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Your Must-Read of the Day

The Longest War, by Rebecca Solnit, details the ways that physical violence against women and political hostility toward women are part of the same epidemic of gendered violence and control, leveled almost entirely by men. Women are beaten, raped, killed, harassed, controlled and abused by men at astounding rates. We write these incidents off as isolated or personal, tragic but certainly not epidemic. On other pages of the newspaper we talk about conservative encroachment on women’s bodily autonomy as if that’s totally separate from violence, as if it’s a “social issue” or a difference of political opinion. But all of it — the violence, the domestic abuse, the street harassment, the online harassment, the gang-rapes, the abortion debates, the contraception battles — comes down to a desire to control women, and rage when that control isn’t maintained.

Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren’t that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large. Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they’re everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern.

We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.

There’s too much good stuff to excerpt, so just read the whole thing here.


58 thoughts on Your Must-Read of the Day

  1. According to Roger Williams University

    Rape Myths and Facts
    Myth: Rape is caused by lust or uncontrollable sexual urges and the need for sexual gratification.

    Fact: Rape is an act of physical violence and domination that is not motivated by sexual gratification.

    Myth: Once a man gets sexually aroused, he can’t just stop.

    Fact: Men do not physically need to have sex after becoming sexually excited. Moreover, they are still able to control themselves after becoming aroused.

    Myth: Women often lie about rape or falsely accuse someone of rape.

    Fact: Statistical studies indicate false reports make up two percent or less of the reported cases of sexual assault. This figure is approximately the same for other types of crimes. Only one out of 10 rapes are actually reported. Rapes by someone the victim knows are the least likely to be reported.

    Myth: Women provoke sexual assault by their appearance. Sexual attractiveness is a primary reason why a rapist selects a victim.

    Fact: Rapists do not select their victims by their appearance. They select victims who are vulnerable and accessible. Victims of sexual assault range in age groups from infants to the elderly. Sexual attractiveness is not an issue.

    Myth: If a woman really did not want to be raped, she could fight off her attacker.

    Fact: Even if the rapist is not carrying a weapon, the element of surprise, shock and fear or the threat of harm can overpower a survivor.

    Facts About Date Rape

    Here are some data collected from a national study of college students:

    One in four college women have either been raped or suffered attempted rape.
    84 percent of the women who are raped knew their assailants.
    57 percent of the rapes occurred on a date.
    Women, ages 16-24, have four times higher risk of being raped than any other population group.
    One in 12 male students surveyed had committed acts that met the legal definition of rape.
    16 percent of male students who had committed rape took part in episodes with more than one attacker’s gang rape.
    75 percent of male students and 55 percent of female students involved in date rape had been drunk or using drugs.*
    33 percent of males surveyed said that they would commit rape if they could escape detection.**
    25 percent of men surveyed believed that rape was acceptable if the woman asks the man out, the man pays for the date or the woman goes back to the man’s room after the date. ***
    * Koss, M.P. (1988). Hidden Rape: Incidence, Prevalence and descriptive Characteristics of Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of College Students. In Burgers, A.W. (ed.) Sexual Assault. Vol II. New York: Garland Publishing Co.

    ** Malamuth, N.M. (1986). Predictors of Natural Sexual Aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 953-962.

    *** Muehlenhard, C.L., Friedman, D.E. & Thomas, C.M. (1985). Is Date Rape Justifiable? Psychology of Women Quarterly, 9, 297-310

    1. Unfortunately that is a woefully incomplete list of myths and facts about date rape.

      Koss (1988) did not ask women about sexual violence and rape against men. Koss did not ask men about victimization by women. The few studies which actually did ask those questions did not arise to the same level of visibility in the public discourse as Koss study did.

      A german study found that 5.6% of women reported exploiting a man’s incapacitated state to coerce him to sex, 3.2% reported using verbal pressure to coerce sex and 2% reported using physical force.

      If one doesn’t consider Germany to be relevant one can consider these:
      O’Sullivan and Byers (1993) who examined strategies women reported for obtaining sex: trying to get men drank or stoned (cited by 5% of women) and using physical force (3% of women).

      Lane and Gwartney-Gibbs (1985) found that equal percentages (12%) reported having intercourse unknowingly while intoxicated. More women (12%) than men (2%) reported being physically forced into sexual activity.

