
*94% of sexually abused youth in correctional facilities reported being abused by female staff. From: Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities, 2008-09. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svjfry09.pdf
* Among inmates reporting staff sexual misconduct, ~ 65% reported a female aggressor.
* 50% of homeless youth reported being sexually abused by a female.
A woman is the party filing for divorce in about 66% of divorce cases.
Women receive custody in about 84% of child custody cases.
In the spring of 2002, an estimated 13.4 million parents had custody of 21.5 million children under 21 years of age whose other parent lived somewhere else. About 5 of every 6 custodial parents were mothers (84.4 percent) and 1in 6 were fathers (15.6 percent), proportions statistically unchanged since 1994
30% of those named as fathers who test for paternity find they are not the biological father.
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.
85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control)
80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)
75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes – 10 times the average. (Rainbows for All God’s Children)
70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 1988)
85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Dept. of Correction)
Of the top fifteen leading causes of death, men lead in 12 categories, are tied in two and trail in one. Even though more women die of heart disease each year, men die of heart disease many years earlier.
http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/inc_factsaboutprisons.pdf
There is blatant anti-male discrimination in the criminal justice system and the sentencing disparity between men and women exceeds that between whites and any other minority.
Avg sentences for crime by gender:
Female – 18.51 months
Male – 51.52 months
The 2006 United States’ rate of incarceration of 751 inmates per 100,000 population is the highest reported rate in the world, well ahead of the Russian rate of 628 per 100,000.
93% of the prison population is male with over 60% having no High School education. America has now passed Russia as the country that has the largest percentage of its population incarcerated, yet we still claim to be the freest country on earth.
The number of persons on probation and parole has been growing dramatically along with institutional populations. There are now 7.2 million Americans incarcerated or on probation or parole, an increase of more than 290 percent since 1980.
The problem of sentencing disparities is compounded by an epidemic of false accusations:
205 (and growing) wrongly convicted people have been exonerated by DNA evidence since the beginning of the Innocence Project.
204 of the wrongly convicted were men.
Most of them were falsely imprisoned for rape.
Capital Punishment Targets Men Almost Exclusively
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, there have been over 1,200 executions in the United States. Eleven of them, or less than 1%, were women. This stands in stark contrast considering women commit, by DOJ estimates, 10% of all murders, are involved in 35% of all domestic homicides (are involved often means they get other people to kill for them) and nearly 30% of murders where the victim was another family member.
We hear a lot about the historical oppression of women’s voting rights, but few if any women who were born in the 20th century were every without the right to vote in their lifetime, upon reaching legal voting age. On the other hand, around 2400 hundred California men (42% of CA men killed in Vietnam) gave their life for their country without being allowed by their country to vote. The exact number is 2,381. Four of the twelve Iwo Jimo flag raisers died for their country without their country ever allowing them the right to vote.
In America there are over 270 women’s commissions, but only one for men in New Hampshire.
There are over 700 Women’s Studies programs on colleges and universities throughout the United States teaching thousands or tens of thousands of classes from the gender feminist perspective, but not one program or class, teaching men’s studies from the masculist perspective.
Men are fully half of the victims of domestic violence (26% of intimate partner homicides), yet are denied service at most tax payer funded domestic violence shelters. The CDC reports that in cases of non-reciprocal intimate partner violence (one directional) that women are more than twice as likely to be the aggressor. The report cites that women comprise 70% of perpetrators, men 29%.
That harassment is a systemic problem with origins that emanate from academe. Dr. Murray Straus, an internationally recognized expert on intimate partner violence published the following paper outlining the various ways that feminist ideologues suppress data and research on IPV that demonstrates gender symmetry in its incidence.
Men are subject to extreme discrimination in healthcare.
Men today die on average 6 years sooner than women. In 1920 the variance was one year. The death rates for prostate and breast cancer are similar, but because men die of other things more frequently-accidents ,war, heart disease etc., there are fewer men left to die of prostate cancer. This is akin to saying people from a nation like Zimbabwe are immune to Alzheimer’s- but in fact they die of other things before they can get old enough to contract Alzheimer’s.
To date, there are numerous federal offices on women’s health, and not a single one for men. Also, the lion’s share of gender specific medical research is done on behalf of women.
Boys are facing a significantly harder time in early education than girls. Yet girls, from primary education through college still benefit from many more special programs designed to help them gain “equality” with males.
Marie Skłodowska Curie was the first person to get TWO Nobel Prizes (the second one was solo), both related to radium. Langmuir-Blodgett (Irving, Katharine, respectively) films are based on the pioneering work of Agnes Pockels.
