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Filing this under patriarchal shit that makes me mad. :/ Quote from “The Problem with How Men Perceive Rape” by Lux Alptraum.
“One of the reasons it took me so long to open up about my negative experiences with men was that, for years, I assumed I was alone. I’d grown up hearing that “no means no,” and that smart women are upfront about their needs and obviously walk away from anyone who refuses to respect their boundaries. I assumed that I was the only one weak enough to let my desire for intimacy and affection fuel a tolerance for sex I didn’t quite want, in ways I didn’t want it. I assumed that being badgered into sex, or “consenting” due to sheer exhaustion, was a personal problem.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
While writing this story, I heard from a number of different women who’d had sexual experiences that weren’t quite rape, but didn’t feel completely consensual either. One woman told me about having the flu and still being pressured into sex by her boyfriend, an encounter that left her with “a low level distaste for sex for a few years after”—right up until she started to learn about the concept of “dubious consent” and came to terms with what she’d been through.
Another woman, whom I’ll call Anna, told me about the first time she had sex. Although things started consensually—“I had recently been feeling some anxiety over not having had a lot of sexual experiences yet, and so was feeling excited and a little bit daring about finally getting to”—her enthusiasm began to fade as her partner failed to live up to her expectations. At first he tried to penetrate her without a condom, and though he stopped and put one on at her request, the subsequent sex was painful, unpleasant, and bloody. “My body language was telegraphing pain/discomfort/disinterest, since I stopped showing enthusiasm or reciprocation,” Anna says. But her partner didn’t seem to notice or particularly care, even assuming she’d be up for another session after a short period of post-coital cuddling.
Anna doesn’t feel raped, but she can’t deny that the experience impacted her deeply. To this day, her sexual experiences are marred by a fear that she won’t be able to advocate for herself or properly assert her own boundaries. “I’ve wondered for years why I didn’t say anything when I stopped enjoying it, and why I let him continue.”
The answer to Anna’s question may lie in the experiences of other women. Marie, who, like Anna, requested anonymity, shared multiple stories of saying no to sex, being asked again, saying no another time, being asked again, and then eventually saying yes—even though her lack of desire remained unchanged. “I don’t want to disappoint people,” she says. “I especially don’t want to disappoint people in a sexual context. If I say no, someone getting upset, acting hurt, being disappointed, and asking again can easily make me say yes”—a personality quirk that both male and female partners have used against her, manipulating her into consenting and guilting her for setting boundaries.
Women get socialized to put their needs second and make other people happy, and too many men get socialized to ignore rejections and relentlessly pursue whatever it is that they desire. It’s a toxic combination that can lead women to deprioritize enthusiastic consent in the hopes of keeping the peace, or to turn to coping mechanisms like alcohol to make not exactly consensual sex feel a little bit more okay.”
Of course there is male douchery in the comments section, some dude blithely going on ignoring what is being said around him. *sigh*.
The fascinating bit here is how easy it is for us to fool ourselves into thinking we’re doing “x”, when in reality we are doing “y”. In this study, all that was required to mirror the bias in our society against women was for a company to have a policy of meritocracy in place. Under the aegis of this policy people in the study tuned out their thoughts and considerations for actual fairness and stopped appraising their actions.
“When it came time to divvy up $1,000 in bonus money, there was a stark divide between participants in the meritocracy and non-meritocracy conditions. When the fictional company stressed fairness and individual performance, subjects gave men about 12 percent more than equally qualified women on average. When it didn’t mention a focus on merit, there was no significant difference between the bonus for men and women.
Though the experiment didn’t provide specific insights into the reasons for the different results, based on previous academic work, Castilla and Benard suggest that the variance might have to do with the participants’ confidence in their own judgement. In agreeing with the company’s meritocratic principles, they might have bolstered their sense of their own objectivity or felt they had established their “moral credentials” as non-prejudiced people.
“An organizational culture that prides itself on meritocracy may encourage bias by convincing managers that they themselves are unbiased, which in turn may discourage them from closely examining their own behaviors for signs of prejudice,” Castilla and Benard write.”
And there be the one of the problems with existing within a society that has normalized patriarchal standards. It is so very easy to forget that the very societal air we breathe comes with a implicit set of normative attitudes that, when not consciously opposed, take over. This is why not conforming to patriarchal expectations is tiring because feminists know that the ‘autopilot’ is complete trash and must always be on manual control.
“i really don’t understand how you preach that women should all love each other but not accept transwomen. i do see some of your points about men claiming to be trans lesbian and not actually be either but.. i still think transwomen are women.. i had a lot of respect for you until now..”
awaitingthematriarchy answered:
“I’m sorry to hear that of course, but I stand by my beliefs. ‘Woman’ is not an identity that you can opt in or out of – it is a politically neutral fact of biology. It’s the word that describes adult human females. Women can exist in infinite variations of personality types and aesthetics, but whatever our differences, we’re all united by our shared biology, which in turn confers a shared experience as being socialised as female under the patriarchy.