      Hogben and Waterman (2000) found that men and women did not differ significantly in their reported use of violence or threats of violence [as tactics to engage in sex].

      Zurbriggen (2000) found that similar percentages of men and women reported that they used tactics of … getting a little drunk and forcing someone to have sex (about 9% overall).
      Struckman-Johnson Anderson (2003) found that 5% of men and 3% of women who reported the use of at least one force tactic (tying, using physical harm, threatening harm or using a weapon).

      Regardless it is pretty clear that date rape also encompass a significant number of women-on-men, men-on-men and women-on-women rapes as well. According to the NISVS 2010 Report 80% of the men who without their consent had been made to penetrate someone else reported a single female perpetrator. That the number of men who reported being made to penetrate someone else during 2009 were equal to the number of women who reported being raped during 2009 were a staggering find that no-one in the mainstream media nor in the feminist blogosphere mentioned.

      Listing a list of facts and myths about date rape without in any way acknowledging that the list excludes a significant number of rapists and victims is just contributing to one of the most commonly believed rape myths: Women can’t rape and men can’t be raped.

      1. That the number of men who reported being made to penetrate someone else during 2009 were equal to the number of women who reported being raped during 2009 were a staggering find that no-one in the mainstream media nor in the feminist blogosphere mentioned.

        Is this one of those MRA claims that “men get raped by women just as much as women get raped by men!!!!”?

        1. Why don’t you read the NISVS 2010 Report and see for yourself what the CDC found rather than trying to misconstrue what I wrote (nowhere did I write that men get raped by women just as much as women get raped by men). If you have a problem with that particular finding in the NISVS 2010 Report I would suggest it would be more honest to criticise the report’s methodology rather than pointing at me and yell “MRA!”.

          I did write that date rape also encompass a significant number of women-on-men, men-on-men and women-on-women rapes as well and provided citations to research which bolsters that claim. And I did write that Women can’t rape and men can’t be raped are two of the more commonly believed rape myths. I think that excluding these victims and perpetrators when one talks about date rape in fact contributes to bolster those specific rape myths.

          If you want to disagree with me you could try to argue against the things I actually did write rather than a thinly veiled guilt by association ad hominem.

        2. Tamen, the front page of the report says “Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives…Approximately 1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetime”

          Which page of the report are you referring to?

        3. hotpot:
          The front page of the report states only the lifetime figures found by the survey. If you look at tables 2.1 and 2.2 on page 18 and 19 you can see that the survey also asked whether people have been raped or being made to penetrate someone else in the last 12 months (survey was conducted in 2010).

          1.1% of women reported being raped in the last 12 months

          1.1% of men reported being made to penetrate someone else in the last 12 months.

          Page 24 states that 79.2% of the men who reported ever being made to penetrate someone else reported a single female perpetrator. I don’t recall the page, but about 92% of women who have ever been raped reported a male perpetrator.

          Page 17 contains the definitions used by CDC for rape and “being made to penetrate someone else”.

          If you or anyone else want to completely disregard the “last 12 months” figure my main point still stand – 20% or so of victims are a significant number.

      2. I wish I could include a video in order to show the dramatic hand gestures I am making when I say this:

        I AM ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THE HORRENDOUS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WITHOUT HAVING TO TALK ABOUT MEN.

        I AM NOT MORALLY REQUIRED TO DISCUSS MEN WHENEVER I TALK ABOUT ABUSE AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.

        IT IS ACCEPTABLE FOR MY PRIMARY TO CONCERN TO BE ABOUT THE THINGS THAT DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECT ME AND NOT THE THINGS THAT OCCASIONALLY AFFECT MEN.

        SOMETIMES, WOMEN CAN COME FIRST. SOMETIMES, WE CAN BE THE ONLY THING TALKED ABOUT. THIS SEEMS REALLY WEIRD, I KNOW, BUT TRUST ME, IT WILL BE OKAY.

        1. Thank you. It is astonishing that there CANNOT be a thread discussing physical violence against women without somebody IMMEDIATELY coming on with a “What about the men” comment.

        2. I AM ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THE HORRENDOUS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WITHOUT HAVING TO TALK ABOUT MEN.

          YES, BUT ONLY AS LONG AS YOU DON’T PRETEND IT’S A ONE-SIDED PHENOMENON, THE WAY REBECCA’S BOOK APPARENTLY DOES, AS DESCRIBED BY JILL:

          The Longest War, by Rebecca Solnit, details the ways that physical violence against women and political hostility toward women are part of the same epidemic of gendered violence and control, leveled almost entirely by men.