If you want theoretical physics (and it seems that you do), then take a look at Maria Goeppert Mayer's contributions to nuclear physics.
FSP it is usually not considered good form to troll your own blog.
Another note. Commercial sport is a business and you get paid what it brings in, so in those cases, athletes pay reflects the interest in their events. In tennis, for example, where there is roughly the same interest in the women's events as the men's the prizes are about equal. Same for track and field. Which sex is better is irrelevant
I don't want to encourage derailing (how did a science blog become a discussion of whether women want to be raped?) but I want to add a comment about "Self-Made Man." I am a class A fist-pumping feminists and I am a big fan of this book. I have actually read it multiple times and read up on the author and her interviews.
Her conclusions are not that it is better to be a woman in this society. She says life is a mixed bag for everyone, and men do enjoy a lot of privileges. She does assert often in the book, however, that she does not want to be a man. She does not say this because being a woman is so great, but because she is happy with who she is. She is also gay and has no desire to be straight, and not because being gay in our society is so great, but for the same reason she wants to be a woman - she is comfortable with herself and who she is, even without some privileges.
She does expose a lot of the harder moments for men in life, especially when it comes to dealing with emotional moments of grief and loss. However she in now way endorses the idea that life is better for women.
I thinks his book has a not to say about gender in American society, but it is a book of investigative journalism, not rigorous social science, and should be taken as such.
I'll add some famous female physicists. There are the Nobel Prize winners Maria Goeppert-Mayer (nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus) and Marie Curie (radioactivity).
In my field of physics, there are also quite a few women that publish good research in top journals. For example, Deborah Jin's group was the first to cool molecules to Bose-Einstein condensation. Physics is still very male dominated, but I am happy to see that some of the women who have started out as PhD students in groups whose research I follow are now starting to run their own labs. Even my lab has roughly a 50/50 gender ratio at the moment.
Strung out cyclist, please don't confuse your ignorance of something with it's non-existence.
Dear Strung out cyclist,
I'm glad you feel that I am getting it, but please let me remind you that a constructive dialog involves listening as well as talking.
I know you have a lot to say, and have thought about it long and hard. However, unleashing a lot of uncited statistics from studies about issues that are peripheral to the discussion in the first place makes us feel that you are just looking for a platform, and not a dialog.
Be patient with this lot, many of us feel as much of the frustration of working in a "man's" world of science as you do feeling like you are in a world dominated by the desires and needs of women. We also feel wounded and depleted from doing what we feel is swimming upstream in a system where the odds are stacked against us. We all really want the same thing.
Keeping the discussion to women in science, which is the purpose of the blog here, will help. I know that reform of the legal system to recognize more violence against men is an important and central issue to men's rights, but this is not the forum for it. Nor is a discussion of whether women really enjoy or desire to be raped. It would be great if you could be one of the people who can break the stalemate between feminists and men's rights activists. Give us a chance. And by giving us a chance, I mean try to speak our language, let us help you to do that, and try to help us speak and understand yours. You may not mean it, but the way you say things can make us feel very threatened and kicks up a lot of stress and anxiety for many women.
This is our forum, and FSP has given you your own post here, and invited you in, in a way. Use this to your advantage not to hit us over the head but to listen to us, respond to us, and talk to us in a way that we can respond to you constructively.
I have been a strong feminist since I have reached adulthood and I have never, ever met in all life and circulation though the academic and social world of feminism a "radical" feminist who thinks me are and wants them to be irrelevant or things of them as inferior.
I can assure you, what feminists want is only equal treatment for women and men, and we all know that an inequity of one harms the other.
1. I didn't write those statistics, a someone else did. I am actually not that up on those things.
2. It was a woman who brought up the whole rape issue.
3. Maybe I need to re-read "Self-Made Man" but as far as I can remember, the only negative she brought up about being a woman was being harassed on the street. At least in most of Canada and certainly in N. Europe, I think a woman can pretty much go anywhere, dressed any way she pleases (including topless) and most people don't give a damn. On the other hand, when I was younger it was rare that I would run topless and not get cat-called. Granted, this is a biased sample, since I've never tailed a skimpily dressed female runner to see if she got harassed anywhere along the way.
