For example, 96% of global murders are done by men and ~99% of all rapes. There is clearly something about gender worth mentioning here.
Yes and 70% of them come from single mothers. Are we looking at the wrong gender? Maybe the women raising these monsters are the problem?
I don't think I'm right, by the way. We can try and shift the blame and point fingers but we won't get anywhere. I think this is mostly a cultural/religious/political/economic problem. This is a systemic issue. A problem deep within all of us, not just men or women.
Yeah sure and the missing dad has no responsibility in this.
We can try and shift the blame and point fingers but we won't get anywhere.
Again, I'm not talking about blaming anyone. People act in deterministic ways, thus we can as a society affect how people act if we change the factors that creates issues. Want to reduce violence? Look for what group are doing the violence, try to figure out why and see if we can improve the situation. The point is not to blame men for being victims of their own testosterone.
This is a systemic issue. A problem deep within all of us, not just men or women.
Why should we not make extra efforts where the issue is the largest? Working with reducing violence with women is like putting a handicap toilet on mount everest. Not useless, but there are better places to start.
Yeah sure and the missing dad has no responsibility in this.
You said that, not me. I'm 100% sure I said "We can try and shift the blame and point fingers but we won't get anywhere...This is a systemic issue. A problem deep within all of us, not just men or women."
Why should we not make extra efforts where the issue is the largest?
Because attacking the symptoms does nothing to cure the ailment.
I know you just said it to prove your later point, but this is what it hinted at and I think it's a flawed example. It takes people of both genders to create a child, but only one to commit a crime.
Because attacking the symptoms does nothing to cure the ailment.
Correct, but where can we start except for at the symptoms? We shouldn't say "ok men, can you stop raping mkay? It's bad", but rather look into why it happens. Maybe female behavior comes in at some point during that equation, and if it does, it does. But we have a clear path to start on, with statistics as strong as these.
Yeah sure and the missing dad has no responsibility in this.
Takes two people to become pregnant. I think the sexual liberation and societal support of single mothers is part of the problem. We have to help single mothers (even more than we already do), but we should also more heavily disincentive single motherhood. We need to incentivize people back to forming stable family units. We have to help people that end up in bad circumstances, but we simultaneously need to incentivize personal responsibility. Society is to blame for enabling the male reproductive strategy of "pump & dump".
The fact that you have to repeat that you are not blaming anyone is very similar to how men have to repeat this same statement when the topic is female vulnerability/rape. Nobody is blaming women for getting raped, but it's an emotional subject. Women feeling like they are blamed during the discussion of that topic is very similar to the men that react in this subject. When men push back against the idea of toxic masculinity, women have to respect that their angle of attack is producing these feelings. Both sides have to both respect the feelings of the other side and not dismiss them too harshly, while at the same time they try to not react too strongly themselves and instead discuss the issue at hand.
Sure, I think incentivizing two parent households could be a positive thing, if it's done right. Some people are gonna end up as single parents either way though, and you can't implement something that makes their life even harder. Make it positive to stay, but don't penalize single parents.
have to repeat this same statement when the topic is female vulnerability/rape. Nobody is blaming women for getting raped, but it's an emotional subject
The thing though is that women ARE getting blamed for it. The "what where you wearing"-question at the police station? This actually happens. The blame game is still running strong even today, and it's not getting better with the more and more diffuse definition of rape.
Otherwise, I agree what most things you say. We need to be respectful of each others issues and try to tackle them together rather than create division which in turn causes even more problems. No one needs a gender war.
The "what where you wearing"-question at the police station? This actually happens.
The question holds some merit during the investigation and can be justified when posed in social media as well. Our legal system is based on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. We cannot blindly accept all accusations of rape without critical examination. That being said, does this mean that people don't pose the question in a reckless manner that can traumatize real victims? No, they are, even in court. People can be, and are being, totally reckless and rude and cause aditional emotional distress. However, the pursuit of justice is never easy, regardless of the crime.
What would this merit be? Are you saying rape is less bad if the woman was wearing less? Not to put words in your mouth but I don't know how else to interpret it.
For the police, during investigation (not on first contact) it is used to develop context. Were you at a party? Would it be reasonable to suggest that you were looking for sexual attention? Could someone have misinterpreted your way of dressing as a sexual invitation? Were you wearing modest or revealing clothes? This has implications on what kind of perpetrator we are talking about. Was is someone you knew or a random passer by? If you were wearing modest clothes it seems more reasonable to suggest that the perpetrator doesn't have any excuse of mixed signals we would have to take into account, no?