          MEN DON’T RAPE. RAPISTS RAPE. SOMETIMES THOSE RAPISTS ARE FEMALE, AND THEIR VICTIMS ARE MALE. THIS VIOLENCE IS NOT COMMITTED “ALMOST ENTIRELY BY MEN.”*

          Glad I could clear that up for you.

          You’re welcome.

          * Assuming, of course, the CDC’s 2010 NISVS study is accurate.

        3. To repeat:

          I AM NOT MORALLY REQUIRED TO DISCUSS MEN WHENEVER I TALK ABOUT ABUSE AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.

        4. THIS VIOLENCE IS NOT COMMITTED “ALMOST ENTIRELY BY MEN.”*

          We’re talking about violence against women here, which IS committed ALMOST ENTIRELY BY MEN. Try to keep up.

          If you or anyone else want to completely disregard the “last 12 months” figure my main point still stand – 20% or so of victims are a significant number.

          And yet, here, we’re going to focus on the 80% of victims who are women. I know it’s very upsetting and unusual to center women and our experiences, but that is in fact what we’re doing.

          Nonetheless, if this be a significant problem for men, absolutely nothing is stopping them from doing what women did in the face of much more daunting odds: organize themselves in consciousness-raising groups, form a movement, and agitate for what you need. I’m not your mommy or your nanny, and it’s not my responsibility to solve your problems for you.

        5. We’re talking about violence against women here …

          No, when you paint the context of that violence as a ‘war by men against women,’ you are NOT “just” talking about violence against women, you are tacitly saying that men are directing their violence towards women.

          The fact is, men are significantly more likely to be victims of violence … by both men AND by women.

          Take murder, for example. In the U.S. from 1980 to 2008, men were three times more likely to target other men for murder instead of women. During that same period, women were more than four times more likely to target men for murder than women. (Source: Bureau of Justice and Statistics, Homicide Trends in the U.S., 2011)

          Now, you have every right to talk about the specific challenges that women face in dealing with violence, but if you pretend that in general it is women as a gender who are specifically targeted for that violence — as Rebecca and apparently Jill do here — you’re being blatantly disingenuous.

        6. Thank you. Well said. I’m a man and I’m okay to walk down the streets at night without fearing I’m going to be raped a woman. LMAO. Very unlikely.

        7. I’m a man and I’m okay to walk down the streets at night without fearing I’m going to be raped a woman. LMAO. Very unlikely.

          Yes, Steve, it is unlikely. It’s also irrelevant to the point I’m making.

        8. ballgame, this is not a conversation about men as victims (or perpetrators). IT IS NOT ABOUT MEN. We are centering women as victims. Do you understand? How many more times do people have to tell you that THIS CONVERSATION is NOT ABOUT MEN. Do caps help? Maybe you can stop derailing now?

      3. There’s also something different going on there, Tanen.

        Part of the mythology that causes the rape of women by men is the belief that men are entitled to sex, always want sex, and cannot refuse sex. This also results in the victimization of men by women, but for different reasons. Women don’t believe they are entitled to sex from men; women believe that men cannot resist sex when offered, and that therefore if they coerce a man into sex, it does him no harm and it’s what he would want if he were a normal man and they’re just giving him what he wants.

        Men may claim that women they raped “wanted it”, but if you dig into their language more deeply you find that they believe that women are degraded by sex, that having sex with a woman is a male triumph that shames the woman, and that sex with a woman is an expression of power over her and ownership of her. Women don’t use similar language about men. Women genuinely believe that men want it. So while men who rape understand that what they are doing is violence, and are turned on by it, women who rape often sincerely do not understand that what they are doing is rape, because our cultural scripts don’t allow any room for the concept of men saying no.

        The rape of men by women isn’t actually an example of female violence against men nearly so much as it is an unintended consequence of the social script that empowers men to rape women. If sex were widely understood to be about consent, and men were understood to be in control of their own sexuality and not beings who literally cannot resist sex when offered, there would be a lot less apologism for male rapists, but it probably wouldn;t stop them except in that it would lead to them being prosecuted faster. It probably would, however, stop female rapists almost completely.