And yes, I checked out most of the material. The "you have much more ability than your sister comment was indeed pretty depressing"
2X Body Problem: no, I probably should not be commenting on this blog since my advice to any woman who wants to go into academic science is simple: don't do it. I have compiled a litany of ills against science as it is currently practised and against academia in particular. The job of professor is so stressful and so demanding that no sane person would want to do it. I stuck with it because, 1. no one else would employ me and 2. because there are currently few other legitimate avenues for practising scientific research. But after three unsuccessful attempts at a PhD, I am forced to conclude that academia is not for me.
To any woman in science who complains of sexism: first is it really sexism or is it just the atmosphere in general that's toxic? Second, if it is sexism, even if you subtracted that sexism, would it now be a pleasant place to work?
Also, should women in science take sexism personally? I think about the woman I mentioned in the previous post: would I ever tell her, "actually I think you're pretty smart, you just need more confidence?" Hell no. Science is so competitive, you need every advantage you can get. Sure sexism is fighting dirty, but that's just human nature. Just look at the incidence of fraud in recent years...
I've been following this discussion with interest and was considering writing a comment until I realized who we are talking to.
Strung out cyclist has all the right to have an opinion on the subject like anybody else, but his lack of credentials is noteworthy. In his own words, he couldn't get a PhD degree after three attempts (c'mon girls... how many attempts did it take you?), he does not seem to be part of any established research institution (http://peteysoft.users.sourceforge.net/about.html), and his research productivity seems to be more productive in wikipedia than in peer-reviewed journals (http://peteysoft.users.sourceforge.net/publications.html). Again, his credentials do not disqualify him from having an opinion, but I think we need to put his comments in perspective.
I don't think it's a good argument to say/imply that if women were better at physics there'd be more fundamental laws discovered by them. Um, women historically didn't have the kind of access to higher education that men did.
That's part of what feminism is about--the system has been arbitrarily gamed in favor of men for centuries. The point isn't who's better, the point is allowing equal access, treatment, consequences, reactions, respect...
As far as how to have a productive dialog, I found this video helpful in talking with a fellow cyclist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
--it's easy to not realize how prevalent sexism (both blatant and "benign") is (or racism!) when one isn't personally subjected to it, instead seeing others get favorable treatment for what you don't see happening.
To increase your awareness of any subtle or not-so-subtle biases that you may have, go to this web site and take some of their tests. it is terrific!
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
The Harvard tests were really stupid. How can you tell how competent someone is just based on how they look? Not only that, you are forced to rate two pictures differently! Sure, I admit to having my own biases, but really until you see someone's work, you have no idea.
And I find the assumption that just because you belong to some certain "in group" that you are not subject to racism or sexism annoying. When I was living in a black area of D.C., there was no doubt that I was subject to racism. When I was taking a women's studies class, because I was interested in such things, I'm pretty sure I was subject to sexism! A lot depends on context.
Here is an interesting video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K6owAjIFP0&list=HL1365185516&feature=mh_lolz
Towards the end he goes off into typical woman bashing, but the beginning is very interesting and suggests that there is considerable negative stereotyping of men. Certainly, it squares with my own experiences of the matter. I'd be interested what other readers think...
Gotta love the moon-walking bear...
Strung out cyclist and some of the others, thank you for making the point that men are disadvantaged in certain ways. And there is discrimination involved in men getting more and harsher prison sentences than women. It is important that we all recognize that the world should be better for everyone.
I believe the reason that some people took your remarks as inflammatory is that you compared men versus women and tried to claim that women had it better on the whole. This last is something that I as, a man, disagree with quite strongly, even as I support some of your statements. Also, the comment comparing BDSM to rape is totally out of line with the respectful, safe environment the BDSM community promotes.
One of the issues here is the stereotyping that occurs when people say '[all] women do this' or '[all] men do that'. In reality there is quite a range of possible behaviors and in many cases men and women choose to do the same things. Indeed, I believe the main problem for women is that single women without a family cannot achieve the same career success as a single man, even though they are doing the same things as men. This is discrimination.
My last point is to remind everyone not to be myopic. Men and women are not the only ones being discriminated against. Frankly speaking there are other groups that experience far more discrimination that the two gender groups put together. Can anyone say 'people with disabilities'? If anyone insists on making foolish comparisons about who has it worse, then I would pick people with disabilities.
It's ironic for someone to argue for looking at the facts when only promoting an anecdotal account (self made man), ignoring an anecdotal account (Dr. Barnes), spouting conflated facts (with no reference) and ignoring studies (with reference).