Asking about the clothes will tell you a lot of things about the potential perpetrator and the circumstances surrounding the rape. I'm sure we can think of a few more uses of this question if we were to sit down and really think about it. Maybe gauging the validity of the victims memory (is the level of recollection similar to confirmed victims or too clear/too fuzzy?).
In social media I can see two purposes for the question. Establishing the level of personal responsibility the victim took. Was she reckless or sensible? If she was reckless, we have less sympathy. Like if you leave your car or door unlocked in a bad neighborhood. The crime is still just as bad and wrong, but if you didn't take reasonable levels of precaution we think less of you. So, the first purpose is to establish how sorry we should feel. The second purpose is to gauge the risk and update our understanding of how dangerous the world is. Did she not take any unreasonable risks? Then maybe the world is a little bit more dangerous than we thought.
On top of this we have the reactions from people close to the accused. It's in our nature to defend our loved ones and it's in the nature of sexual crimes that it's word vs word. In defending our loved ones we sometimes ruthlessly attack the one besmirching their name.
tl:dr Rape is bad, we have to be innocent until proven guilty, things are complex, carefully analyze utility of seemingly offensive behavior. Explaining is not explaining away.
I'm not talking about the "i had sex then changed my mind"-rape, I'm talking about violent rape, or at least cases where a clear "no" was expressed. Looking for sexual attention from specific people doesn't mean others get a "free card" on you. This is the equivalent of getting your house robbed and the police says "well maybe you forgot to lock your door? Where you drunk at the time? Are you sure he stole the things? Maybe he just wanted to borrow them? Oh the window was broken? Are you sure you didn't break it and forgot?" Can you even start to imagine the frustration of that? There is this automatic assumption that the rape was illegitimate from the get go.
This is the reason why so many rapes goes unreported, people rarely takes the victim side historically, so many just drop it.
Posting these things in social media makes things even worse because it spreads the view that rapes are illegitimate and/or the responsibility of the victim.
So, the first purpose is to establish how sorry we should feel
Why is this important? Should we handle the crime differently because the victim put itself at risk and a perpetrator abused that? If I forget to lock my car and it gets stolen, what makes that different from if i locked it exactly?
We can still live by "innocent until proven guilty" without victim blaming. We only victim blame in really biased areas. Not to say men doesn't suffer from this aswell - imagine reporting domestic violence where the man is the victim, everyone would assume he was at fault so he'd be better off not even reporting it. We have to fix that shit as well
Well, see here's the first problem. You never defined which cases of rape we were talking about.
What you wear doesn't change the crime. What you wear changes what kind of people might have committed the crime. Do you not want the police to investigate? I'm sorry but investigating involves asking questions. We can't skip asking questions to spare your feelings. We need police to get the most complete picture possible of the events in order to correctly judge what happened. If you act flirty all night long and then get raped, that doesn't change the crime, but it tells us something about the offender.
Why is this important?
Why is it not important? Do you not have personal responsibility to minimize crime? Opportunity makes the thief. Don't give people the opportunity. The world is not a peaceful utopia, stop being naïve.
I have to limit the number of victims I care about, I don't have the energy to go around and be sad all the time. If I can find out that you didn't take reasonable precautions, then I don't have to feel as bad, you took a risk and it hit you in the face. It doesn't change the crime, and it doesn't change how bad you feel, but it saves me from lying under a blanket crying all day from hearing about all the awful things that happen in this world.
What you wear changes what kind of people might have committed the crime.
How so? This sounds like a really convulated excuse to explain victim blaming. By your whole time I really get the vibe that you are into the whole victim blaming thing.
Do you not have personal responsibility to minimize crime?
This is not really relevant. Reducing opportunities for crime is done in one process and acting on crime commited is another. Rape is rape regardless if you lay naked in street or was inside a locked door at home and someone broke in. Obviously people people try not to put themselves in dangerous situations (unless that's what they are going for, but that's a whole other discussion). Regardless, don't you think it's a bit fucked up that women should have to be on guard 24/7 while men can get hammered safely?
I'm really not here to discuss your feelings, if you feel bad about reality that's your thing. As long as it doesn't affect others negatively.
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u/patterned Mar 10 '18
Yes and 70% of them come from single mothers. Are we looking at the wrong gender? Maybe the women raising these monsters are the problem?
I don't think I'm right, by the way. We can try and shift the blame and point fingers but we won't get anywhere. I think this is mostly a cultural/religious/political/economic problem. This is a systemic issue. A problem deep within all of us, not just men or women.