        I’ve never known a woman who admitted to raping a man, but I have known many women who talk about hitting men as if it’s trivial, because they can’t possibly hurt men so it’s perfectly ok to hit him in the head for minor transgressions. They talk about this as if it’s funny, and don’t seem to recognize that it even *is* violence, or that it’s possible for female violence against men to exist. I’ve also talked to men who, upon having a situation in which a man was violently gang-raped at knifepoint by multiple women described to them, laughed and expressed that the man probably enjoyed it. And I’ve read fiction written by female abuse survivors, who were so ultra-senstive to violence in fiction that it made them literally sick, who wrote humorously about male heroes being raped by female supervillains, and didn’t seem to recognize that what they were describing was rape at all.

        Women don’t rape men or abuse men as part of a systematic expression of female superiority over men. Women rape and abuse men because they don’t think that what they’re doing could possibly be considered rape or abuse. And unless it has happened to a man, he will typically agree with the belief that women cannot rape or abuse men. I suspect there are actually more women who understand that a woman forcing a man into sex is rape than there are men who understand that.

        So yes, women do rape and coerce men… but largely beecause the same myths that support male right to rape women also make it impossible to imagine that a woman coercing a man is rape.

        1. With the one small caveat that some women probably do intentionally rape as a form of violence and abuse, and it could be dangerous to frame our language as if women simply can’t be intentionally abusive. But, as you say, they are almost certainly an exception to the broad pattern of psychology and motivation and culture that produce female-on-male rape (just like the nice guy who accidentally rapes because he’s confused or drunk or misreading signals; I don’t doubt he exists, somewhere, but he is largely irrelevant to discussions of the pattern of rapist psychology and the culture that enables and excuses male-on-female rape).

        2. Right, leanover, it’s almost certainly true that women are *capable* of the type of violence and sadism that men who are rapists often exhibit. I’ve certainly read fiction written by women that went into really graphic rape fantasy about a woman raping a man, where the narration was either first person or at the least invited the reader to sympathize with the rapist. And there have been child abuse cases where the violence committed by a woman against a child was highly sexualized and extraordinarily brutal.

          But the fact that the levels of violence men commit are so variable by culture, and that the levels of violence women commit has been going up among teen girls so dramatically, suggests to me that violent sadism is not actually a natural state among men, or rather, it’s not one of the baseline default states that comes with the human condition like being petty or selfish is. Something in our culture encourages men to be violent sadists (not of the consensual BDSM kind) and discourages women. So while the majority of men are not violent sadistic rapists, even the small number that there are dwarfs the number of violent sadistic rapist women… doesn’t mean they don’t exist, but that our culture doesn’t enable them the way it enables men to exhibit those traits.

          So yes, you’re right. It’s not that women cannot be intentional rapists, or cannot feel entitled to take what they want, or cannot desire to cause suffering and then act on their desire. But they are not a significant percentage of the population of female rapists. Most female rapists think they are doing no harm (and sadly, many men, including many of their victims, agree… while the number of “female teacher/male teen student” cases is drastically overreported in comparison to the reverse, mainly because man bites dog is news and dog bites man isn’t, one thing I do notice is that there’s a much higher reported prevalence of female adult rapists of teen boys who think they are genuinely in love with their victims than the reported cases of male adult rapists of either teen girls or teen boys, and a much higher prevalence of the victim seeming to reciprocate. Female rapists of teens aren’t serial predators, it seems; they fixate on one boy, convince themselves they love him, and frequently seem to convince him of the same thing. And judging from the locker room “wink wink nudge nudge/hot for teacher” stuff I hear when the cases are described, I’m not sure many men really understand how damaging that can be.)

        3. Women don’t rape men or abuse men as part of a systematic expression of female superiority over men. Women rape and abuse men because they don’t think that what they’re doing could possibly be considered rape or abuse.

          I haven’t seen evidence that female abusers have better intentions than male abusers. Could you be interpreting the intentions of men and women differently due to gender stereotypes rather than actual differences?

          That said, the abuse of men is certainly considered to be relatively unimportant, but that is because the health and lives of men are considered to be unimportant; many people believe that only women have a right to be free from violence. In a sense, that actually is a systematic expression of female superiority.

          So yes, women do rape and coerce men… but largely beecause the same myths that support male right to rape women also make it impossible to imagine that a woman coercing a man is rape.