Issues men face is something that should be discussed, but making it into a 'us vs them' dialog does not help anyone and only encourages reactionary responses. If you're serious about mens issues, I would strongly encourage you drop the misogynistic tone.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The reader above comments, "One day in class we were talking about how the fear of being assaulted/raped is something that men don't and maybe can't understand about women." This idea that we live in a rape culture, that every man is a potential rapist, that one in four women will be raped and its use to justify discriminatory harassment policies is both inflammatory and is stereotyping at its worst. I acknowledge that my own response was just as bad--I honestly hadn't realized yet how stupid these arguments are. Just about everyone will, at some point be subject to violence. It knows no race or class boundaries, although, to be fair, it's more common among the poor. Once I was jumped by some teenagers who beat me about my head, blackening both eyes, knocking out one tooth and producing gashes that required eight stitches to sew up. Does the fact that the ringleader was a woman (or perhaps more accurately, a girl) influence my views on women? You bet. It makes me realize that women are just as violent, just as promiscuous and all the other things that are supposed to be bad about men. I guess it also saddles me with some negative stereotypes even if I think I should know better.
And respectfully, I must disagree that men still have it better than women. I think women now have all the advantages that men have plus some that they don't. Will they be subject to sexism? Quite probably, but anyone who has accomplished anything in this life knows that there are many who will discriminate against them, for one reason or another. As I've already pointed out, science is highly competitive. Another reader was dismissive of my contributions to science. Would she feel the same way if I was a junior scientist or even a post-doc at a major university?
When I was in second-year, I remember searching for an advisor for an independent project, specifically I wanted to do something related to artificial life or chaos. Most of the profs I talked to were dismissive, to the point of contempt. Women have fought their way into the work world--did they realize what was being passed to them? Because the world of work is often harassing and unpleasant, regardless even if you're a man. Is it really so great to work eight hours a day (sixteen if you're an academic) at a soul-sucking job just so you can "earn a living?" Haven't futurists been predicting an age of leisure for decades, even centuries now? Yet with almost double the people in the workforce, why are we working more than ever?
"Women have fought their way into the work world--did they realize what was being passed to them? Because the world of work is often harassing and unpleasant, regardless even if you're a man. Is it really so great to work eight hours a day (sixteen if you're an academic) at a soul-sucking job just so you can "earn a living?""
Ha! Because before that women just sat on their asses eating bonbons all day? Women WORKED, it just wasn't paid or given public respect and recognition. Have you ever spent days on end with demanding toddlers? Talk about unpleasant harassment. Not to mention being on-call 24 hours per day. (It makes a 10-hr day look like a vacation.) No matter how exhausting your day was, you still need to get up in the middle of the night and clean and comfort that little kid who just vomited and diarrhea'd on everything (including you).
Also, why does a job need to be soul-sucking? Many people find occupations they enjoy, or at least don't mind. My mother is an accountant, and she loves the intricate puzzle of doing a tax return for a company that encompasses 27 U.S. states. My father is a banker, and gets to talk to people all day, and likes to watch how the money flows when he is setting up a mortgage or business loan.
I'm sincerely sorry for your bad life experiences, and I hope you can overcome your frustration with life, and women in particular. Graduate school is designed to make everyone feel unworthy and inferior. Some people become Zen, most become depressed, and the vast majority need psychological counseling afterwards. I recommend getting out of academia, it seems to be toxic for you. Try to find something that gives you peace.
Also, please read Patrick Rothfuss' definition of feminism. They aren't "out to get men" they just want equal opportunities.
"1. Feminism is the belief that women are as worth as much as men. And obviously men are worth as much as women.
1a. (Corollary) This means women should be treated as fairly as men.
1b. (Corollary) This means women should be respected as much as men.
1c. (Corollary) This means women should have the same rights as men.
1d. (Corollary) Etc etc.
2. Feminism is the belief that women shouldn’t have to do things just because they’re women.
2a. (Corollary) Men shouldn’t have to do things just because they’re men.
3. Feminism is the belief that women shouldn’t have to *avoid* doing things just because they’re women.
3a. (Corollary) Men shouldn’t have to *avoid* doing things just because they’re men."
I read some of these comments yesterday and one thing that "strung out cyclist" said is really disturbing to me. Enough so that I had to come back and comment even though his initial comment was so long ago.
"As far as I know, most women's ultimate sexual fantasy is still essentially a rape fantasy. How else do you explain the popularity of "50 Shades?" Bondage is just simulated rape."
There is a huge difference between bondage ("Fifty Shades of Grey" or otherwise) and rape and it hinges on two VERY important things: consent and trust.
