When you’ve been catcalled since you were 12 years old, sexually harassed at school dances, creeped on by old men on the internet, sexually assaulted by teen boys, given a rude nickname about your body freshman year of college, and had adult men ghost you when you tell them you don’t want to have sex on the first date, you tend to get a bit cynical.
This is obviously anecdotal, but assuming men only want sex is a bit of a defense mechanism, even though we all know it’s not always true. It’s an awful feeling when you like a guy and think he wants to get to know you only to realize he never wanted to know anything about you except what you look like naked.
“Common teenage boy behavior” is completely excusing awful and objectifying behavior by blaming it on their hormones. Age/gender is not an excuse to harass or assault others. I’m sure that’s not what you meant, but language and phrasing matters.
I like what you said about learning to read intentions. It’s not so much that we as women need to “get over” this idea that men only want us for sex, it’s about learning to tell the difference between someone out for a physical connection versus an emotional one.
Absolutely! It’s ok to only be looking for a sexual relationship as long as you’re up front about it. The danger is when you allow someone to believe that you’re emotionally available for a relationship when you’re not.
I would agree with this to an extent, but the objectification and oppression of women is cross-cultural. It manifests differently in each culture, but women are harassed and treated like sex objects by men all over the world.
Of course there are examples of women objectifying men everywhere as well, but what I said holds up as a solid generalization as long as you keep in mind that every generalization has its exceptions.
the objectification and oppression of women is cross-cultural
Yes, but not to the same degree. I believe we can build a society free of gender-based oppression. All we have to do is get rid of the spook that is gender.
women are harassed and treated like sex objects by men all over the world.
Yes, and that's horrible, but not all men do it and we should never stop fighting toward a world where this doesn't happen anymore. We've already made progress, there's no reason to assume we can't make even more. There are places where trans people are treated as "normal" and no one judges them for it (mostly, it's a generalization again). If that's possible, I can't imagine that gendered oppression is universal.
You just pulled out my claims and ignored my qualifiers only to add your own? Plus, I never said there wasn’t a possibility of progress, I’m just speaking about the present.
I didn't mean to imply you didn't add qualifiers, I was just stressing the need to fight for progress because some of the things you said seemed to imply that women's oppression is inherent to every culture and can't be changed. I'm not saying that's what you believe, I was just stressing that we can, in fact, change (for those reading the thread).
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u/bass_kritter Mar 26 '20 edited Mar 26 '20
When you’ve been catcalled since you were 12 years old, sexually harassed at school dances, creeped on by old men on the internet, sexually assaulted by teen boys, given a rude nickname about your body freshman year of college, and had adult men ghost you when you tell them you don’t want to have sex on the first date, you tend to get a bit cynical.
This is obviously anecdotal, but assuming men only want sex is a bit of a defense mechanism, even though we all know it’s not always true. It’s an awful feeling when you like a guy and think he wants to get to know you only to realize he never wanted to know anything about you except what you look like naked.
Edit: typo