          When people portray domestic violence as something almost exclusively done by men against women, and say stuff like “only men can stop rape,” they perpetuate the idea that violence against men is less important.

          That’s why it’s important for anti-violence messages to discuss male victims and female perpetrators, as the men’s rights movement advocates.

      4. Tamen’s regurgitating the new MRA talking point: OMG, more men are raped than women. Except they’re not. It’s either stupidity or deliberate lying, but with MRAs, who cares? They’re still trying to make themselves into victims as a cover for victimizing women.

        One in seventy one men report sexual assault. Of those, four percent report some of the stuff he’s trying to twist. Most of those committing all sexual assaults are men.

        Meanwhile, one in five women…..

        And Ballgame’s an anti-feminist troll and has been around since when Hugo Schwyzer described himself as ‘crying with rage’ over a woman’s abortion.

        1. ginmar:

          They’re still trying to make themselves into victims as a cover for victimizing women.

          This is a fucked up thing to tell a victim of female rape.

          As for your complete inability to understand what the NISVS 2010 Report states I’ll let you live in your (I assume) willful ignorance since I know how pointless it would be to engage you in this.

          I’ll just end with these quotes by Mary P. Koss on how to measure the prevalence of rape:

          Although consideration of male victims is within the scope of the legal statutes, it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman.

          Clarification is necessary to ensure that male respondents realize that the situations of interest are those in which they were penetrated forcibly and against their will by another person, and not situations where they felt pressure or coercion to have sexual relations with a woman partner.

          Detecting the Scope of Rape : A Review of Prevalence Research Methods

          So it’s not that Koss didn’t realize that men could be forced to unconsensual sex by women – it’s just that it was important that it’s not counted. If it happens so seldom as ginmar and other are claiming then why shouldn’t it be counted, or could it be because of findings like this:

          more men (62.7%) than women (46.3%) had experienced unwanted intercourse.

          from Men’s Self Reports of Unwanted Sexual Activity (1988) were inconvenient to their world view.

        2. Tamen i am curious. how exactly does average size of woman force average size of man to have sex with her? i am sure it is happen in some case but what you are say seems nonsense to me.

          also unwanted sex activity is not rape. many woman and man do sex when they prefer to do something else, but they give consent so it is not rape. by unwanted is it mean non-consensual? or something else?

        3. One in seventy one men report sexual assault.

          Nope, nearly 1 in 4 men report sexual assault of some form. See page 19 of the CDC report at http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

          1 in 71 refers to the number of men who were raped by being penetrated, which is a small percentage of total male rape victims.

          Furthermore, if you use a proper definition of rape that includes being made to penetrate, men are usually raped by women, not men. See page 24: “For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims reported only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (79.2%), sexual coercion (83.6%), and unwanted sexual contact (53.1%).”

        4. unwanted sexual contact (53.1%).”

          Uh, if you’re going to define any unwanted sexual contact as rape, I’ve been raped more times than I’ve had sex. And so has pretty much every other woman in the world, I’d hazard to say.

        5. And even if you’re trying to make a ham-handed point about sexual violence in general without equating it to rape, I should point out that yes, since the vast majority of the world is heterosexual, it stands to reason that women form a chunk of rapists when it comes to male victims.

          But what does this have to do with the price of beans in China? Seriously, if you’re including all unwanted/pressured/coerced intercourse under the blanket rather than simply discussing rape (which is what the 1 in 5 women stat is about, btw, the stats for coercion/pressure/unwanted sexual contact are way higher) of course you’re going to wind up with skewed statistics.

        6. Tomek:
          http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3854/79/

          http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/no-means-no-no-matter-who-says-it/

          http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2009/01/05/can-women-rape-men-noh/#comment-46884

          http://jezebel.com/5901998/german-woman-tries-to-hold-sexhausted-man-prisoner-in-her-apartment (the incident it describes is rape despite the author’s condescending tone and complete avoidance of that word)

          I’ll leave it with those examples. NISVS 2010 found that 44.8% of the men “being made to penetrate someone else” reported a current or former intimate partner as the perpetrator. 44.7% reported an acquintance as the perpetrator. 8.2% reported a stranger as the perpetrator. So it is clear that the vast majority of these are perpetrated by someone who knows the victim. In intimate and other relationships there are other axis of power in addition to physical power which may be wielded.