During bondage play with a partner, you have consented to sexual activity and you have some degree of trust that your partner will not abuse the power you have given them. Often, people who go about this in a more extreme way have a safe word that they trust will be respected.
Do you have either of those two CRUCIAL things with a rapist? Hell no! It is sexy to let lose and give your partner control. But it is not sexy to have your rights taken away by someone. In the case of a rape by someone close to you, you may trust them and they have broken that but you have not consented to sexual activity. How dare you suggest that all women have a desire to be disrespected and demeaned!
@cyclist - so you have found that life is unfair and undeserving people get ahead. Academia too. Welcome to the real world and join the rest of the club. I can assure you, though, that for every woman you saw get ahead there are tons more who didn't. Same with men. Clearly not every man is going to rise to the top of his field and those who surpass him often did so unfairly. But whereas in industry no one pretends that connections and relationships are used as tools to get ahead nor is it frowned on, academia likes to pretend it is solely or even primarily merit based. This, in my opinion, is the greatest scam that is academic science today.
But your comments on rape are simply incorrect and astoundingly ignorant. A rape fantasy is just that - an activity that the woman knows is an enactment and has consented to and thus is an actual participant by choice. Even in BDSM communities they agree beforehand to safe words and why? Precisely so the role play does not cross the boundary of consent and mental securiy. Actual rape has no such respect for the victim, are you kidding me? A rape is something the woman did not consent to and did not want to happen and in which her feelings and rights were totally ignored and willfully trampled on. Equating the two is about as absurd as saying that you enjoyed being physically assaulted and thus you weren't actually attacked.
I am fairly certain that Strung out cyclist is a troll. At least, I hope for the sake of humanity that he is. I have only read a few of his comments, and I cannot read any more. He does not deserve respectful dialogue, and I am disgusted by his ignorance.
This thread is all but dead, and when I started it, I thought I'd like to hone my arguments by posting in blogs. It occurs to me that in a world where torture is ubiquitous and sanctioned by our governments, where robots invade enemy airspace and are used as assassins, where the expectation of privacy is all but non-existent, where there's a gyre of plastic the size of Texas in the middle of the ocean, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the relations between the sexes are screwed up. Probably better to work on these much bigger problems, because any attempt to fix the smaller ones first is just wasted energy.
But the point about rape: I have yet to meet a man who hasn't claimed, from first-hand experience, that most women like a little violence in the bedroom. This introduces a considerable ambiguity where rape is concerned and I think anyone who denies this has their head pretty far up their ass. Was it really rape, or were they just play-fighting and things got a little out of hand? People don't seem to like to talk about this (I know I don't) because it brings us face-to-face with some rather uncomfortable realities--things like politics in the bedroom. Like the whole idea of consent--unfortunately, I'm pretty sure most people, whether male or female, find it sexier when consent is only implied, not made explicit. As a man, your best defence against rape allegations is also a pretty good defence against getting laid: just make the consent as explicit as possible. Best of all, make the woman sign a disclaimer...
It was another poster who introduced the rape issue. This idea, "men don't have to worry about getting raped," is a complete red herring, for a variety of reasons. I wish I could list them all here...
I should really kick myself for getting involved in stuff like this. Like arguing about God or religion, it's a bottomless pit for your time. But I really am sick to death of the now overt sexism towards men that exists in our "post-feminist" world...
@cyclist. Again, as many have tried to explain to you: the difference between rape and not-rape isn't how "rough" the activity is, but the woman's attitude to it. If she is thinking "this is great! Do please continue!, " then is is not rape. If she is thinking "I wish this situation would end right now. I wish it were not even happening. I wish i were anywhere else but here right now. Someone please get me out of here now!" Then it is rape if a man is foisting sexual contact on her when she is feeling and expressing that attitude. Doesn't matter if that man is a stranger or her husband, if he is forcing sexual contact on her despite her feeling and expressing the latter attitude, it is rape.
The problem with the "woman's attitude" criterion for rape or just for harassment for that matter, is twofold. First, it is subjective. Second, nobody is privy to another's thoughts or feelings.
People frequently say things to me that I find offensive. I just ignore them. Everybody's got different opinions and experiences of the world. This is why I find the harassment regulations so absurd.
As for the rape thing: if a woman initiates a sexual encounter with a man, most men are programmed to try and complete it. They may be completely oblivious to what the woman is thinking or feeling. To initiate sexual activity with men and then change your mind half way through is a dangerous game and I think it's time somebody finally said so. Yet the feminists seem to think it is perfectly reasonable to do so--ignoring most men's programming--and then compound that by shaming men for being "rapists."