However, if we accept male-bodied people as ‘women’, then the meaning of the word changes. What does it mean to be a woman if we remove it from the state of existing as female? What does it mean to ‘identify as a woman’ if you are biologically male? What are you identifying with? If you can’t identify with the biological reality of being a woman, and you can’t identify with being socialised as a female, then the only thing that you can claim to identify with is the more abstract concept of femininity, which isn’t the same thing as womanhood at all. Does ‘woman’ become redefined to mean ‘anyone who identifies as feminine’? Where does that leave women who don’t identify with the social expectations around femininity? Aren’t they women?
How can we combat (or even vocalise) sex-based oppression if our biological sex is now irrelevant to womanhood? And let’s be clear, as a female I don’t have the option of identifying out of sex-based oppression. If all women everywhere collectively announced that we no longer identified as women, then it wouldn’t somehow magically stop misogyny. It would still be the same 50% of the human population being raped, abused, and exploited. The very act of a transwoman identifying as a woman and demanding recognition as such is an extension of male privilege. Women don’t get to chose our oppression under patriarchy.
So no, I’m afraid that I love and respect women too much to pretend that I view transwomen as anything other than gender non-conforming males. I don’t hate transwomen, and I believe that they should be able to live their lives free from violence or harassment, and I support their right to dress and present themselves in whatever way makes them happy, but I don’t believe that the act of doing so fundamentally changes their sex. My feminism is about prioritising females and lesbians, and combatting sex-based oppression. I wouldn’t be able to do that if I believed that womanhood was something as flimsy as something that anyone can ‘identify’ into.”
Brave words in the current climate of fake news and factual-relativsm.
This from a review on the Feminist Current by Jen Izaakson:
“What unites these men’s rights groups with the alt-right is that they believe white, straight, males have been left behind and now exist at the bottom of the social and sexual hierarchy. They believe that while the world once belonged (rightfully) to them, now women, people of colour, and sexual minorities rule. Indeed, their insult of choice, “cuck,” is acute projection — they feel usurped and humiliated by these groups, and believe they have been robbed of the privilege they are entitled to. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the phenomena of what 4chaners refer to as “incels” (men who conceive of themselves as “involuntary celibates”), lamenting that women refuse sex with them, rendering them modern victims of their self-conceived “sexual hierarchy”.
When Nagle writes of “online culture wars,” we must recognize that the main battle is over truth. While Nagle does not explore the feminist dimension of these online street fights, specifically, the implications are evident. Both the alt-right and the anti-materialist, regressive left believe that prostitution is not about women’s position under patriarchy as a resource for men, but sexual liberation and the free market. Both consider the sex trade to be a situation where women come out on top — with autonomy, empowered through profit and/or sexual freedom. Rather than overturning the system of prostitution, both groups believe we need to offer more rights to pimps and johns, in order to allow prostituted women to benefit from an unregulated free market. (So far, so Marxist!) Most significantly for feminism, both these tendencies wish to block certain feminist analysis and activism — specifically, the kind that challenges the system of patriarchy at its root.”
And there you have it folks, your handy guide for knowing that you’re doing effective feminism – if you are pissing off the dudes on the right, and the left, you’re doing work.
I may have to check out this book, as it seems to address the growing problem on the left of getting away from material analysis of societal problems.
“Taylor Swift’s firm testimony in a civil trial this week involving a former radio host who allegedly groped her is sending a strong message to women who might experience similar forms of sexual harassment and assault: Don’t diminish the act.
“It provides a useful template for her fans, for younger girls who might experience these forms of harassment and be intimidated out of saying anything because their voice is consistently discredited,” said Karen Tongson, a professor who specializes in gender studies and pop culture at the University of Southern California.”
Constantly being discredited. Welcome to the world of being female in society. It’s the little details like the aforementioned that they don’t list in the Growing Up Female set of instructions.
Will Ms.Swift’s actions make a difference? There is certainly a large mountain to climb in Canada on the issue of sexual harassment.
“According to 2014 Statistics Canada data, 83 per cent of incidents involving sexual assault — including unwanted touching — were not reported to police. The most common reason provided by victims for not reporting the crime was that it was considered minor and not worth the bother to come forward.”
Yeah. The violation of women’s boundaries in 2017, in Canada is still a thing. I think perhaps our PM, before making any more “year” plus declaration statements – ala balanced cabinet – we should tackle the systematic lack of respect for the boundaries and bodies of women first.
“The Canadian Women’s Foundation told CBC in a statement that Swift’s refusal to accept blame is “particularly important, as that often happens when seeking justice through the court system.”
Why is this important? Because we still blame the victim for getting assaulted and harassed in our society and our institutions still reflect this patriarchal value.
Good on ya Ms.Swift for fighting the good fight and showing us what we’re up against in the battle for a female liberation in our society.
So many discussion centre around this notion. It would be nice if we could agree on a basic set of facts rather than arguing from completely different frameworks.
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bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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