          As for unwanted intercourse not being rape. Unwanted intercourse is a superset of rape. You seem to be of the persuasion that unwanted sex as a consequence of pressure or coercion isn’t rape if the victim finally relents and give consent. I, however, am of the opinion that consent obtained through pressure or coercion in many cases is not really consent. I should note that NISVS 2010 did not count unwanted/pressured/coerced intercourse as rape nor as “being made to penetrate someone else” for either gender.

          macavitykitsune:
          You misread Egalitarian. (S)he did not count unwanted sexual contact as rape, but quoted the complete paragraph in NISVS 2010 which stated what percentage of perpetrators were female in the different categories of sexual violence.

          So 53% of the men who reported unwanted sexual contact reported that it was perpetrated by a woman.

          The salient part of Egalitarian’s quote is the part where it says that 79.2% of those men who report “being made to penetrate someone else” reported a single female perpetrator.

          The idea that women make up a clear majority of rapist when it comes to male victims has been considered unreasonable by too many for far too long – not the least due to researcher’s like Mary Koss’ willfully exclusion of those victims from any rape research.

          Also the reason why Egalitarion brought up the 1 in 4 number for male victims of sexual assault was to correct ginmar who “mistakenly” stated that 1 in 71 men reported being sexually assaulted. Not to compare the number of sexual assault against men against the number of rape against women.

          “Being made to penetrate someone else” is in my opinion rape according to the definition given on page 17 in the NISVS 2010 Report:

          Being made to penetrate someone else includes times when the victim was made to, or there was an attempt to make them, sexually penetrate someone without the victim’s consent because the victim was physically forced (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threatened with physical harm, or when the victim was drunk, high,
          drugged, or passed out and unable to consent.

          I sincerely hope you would agree with that.

          If so, then that, according to the numbers in NISVS 2010, would mean that every 5th rape victim alive is a man and that every 2nd rape victim victimized in 2009 was a man.

          And that’s not even counting prison rape.

          If you don’t agree that “being made to penetrate someone else” as defined by NISVS 2010 is rape I implore you to read the definition for rape used by the NISVS 2010 (page 17) and please tell me exactly why you find that one definition is more “skewed” than the other.

        7. tamen thank you for links. i am very sorry of what have happened to you.

          still i am suprise by such numbers. but it is more complicate than i thought. like from article, woman might not have more of physical strength but may still be able to force because man unwilling to hit her or because she will accuse him of rape if he fight back.

          still i cannot wrap my head in why woman would do such things.

        8. tomek:

          That’s why it’s so difficult to deal with these issues as a victim. Nobody takes it seriously. I know people want the victims to start their own ‘movement’ but that’s a difficult thing to do without allies or a real community. It also doesn’t help that the same people who brought the scope of sexual violence to view also ‘can’t understand’ that a woman can victimize someone. I do buy that some women have different motives than men, but using privilege, ‘physical strength’, and ‘motives’ to minimalize the crime that women commit is…stupid. It hurts a lot of people, and in my opinion, it hurts women as well. It’s difficult to have any sort of dialogue about men when everyone finds excuses to not show humanity, rather it be statistics or cave-man stupidity of what a man wants.

          I know I’m derailing and I shouldn’t post this. I try to lurk as much as I can, but this…this bothers me. I won’t reply any more here. It’s depressing. If it’s not some MRA trying to profit from your suffering and later dumping the subject once they’ve thoroughly silenced women, it’s someone else acting like it doesn’t really matter. (unless the offender is a teacher or priest).

        9. If you don’t agree that “being made to penetrate someone else” as defined by NISVS 2010 is rape I implore you to read the definition for rape used by the NISVS 2010 (page 17) and please tell me exactly why you find that one definition is more “skewed” than the other.

          God, no, I would never say that. I’ve never been raped, but I’ve been abused in sexualised ways by women, and I would never say anything of the sort. I misread Egalitarian as including all things under rape.

          If it’s not some MRA trying to profit from your suffering and later dumping the subject once they’ve thoroughly silenced women, it’s someone else acting like it doesn’t really matter.

          zaebos, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. I think the fact is that the general thread is discussing A, and people brought up B. Which, as you yourself pointed out, is a derail. That said, I highly doubt most of the commenters here would adhere to this frankly fucked-up idea that penetrative rape is the only rape.