What's missing from the above description of rape is the "mens rea," the guilty conscience. This used to be a vital component of criminal law: in order for someone to have committed a crime, they must have intended to commit it. Sadly, with today's overzealous politicians and their "tough on crime" policies like "three strike and you're out"--the main intent of which seems to be filling up the prisons--such subtleties in law are now increasingly being ignored. This American-style right-wing politics is even migrating up here to Canada with dufus Stephen Harper and his muzzling of government workers--including scientists.
Why has this commentary been allowed to continue?
I read this thread for analyses of academia not MRA troll commentary on rape fantasies and how it apparently has something to do with why men are the truly oppressed folks in society.
Giving this man a platform from which to preach is disgusting.
FSP - if he were posting racist commentary would you continue to allow it?
Gosh, feminists with platforms seem to be everywhere these days. Professional activists--middlemen (er, middlewomen) all of them---like lawyers or brokers or accountants: lowest of the low. Maybe if a few of them were to use all that energy more constructively--such as in pursuing scientific research--we would see more women in "high" positions.
I remember being interested in the origins of life and reading about the work of Lynn Margulis, a molecular bioligist. This was in the late 80s, but she started her work much earlier. And the work of Emmy Noether was pointed out to me above--and she was working in the early 1900s! With role models like these, there really are no more excuses left, I don't care what kind of harassment you claim to be experiencing.
@cyclist- if a woman says NO she doesn't want to have sexual contact and the man proceeds anyway, this is rape. Just as if I wanted to do something to you for fun (maybe hit you, or take your personal belongings) and you said NO but I ignored it and did it anyway, how would you feel? People have a right to be left alone in peace and not have another person "doing stuff " to them when they've said no.
If you missed (or chose to ignore) the signs that a woman did not want to have sex with you and you forced it upon her, you are responsible for not heeding or even willfully ignoring the signs. (Although, what part of the word "no" is unclear?) If you accidentally ran over someone in your car, and it was an honest accident, you still have to face consequences even though you didn't intend to run over that person. The point being, harm was done by you to another person whether you intended to or not. Similarly, forcing sexual contact on a woman who doesn't want it (or at least not from you) does harm to her no matter how you justify your reasons for doing so.
Strung Out Cyclist
It is possible for a woman to initiate a sexual encounter and then change her mind halfwthrough, if for example, the guy does something that is painful, unpleasant, disturbing, disgusting or scary to her. Or if he simply starts acting like a jerk in his eagerness to "complete the act " as you so claim is men's priority over all else including the woman's reaction. (If you think it is normal and ok for a guy to ignore how the woman feels about sexual contact with him because he needs to "complete the act" then it is no wonder that the woman would change her mind halfway through the act and not want to have sex with him anymore as this is called being a jerk) ... Any number of reasons and could very well be the guy's fault why the woman changes her mind about him. It is absurd to say that he is entitled to have her continue against her will, especially if he is the reason for her change of mind. And no just because a guy is horny doesnt give him the right to disregard a woman saying "no" to sexual contact and use force or coercion to get his way. I am frankly shocked that you seem to have so little regard for your fellow human beings. How would you feel if you had someone touching you whom you didn't want contact with, and you told them no but they felt it their right to continue touching you anyway?
Jesus, people. Quit talking to the crazy person- responding only validates his insane opinions.
Here is a nice article that puts things in perspective:
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html
I had a girlfriend once who used to initiate sex with me and then freeze up for no reason. At first I thought she did this just to annoy me--and it worked. I am sorry if I am not the perfect, dutiful male and this type of behaviour makes me angry. Later on I began to suspect that what she really wanted was for me to force myself upon her, though I did not oblige her.
I am also sorry that I feel the need to call out the previous poster's ridiculous assertion: "men don't have to worry about being raped," by suggesting that what feminists are now calling a "rape culture" is a load of nonsense and that when you are dealing with something as complex as sexual politics, such gross over-simplifications simply aren't going to cut it. I should've simply ignored this comment. Why do women always have to bring rape into the picture, as if its occurrence (like my victimization by a group of angry teenagers led by a girl) is worth considering in the debate?
But let me summarize the gyst of my argument: "male privilege" does not exist. When women see what they perceive as male privilege, what they are actually seeing is a very small group of high-status males. The vast majority of very low status males, such as the overwhelmingly male homeless population, are essentially invisible to them.