          As for creating allies or a community, there are really good sites out there geared mostly towards rape survivors of either gender; some even focus on male survivors exclusively. I realise that an internet community isn’t much of a start, but it IS a start.

  2. Thank you for posting this here. I have decided to officially give up on feminism. I’m sorry, y’all, but the movement is just getting a bit too fringe for my tastes… I’m still supporting you, and women’s rights, though!

        1. Exactly, when 20 children get riddled with bullets for kicks, rape will take a backseat to what really matters. True equality will recognize that.

        2. When 20 children get riddled with bullets for kicks by a man who started out his day by murdering his mother, and who then went on to kill several adults, most of whom were women, in the course of attacking an elementary school and murdering those 20 children… rape starts to look, not like a distraction from the incident, but like a part of the same phenomenon that caused the incident.

          20 children were riddled with bullets by a man. Who also murdered his mother. And a bunch of adults, most of whom were women. Tell me how this doesn’t relate to violence against women, committed by men?

          Note that when children are murdered by men, it is typically done by men who:

          – are raping the children, or sought to rape the children, and kill them as part of the crime of rape or to cover up the crime of rape

          – have a history of violence against women, or have recently committed violence against women, or who are committing the crime in order to do violence to a woman (for instance, men who kill their own children to punish their ex-wives)

          While women who do not abuse their husbands have been known to kill their own children via child abuse, men who kill their children by abusing them are almost invariably also abusing their wives/girlfriends.

          In other nations, another common cause of child murder is the murder of girls by their fathers, brothers or other male family members for transgressions against the family “honor”, by seeking sex or love or romantic relationships with a mate they consider undesirable, by getting raped, or by being thought to be promiscuous even if they are in fact virgins. This is not common in the US, although violence committed against pregnant teens and teen girls who have had sex, from their fathers, is a fairly common pattern amongst children who suffer abuse.

          In other words, the murder of children by men is strongly, strongly associated with the abuse of women, whereas the murder of children by women is not associated in any way with the abuse of men. When 20 children get riddled with bullets, it was done by a man who was violent against women. When any child is murdered by a man, it’s almost always a man who is either a rapist, violent against women, or both. And many instances of men murdering children are, specifically, violence against women, because it was done to punish a woman or it was done because the child was being perceived *as* a woman who deserved punishment.

          The flip side isn’t true. Women abuse children for the same reason women abuse women, men abuse men, and children abuse children — human beings are capable of violence against those weaker than themselves, in general. But men abusing children is almost always associated with one of the markers of male abuse of women — either being a rapist or being violent toward women/a killer of women.

        3. “Women abuse children for the same reason women abuse women, men abuse men, and children abuse children — human beings are capable of violence against those weaker than themselves, in general.”

          This seems like a reasonable explanation of why female child abusers are less likely to physically abuse their opposite-sex partners than male child abusers. Both are inclined to abuse people they have power over, but the female child abuser doesn’t have enough power over her partner to abuse him. How can we conclude from this that the male abuser has specific anti-women tendencies, as opposed to just being a bully all round who abuses everyone he perceives as weak? Does it make any difference if the child victims are boys or girls?

      1. Love how my response wasn’t posted lmao-good work feminists-keep it up with your version of da truth

        1. Poor, persecuted Warren. Sometimes those spiteful lady moderators do things with their lives besides checking the moderation queue for his posts with baited breath.

        2. Sorry ladies, the response has yet to be posted. Forgot about the feminist obsession of echo chambers. Now the real question is will this response be posted? Keep the vag sand free!

        3. I never pay for vag sand! Have you been having to pay, Warren? How sorely you are persecuted–first your response goes into mod, now you have been swindled into paying top dollar for a free and natural resource. Poor you.

        4. Keep the vag sand free!

          FREE THE VAG SAND.

          Too long has it been imprisoned by the patriarchy! Too long have women lain quiescent, unstirred and apathetic with the cruel removal of the body’s natural sand-producing response to the presence of douchebag men!

          The vag sand protects us. The vag sand inspires us. The vag sand gives us the strength, the determination and the pure, gritty rage that makes MRAs tremble in their boots! Truly the vag sand is our saviour, our lady of righteous fury!

          And so I tell you now, my sisters of the unsanded vags, I cry to you as a sanded woman, I cry to you, to rise, to rise!

          Rise in a gently skyward tilt and engage in linear motion in the direction you are currently facing!