It's well established in criminal law that if someone commits assault, he is less culpable if he has been provoked than not. Are feminists prepared to eliminate hundreds of years of case law on mere whim?
Strung Our Cyclist
You sure sound like you were a good boyfriend. Instead of asking your girlfriend why her sudden hesitations (could it have anything to do with you?) you chose to assume that she had evil intentions.
You are the one who has insisted on defending rape and/or denying its existence and when confronted with logic and rational arguments you have no sound counter argument so you repeat your irrational over emotional assertions and then change the subject. As you will no doubt do again in response to this comment (it will be very amusing if you do indeed).
By the way I am not a woman so you can save yourself some breath accusing me of being a man hater for opposing rape.
Less culpable is not equivalent to being innocent. And the nature of the provocation is also considered by the courts in determining the degree of culpability.
Nice straw man though.
I am not defending rape, nor denying its existence. Merely pointing out:
1. Calling all men rapists as too many feminists and feminist organizations are apt to do is discriminatory and stereotypical bordering on hate speech.
2. #1 has resulted in the increasing criminalization of things that are merely natural manifestations of both male and female sexuality.
A similar thing is happening in the field of domestic violence. Even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the perpetrators of DV are just as often women as men, the feminists would have us believe that this is strictly something that is done by men to women. This is discriminatory. Since men have been socialized to protect women, courts are more likely to believe the woman. The same is true of rape and "sexual harassment."
There is an interesting paradox here. The only justification for this bias is that men tend to be both larger and stronger, yet women demand equal access to jobs, such as policing, the military and fire-fighting, even to the point of demanding lowered standards of physical fitness. Of course, it is only these high-status jobs that feminists are demanding. You don't see women lining up to become miners or construction workers.
If women believe that they are truly "equal" there must not be two separate standards of fitness for any job. I would also suggest the elimination of sex categories for athletics. Let the women compete with the men, on equal footing.
To a women (and there are many examples) who claims that she sees in every man a potential rapist and that this means she may not offer a man who attempts to interact with her the common courtesy of a response, let me present the following rebuttal. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that both blacks and teenagers are more likely to commit assault than others. So maybe she should be avoiding blacks and teenager (especially black teenagers) as well, just for good measure...
Not to mention repeated attempts by feminists to lower the standards of evidence.
Yes, of course it must have been something I said or did that caused my ex-girlfriend to behave the way she did because of course it's always the man's fault. Not the fact she was spoiled, immature and amoral, a fact that I blame at least in part on modern feminism. This was a person who made constant demands on me, who took advantage of my good nature then had the gaul to call me selfish. And if I had the temerity to ask even the smallest favour of her she would openly mock me. This was a woman who had the gaul to ask me, "why don't you want to marry me" while she was fucking some other fellow.
You might say that not all women are like that. But increasingly finding those who aren't is like picking a needle in a haystack. Again, I think feminism is at least partially to blame for the fact that almost all "modern" women are just as unmarriageable as this b****.
Yes ot is true that men who are victims of domestic violence are unheard and unacknowledged. Many of them do not report the DV because they fear that they will not be believed and that they will be ridiculed. Or worse that their female partner will lie to the police and say he was the attacker and the police will believe her and arrest him. I have known men in this sad amd totally unjust situation and the only solution was for them to leave their partner. There is a widespread belief that DV victims are only women and children and most websites and victims assistance literature use the female gender when referring to victims which is unfair. Male victims of DV also do not have as many resources to turn to for help such as shelters to go to if they need to leave their homes in a hurry. And they don't get as much sympathy from outsiders and may even be ridiculed thus leading to greater isolation. I have been active in trying to raise awareness for male victims of DV and expanding resources for them. We need to remove gender stereotypes as they blind people to what is really going on.
However that is a totally separate issue from saying rape does not exist, which is what you had said earlier and then back peddled when called out on it.
I never said that rape does not exist. What I was trying to say was, first, that the feminist definition of rape is ambiguous. And second, that determining whether a rape has actually occurred is also frequently ambiguous. Therefore, in order to maintain the same presumption of innocense as applied in all other crimes, it may be necessary to let a rapist go free, even if a rape has actually occurred. This makes the "rape culture" hysteria quite dangerous, especially since rape is the least common of violent crimes.