          Free the vag sand, that we may ourselves be freed!

          FREE THE VAG SAND!

        5. I actually just did a search for any unapproved posts of yours, The Warren, and I didn’t see any. Maybe yours got eaten. That said, “Waaah where did my coooment go it’s ceeensorship those horrible feeeminists” definitely contributes meaningfully to any discussion. Next time, you should try wondering if we have the balls to post your comment — that one’s a guaranteed winner.

        6. I distinctly recall writing lmao or was it just lol? I don’t really recall. Now caperton, you know I didn’t write waaah waaah. Anyways, run your blog anyway u like, I’ll allow it. I pressed submit and no posting, the post wasn’t even offensive, just pointing out a little denial from another poster. Hey i have high standards for feminists, especially when they’re strong, fierce and independent. Carry on!

        7. I pressed submit and no posting, the post wasn’t even offensive, just pointing out a little denial from another poster.

          – __ – If you can’t see your post, it didn’t go into mod. if it went into mod, it should be visible to you, with a little yellow bar saying “awaiting moderation” or some such on the top. So if you can’t see your own comment, and never could, buckwheat, your computer garbled it, or the server did, not a mod.

        8. Sorry douchebag I did see the post, which stated awaiting moderation. Don’t tell me my business, which i guess in your case we could call it femsplaining.

        9. Sorry douchebag I did see the post, which stated awaiting moderation. Don’t tell me my business, which i guess in your case we could call it femsplaining.

          Anything you say, sweetie.

      1. Clarification:
        If you think speaking out against rape culture is “too fringe”, then you are NOT in fact still supporting women’s rights. You are against them. You are against our right not to be objects, not to be property, simply for male gratification. If you have “given up on feminism”, you have given up on the idea women are equal, and you agree that we need to be put in our place. I DON’T. I WILL NEVER.

  3. I emailed the link to the article to the local chief of police so he can teach these country boys. Also: I’m appropriating “Manistan”. Any who object can take a number and KMA.

  4. That really is a must-read. Fantastic article.
    I’m Canadian, and this was the first I’d heard about the Thunder Bay / Idle No More rape mentioned near the end.

  5. This post comes at an interesting time for me, I am actually watching The Invisible War (about rape in the military). It is so painful to watch, but I am forcing myself to continue. It is all part of the larger rape culture. Most interestingly, the movie gives a statistic that incoming recruits are much more likely than men in the general population to have committed or attempted rape. Only 6% of the rapists in the troops ever do ANY time. Disgusting. Just vomit inducing. I kind of want to scream.

    1. Firstly, no-one should be raped, regardless of gender. Also a lot of women get raped in the military, and this is really bad.

      Also, there were two victims featured in the film that are very unhappy with the film.

      No prizes for guessing their gender, and yes, they are starting to make their own film. But when rape in the military is 50:50 male/female victims it is obvious silencing to not include the male victims.

      http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/the-invisible-wars-ironic-invisible-victims/

  6. Why the male survivors who posted on this thread are not derailing, and have a right to speak.

    Firstly we have to agree on what derailing is.

    Imagine that a group of female survivors are talking about stranger perpetrated rape. (I read feministe, I am aware that these women are important, but that most female rape victims are raped by men they know) If these women are talking about their experiences, then a survivor of any other kind of rape is derailing if they butt in and change the topic to date rape, rape of sex workers, incest or rape of men and boys. The discussion started as a discussion of stranger perpetrated rape and it should remain about stranger perpetrated rape. There are other forums to discuss the other kinds of rape.

    However imagine that someone takes the survivors experiences as data points, then uses these data points to create a theory of rape. This theory might predict the experiences or frequency of other kinds of rape.

    For example by listening to only survivors of stranger perpetrated rape you may predict that all rape is stranger perpetrated. This theory has in the past led to other kinds of rape being ignored.

    Suddenly other rape survivors get the right to speak, because your theory says things about their rape; not just your own rape. Feminists and other allies of survivors have a long and proud history of derailing the idea that the only rape that counts is stranger perpetrated.

    This article is already talking about male victims. By stating that all rape is gendered violence you are strongly implying that our rapes don’t exist. Your discussion may have started with just female victims, but the theory that you created makes predictions about the frequency of male sexual victimization.

    That is why the other male survivors and I have a right to speak.

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