More back peddling. While you did not explicitly say "rape does not exist" you implied it.
for example, you wrote in your earlier comments on this thread:
"But the point about rape: I have yet to meet a man who hasn't claimed, from first-hand experience, that most women like a little violence in the bedroom. This introduces a considerable ambiguity where rape is concerned and I think anyone who denies this has their head pretty far up their ass. Was it really rape, or were they just play-fighting and things got a little out of hand? People don't seem to like to talk about this (I know I don't) because it brings us face-to-face with some rather uncomfortable realities--things like politics in the bedroom. Like the whole idea of consent--unfortunately, I'm pretty sure most people, whether male or female, find it sexier when consent is only implied, not made explicit. As a man, your best defence against rape allegations is also a pretty good defence against getting laid: just make the consent as explicit as possible. Best of all, make the woman sign a disclaimer..."
and then: "As for the rape thing: if a woman initiates a sexual encounter with a man, most men are programmed to try and complete it. They may be completely oblivious to what the woman is thinking or feeling. To initiate sexual activity with men and then change your mind half way through is a dangerous game and I think it's time somebody finally said so. Yet the feminists seem to think it is perfectly reasonable to do so--ignoring most men's programming--and then compound that by shaming men for being "rapists." "
'I am also sorry that I feel the need to call out the previous poster's ridiculous assertion: "men don't have to worry about being raped," by suggesting that what feminists are now calling a "rape culture" is a load of nonsense and that when you are dealing with something as complex as sexual politics, such gross over-simplifications simply aren't going to cut it. I should've simply ignored this comment. Why do women always have to bring rape into the picture, as if its occurrence (like my victimization by a group of angry teenagers led by a girl) is worth considering in the debate?"
Does this not imply that as far as you're concerned, rape is "just play that got out of hand" and not something to be taken seriously? You were the one making sweeping general statements about rape. You categorize rape as something that only feminists call out, and since we all know how much you hate feminists....
It's so much easier to back peddle when challenged, and say "but that's not what I meant" rather than taking responsibility for your words.
I stand by those statements. I summarized them as follows:
"...the sexual act (for both sexes BTW) can range across a continuum from fully consensual to fully coerced." In this regard, rape is not like murder. Either you murdered someone, or you did not.
I would also suggest that a lot of male violence and aggression is encouraged by the female of the species.
If I had a dime for every time a woman says, "I like a man who takes charge in the bedroom..." So the man tries to take charge and the woman rejects him. He thinks, "well, I wasn't take charge enough" and renews his efforts. At what point does it become a rape? In this instance the rape was provoked, not by the female precisely, but by female preference.
The final suggestion is that these things are rooted in biology and are essentially unresolvable. As we have moved from societies that are less physically violent, nonetheless this preference continues: for men who are dominant and aggressive in the boardroom, for men with power and money, for men who express themselves freely within the social milieu, etc.
There are different degrees of murder (1st degree, 2nd degree etc). so no, not even all murders are equal. Another nice straw man though.
and yes sexual activity ranges across a continuum from consensual to coerced. Rape is when one party did not consent yet had it foistered on them by the other party anyway. You can give all kinds of reasons for why you felt you were justified in forcing it on a woman (she made you angry, she made you frustrated, she tricked you, whatever), but in the end it is still rape if she didn't consent to your actions and you continued to force it on her. If you seriously cannot tell the difference between a woman enjoying your touch versus being terrified or disgusted, then I think you might have some social skill-related issues you need to address. Either that or your relationships have somehow been dysfunctional to the point that normal social interactions were suppressed. The problem then is not whether "rape is justified" or not, but how is it that you even find yourself in a position where you feel the need to justify it?
Your position has shifted all over the place in this thread, ranging from denying that there is such a thing as rape, to saying there is but it is justified, to saying that it is biologically unavoidable and therefore this makes it acceptable. (do you therefore think that murder should no longer be considered a crime since the entire male gender is supposedly biologically programmed to be violent so it is a natural occurring activity?)
Umm, my brother used to complain that boys were discriminated at high school. We (as in his family) told him that his real problem was that he was a rebel and that that comes with a price. Strung out cyclist seems to have the same problem. He seems to dislike limits either put by women in the way others behabe (harassment policies) or the way he should conduct his research. Sometimes limits are meant to help us interact with others. My brother learnt to adapt to the sistem and now it's doing better, he could do the same.
For what it's worth, what were screwing my brother was what his "mates" told him. Like that he didn't really needs studies to have a good wage, or that study hard was "cheating", that really intelligent people dind't need to work hard. All bullshit. All that people saying how men are "naturally better" and that was what were causing the problem. Some boys felt that they don't have to make an effort since "they already are better". And by the time they realice that's not true, it's late.
Of course that's only personal experience but maybe someone can learn from that.
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